The voice on the message was tinny, but the menace, unmistakable.
“I’m going to notify the Air Force that you’re gay. . . . So if you want to avoid that, you give me a call back,” said the man, who left the voice mail on the iPhone of an Air Force lieutenant in January.
The civilian instructor had propositioned the officer during a training course. Faced with the loss of his career if the military found out he was gay, the lieutenant let the harassment go, bunking some nights with friends to avoid his own motel room after the man started showing up there at night.
But when he learned the instructor had a history of sexually stalking both men and women, he filed a carefully worded complaint and crossed his fingers. The instructor made good on his threat, outing the officer as part of the harassment investigation that could now cost him a promising career because of a 17-year-old policy that brings his military service to an end the moment his sexuality becomes known.
“I could have kept my mouth shut, and that probably would have been the best thing for me to do, but I really thought this guy was a predator,” the Air Force officer said. “I knew I was taking a huge chance with this.”
Military investigators will decide the lieutenant’s fate at a moment when “don’t ask, don’t tell,” as the policy is commonly known, is under pressure from Congress and close examination by the military. The Senate will likely vote on a timeline for repeal in July, and by Dec. 1, the Pentagon will complete a lengthy study examining the impact of allowing homosexuals to openly serve in America’s military for the first time.
To its defenders, repealing the policy will mean unreasonable disruption of a military fighting two wars, and a potentially devastating blow to unit cohesion and future recruiting.
But an estimated 66,000 gay soldiers, sailors and airmen daily navigate a system over which the military is already deeply divided — with many gays serving in units openly — and that is rife with consequences its designers never intended.
Over the past three weeks, The Denver Post interviewed nearly two dozen current and former military personnel who are gay or lesbian, asking them to share their experiences under the current policy. For those who are now serving, their identities are being kept confidential to protect them from discharge while the policy remains in effect.
Their stories showed a system that is inconsistently applied and under stress from a military at war, with many commanders willing to ignore the law rather than lose valuable soldiers.
But their experiences also showed the consequences of a policy under which knowledge of a person’s sexuality gives those who hold the information enormous leverage, turning “don’t ask, don’t tell” into a tool for reprisal or blackmail — or simply crass opportunism.
“We’ve had cases when someone who gets a bad review outs their superior in retribution. It can happen if a gay service member disciplines someone in their chain of command and in return is outed,” said Aaron Tax, legal director for Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which advises gay service members in discharge proceedings.
A U.S. Army specialist newly posted to Fort Carson told The Denver Post he had survived three investigations — by lying about being gay — one of which was sparked by subordinates who wanted his job and one by a girl whom he refused to sleep with.
“I outranked them in my company and they were looking for a way to get rid of me so that they could get promoted over me,” the specialist said.
A strong sense of duty
Until the Pentagon altered the instructions for enforcing “don’t ask, don’t tell” in March, conversations with doctors, chaplains or counselors were not confidential under the policy. As a result, gay service members were outed while seeking help. Tax said that the head of counseling at Bagram Air Force base in Afghanistan confirmed in an e-mail to SLDN that she believed it was her duty to report clients who revealed they were gay.
A similar sense of duty can set friend against friend.
Michael Gorman was at submarine school in Connecticut in 2004, training to target torpedoes, when he was caught using a base computer to access a gay networking site. Among the evidence used to discharge him was the testimony of some of his closest friends on the base.
Gorman was immediately relieved of duties, though the investigation took months. He was taunted in chow line, and someone smeared pizza on his bunk.
Because the Navy held his final check for several weeks, Gorman ended up waiting outside the base’s main gate for four hours until he could find someone to get a ride to the airport.
“I made the mistake of trusting a couple of shipmates of mine,” Gorman said. “I felt betrayed. I joined up to be part of them, to help the fighting force. Yet I tell one truth about myself and get tossed out on my ass.”
But if the hallmark of “don’t ask, don’t tell” was once secrecy, that is already eroding.
A younger generation of gay and lesbian service members now log on to confidential pages on Facebook or MySpace, scouting out whether a base or particular unit is gay-friendly. They can identify gay peers or even superior officers on a base, stitching together a support network even before they arrive.
Carefully controlling access to avoid a breach that could end careers, the network recently organized a nonprofit group called Citizens for Repeal. The group sent a letter this month to Defense Secretary Robert Gates criticizing a Pentagon study group tasked with examining the effect on the military of ending “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
Citizens for Repeal is planning to expand activities in the fall, sending gay soldiers to speak at schools and colleges — using fake names to mask their identities — in the hope of building public support and hastening the policy’s end.
Military leaders are aware that they are trying to manage a potentially momentous transition. They confront both entrenched attitudes about homosexuality and the practical problems presented by close quarters, shared showers and the unique conditions of the battlefield.
