Reporting from San Diego -- A Navy linguist discharged under the now-repealed policy banning gays from serving openly has been reinstated and will report soon to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, his attorneys announced.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Jase Daniels, 29, was discharged in 2007 after he was featured in a story in the Stars & Stripes newspaper about gay military personnel. He was sworn back into the Navy on Monday.

Daniels, a Hebrew linguist, served a year in Kuwait before being discharged. He will study Farsi — spoken in Iran and Afghanistan — at the Defense Language Institute.

Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, said the reinstatement of Daniels “underscores that all qualified and needed service members are now officially welcomed back into the ranks.”


Daniels was one of three plaintiffs in a 2010 case challenging the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Reinstatement bids by the others, an Air Force major and an Air Force staff sergeant, are pending, their lawyers said.

tony.perry@latimes.com