Maj. Margaret Witt can no longer report for duty

April 17, 2006

The U.S. armed forces need more people like Margaret Witt who are willing to step up and serve, the way she’s done for 18 years. But in Witt’s case, she’s no longer permitted to wear the uniform. You’ll never guess why.

In 1993, Maj. Margaret Witt was a poster woman for the Air Force’s flight nurse recruiting program. In her career of 18-plus years, the decorated, 42-year-old operating room and flight nurse from McChord Air Force Base earned stellar reviews for her work.

In 2003, President Bush awarded her the Air Medal for her Middle East deployment and, later, the Air Force Commendation Medal, for saving the life of a Defense Department worker.

Less than a year later, following an Air Force investigation, Witt, a reservist, was drummed out. Her offense: a committed relationship, but with another woman, a civilian, from 1997 to 2003.

Witt has been a decorated Air Force officer for 19 years. She wants to serve and injured troops could no doubt benefit from her service during a time of war. She has sterling performance reviews and, in 1993, the Air Force literally used her photograph in brochures used to recruit nurses. Not incidentally, the Air Force has a shortage of qualified, well-trained flight nurses right now.

And yet, the Air Force still threw Witt out of the military. Witt was told she “could no longer report for duty, no longer be paid and no longer earn points toward retirement. Her promotion to lieutenant colonel was moot.”

As for her “offense” that led to her dismissal, Witt didn’t even violate the latter part of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” As Pam Spaulding noted, the Air Force received an anonymous tip about her sexual orientation, which prompted an investigation.

Last week, Witt filed a federal lawsuit against the Pentagon with the help of the ACLU, which seeks to prevent Witt’s discharge. If common sense still has any role here, Witt will not only win her case, but she’ll be reinstated, get a check with back pay, and receive an apology.

I thought Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell was actually Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell/Don’t Pursue, with the Pursue bit added just to keep this kind of thing from happening. Did this change, or am I wrong about something?

  • But, hey, good news! They’re lowering the education and intellectual testing standards, so no worries about shortages or anything. Surely someone who had trouble maintaining a 2.0 in high school can take Maj. McChord’s place in an OR with no trouble.

  • Remember, we’re talking the Fundamentalist Whacko branch of the service here—the Air Force.

    Maybe what these fly-boy idiots need is to have their recruitment numbers shrivel away to nothing. You can be a pilot in just about any other branch of the armed forces. The Army has its own jumbo-sized transports. The Navy can hit just about any target on the planet. Marine fighter-pilots can take off and land—vertically. the only current value I’m seeing in the AF is a place for the Religious Reich to run rampant

  • Mmmmmm, so we are using homosexuals to recruit people into our military… There’s a good line in that for the evening comics somewhere

  • Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell was always ripe to be used by people with personal grudges, revenge, or just generally to get rid of the gays/lesbians by those who think they shouldn’t exist. Frankly they should accept tips, especially anonymous one, for this for those very reasons.

    It is very telling that her being a lesbian was more important than her stellar work/career. Considering that they are lowering standards for recruits I guess straight and stupid is better than gay and smart.

  • I’m wondering why Maj. Whit waited two years to file a lawsuit. Was the ACLU waiting until Bush’s numbers crashed and Iraqi looked like even more of a quadmire to back this lady up?

  • This continued hatred and harrassment of gays is just unbelievable in the year 2006. Someday, even the great unwashed will look back at this time and see it as the embarrassing “back of the bus” era that it is. This is truly the great civil rights issue of our time in America and straight people need to speak up and protest. But the whole world has gotten so insane on so many fronts and, with 24-hour news coverage of everything, we know about it all. There is no political leadership on anything but the forces of religious extremism–and the issues are so overwhelming, it’s difficult for progressive (aka sane, tolerant people) to know what to do, or where to start, that could really make a difference.

  • “This continued hatred and harrassment of gays is just unbelievable in the year 2006.” – Frak

    You say that as if achieving the third millenium of the Christian Era should somehow be accompanied by progress in the toleration of homosexuality and homosexuals.

    The fact is, in many preceeding centuries, homosexuals were accepted and allowed to engage in their sexual preferences far more freely than they are now. The latest interpretations of Christianity and Islam have become far more concerned with rules and less concerned with pastorial care, so that the denouciation of homosexual conduct and its criminalization (for they own good, mind you) is increasing.

