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A Bittersweet Holiday Season

Entering this festive season is a bittersweet experience, as we celebrate times with family and friends but also reflect on these moments made difficult by the deception imposed by “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

My childhood memories of Thanksgiving and Christmas are fond. As a family, we enjoyed feasts and gift-giving in either my home state of Michigan or at my grandparents’ home in Kentucky. I loved a snowy white Christmas, mom’s and grandma’s cooking, and grandpa’s special bubbling Christmas tree lights. But for the 25 Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays that passed during my time in military service, my memories are rooted in heartache rather than celebration.

The secrecy demanded by the ban on gays (and the law that followed it, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”) meant that I, and the one most important to me, had to remain closeted even from our families. Spending the holidays together seemed out of the question. I was banned from one significant other’s family gatherings after a remark her brother made: “Do you have to bring a friend along?” he once asked her. “Friend.” His flippant remark was a clear signal to his sister, and I managed to spend just one Thanksgiving with her during the course of our nine-year relationship.

While distance and duty schedules often precluded traveling home to Michigan for the holidays, when I managed to get home, celebrations with my own immediate family rang hollow. This hollowness was compounded by endless questions about whether I had met any interesting members of the opposite sex, even as I was making a home with the one I loved. The worst holiday season of all was the one that marked the end of that nine-year relationship – a relationship so stressed by secrecy, lies, and separations that it broke under the pressure.

While the markers of the season – special recipes, silver and gold decorations, and seasonal music – inspire cheer in many, impending separation and isolation are also linked with the holidays for me and so many of my LGBT sisters and brothers who have served and are serving under DADT.

Just a few days ago, an active duty friend said to me, “This law needs to change now, or I’ll have to choose between continued service and the love of my life.” I appeal to all those in the Senate who seem to think DADT is “working”: it’s in your power to change this law. Any Senator who celebrates the Thanksgiving holiday feeling safe and secure under our military’s watch owes that feeling of safety to gay and straight service members alike. The Senate must do the right thing and attend to the greater good: the rights of all service members who merely want the opportunity to be honest with all of those most important to them.

11-25-10 By By Edith A. Disler, PhD, Lt Col (Ret), USAF |