Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Floor Speech

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I noted last week that President Obama took a surprise trip to Afghanistan and visited with our troops, and it was heartwarming to see the reception our Commander in Chief received in Afghanistan. I looked out at that large crowd of young men and women in uniform who have volunteered--volunteered--to serve our Nation and risk their lives and saw how happy they were that the President acknowledged they were there and what they were doing. I am glad he did it. I am sure it was no fun flying all night, but it is certainly no fun to be under enemy fire, as these young men and women are almost every day. Those of us here in the comfort and security of the Senate Chamber or in our homes in America should never forget the sacrifice of these individuals.

I also read over the weekend we have now lost over 1,400 in Afghanistan. I pour through the names each day and, I guess understandably, look first for someone from Illinois. Recently, we have had several. I have attended two funerals in the last 2 or 3 weeks of a soldier and a marine who died in Afghanistan from my home State of Illinois. It is heartbreaking to meet the young wives carrying babies, the moms and dads, and share their grief as they stand by their fallen heroes and acknowledge that they have carried on a great tradition in America of being willing to volunteer to protect our freedoms. But they paid the ultimate price. The lives of those families will never ever be the same because of that loss.

Many of us, on both sides of the aisle--Democrats and Republicans--go out for unannounced tours to the hospitals in the Washington, DC, area, particularly Walter Reed. We see these incoming soldiers who are about to become veterans who have been injured in battle and face many grievous injuries. They come home to get the very best in medical care so they can return, as much as possible, to a normal life on the civilian side as veterans, having given so much to this country.

The first person I ever visited at Walter Reed was after the invasion of Iraq. He was a young guardsman who had lost his left leg below the knee. It was amazing to me, as I talked to him, thinking how his life would be changed now, when he said the one thing he couldn't wait to do was to get his prosthetic leg and go through rehab so he could return to his unit in Iraq. What a great comment that is on the training and dedication of the men and women who serve us.

I wish to comment this afternoon and talk about one aspect of that being discussed here in Washington and try to add some perspective to it. I remember the early days of the war in Iraq. They were controversial. As our young men and women went into harm's way in an effort to displace Saddam Hussein and bring some order and civility to that country, great sacrifices were made.

In 1990, a young man named Eric Alva joined the Marines at the age of 19. Thirteen years later, at 32 years of age, he was serving in Basra on the first day of the war in Iraq on March 21, 2003. This young marine--Eric Alva--went into the invasion of Basra and stepped on a landmine. He became the first U.S. casualty of the war in Iraq. As a result of that occurrence, his right arm and left leg sustained permanent damage and his right leg was simply gone.

He was saved and sent to hospitals in Landstuhl,

Germany, then here in the United States, where they did everything humanly possible to repair his broken body--the broken body of this young marine who was the first casualty of the war in Iraq.

As he lay in that hospital going through countless surgeries to restore his life, he was visited by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and then by First Lady Laura Bush and President George Bush, who personally awarded him a Purple Heart. It was the least this country could do to acknowledge his courage and heroism and being in the first wave of marines who went into Iraq and who paid such a heavy price.

Eric Alva tried to put his life together after that devastating injury. Finally, after several years, he spoke up and said there is more to the story. After 4 years, Eric Alva told the world he had lied to become a member of the U.S. Marine Corps because he is gay and he kept that a secret. When he finally spoke out against don't ask, don't tell in 2006, he said: I have risked my life to save this country, but as a gay American veteran I still don't have the full rights of every American.

MAJ Margaret Witt has also felt the injustice of don't ask, don't tell. Major Witt was an Air Force flight nurse. For 17 years, she rose steadily through the Air Force and Air Force Reserve, winning strong performance reviews from superiors and service medals from the department. Almost no one--not even her parents--knew about her sexual orientation. That ended in 2004, when her commanders discovered she was in a committed relationship with a civilian woman. After an investigation and hearing, the Air Force discharged her in 2007 under the don't ask, don't tell policy.

After all those years--17 years of service to the country--they discharged her. Her suspension came less than a year before she would have earned her full pension. There she was, 17 years after joining, all the years of good performance reviews, 1 year away from her pension, and she was suspended.

In 2006, Major Witt said: This is worth a fight. She sued the Air Force, claiming it had violated her rights. Her suit was dismissed by a Federal judge. Two years later, an appeals court panel overruled that judge, holding that before the military can discharge a gay service man or woman, it must first prove their firing furthers military goals.

