UW alumna Col. Margarethe Cammermeyer said she is cautiously optimistic about President Barack Obama’s promise to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) policy. Her hope and conviction that gay people will be able to serve openly in the military is present in her everyday life; she is an advocate for the cause.

The likelihood of the removal of DADT increases as Obama gains support from important leaders like Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates. The two top defense officials testified for the repeal before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Feb. 2.

“The important thing is that the military has come around to realize that to lose good soldiers, sailors, airmen, is really undermining the discipline; it’s undermining the morale; it’s undermining unit cohesive[ness] as well as unit readiness,” Cammermeyer said. “So they have realized that someone’s sexual orientation is a non-issue, and that is hugely important because they are the ones that can advise the Congress that they would like the policy changed so that they can keep good people.”

While Obama could issue an executive order that would immediately stop the dismissal of gay service members, instead he is interested in passing a bill that eliminates DADT and the ban on gay service members as well as adding a non-discrimination clause.

“The bill is what they’re looking to do right now because it doesn’t leave a loophole … so you don’t have to go back and fix everything later,” said Teodora Popescu, vice president of the UW Young Democrats.

But some question the timing of such a policy change, suggesting it is a political move that Obama is making in order to show the country that he has accomplished something, because his health care promises are proving difficult to fulfill.

“It was a policy implemented by [President Bill] Clinton for a reason,” said Justin Bryant, the president of the UW College Republicans. “And I think the idea is, when it comes to the defense of our nation, the policy is maybe better for those commanders to make and not let it be based on political reasons.”

Clinton created DADT as an executive order, so the military has to follow the policy because it is a federal law. Even if the military wanted to change its own policies — possibly to allow gay individuals to openly express their sexuality in the military — the federal law would have to be changed first.

If the federal policy is changed, military policies would still exist that treat gay service members differently from their heterosexual colleagues; such rules include marriage and partner laws and housing regulations. Also, heterosexual relations are not barred in the military as long as they are between two people of the same rank, but if someone is found to be participating in homosexual relations, he or she is investigated and usually discharged.

“The behavior, not the orientation, is what they are discharged for,” said Lt. Col. Mike Daniels, professor of military science. “Regardless of someone’s orientation, even when an armed service member is found in violation, they are still treated with compassion and respect, even if it results in discharge.”

Cammermeyer doesn’t seem to have felt that respect. At a top-secret clearance, prior to the DADT policy, Cammermeyer told the investigator that she is a lesbian. Six months later, Cammermeyer, who was chief nurse at the Washington Army National Guard hospital, was discharged.

“It was really devastating because I believed that the military would take care of its own,” she said. “That was just sort of what you believed and what you saw, and then to be discarded after 25 years of service, including Vietnam, and to just be thrown out as if you had never existed, was extremely painful.”

While DADT was presented as a compromise with the intent to protect gay service members from investigation, it’s estimated that more than 13,000 gay service members have been discharged from the military since its enactment, as reported by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.

This results in a loss of skilled personnel, as well as monetary and resource costs to the military. But for Cammermeyer, who was reinstated as a service member following a lawsuit that she won, the cost to the individual is just as important as the cost to the military.

“I never think that it is OK when some people have to live a lie, live in silence, to fear the loss of their jobs and careers if somebody doesn’t like them,” Cammermeyer said. “If you have to deny your humanity, that is never the right thing to do or to have to live under. So, a compromise, which is what the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ was in 1993, I think was tragic then, and it continues to be tragic. You can’t have someone treated as a second-class citizen.”

Reach reporter Lael Telles at news@dailyuw.com.