    I suppose the only solution is to fight back as best we can. Remember, when the prostitute was brought before Jesus, he did not question the law calling for her death. He merely pointed out that no one there was less sinful than her. Those who would quote Leviticus about God’s abhorance of male homosexual acts (Leviticus 19) or note the death penalty sanction (Leviticus 21) might remember that the preceeding versus of both chapters deal extensively with adultary, with the same penalty.

    When you get right down to it, the Old Testiment has quite a few laws that would not be acceptable today (can’t wear cloths made from two different types of fabric?).

  • Why did she wait so long to file suit? Well, in the Seattle PI story, it says, “Last month, the Air Force, which has unfilled positions of flight nurses, sent her final discharge papers.” I’m guessing that it took that long to exhaust all of the administrative appeals.

    Generally I’m an admirer of Bill Clinton, but his “don’t ask” policy was almost instantly revealed to be a scam, and completely lacking in any protections for service members. Clinton’s bow to Sam Nunn and the uniformed homophobes is, to my mind, a much bigger stain on his legacy than anything that showed up on Monica’s dress.

    And I also agree with Steve that someone needs to perform an exorcism on the Air Force to cast out the fallwellians and dobsonocrats.

  • This may be dynamic, so I don’t know if you are seeing the same Google Ads (left of screen, blue background) on the screen that I am, but don’t these seem a bit ironic for this article:

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  • This is but another example of the willful stupidity of the posture of the U.S. military with respect to gays and lesbians. It’s also another example of why the ACLU matters. People with very cramped points of view and the zealous fervor required to push those views forward have far too much influence in pubic policy these days. Major Witt deserves better treatment, and I seriously doubt any of the wounded men and women whom she has helped save or heal would have refused her care because of her sexuality. “Don’t Ask / Don’t Tell” is in reality “Don’t Be Gay (Lesbian) /Don’t Get Turned In / Don’t Serve.”

  • Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell simply enacts a 1993 law passed by Congress (see 10 U.S.C. Sec. 654). It’s not fair to blame the military because Congress passed a dumb law. They’ve got no latitude to disobey.

    That law was a 1993 compromise proposed by Clinton who found it too difficult to follow through on his campaign pledge to end the previous ban.

    Granted the preceding ban was a DoD policy, so it’s fair to say that they have an anti-gay history, but who know what their policy would be now. I hear they need recruits.

  • So, the Air Force isn’t afraid to fly into enemy territory, but it is afraid of a lesbian nurse? No wonder folks are afraid to go to the doctor.

  • Tuimel writes: People with very cramped points of view and the zealous fervor required to push those views forward have far too much influence in pubic policy these days.

    True enough, Freudian slip or not.

  • Maj. Witt is a friend of mine. She was close to her 20 year mark and was
    going on to become Lt.Col. Witt.

    She wasn’t “out of the closet” to anybody other than her closest of
    friends and of course her girlfriend, but not to anyone at work. She met
    someone and fell in love, crushing her girlfriend.

    About 2 months later her C.O. received an unsigned letter accusing
    her of being a lesbian. The Air Force terminated her over an anonymous
    and unsubstantiated letter.

    She contacted an attorney to see if she had any legal recourse. Her
    attorney contacted the ACLU who offered to get involved.

    We’re all (the LGBT folks in Spokane) behind her and are hitting
    the Spokesman Review with letters of support. She’s a very private woman
    and is in shock over what’s happening to her. She’s being couragous so
    other service people won’t suffer the way she has. The following is my letter
    that was in the paper today:

    Major Margaret Witt (who was soon to become Lieutenant Colonel

    Margaret Witt) served our Nation and cared for our injured military

    service people for 19 years. She never identified herself as a “lesbian.”

    She did identify herself as a combat nurse. Just one year from her 20

    year-mark she was “outed” by an unsigned letter that was sent to her

    Superior.

    Like Major Witt, a high percentage of care-givers in America are gay.

    They work long hours trying to save our loved ones from pain and

    suffering. If you were to ask a professional care-giver, “What do you

    do for a living?” not one of them would respond with, “I’m Gay.” A

    person’s sexuality is not their identity.

    Sexuality is no more ‘chosen’ by homosexuals then heterosexuals;

    heterosexuals aren’t attracted to homosexuals and visa-versa. I would

    ask Tom Frisque when he first identified himself as a practicing hetero-

    sexual? I have never practiced being a lesbian; most of us don’t need

    to practice.

