By Richard Sisk
The War Report

A gay Air Force colonel will be a special guest of First Lady Michelle Obama in the House gallery at the State of the Union address tonight and the colonel’s partner will sit in the spouses’ section.

Gay rights groups applauded the selection of Air Force Col. Ginger Wallace, whose partner Kathy Knopf last month presided at the official “pinning-on” of rank insignia ceremony for Wallace’ promotion to full colonel. The White House said the pinning-on was  “the first such event reported following the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

The choice of Wallace by the White House for a coveted seat with Mrs. Obama “is a clear victory in the fight to achieve full equality for service members,” said Aubrey Sarvis, an Army veteran and executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense network.

Wallace was one of several members of the military and family members chosen to sit in the section reserved for Mrs. Obama and the Second Lady, Dr. Jill Biden. The others were:

– Adm. William McRaven, head of the U.S. Special Operations Command, who helped plan the raid by SEAL Team 3 last May that killed Osama Bin Laden.

– Retired Navy Capt. Mark Kelly, an astronaut who commanded the last flight of the space shuttle Endeavour. Kelly is the husband of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) whose near-fatal wounding by a gunman last year shocked the nation. Giffords announced this week that she was giving up her seat to recover from her head wound.

– Army Sgt. Ashleigh Berg, who has served two tours in Iraq and is now ssigned to the 94th Army Missile Defense Command in Hawaii. Her husband, Aative to Army Sgt. Matthew Berg, is deployed to Afghanistan on his third combat tour.

– Adrienne Howard, a Navy wife whose husband, Cmdr. Colby Howard, is on a seven-month deployment. Mrs. Howard has been active in the First Lady’s “Joining Forces” initiative to hire vets.

Col. Wallace, 43, of McLean, Va., said “I could not be more honored or proud” than to be chosen for a seat with Mrs. Obama at the State of the Union. “I’m representing thousands and thousands who have served or are serving,” Wallace told the Keen News Service.

“But it’s truly not about us,” she said. “It’s about all the gays and lesbians who have served, and those who served and were not as fortunate as I to have full careers, and those who will serve in the future. And it is about our families and partners.”

Wallace is currently going through language training to deploy to Afghanistan, where she will be an adviser to Afghan government and military officials.

Against opposition from the service chiefs, President Barack Obama used his 2010 State of the Union address to call on Congress to end the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy barring gays from serving openly in the military. Thousands of gays were discharged from the military before the policy officially ended last Sept. 20.

Presidents of both parties have traditionally used the choice of guests to sit with the First Lady to highlight points they make in the speech.

Another guest of Mrs. Obama tonight will be billionaire Warren Buffett’s secretary, Debbie Bosanek, to help the president make the case that the rich don’t pay enough in taxes. Last year, Buffet said that he should pay more, and noted that his secretary paid taxes at a higher rate than he did.

Before her pinning-on ceremony, Wallace told the Washington Blade newspaper that the end of DADT was “the biggest day” in her 21-year Air Force career.

“I’m not sure that my life is really any different except for what I talked about before — just the release and now knowing that I can’t lose my job and lose the life that I love simply because I’m gay,” Wallace said.

Last year, an Air Forcenews  article cited Wallace as an example of the benefits of cross-training for different career fields.

Wallace had been a management officer for C130 Hercules cargo aircraft but was able to switch to intelligence without a hitch and recently completed a tour commanding the 488th Intelligence Squadron at Royal Air Force base in Mildenhall, England.

“Intel was my first choice and a perfect fit for me coming from an operational background,” Wallace said. “I couldn’t have asked for it to work out any better.”

(Photo: Col. Ginger Wallace, right, with her partner, Kathy Knopf. Courtesy photo.)