Imagine serving the country you love while being discriminated for your sexual identity. In the eyes of the 1994 American Military; lesbian, gay, transgender, or bisexual men and women should never have the right to serve their country. This sight later turned to reality, and this reality was the outcome of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) policy. For 17 years, this senseless regulation prohibited LGBT service men and women from serving the country they love. These men and women soon formed together to share their stories of how they had to live under the DADT policy while serving in the military. These stories created the book Our Time by Josh Seefried. In this biography, the author shares stories of LGBT service members and how they had to hide their true sexual preference under the DADT policy. These stories are told first hand from past and present service members who took a stand to defend their sexual identity and distinguish the DADT policy. Although I have never had any experience with discrimination, these stories of LGBT servicemen and women showed me firsthand of what it would be like to serve your country, while still being discriminated. This challenged my thinking in several ways, in some stories I would notice how hard an LGBT service member worked every day just to come back to the fact that he could never reveal his sexual preference. Yet, in other stories, some service members could no longer hide their identity and finally came out to their peers, which later formed their discharge from the military. However, throughout all the stories and all the differences, I noticed how each experience had something similar. Each service member was battling the same problem, no matter how hard they worked, all it came down to was their sexual preference. One part of their true self could change their whole career. Before reading this biography, I rarely had any interest in even picking up a book. However, these stories shared by real people, with real experiences, have drawn me into reading more and more. With this, these stories have opened up my sense of thought even broader than I could have imagined. At first, I had no idea what the DADT policy was and how hard it was for LGBT service members to serve their country from 1994-2011. However, I can now happily share my opinion and stories about these service members and how much courage they had in order to endure the discrimination they went through. All in all, I highly recommend this book to anyone who agrees or disagrees with LGBT people serving in the military because I know it will change the way you think about discrimination to gays, lesbians, transgender and bisexual people. "My friends who know about me being gay, tell me that not only am I in the closet, but I am living proof that the whole military is a big closet. They think I’m crazy for remaining in the military, yet here I am still doing my job to the best of my ability and proudly serving my country every day” - LGBT Service Member in Our Time by Josh Seefried By Beau H.
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AuthorSTenth grade students at Decorah High School share how they're reading outside of their own experiences and how it has changed them. Categories
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November 2022
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