MUSKEGO, Wis. — After decades of discrimination against LGBTQ military service members, the Pentagon recently announced a change to some members’ discharge papers.
More than 800 military personnel who were kicked out during the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy will now be honorably discharged.
This new update is making an impact on many veterans within the LGBTQ community across the country. However, for a Wisconsin veteran and a Michigan veteran whose papers won’t change, this has sparked a bit of hope for their future.
Mona McGuire lives in Muskego with her family. She’s lived a successful life with a career at a printing company and is moving in a positive direction, with two kids who are now in college.
This path isn’t one McGuire thought she would always be on. She enlisted in the Army while she was in high school back in 1987. She served in the Army as a Military Police Officer in Germany for just less than a year before she was kicked out for being a part of the LGBTQ community.
(Photo courtesy of Mona McGuire)
“That’s when I was arrested,” McGuire said. “They took all my bedding, put it in plastic bags and handcuffed me. And then as I was walking out into the corridor, I saw three other ladies, soldiers, same situation. Handcuffed. Plastic bags.”
McGuire said someone in her unit reported her and a handful of other soldiers. She said she was questioned for hours by the Army before being given the ultimatum of admitting she was gay or being sent to jail and federally charged.
“We all admitted,” she said. “I was 19 years old. I wasn’t going to go to prison for loving another human being,”
Also in her unit, and the woman she was dating, Karla Lehmann, faced the same treatment. They, along with the others, were discarded with “other than honorable conditions.”
(Photo courtesy of Mona McGuire)
This meant no more serving, no benefits and a stain on their reputations that they would carry with them to this day.
“It takes a toll on you emotionally,” Lehmann said. “You don’t know what your future holds. I was young. I didn’t have a lot of life experience. Everything was upside down.”
Lehmann lives in Michigan now, but said the two still keep in touch as friends. Both said they had high hopes after hearing the updates on the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. However, since they both served before that policy was enacted, they don’t qualify to have their discharge papers changed.
(Photo courtesy of Karla McGuire)
While they said they are both still devastated to hear that the stain on their service records will remain, they are happy for those who will receive justice and hope they can have the same thing sometime soon.
“I’m happy, I’m happy for others,” Lehmann said. “I think it should have happened a long time ago. I hope that it is transpiring and running through the process in the way that it should, with ease, and making that happen for folks.”
They said they both hope that speaking out and issuing appeals on their papers with a lawyer will spur change in their own cases.
“I do feel that speaking out as best as I can, eventually I will be heard, and my group of LGBTQ veterans will have the same justice,” McGuire said.
