Margarethe Cammermeyer
Margarethe Cammermeyer (born March 24, 1942 in Oslo , also known as Grethe Cammermeyer ) is a former soldier of the United States National Guard and lesbian activist .
Childhood and youth
Even before she was born, Norway was occupied by the German Wehrmacht in April 1940 . Her parents were active in the resistance and her mother hid weapons under her mattress and used them as camouflage. She grew up among people who risked their lives for what they understood by freedom. Her father was the first Norwegian to receive training in the United States as part of the Rockefeller Fellowship in 1946 . The family lived in Boston for nine months , but returned to Norway.
In 1951 the family emigrated for good and moved to Washington, DC At 17, she began her college education at the University of Maryland in Baltimore and in 1960 she received American citizenship . In 1961 Cammermeyer enlisted in the United States Army and completed the Army Student Nurse Program . She completed her training in 1963 as a nurse with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing .
Life
She has now started her active service as a lieutenant in the Army Nurse Corps . She received her military training at Fort Sam Houston , Texas . Later stations were the Martin Army Hospital in Fort Benning in Georgia and a longer stay in Nuremberg . There she met her husband and got married. After Germany she was stationed with her husband at Fort Lee and in 1967 she was sent to the military hospital in Long Binh in Vietnam . There she worked for six months as head nurse in the general infirmary and eight months as head nurse in the neurosurgical intensive care unit. She then moved to Seattle with her husband and had to quit the military when she became pregnant in 1968 because women in the military were not allowed to have dependent family members. The scheme has been amended as in 1972, they re-entered military service, reaching in 1987 the rank of Colonel ( Colonel ).
After 15 years of marriage and four sons, she separated from her husband. There were problems in the relationship that she didn't understand at first. During this time there were occasional impulses suicide to commit. She was about to come out and realized that she was a lesbian. In 1988 she met her new partner Diane Divelbess (* 1935), who was an artist and university professor at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona . It was only then that she realized why she had an aversion to intimacy with men. That same year, Cammermeyer accepted the position as senior nurse for the Washington State National Guard . During an interview at the security check to a release for classification level Top Secret obtain, she was asked whether she is gay and she answered truthfully, "I'm a lesbian." This was before the later customary “ don't ask, don't tell ” policy.
After her outing , Cammermeyer was dishonorably discharged from the military in 1992 . In 1994, their dishonorable discharge from active duty and the ban was of homosexuals in military US by Judge Thomas Zilly from the Federal District Court in Seattle declared unconstitutional. After this ruling, Cammermeyer returned to the National Guard until she retired in 1997 . After her retirement, Cammermeyer ran for the US Congress . She lost to her fellow candidate, Republican Jack Metcalf .
Margarethe Cammermeyer became known through the filming of her story for television. In the film Die Cammermeyer´s Story, Serving in Silence , Margarethe Cammermeyer was played by Glenn Close . The film won three Emmys and a GLAAD Award . The hardest part for Cammermeyer on this project was giving up some of her privacy, but it also had positive personal effects. Her sons, between 19 and 27 at the time of broadcast, understood what their mother had been through in this visual way.
She lives with her partner in a house on Whidbey Island , near Seattle.
See also
Web links
swell
- ↑ a b c Linda Mathews: She Asks, She Tells , New York Times, May 16, 1996
- ↑ Ginia Bellafante: They Asked, She Told , Time Magazine, February 6, 1995
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Cammermeyer, Margarethe |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Cammermeyer, Grethe |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American soldier and lesbian activist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 24, 1942 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Oslo |