'Serving In Silence' Veterans Day Events

It’s been ten years since the repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” & with the Biden Administration our transgender & intersex servicemembers are finally safe for now but there was a time not too far ago when our LGBTQ community could not be their authentic selves in the US Military. I talked to filmmaker Cindy L. Abel about her documentary “Surviving The Silence” that tells that story. In 1992 Colonel Thompson was a decorated Army nurse just two years away from her retirement after serving her country for over thirty years from conflict zones to working inside the Pentagon. At this trajectory of her career she was asked to preside over the military review board that eventually dismissed Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer for admitting she was a lesbian. For Thompson that trial was perhaps the hardest assignment in her long military career because she had to confront her own moral dilemma that she too was a lesbian & living privately with her life partner Barbara Brass for many years. On Veterans Day Thursday November 11th you can also join PFLAG National for a special “Something to Talk About Live” discussion with Colonel Pat Thompson & Barbara Brass for a 30-minute live event to discuss the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” years & anti-LGBTQ discrimination in the military at 4:30P EST via PFLAG National’s Facebook, YouTube, Twitter & LinkedIn channels. I asked filmmaker Cindy L. Abel, Colonel Thompson & her wife Barbara Brass about what they hope to accomplish with Surviving The Silence & their spin on our LGBTQ issues in this exclusive audio interview. LISTEN