|
Credit: Addison Geary
Beth Hillman, a professor at the School
of Law-Camden, displays her recent book
on military justice.
|
Air Force veteran Beth Hillman was on leave studying for a master’s degree in history at the University of Pennsylvania in 1993 when the military adopted the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding gays in the armed forces. Coincidentally, Hillman came out as a lesbian during the same time.
So her return to the U.S. Space Command in Colorado Springs, Colo., was somewhat awkward, to say the least. The policy has left Hillman, an associate professor at the School of Law-Camden, with mixed feelings about the military.
“I knew at some point during that year that the Air Force probably wouldn’t work for me. It was a long drive from Philadelphia to Colorado Springs,” she recalls. “By the time I got there, I knew I wouldn’t be staying in the Air Force.”
Still, her experience set the stage for Hillman’s scholarly studies. After she left the Air Force, she went to Yale University for her Ph.D. in history and a law degree. Now, she studies military justice, American legal history, and gender and sexuality in the law and military. She has just published her first book, “Defending America: Military Culture and the Cold War Court-Martial” (Princeton University Press, 2005).
Hillman joined the Air Force as a way to pay for her studies at Duke University. She had always been curious about the military since her father served in World War II as a member of the Army Air Forces, the precursor to the Air Force. At Duke, she excelled as an ROTC student: She was the highest-ranking cadet on campus as a senior and won several national cadet-of-the-year awards.
She went on to do equally well as an orbital analyst at the Space Command in Colorado. Her job kept her behind a computer, but it was crucial work. She tracked satellites belonging to the United States and other countries, located lost satellites, kept space shuttles safe from floating objects in the atmosphere and worked with the neighboring missile-warning center.
During the 1991 Gulf War, Hillman and her colleagues put in long hours, analyzed incoming intelligence and monitored reconnaissance satellites. “There were always the same things to do,” Hillman says, “but my job during the war was more important because the stakes felt that much higher.”
Hillman excelled on the job. In 1992, she was named company grade officer of the year in the U.S. Space Command. Seeking to expand her horizons, she went on leave for a year to pursue her master’s degree.
President Bill Clinton had just introduced the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays and lesbians in the military. He had vowed to allow people of all sexual orientations to serve openly in the military, but the new law was a compromise with those who vigorously opposed the promise. At the same time, Hillman came out to herself and others.
She returned to her Air Force job to find a different atmosphere. “I knew it was a risk to come out to people,” Hillman said. Many gays and lesbians considered themselves part of a clandestine “family” and stuck together – but faced the risk of being outed nonetheless. When she and her friends frequented a lesbian bar in Colorado Springs, “we would sometimes park further away ... you’d worry about who you would see.”
After teaching history at the Air Force Academy for a couple of years, Hillman left to become an academic. She is strongly opposed to “don’t ask, don’t tell.” “It not only denies people the opportunity to serve in the military, it makes the military less effective,” she says. She believes that tens of thousands of potential recruits each year are lost because of the law.
“There are lots of ways to serve one’s country. I’m not comfortable with elevating the military over the things people do within their families and communities to affect their country,” she says. Then her thoughts turn to her father, who died last year. “I respect the sacrifice that people make in the military.”
|
