Locals declare war on ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’

by John Wright of Dallas Voice

John Ames would have liked to spend another 13 years in the Air Force before retiring and getting his pension.

But as he began to come to terms with the fact that he’s gay, he realized that if he were to get caught, he faced the prospect of a dishonorable discharge or even criminal sanctions. As a result, after seven years of service as a public affairs officer, Ames chose not to re-enlist in 1992.

“I figured it would be better to just get out and not live a lie anymore,” said Ames, 45, of Oak Cliff. “I keep wondering what my life would have been. I totally enjoyed the job while I was in there.”

Now, Ames has co-founded and co-chairs the Dallas-based Military Equality Alliance, a national organization formed to lobby Congress to repeal “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” And with the re-introduction of the Military Readiness Enhancement Act on Feb. 28, he and other gay and lesbian former servicemembers are gearing up for a fight.

“I think it’s a good possibility this year,” Ames said of the proposed repeal. “We’re going to give it our best shot.”

MEA, created July 4 last year, has a mailing list of more than 1,000, Ames said, as well as an extensive Web site, www.militaryequality.org.

Ames said the group will take a grassroots approach, targeting specific lawmakers in this year’s democratically controlled Congress and setting up meetings with constituents in their districts. MEA will coordinate with groups like the Servicemembers Legal Defense Fund, the Human Rights Campaign, the Log Cabin Republicans and American Veterans for Equal Rights.

Pepe Johnson

Another member of MEA, Oak Cliff resident Pepe Johnson, said he and Ames first began discussing the idea three years ago, when they tried to start a chapter of AVER. Because AVER, more a veterans group than a political one, wasn’t meeting their needs, they began contacting others around the country interested in repealing “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

“We decided instead of having separate organizations in different little cities that we might want to put our resources together and come up with one national organization,” Johnson said.

Although Ames served prior to the inception of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” in 1993, Johnson fell victim to it.

An Army sergeant stationed at Fort Sill, Ark., Johnson said he came out in defiance after superiors created a hostile work environment for gays and lesbians.

Johnson, who was quickly discharged in 2003 despite having been named soldier of the year at Fort Sill in 2001, said if “Don’t ask, don’t tell” is repealed, he plans to try to return to the military.

“By eliminating ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell,’ you can take advantage of sexual harassment complaints,” said Johnson, 28. “If I came across a situation like that again, it would be very different.”

Pegasus News content partner - Dallas Voice, the community newspaper for gay & lesbian Dallas.

Staff
Verified User
Anonymous

sisterhazel, says:

"The U.S. military spends about $30 million a year hunting down and expelling homosexuals from its ranks, in a clear and open defiance of the "don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue" law, even though its own studies, from the 1950's to the present, have shown time and time again that they do not represent the threat to "unit cohesion" that is the reason usually given for expelling them.

In spite of the military's insistence that unit cohesion is a problem, the fact remains that during times of war, expelling homosexuals from the ranks goes way down (and was practically halted during the Gulf War), when unit cohesion is actually of greatest importance. If unit cohesion were really the motivator, why do they quit expelling that 'threat' when the need for cohesion is greatest? No one at the Pentagon has ever answered that question. The answer is obvious to any thinking person: it's institutionalized homophobia. And this is a case where homophobia directly costs the taxpayers $30 million each and every year it is allowed to govern military policy. And that doesn't count the cost in thousands of destroyed lives caused by the illegally issued general discharges that sully the reputations of these honorable men and women." (exerpt from a personal essay by Scott Bidstrup)

As someone who has been in the military, I knew many of my co-workers were gay and lesbian, but to think that somehow, in a fox-hole under conditions of war that they might start "attacking" heterosexual troops is ridiculous! There was a time when women were kept out of combat occupations, out of fear that men might behave differently, but that has been proven wrong, as I hope this current discriminatory policy will be.

Anonymous

2 years, 7 months ago
Link to this comment | Suggest removal

ch0, says:

Just a question... how do you "get caught" being gay? Is it any different from "getting caught" being straight? Like, someone has to actually walk in on you doing the gay thing? Hey, anybody with the spunk to go kill on our President's behalf gets a thumbs-up, whether gay, straight, or tri.