    If I were in a foxhole with anyone, my concern would be about their

    marksmanship, not with who they loved.

    As my dear old mother used to say, “A fox smells his own hole first.”

    Now it makes sense.

    Marge Ballack-Lantz
    Spokane, WA

  • The person Major Witt fell in love with was my wife of 23 years and mother to three of my children. Major Witt is amoral. She wrote declarations against me in the divorce proceedings to attempt to separate me from my minor child without ever mentioning her adulterous relationship with my wife. Her declaration is signed under penalty of perjury to tell the truth, THE WHOLE TRUTH and nothing but the truth. What kind of person has an affair with a heterosexual married women while befriending the family, then writes a declaration againse the husband of the women she had an affair with without mentioning this fact? It would be the same circumstance if the rapist, still unknown to the rape victim, testified in court that the rape victim was promiscious in order to discredit her (or him).

    My wife was also her direct subordinate in a taxpayer funded entity.

    The letter to the Air Force was not unsigned, anonymous or unsubstantiated.

  • I would be remiss if I did not add my support to Margi. I served as department secretary in the physical therapy school Margi graduated from. I knew her for three years as a fun-loving, dedicated, intelligent and private woman who got along with everyone. She not only excelled in a highly competitive and extremely challenging program, she remained active in her military reserve unit, managed to do it all well, and finished what she started.

    I cannot comment on any of the things that resulted in Margi’s discharge from the Air Force, because I wasn’t there. But, I do know it takes ‘two to tangle’, and while a husband and father is deeply hurt and has the right to be angry over losing his wife and the mother of his children, it never serves any useful purpose to intentionally destroy another person’s life and career. No amount of anger ever justifies revenge and such despicable acts as reporting someone for whom they love, knowing the military’s stand on such matters. If the marriage had been good the wife would not have left it. What recourse would the husband have had if she left him for another man? None of this is the issue, as I see it. It is the desperate act of a man losing his woman. He lost control. He is embarrased about it and is trying to justify his behavior, whether he informed the Air Force himself, had someone else do it, or both. A real man would take responsibility, own his part in all this, and get on with his life. It is easy for me to see why his wife left him.

    Margi most certainly was not the reason or the cause for this marriage to end – it would have happened eventually. Margi is facing this head-on and dealing with it like a reasonable mature, adult – the only thing she knows how to do and the only thing a reasonable, functional person does.

  • I am a retired AF officer myself and I believe everyone above bashing the USAF is very misinformed on a lot of things. People need ot quit looking at things and making generalizations off the back when nine times out of ten, they never served.

    As an AF officer she is held to a higher standard and knows the rules. Had Maj. Witt found out one of her Airman was gay, she would of had to been the one putting in the paperwork for that person to be dismissed, these rules are in place for a reason. Yes she cared for our soldiers and no one is taking that away, but as an officer she should lead by example and being a lesbian….an adultureous one at that, is not leading by example. I support the decision made by the military and every other, and also, this is just a hunch, had she not been so close to retirement, I dont think she would have sued. I think this is all about the benefits and money!

  • If Ralph is an example of current AF thinking (and writing), God help us.

  • It makes me really ashamed to read that in the country which pretends to bring freedom and democracy to the rest of the world someone whose sexual orientation is gay and who had sex with another consenting adult is in for a witch hunt and that people are actually talking about amorality.

    Those guys are no better than Islamic fundamentalists who would have stoned Maj. Witt and her lover without a second thought. What kind of moral leadership is that. Are we back to the middle ages – or is the US still unknowingly right in the middle of it?

  • Ralph, put yourself in Maj Witt’s combat boots for a moment and let’s put the ‘gay’ thing aside – how would you react if you were being investigated, and in the meantime had been dishonorably discharged, lost your pension and any future job prospects? Point being, if the military decides an investigation is necessary, for whatever reason they deem it necessary, so be it. But, to publicly villify a soldier, take away her job and refuse to pay her the pension they promised, is unforgiveable. Maj Witt never claimed to walk on water, nor has she ever led anyone to believe she was anything other than a human being. So, you are saying she should be ashamed for loving and living the private life we all are entitled to have? I would lay odds you, too, have a skeleton or two in your own closet, and like my mother used to say, “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”. Maj Witt is braving scrutiny and trying to live some semblance of a life without the privacy we all are entitled to. Let the military be the military. And, let people be people. No laws were broken. No injustice was done. There is no issue here.

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