Most people equate the end of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” with gay service members being able to serve openly. It also gave something to those left behind.
On Memorial Day, Monday, May 30th, 2011, uncounted numbers of people remembered and mourned their military dead. Some number of them had been at services and left holding that folded flag. Others had stood and watched and listened, unable to say anything.
Before July 22nd, 2011, service members had attended services for civilian friends, close friends, people who they cared about. For them to grieve to openly was a risk to future.
On September 20, 2011, a radical change took effect across all services. DADT was ended. Gay and lesbian service members were allowed to serve openly. While it would be a while before benefit equality was reached, one significant change, not see in pride parades or on stickers, would become apparent even before Memorial Day, May 28th, 2012.
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Imagine getting a visit or a call, or being there and finding out that the person who means more to you than anyone is gone. You’ve seen this happen to other people, you’ve heard about it, you’ve been to memorials, you listened to and shared memories. You just never thought it would happen to you.
But you can’t tell anyone. You’re still enlisted. You want to keep serving. Whether it’s because you believe in the mission or need the paycheck, you can’t call and cry that your boyfriend just died. You knew he was in a dangerous area, full of IEDs and firefights, and you hadn’t heard from him in two weeks, but you couldn’t openly worry about that either. You found out when his mother, who knew you were close, called. You could cry, a little, for a comrade in arms. But not the way you wanted to. You could go to the funeral, act appropriately, but to mourn for the man you’d loved for 10 years, risking your service and his legacy, was not something you would do. And you couldn’t go for any counseling, or to any support groups. What if someone decided that reporting on the homosexual was more important than confidentiality? (Besides, support services for male service members who lose a spouse are limited anyway). So you deal with it as best you can, finally confiding in a couple of friends. On the next Memorial Day, you visit his grave and see the wreath his mother laid there, and you don’t stay too long. You don’t care for looking over your shoulder. Later, you and your buddies and his buddies hang out and joke around and talk about him, and you miss your friend. Maybe they wouldn’t care if they knew. But what if they did?
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You’ve been at seas for six months. You’re so grateful for email, when you can get it, because as much as you love getting letters, they’re so impersonal and if they’re not, they’re harder to conceal. Privacy is hard to come by on a floating city. You get home and there to greet you are three of your friends, one who got out last year, the other two who never served. You hug them all, the last one for a second longer, but not too long. You’re still surrounded by shipmates. You think a few of them know – it’s hard to act interested in girls in port, even though you try – but no one’s asked, and you refuse to makeup a “girlfriend back home”.
You’re home for a week, “crashing on his couch”, when his roommate calls. There’s been an accident. His family is gracious and caring, allowing you to be part of the arrangements, but there’s only so much you can do. You’ve got duty, and you’ve got to hold it together. You go to the memorial. There are a lot of men there, and you’re surprised to see another guy from your ship with one of them. Your eyes meet and move on. The men that know you are discreetly sympathetic. The next night, there will be a celebration of your boyfriend’s life at a local bar. You’d gone there with him a few times, furtively, late at night. You won’t be going this time. You know you wouldn’t be able to hold it together, and the rules say you can’t fall apart. You wish you could talk to your shipmate who you’d seen, but he didn’t approach you. The sliding eyes told you all you needed to know. When he dies a year later, you go to his memorial, even though you only knew him a little. A lot of the same men are there, you think, but they don’t remember you. You skip his party, too.
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When “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was repealed, the necessity for these scenarios, and thousands of others like them, were erased with the stroke of a pen.
Gay service members no longer had to choose between mourning in silence or allowing their dead to go unacknowledged, or risking their career to be open about their loss. They could speak freely about their loved ones. When memories were shared, they no longer had to speak in couched terms or mind their tears. A man did not have to sit, silently angry that his relationship and his memories were considered unacceptable, that he was somehow wrong, undeserving of serving or truly remembering someone who did, because his attraction was to men. A soldier did not have to wonder why he should feel ashamed of who he’d been sharing his life with for years, and wish he could stand up for his partner at his funeral.
Memorial Day became a day when all mourners were created equal. No one better, no one worse.
All free to remember their military dead openly, regardless of their relationship. All free to mourn their losses without fear that they would no longer be allowed to serve their country.
That is what equality looks like.
—Photo Tim Evanson/Flickr
An amazing step toward equal rights! As someone who doesn’t live in the US, it’s hard to imagine. But it’s good that those rights are finally extended gay men and women! As they should be everywhere… in all walks of life.