Freedom to Serve - Then & Now
On Monday I had the honor and privilege of participating in the Freedom to Serve Forum at the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence, MO. This forum was organized by the Truman Library and SLDN to commemorate the 61st anniversary of President Truman's executive order desegregating the U.S. military so that African American service members could serve alongside their white counterparts without restriction or discrimination. It was a bold, risky move at the time. Many in the Pentagon and in key electoral regions of the country were adamantly opposed to this decision. But President Truman had the wisdom, courage and integrity to do the right thing.
The forum consisted of four panels, and was moderated by Juan Williams of NPR and Fox News. Mr. Williams did an outstanding job guiding the conversation and highlighting salient points. The four panels tackled integration of African Americans in the U.S. military, integration of women in the military, the current state of diversity issues in other countries' armed forces, and future diversity challenges for the U.S. military.
What struck me most in the four hours of conversation were the personal stories. MG Vance Coleman, a member of SLDN's Military Advisory Council, recounted how he grew up in an integrated community in Wisconsin and was disappointed and surprised to discover the military was segregated when he reported for duty in 1947. He lived through the implementation of Truman's desegregation order, at first reporting to a segregated unit, then attending an integrated Officer Candidate School, only to be assigned to a segregated support unit upon graduation. His opportunity to serve in combat opened up only after the United States suffered tremendous casualties in the Korean War and needed more bodies.
Similarly, Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer recounted her military career and how she was forced to leave the service twice. The first time was when she became pregnant and the policy at the time was that a female soldier was disqualified from serving if she had children under the age of 15. As Col. Cammermeyer quipped, "Seeing as no one had yet perfected the ability to birth a 15-year-old, you were automatically discharged upon becoming pregnant."
This policy eventually changed because the draft had ended and the all-volunteer force could not recruit enough men to fill the military's needs. They needed more service members, so they relaxed the policy. Similarly, when combat roles were opened up, it was in response to the need for more qualified line officers and troops in combat units.
The third panel highlighted the experiences of the Israeli and Australian forces as they integrated non-dominant races (e.g. Aboriginal heritage), women, gays and lesbians into their services. Stuart O'Brien of the Royal Australian Navy and openly gay Israeli Army veteran Avner Even-Zohar explained that open service for gays and lesbians has not disrupted readiness or unit cohesion in either
country's military.
The fourth panel, on which I participated, focused on future diversity challenges. The primary topic of this was the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law and the possibilities and consequences of letting gays and lesbians serve without fear of losing their careers. I relayed my experience of serving openly for more than 13 years in the Navy Reserves as an exception to the law, and how it had no negative impact on my performance or my units' cohesion, morale or effectiveness. CAPT Joan Darrah shared her experience serving in silence for 29 years and her decision to retire early so that she no longer had to hide her sexual orientation or her relationship with her partner. She talked about narrowly missing becoming a casualty at the Pentagon the morning of September 11, 2001. It was at that point she realized that had something happened to her, her partner of many years would be the very last to be notified. There was not a dry eye in the auditorium.
The common themes throughout the panels, as I saw them:
1. When the military has a need for more personnel, they suddenly relax whatever restrictions limited the freedom to serve. That can be seen today as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" discharges have gone down ever since September 2001, due to the need for qualified service members to serve in two theaters of war.
2. All the apocalyptic predictions of irreparable consequences to the military should eligibility be opened up to women and minorities never came true. Throughout history, those in power use fear to limit opportunities for others. That fear is revealed to be unfounded when restrictions are finally lifted.
3. There is nothing more powerful than a personal story. Statistics and historical facts are useful and interesting, but nothing can move people to action quite like the personal story of how these policies and laws impact an everyday citizen who wants to serve their country. So with this in mind, I say to all of you reading this, tell your story. Let everyone you care about know how "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" affects you, why it's important to you to have it repealed and why the need is urgent. Even if you've never served, it affects you because our national security is compromised every time we kick out a well-qualified gay or lesbian service member and replace them with a felon, or someone who didn't graduate high school, or has documented psychological difficulties. Because the military has relaxed standards due to the need for bodies - just not gay or lesbian bodies. Not yet.
07-29-09 By Zoe Dunning, SLDN Board Co-Chair |
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