The repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in September not only made it possible for active-duty servicemembers to stop hiding who they are in order to serve their country, it also opened the door for those who were kicked out under the policy to re-enlist.
Major Mike Almy was kicked out of the Air Force under DADT, even though he was asked, and he never told. Someone who read Major Almy's private emails turned him in, and those emails formed the basis of the Air Force's case against him.
Yesterday, as a veteran, Maj. Almy was invited to have breakfast at the White House with President Obama. From Metro Weekly:
"This is the first Veterans Day following repeal. The first Veterans Day where we can fully honor the service of all veterans and servicemembers, gay and straight alike," Almy says. "To be an official guest here at the White House for Veterans Day, I just thought was tremendous."
You can hear the rest of his amazing story about what happened that morning, as told by Major Almy himself.
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What a stark contrast to the GOP candidates who stood silently as the crowd booed a gay soldier calling in from a war zone.
I often am angry with the centrist policies of our president and was disappointed with how long this took, but this Promise was kept. That is worth a lot.
Still no transsexuals welcome.
AND you know what Rachel?
WE'RE NOT GOING AWAY
rome was not built in a day..it took years to get to this policy change.. Being transsexual is very different then being gay,to me as a gay man,and allot of others.now it's up to the transsexual movement..to try and get there voice heard,and plead the case they have..good luck
Continue to fight for your rights Transexuals. Gays and Lesbians won this important battle through informing the public and putting significant financial pressure on the Legislators.
Acceptance and respect will one day come, but it won't be a fast or easy journey. Help straights and people with same sex gender identities like myself understand your life and journey and it will help you get the rights you deserve.
Rights for Women and Blacks took decades to centuries from the start of the protests and information campaigns to when they finally occured. Many protestors were jailed and harrassed before things got better. Change is tough and a lot of difficult to impossible seeming work, but it can happen.
I used to be a person who was irrationally freaked out by the whole LGBT community (I grew up in San Francisco, CA), but it took helping out in a Food Distribution center for sufferers of HIV at 13 years old for me to see that people are people no matter what is going on in their life.
Help those with a societal accepted gender identity understand your challenges and motivations. It will go a long way in improving your rights and the rights of all Transgender in the long run.
Miriam is correct. All social progress has taken years to change society's view. Change is incremental and is a long laborious process. People's attitudes do not change overnight. But every little victory is just another step in the right direction.
It's great that you're not going away. But you're going to need a bigger movement that is openly trans.
Civil rights would certainly be easier to come by if marginalization was the fault of 3% of the population that is itself marginalized.
It's about time. Those homophobic chicken hawks who oppose these brave men/women from serving should volunteer to take their places on the front lines. But then again they are cowards
AGREED! I am a little vague on the difference between transexual and transgendered and even the now I think becoming taboo word transvestite( I mean the real difference between those) but to stick to the point I agree WHOLE-HEARTED that not one of these people that moan and whine about gays in the military would EVER swap their lives for ONE SINGLE DAY! I am straight and I support the repeal...and honestly these grunts could kick my @ss (especially this guy in the photo) I wouldn't want to trade. You are a VETERAN PERIOD!!! And deserve to be saluted!! What you do, the service to MY country, matters...everything else in your life-is your business.
DADT and other older similar military policies created a hostile environment that made the military into a prejudice factory.
That has cause issues with employers hiring veterans because veterans have a reputation for doing things that cause high employee turnover rate, which makes makes veterans unemployable in most civilian environments.
The next thing to do in the military is to pull in all of the witnesses responsible for providing testimony that caused an LBGT discharge, and screen them for psychological problems. Only a psychopath or sociopath would hate another human being enough to actively cause harm.
That is the same kind of prejudice that caused the My Lai Massacre.
There is no place whatsoever in the US military for people with those kinds of emotional problems, and the people responsible for LBGT discharges must be removed from military service as quickly as possible to increase public safety.
The next public demand for the US military is to remove psychopaths and sociopaths now that DADT is gone.
The reason that I bring this up is that two men were discovered to be gay aboard the USS ******** in about 1987 while the ship was in the Mediterranean.
These two men were locked up to prevent other people on the ship from killing them.
The purpose of DADT was to prevent psychopaths and sociopaths from killing people.
I was a civilian military advisor, and I was providing technical assistance at the time.
Putting weapons into the hands of a person that could kill someone for being LBGT is wrong on a level that cannot be expressed properly in written language.
The LBGT individuals that were discharged should have rank/privilege restored, and they should be put in charge of screening and discharging mentally ill individuals because they have the qualifications necessary to recognize them for who they are.
Good on you, Major Almy. Thanks for your service.
I wanted to touch back on this issue and how I think it has gotten a little fuzzy on some points. I am straight, born that way thank you very much so it is hard wired in my brain to be attracted to the other sex... That being said I believe the MAJORITY of people I know who are gay/bi feel the same way, they are wired to be what they feel they are. DADT in effect removed the basic human right to be who you are without fear or prejudice.. And lets be clear... if you serve on a ship for a long time(or being in the field for extended times with your mates) you get to know them... People on the service level have known plenty of homosexuals in the military and have kept it quiet, for their sake... Because in the end these same gays could be the one to save your a$$ in a moment of crisis.
Now this issues of pyschopaths and homophobic servie people with guns... tell me how they got there in the first place??? I feel the real issuie is pysch evals that should be more thorough and stringent than the ones that are in place today.. Because psychopaths with gun kill whomever they feel like... look at what just happened at Virginia Tech (again) Do not blame or judge others you do not understand.. embrace the fact the we can be of different philosophies yet still stand together for the greater good or goals set forth you believe in.. Do not diminish what this man does for us for he is braver than most of us who make these comments here.
Our nation is called The UNITED States of America.. what should that say to you?
just my 2 cents(and we know what that is worth now?)