The End of an Era... And it's about time!

Don't Ask, Don't Tell became law as a compromise, in 1993, forcing it into the military budget for the following fiscal year. A bad compromise, to be sure, allowing the military off the hook, with the GBLT community, compromising the UCMJ's 1950 policy, (enacted by truman) and creating a system where GBLT soldiers could serve, but not really "be all that they could be".

Eighteen years. Eighteen years of blood, sweat, tears, living, dying, discharges, coming out, being forced out, hate and lies, it ends at 0001 tomorrow morning. It is over.

Originally called "Don't ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue", the idea was to allow GBLT soldiers to serve, under the cover of secrecy. The military has a code, no matter what branch you are in. And that code is one of honor. How can you serve with honor, if you have to serve with part of your life, shrouded in secrecy?

Thus began the fight. Too often, it was a partisan fight, and it shouldn't have been. It should have been a fight about what was right, human, honorable and decent.

And think about this... just think about this for a second.... did we, in our bigoted way, by discharging fifty-nine gay linguists, who speak various Arabic languages, place other American forces in harms way?

The real truth is that in the eighteen yeats that DADT was in effect, nothing has changed. No one has changed their sexual orientation. There have been no "roving gangs" of gays looking to do violence on straights. (Although, there have been the opposite, much to the horror and dismay of all).

Yes.... this IS the end of an era... And good riddance!

The Beginning - Where it all starts...

The thought occurred to me, that I am probably one of the most unconventional of military wives. I am older than most of the 'newlywed" military wives that you see on post, I am former military, myself, so I really do have a clue as to what is going on, in the military, and I grew up in the military, and this isn't my first military marriage.

The "typical" military wife or spouse comes from one of two places. The starry eyes high school/college sweetheart, who followed her/his beloved into the military, right out of school, without a clue as to what hit them or the seasoned military brat, that ran away from home to go away to school and married a soldier (usually of a different branch than the parent) because that's who they fell in love with.

I'm in the second category. Daddy was career Navy. Mom was Women's Air Force (WAF). I married into the 82nd Airborne Division, the first time, I got married. Wasn't that just a kick in the pants?

Then I joined. Not the Navy or the Air Force... no... I joined the Army, because they would let me choose what I wanted to train as. I chose Combat Medic (91A). Brilliant choice. Totally useless in the "real world"! But there you go.

So what does this have to do with being unconventional? Well, maybe nothing. Maybe everything. But by the time that I was done, and my second husband was stationed at Ft Hood, Texas, his company commander's wife and I had a pretty good thing going with our family support group. We had monthly "teas" for the new wives, where we would sit them down and tell them the things that no one bothered to explain to them, about how things really work. Because, frankly, no one should go into to the world's most dysfunctional family blind.

Was it unconventional? I guess it was. No one else seemed to be doing it. And it was something that needed doing.

But who knows… maybe we were being unconventionally conventional…