This year, Major Witt went back to court to try to get her job back. She faced the same judge who had dismissed her claim earlier--U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Leighton. Former Air Force MSG James Schaffer, one of the four witnesses who testified on behalf of Major Witt, said he thought Major Witt's dismissal was so unfair it was part of the reason he retired from the Air Force himself in the year 2007.

Judge Leighton issued his ruling in the case in late September of this year. Judge Leighton is no liberal. He was nominated to the Federal bench by President George W. Bush. In his ruling, Judge Leighton hailed Major Witt as a ``central figure in a long-term, highly charged civil rights movement.'' He said her discharge advanced no legitimate military interest. To the contrary, he said, her dismissal hurt morale in her unit and weakened the squadron's ability to carry out its mission.

Major Witt's case is now on appeal.

Judge Leighton was the second Federal Court judge in less than a month to find that don't ask, don't tell was unconstitutional. Earlier in September, in a case brought by the Log Cabin Republicans, a Federal judge in California ruled that don't ask, don't tell ``infringes on the fundamental rights of United States servicemembers in many ways,'' and he said violates the due process clause of the fifth amendment and the free speech protections under the first amendment. That ruling as well is under appeal.

Many of my colleagues have said they are inclined to support the repeal of don't ask, don't tell, but they wanted to reserve final judgment until the Defense Department studied this issue in-depth. Well, the study is complete--one of the most exhaustive studies in the history of the Pentagon. According to the Pentagon's own study, more than 70 percent of the 115,000 servicemembers and 44,000 military spouses who responded said the effect of repealing don't ask, don't tell would be ``positive, mixed or nonexistent.''

Think about the responses there--115,000 members of the military and their spouses responded to the question, and 70 percent said it was time to end don't ask, don't tell.

In releasing that study, Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged that there are challenges behind unwinding don't ask, don't tell. He worried that leaving this matter to the Federal courts could be the wrong thing to do. A decision for one of these Federal courts could be done in a very short period of time, but better, he said, that Congress step up and accept its responsibility to repeal don't ask, don't tell and put in place a transition period to have the least negative impact on our military.

He basically put us on the spot and said those of us who serve in Congress, don't stand on the sidelines and wait for the courts to decide. Pick up the issue and decide yourselves.

President Obama supports repealing don't ask, don't tell. Many of us want to join him. But, unfortunately, we are being stopped by other colleagues who do not want this matter to come before the Senate. They run the risk that any day a Federal court can do, in one opinion, what we should be doing in an orderly, sensible way.

Defense Secretary Gates also added:

Those that choose not to act legislatively are rolling the dice that this policy will not be abruptly overturned by the courts.

He urged us to move and move quickly.

This is not the first time we fought battles involving discrimination in our military. As proud as I am of the men and women who have served in our military throughout our history, military historians and those who serve will be honest and tell you that in times gone by, some things have occurred which should not have happened. In World War II, our colleague, Senator Danny Inouye of Hawaii, and other Japanese-Americans, defended our Nation even as many of their family members were imprisoned in internment camps in this country. Senator Inouye's unit, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, was made up entirely of Japanese-Americans who initially were denied the right to even volunteer and serve for our country. They became, once they were allowed to fight, one of the most highly decorated units in the history of the Army.

Our friend, Senator Inouye, in World War II lost his arm fighting in Italy for America. Yet when he returned from the war, a clearly disabled veteran, a hero in a U.S. Army uniform, he went into a barber shop where the barber refused to give him a hair cut and said: ``We don't cut Jap hair.''

The discrimination he faced before he was allowed to serve our Nation and even after is a reminder that even in this great Nation there are times we have to step up and stand up for the cause of civil rights.

Incidentally, we know in this Chamber, and those who follow this debate should know, in the year 2000 our colleague, Senator Dan Inouye of Hawaii, was awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroism in World War II.

Edward Brooke was another man who served in the Senate. He was elected in 1966, the first African-American to serve since Reconstruction, a Republican from Massachusetts. He is a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. In World War II he served in an all-Black regiment in the infantry. As he said, he and his fellow African-American soldiers fought tyranny in Europe even as the U.S. military fought to protect White troops from having to live and fight alongside of them. The military, for all intents and purposes, was basically segregated at that time.

