Mr. Loverde, 32, was discharged from the Air Force in 2008 after revealing to his commanding officer that he is gay. President Obama signed legislation repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” last December, but the fate of Mr. Loverde and some 14,000 other service members whose lives were turned upside down by the 17-year-old policy is unclear.
The Pentagon is preparing to phase out “don’t ask, don’t tell,” possibly by the fall, but the measure revoking the policy was silent on what steps the Pentagon should take regarding service members who were already discharged because of their sexual orientation.
Mr. Loverde, now a photography student at Academy of Art University in San Francisco, is one of three California veterans waging a legal battle against the military in Federal District Court in San Francisco. They have filed a suit that seeks to have them reinstated and to declare “don’t ask, don’t tell” and the “regulations, policies, and guidance that implement it unconstitutional on their face.”
Mr. Loverde, who deployed to Iraq in 2007, said he wanted the Air Force to reinstate him immediately, restore his rank of staff sergeant and give him back his old job as a loadmaster on C-130 aircraft.
“They want to treat us as if we willingly left on our own, but they fired us,” he said. “Our lives were uprooted.”
More than 14,000 service members have been discharged under “don’t ask, don’t tell,” according to the Pentagon. Advocacy groups estimate that 40,000 others were discharged in the decades when there was an outright ban on gays. The Pentagon said it could not provide statistics on the number of service members discharged because of their sexual orientation before “don’t ask, don’t tell” went into effect in 1993.
Many younger veterans, like Mr. Loverde, have indicated they would like to rejoin the military once “don’t ask, don’t tell” is repealed. Others want the word “homosexual” removed from their discharge papers or to have their discharges upgraded from “other than honorable” to “honorable” so they can receive full veterans benefits.
“With the repeal and hopefully the authorization from the Joint Chiefs, I think there will be a flood of people coming to upgrade their discharges, including myself,” said Richard Manning, 65, the first vice commander of the American Legion’s Alexander Hamilton Post 448 in San Francisco, which is composed of gay and lesbian veterans.
Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which brought the suit on the veterans’ behalf, said his organization is continuing the litigation because it has heard from hundreds of veterans discharged under “don’t ask, don’t tell” who plan to return to the military.
“They are ready to serve their country again,” Mr. Sarvis said.
In court papers filed earlier this month, the Justice Department, which is representing the military, argued that the suit should be dismissed or moved to a special federal court whose jurisdiction is limited to personnel matters.
“We have encouraged the courts to withhold further proceedings in litigation until the executive branch’s certification process is complete,” Tracy Schmaler, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.
The repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” will formally take effect 60 days after the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff certify that the military “has prepared the necessary policies and regulations” to carry out the change, and that the shift won’t damage the military’s ability to fight or recruit.
In Congressional testimony, Defense Department officials have said the certification is likely to take place this summer, leading to a full repeal in September or October.
That timetable makes the veterans’ case difficult, said Michael Zamperini, a professor at the Golden Gate University School of Law in San Francisco.
Last September, a federal judge in another California case declared “don’t ask, don’t tell” unconstitutional and temporarily halted discharges under the policy. That case is under appeal. But Mr. Zamperini said judges are likely to defer to Congress now that President Obama has signed the repeal.
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