Hundreds get honorable discharges after Pentagon ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ review

Hundreds of veterans who were dismissed from the U.S. military under the now-repealed “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy have been given honorable discharges following a yearlong review, the Pentagon announced Tuesday. 

“Even though the majority of service members discharged for their sexual orientation … were honorably separated, nearly 2,000 were separated with less than fully honorable characterizations,” Christa A. Specht, a legal policy director at the Defense Department, said in a news release Tuesday.

After the repeal, those who were dismissed due to the policy could appeal for an upgrade to an honorable discharge, which would make them eligible for full military benefits. However, Specht noted, many people affected by the policy were unaware they could do so. The “proactive review” sought to address this. 

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said 851 cases were proactively reviewed over the past year, and 96.8% of them, more than 800, qualified for “relief.”

“Brave LGBTQ+ Americans have long volunteered to serve the country that they love,” Austin said in a statement Tuesday. “Under President Biden’s leadership, the Department of Defense has taken extraordinary steps to redress the harms done by ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and other policies on these former Service members.”

The announcement comes just over a year after the department announced it would conduct a “proactive review” of service members who were dismissed under the policy, which prohibited gay and lesbian members of the military from being open about their sexual orientation. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” was in effect from February 1994 to September 2011 and resulted in the discharge of more than 13,000 service members. 

“What this means is that of the nearly 13,500 individuals who were administratively separated under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, and served long enough to receive a merit-based characterization of service, 96% now have an honorable discharge,” Austin said in the statement. 

Gays and lesbians dismissed from the military during the “don’t ask, don’t tell” era are part of a legacy that started well before 1994. Historians estimate at least 100,000 service members were forced out of the military due to their actual or perceived sexuality between World War II and 2011.