Repeal The Don't Ask, Don't Tell Policy

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Thank you so much, Congressman Murphy. Thank you for gathering us here at this late hour and also for taking on the leadership role in this extremely important issue. I am very proud to be here with you and my other colleagues tonight who are taking the time to talk about how important this is. And I would like to add a few words that can't come close to expressing what people have done in letters and stories that have already been told, but I do want to add a few words from my own perspective.

In 1993, as we have talked about today, Congress passed the Don't Ask, Don't Tell law that mandates the discharge of openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual servicemembers. Under this law, as we all know and have been talking about, at least one individual a day on average is fired because they are gay or lesbian. Since 1994, that amounts to 13,000 servicemembers who have been discharged under the authority of this discriminatory act.

I am a freshman, as you mentioned, and I know this bill was passed in a different time, but as a freshman, coming in here with different eyes, as a new Member, nothing seems fair or reasonable about this policy. And as a member of the House Armed Services Committee, it is clear to me that this policy does nothing to keep our country safe. And it does nothing to move our country forward in protecting the very rights that the brave men and women of the military are fighting to protect.

In fact, I believe this policy has the opposite effect. Don't Ask, Don't Tell has been responsible for the dismissal of highly qualified soldiers, as we said, almost 13,000 soldiers, that our country desperately needs at a time when we are engaged in two active conflicts overseas.

We have talked a lot about this report which has just been recently released. And As Colonel Om Prakash recently said, as others have said in the Joint Force Quarterly, Don't Ask, Don't Tell has been costly both in personnel and treasure, and is ultimately more damaging to the unit cohesion its stated purpose is to preserve.

We talk a lot about the numbers, about our need for trained members, like experienced Arabic translators, which we know this damages. Tonight we have heard thousands of stories of the men and women who willingly serve our country and, oh, by the way, happen to be gay.

I heard a story recently of a soldier whose partner died while he was serving in Iraq. Because he was gay and because his partner was a male, he couldn't openly grieve or talk, just as you mentioned, to his commanding officer or to any other troops.

I heard about a young woman who wanted to follow in her father's footsteps but because she was openly gay, a lesbian, she could not serve in the military, and it was her life goal.

I, like many of my colleagues, have visited in Iraq and Afghanistan and I have seen the chaos and the confusion, the danger that our soldiers take on every day in which many of them serve.

In my State, like many other States, I attend the ceremonies where we send them off, where we welcome soldiers home, and I look at them, young and old, men and women. And I, like many others, attend the funerals when those soldiers don't come home, and I have hugged the parents of military members who don't come home and know the grief that they feel. But of all of those soldiers, whether you see them in Iraq and Afghanistan, you see them as they are going off, I just see young men and women, older men and women in the Guard who are willing to serve our country. I don't see anyone who is gay or straight. I see, as one of my colleagues said, Americans, people who are willing to serve.

I stand here today in support of every single one of our soldiers, no matter what their sex, their ethnicity, or their sexual orientation. They deserve our respect and deep gratitude and support, and every single one of them deserves the honor just as they are to serve our country.

Thank you so much for taking on this issue and being here tonigh

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