This past June, Senator Brooke wrote in the Boston Globe calling for an end to the don't ask, don't tell policy. It was a powerful call for justice, and I want to read part of it. Here is what Senator Brooke, a Republican from Massachusetts, said:

Military service requires extraordinary sacrifice and love of country, and every man and woman in uniform deserves our respect and gratitude. However, the ``don't ask, don't tell'' policy that bars openly gay and lesbian soldiers from serving in the military shows disrespect both for the individuals it targets and for the values our military was created to defend. It is a discriminatory law that must be repealed.

Senator Brooke said that under Don't Ask, Don't Tell: The military is divided into soldiers who are judged solely on their merit, and those who can be condemned for a personal characteristic unrelated to their performance. We've been here before, and history shows that prejudice was the wrong policy.

He added:

Regardless of its target, prejudice is always the same. It finds novel expressions and capitalizes on new fears. But prejudice is never new and never right. One thing binds all prejudices together: irrational fear. Decades ago, black service members were the objects of this fear. Many thought that integrating black and white soldiers would harm the military and society. Today, we see that segregation itself was the threat to our values. We know that laws that elevate one class of people over another run counter to America's ideals. Yet due to ``don't ask, don't tell,'' the very people who sacrifice the most to defend our values are subject to such a law. We owe them far more.

Whether it was the Marine Eric Alva, the first serious casualty of the war in Iraq, or Major General Witt, in the Air Force, who after 17 years of service was basically told to leave, we understand we owe them and so many more the right to serve without discrimination.

More than 24 nations allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. They include Canada and the United Kingdom. Other nations that have lifted their bans include Australia, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Israel, too, has lifted its ban against service by those who are of a different sexual orientation. Does anyone think for one minute the Israelis would allow gay men and women openly in the military if they thought it would harm their military readiness and national security? Of course not.

Let me add, there is currently no discrimination against those who are gay who wish to serve in the CIA, Secret Service, or FBI. Only in the U.S. military is that discriminatory policy still part of the law of the land.

Our military leaders have told us they can implement repeal and do it in an orderly way. Secretary of the Army John McHugh, former Congressman of New York, has said that. Secretary of the Navy former Governor Raymond Mabus, Admiral Gary Roughhead, Chief of Naval Operations, and General Douglas Fraser, commander of the U.S. SOUTHCOM all agree the military is up to the challenge--everyone.

In releasing the Pentagon survey, Defense Secretary Gates said:

One of the most important things to me is personal integrity and a policy or law that in effect requires you to lie gives me a problem. Such a policy is fundamentally flawed.

Admiral Mike Mullen, the highest ranking military leader in America, testified and said:

Speaking for myself and myself only, it is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do. No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.

He added:

I have served with homosexuals since 1968. Everyone in the military has.

Indeed, there are an estimated 66,000 gay men and lesbians serving in our military today. Ending don't ask, don't tell is the right thing to do for those troops and for our Nation.

I want to salute Senator Lieberman for being the author of the amendment to repeal don't ask, don't tell, and I am proud to cosponsor it with him. This amendment gives us the right to begin the process of repealing it in an orderly way. It says specifically that before don't ask, don't tell can be repealed, the President, Secretary of Defense, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff must all certify that the new rules are consistent with the standards of military readiness and effectiveness.

Over the last 60 years, the U.S. military has ended racial segregation and integrated women into its ranks. In many respects the military, after realizing that prejudice did not serve our country well, has led our Nation in opening up to equal treatment and equal opportunity men and women of different racial backgrounds as well as obvious changes in gender.

Ending the ban against gays and lesbians serving openly will require leadership and care, but I am confident America's leadership, the finest in the world, is up to the task.

Let me close with one last comment from Senator Brooke. In his op-ed he wrote:

Civil rights progress doesn't happen automatically or without resistance. History almost always obscures that fact because after the battles are won, it is difficult to understand why we needed to fight them in the first place. Laws change and values change with them. I'm confident that repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell will be the same. A law believed to be necessary becomes a relic that the next generation finds curious and shameful.

In this case the values have already changed. The vast majority of Americans, including the majority of our top military leaders, our men and women in uniform and their spouses, support ending don't ask, don't tell. It is time to stop coming up with excuses to continue this discrimination. We owe to the men and women in the military not only our respect for what they do and how they serve our country but our respect for their judgment, and in their judgment it is time for don't ask, don't tell to end.

I yield the floor.

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