Does the Army have too many good soldiers? From the case of Mark Bryant, I’d guess not. Bryant signed up for what he thought would be four years of active duty in the U.S. Army. Last September, he completed his four years, and was looking forward to spending more time with his wife and son. But he can’t.

Bryant and thousands of others have been caught in a trap. The fine print in their contracts said they could be kept on beyond their expected hitches during “war or national emergency.” It’s been called a “backdoor draft.” They need all the soldiers they can get in Iraq, so the military has decided not to let some soldiers out.

So why not use Jack Glover and David Hall? They used to be in the Air Force. Then someone told Glover’s commander that Glover and Hall were in a gay relationship. “Hall … was first in his class in ROTC. I was ranked no. 3,” said Glover. That didn’t matter. They want to serve, but the same military that won’t let Mark Bryant out won’t let them back in.

Glover and Hall are among the 10,000 men and women who have been kicked out of the military for being gay since “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was implemented in 1993. Some joined the military as teens, before they knew they were gay.

Although the “don’t tell” policy implies that if you don’t announce you’re gay, you won’t be discharged, that’s not always how it works. “We did not tell,” Glover said: Someone told on them. “They brought us in and asked us, what is the relationship between you two? Both of us said we have nothing to say.” They were kicked out anyway.

The Defense Department wouldn’t agree to an interview about this, but sent ABC News a statement that said, “Individuals discharged under the provisions of that law represent a very small percent of military discharges.”

But small percentages make a difference.

In the first half of this fiscal year, which ended March 31, the Army missed its active-duty recruitment target by 6%.The violence in Iraq makes many potential soldiers hesitant to sign up. The backdoor draft, with its threat that a “four-year” commitment may last much longer, can’t win many recruits either.

And the 10,000 discharged doesn’t tell the whole story. This year, a GAO report found the military has dismissed hundreds of gay soldiers even though they performed “critical occupations” – people like Arabic translators and intelligence analysts. Recruiting and retraining soldiers to fill the positions left open by discharged gay soldiers has cost the Department of Defense almost $200 million.

Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Bob Maginnis advised the group that designed the “don’t tell” policy, although he doesn’t think gays should be permitted to serve at all. He told me they compromise group “cohesion.”

“Cohesion is the bonding that you get trust and confidence over a long period of time, soldiers trusting one another when they go into combat. You break that by, you know, putting in open homosexuals, and you lose that glue that keeps those units fighting,” he said.

“You can’t tell me that the army promoted me seven times because I interrupted unit morale and cohesion,” Stacy Vasquez said. She won dozens of awards, including the Army commendation medal, before being discharged for being gay.

Many American allies, including Great Britain, which has the second largest foreign military contingent in Iraq, permit gay service members to serve openly.

Their troops are “very different than ours,” said Maginnis. “We have forced intimate situations in foreign areas. … The Brits don’t have nearly the same type of concentration and forward deployment as the United States.”

The policy that works for the British, the Australians, the Israelis and the majority of NATO countries won’t work for the USA? So we must exclude top soldiers, while those like Mark Bryant, who want to return to their families, may not?

Give me a break.

Mr. Stossel is co-anchor of ABC News’s “20/20.” ©2005 By JFS Productions, Inc.