U.S. troops kicked out under 'don't ask, don't tell' get upgraded to honorable discharges
On Tuesday, the battle for LGBT rights took a new turn when the Pentagon announced that it was proactively changing the discharge status to "honorable" for hundreds of service members expelled for being gay during the "don't ask, don't tell" era.
When then-President Obama signed the repeal of "DADT" in 2010, it came with a promise.
"No longer will tens of thousands of Americans in uniform be asked to live a lie," the president said.
But 13 years after the repeal, many who served their country in uniform were still dealing with the pain of a dishonorable discharge. Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said he considered it a betrayal of ideals.
"In order to be true to what we tried to do by getting rid of 'don't ask, don't tell,' it's not just about the future. It's also about making sure that we correct the past," said Panetta.
That was why Tuesday's announcement was so important to so many.
"Of the more than 13,500 individuals who were administratively separated under 'don't ask, don't tell policy,' and served long enough to receive a merit-based characterization of service, 96% now have an honorable discharge," said Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh.
As recently promised, the Pentagon has upgraded the discharge status of nearly every eligible service member they reviewed, who were released during don't ask, don't tell, without them even having to ask for it.
The change to "honorable" status can have real importance to the service members. It could provide benefits like home loans, healthcare, GI Bill tuition assistance and even access to some government jobs that had previously been denied.
"This is a huge day!" said retired USN Commander Zoe Dunning. "It's 800 people, so it doesn't sound like a huge number of people. But the fact that the Pentagon itself initiated this, the fact that the Pentagon proactively went through these records and just automatically discharged them, is a huge sign. It shows a willingness to make the effort to right that wrong."
Dunning retired from the Navy having survived two discharge hearings after coming out as a lesbian in 1993. She said she's not sure why they let her stay in, but she remembers the pain from it.
"At my first discharge hearing, where they unanimously voted to kick me out of the military -- not because of behavior, not because of poor performance, simply because I said out loud who I am -- was like a punch to the gut," she said. "I had served my country honorably and gotten top-rated performance reviews. And by just saying, 'This is who I am,' they were so quick to turn 180 degrees and initiate discharge proceedings against me. It was really hard to grasp and hard to accept."
Dunning says there is still a lot to be done to realize true LGBT integration in the military, but she believes the current effort is sincere.
"Today's news demonstrates that, yes, the Pentagon's willing to address past wrongs and make them right," she said. "And so hopefully they'll continue that effort."
Dunning says it's possible that this could lead to a wide-spread exoneration of anyone who has ever been discharged for being gay. It would take a lot of paperwork to look into each case of dishonorable discharge, but then, it took a lot of effort to build those cases in the first place.