Today, PBS’s Frontline reproduced, in full, the Facebook feed of Private Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified military documents to WikiLeaks. The feed provides some insight into his conflicted feelings about his service career, but mostly his comments relate to his personal life and to the ongoing struggle for gay rights in America. Manning kept tabs on marriage-equality votes and the Proposition 8 court case in California, often expressing his frustration at the slowness of progress. He also complained of loneliness and confusion regarding his long-distance on-and-off boyfriend Tyler Watkins. At no point does he display any qualms about discussing his homosexuality in this forum, despite the fact that the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” ban was very much still in effect.