But the military’s highest leadership is far from united in support. After Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, signaled support for repeal in February, the commander of the U.S. Army Pacific, Benjamin Mixon, wrote a public letter urging members of the military and their families to lobby to keep “don’t ask, don’t tell” in place. Gen. James Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps, said he would never force straight Marines to live with gay ones in common quarters.
A complex minefield
At the heart of the debate are vastly different views on the impacts if gays and lesbians are allowed to serve openly. Advocates for repeal argue the military has changed drastically and that the biggest resistance comes from older officers who don’t understand that to the new echelon of young soldiers, it’s not a big deal.
But many gay soldiers say that’s likely too simplistic.
Military culture can be profoundly conservative, and no more so than around the notions of sexuality and gender roles.
Gay soldiers say that a military career often involves moving in and out of the closet over years, as they are transferred to new commands and unfamiliar units.
Luiza Fritz, who was discharged as a lesbian in 2008 and now lives in Denver, said she was open to her unit and its commanders for most of her 14 years in the Army as a member of the Iowa National Guard. When her unit deployed to Iraq two years ago, it was split up, and her platoon was assigned to an Oklahoma-based battalion.
As the platoon’s first sergeant, Fritz’s job was to shape her subordinates into effective combat fighters. But that role also created conflicts, especially during the intensity of deployment in a war zone. One of her platoon members copied information from her Facebook page that identified her sexuality, passing it along to the Oklahoma commanders.
“My platoon was a well-oiled family; we cared about each other. We knew about each other’s wives and husbands. Those guys would ask me, ‘How’s Sarah, how’s things at home?’ ” Fritz said, referring to her longtime partner, whom she often brought to company events back home.
“Then we got there, and the Oklahoma folks just completely destroyed every piece of structure I had built.”
Others say they have been able to serve openly within their distinct units with surprisingly little difficulty.
“All my roommates knew when I was at school that I was gay, and it didn’t matter,” said a recent West Point graduate, who is now serving as an officer in a military intelligence unit. “I wish there were a better rebuttal than ‘it’s just not a big deal,’ but it really isn’t. There is an expectation of respect that you have in the military for your peers, for your subordinates and superiors — and you’re just not going to throw that out.”
Contradictions abound
Both gay and straight soldiers say that as it functions now, “don’t ask, don’t tell” is less a coherent policy and more often a collection of work- arounds that underscores its contradictions.
At the Naval Academy, gay and lesbian midshipmen are shepherded by an alumni group of former naval officers who check in regularly and offer advice on navigating the system, holding a dinner every year near the campus.
At the Air Force Academy, Lt. Col. Edith Disler was removed from the classroom in 2008 after she invited a group of gay former officers to speak to the class about “don’t ask, don’t tell.” The irony, say members of Citizens for Repeal who were at the school at the time, is that several of the top-performing cadets who graduated the next spring were gay.
Disler also is gay, and she was never told whether the investigation also involved her sexuality. Once she was removed from teaching — the formal investigation later faulted her only for failure to get proper approval — many colleagues stopped talking to her.
“They didn’t know how tainted I was,” Disler said.
“It was my 19th semester teaching at the Air Force Academy. I had had a successful career. I had a Ph.D., done speechwriting at the Pentagon, had tours overseas. This cast a pall over the whole thing,” she said.
As the military navigates prolonged conflicts, arguments over the impact of changing the policy during wartime cut both ways. Many commanders don’t want to lose valuable soldiers even if there is direct evidence of their homosexuality, so they are effectively forced to ignore the letter of military law.
An artillery specialist now deployed in Baghdad was outed by a chaplain’s assistant recently after what he thought was a confidential conversation. His unit commander has completed an investigation, including the interview of witnesses, but “I was informed that they were not going to do anything for the time being because they couldn’t afford to lose me.”
The specialist said he now fears he will be discharged once the unit returns to the United States before the end of the year.
“I’ve served these two deployments and served honorably — I’ve never had any problems. And for them to say you’re a good soldier, we need you in combat, but there is a possibility we might kick you out when we get back to our own soil . . . .”
“To me, that’s really messed up.”
Michael Riley: 202-662-8907 or mriley@denverpost.com
History of “don’t ask, don’t tell”
1993: “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is instituted, allowing gays to serve but banning homosexual activity.
March 2010: The Pentagon announces it will relax enforcement of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” rules. Among the changes is that investigators will generally ignore anonymous complaints and require accusations made by third parties to be given under oath.
April 2010: Senior Pentagon leaders warn Congress not to tamper with the ban on gays serving openly in the military until they can come up with a plan for dealing with potential opposition in the ranks.
May 2010: The U.S. House votes to let the Defense Department repeal the ban on gay and bisexual people serving openly in the military. The Senate Armed Services Committee approves a similar measure. Both measures say the ban would follow a report on the impact of repeal. President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, must certify that it will not hamper military readiness and effectiveness or “unit cohesion.”
July 2010: Senate is expected to vote on a timeline for repeal.
Dec. 1, 2010: The Pentagon’s study on the impact of repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” is due.
