Honoring Courage and Commitment

Just in time for Veterans Day, two of Bronwen Tomb’s professors, one at the Coast Guard Academy and one at the University of Connecticut-Avery Point, responded to the original feature in The Day with a salute to Bronwen’s courage and a call for repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

Bronwen’s story is emblematic of the experience of many service members who contact SLDN for assistance. These service members – officer and enlisted – serve in our military either in fear of losing their career or in disgust over having to lie every day. Either emotion is destructive for not only the service members but for their fellow soldiers, sailors, airmen, guardsmen, or Marines. Both the fear of being discovered and the lies service members tell to protect themselves, can lead directly to the mistrust and disruption of unit cohesion that this so-called compromise law was intended to prevent. Bronwen’s professor at the Coast Guard Academy, Erik Wingrove-Haugland, stated in his tribute to Bronwen:

“The time has come for us to reexamine and abandon the “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” policy, and to allow for the full inclusion of gays into the military.”

Professor Wingrove-Haugland is right. The time for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” if there ever really was a time for it, is long since over.

Many of Bronwen’s fellow cadets were hurt by seeing this outstanding future leader discharged not because of poor performance issues or bad leadership skills, but because she was honest about who she is as a person. What example does this discharge set for these cadets?

Professor Wingrove-Haugland points out

. . .“the DADT policy forces service members to lie and deceive, which is incompatible with the value the military places on honesty. Five times in the past eight years, I have delivered the Honor Training to the incoming “swabs” who have just arrived at the Coast Guard Academy, trying to convince cadets not to lie, cheat, steal, or attempt to deceive. Yet cadets who are gay are required to lie and to attempt to deceive in order to remain at the Academy. It would be much easier for me to convince the cadets that lying and attempting to deceive are wrong if some of them were not required to lie and to deceive in order to remain in the service.”

This law places service members in a harmful ethical bind. Our military requires immense sacrifice by those who want to serve. Must one of those sacrifices be a service member’s integrity? Clearly, that is the request. Under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” service members are not only asked to sacrifice their own sense of integrity but they are asked to forfeit the key core values they have pledged to uphold upon entering the service.

Browen understandably struggled with this battle between the core values she had pledged to follow and uphold, her own sense of integrity, and the law that required her to lie and dissemble. She made the decision to carefully, at least she thought it was carefully, follow the path of honesty. The decision to be honest should not have to take such courage.

Please join us in honoring the courage and commitment of those who sacrifice in service for their country. Spend your Veterans Day Honoring Every Veteran.

- Kathi Westcott