Do Tell: The High Cost of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell

Capt. Joan Darrah, now retired, served the United States almost 30 years as a naval intelligence specialist. But it was only on Sept. 11, 2001, that she fully absorbed the cruelty of what the U.S. military demanded of her.

“I was at the Pentagon bus stop,” Darrah told a congressional committee recently. ” … The space I had been in seven minutes earlier was completely destroyed. Seven of my co-workers were killed. The reality is that if I had been killed, my partner of 11 years would have been the last to know, as I had not dared to list her in my emergency contact information.”

Darrah’s testimony and that of other veterans brought flesh and blood intensity to the first congressional review of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in 15 years.

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