Grethe Cammermeyer, RN, Ph.D, colonel and recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the Veterans Administration’s Nurse of the Year, had an impeccable military record but was discharged from the service on June 11, 1992, after she uttered four words.
“I am a lesbian.”
That simple sentence shook the military establishment when Cammermeyer stated it during a routine, top-secret security clearance interview in 1989. She knew at that moment that she had to stand up for truth regardless of the consequence and that she’d have to fight against institutional prejudice and bigotry in the place she loved and respected the most — the United States Army.
“I’d rather sacrifice my uniform than my integrity,” she said in her celebrated autobiography “Serving in Silence.”
Cammermeyer, who rose to international prominence for her battle against the military’s ban on homosexuals, will be visiting Vashon next week, where she’ll discuss her tour of duty in Vietnam, her discharge from the military and her ultimate reinstatement, ordered by a federal judge. Her visit is sponsored by the Vashon-Maury Island Heritage Association as part of the heritage museum’s ongoing Vietnam Era War Exhibit.
“Col. Cammermeyer is a courageous fighter for equality, and we are proud to have her speak in our Home of Record: Vashon and the Vietnam War series,” said Bruce Haulman, a member of the heritage association’s board of trustees.
Born in 1942 in Oslo, Norway, during the German occupation, Cammermeyer was serving her native country before she could even walk. While aiding the resistance fighters, Cammermeyer’s parents used her baby carriage to run guns from one side of the city to the other.
When American soldiers helped liberate Oslo in 1945, Cammermeyer’s love for the United States began. Immigrating to America as a young child, she eventually joined the Army, putting her own life at risk by becoming a combat nurse during the protracted war in Vietnam. Cammermeyer was quickly promoted to head nurse of the neurosurgical ward during the Tet Offensive in 1968.
At the height of the conflict, she received more than 400 wounded soldiers in a week’s time, treating those that survived, comforting those who didn’t. Her role — and what she witnessed — humbled Cammermeyer to her core. She knew how infinitely important her presence was for those young men.
Others knew, too, and at the end of Cammermeyer’s tour she received the Bronze Star.
Home from the war, Cammermeyer soon became Washington National Guard’s Chief Nurse, bringing her closer to realizing her dream of becoming the U.S. Army’s Chief Nurse. Needing top secret security clearance to attend the U.S. Army War College (a necessity to compete for the position), she interviewed with an agent from the Defense Investigative Service and spoke those famous four words, acknowledging her sexual orientation. Admittedly naïve, she wondered how her disclosure would affect her opportunity to serve in the military.
Agonizing in silence for several months, Cammermeyer waited to find out what her fate would be. In 1992, a board of inquiry recommended that she be honorably discharged and stripped of her rank — an outcome, she said in her autobiography, that made her feel as if her entire world had collapsed.
Even so, Cammermeyer said in her autobiography, she continued to hold the military in great respect and didn’t want to lose her spot in an institution she’d grown to love. So she took her cause to the public, making her case nationally known as she fought her discharge in federal court.
She won and was reinstated in the National Guard in June 1994. In March 1997, after 31 years of service, she retired with full military privileges.
Since then, Cammermeyer has become a leading voice for marriage equality, human rights, the rights of the gay/lesbian/transgender community, health care and a number of other issues. She ran as a Democrat for Congress in 1998, losing to Republican Jack Metcalf.
Today, she lives on Whidbey Island, where she serves as a hospital commissioner and runs an adult family home, caring for ailing elderly people. Her visit to Vashon — at a time when gay marriage continues to capture headlines — is significant, said Christopher Gaynor, co-curator of Home of Record.
“From her tour in Vietnam to her courageous fight for equal rights for all Americans, Col. Cammermeyer has always served selflessly. She is a true American hero,” he said.
— Verna Everitt serves on the board of the Vashon-Maury Island Heritage Association.
Cammermeyer’s talk will be at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 2, at the Land Trust Building. A reception at the Heritage Museum will follow. Call 463-7808 for more information.
