ABC News(HUBBARDSTON, Mass.) For former Navy sailor Annie Reyes, seeing the words on paper still stings: "Reason for discharge: homosexual conduct."
"We were in Bahrain in the middle of the ocean, and they re like, This is the perfect time to kick someone out for being gay, " Reyes, 40, said of her 2009 dismissal from the USS Bataan under the Don t Ask, Don t Tell policy.
"Even right now, I don t qualify to get my full benefits because I didn t get a chance to serve the four years," said the former electrician s mate and married mother of two in an interview. "There are so many people that this happened to that it s ridiculous."
More than a decade after Congress ended the military s ban on gay service members, Reyes and thousands of other LGBTQ veterans like her are still fighting to restore their dignity and obtain full access to veteran benefits like health care, home loans, and college tuition that were denied after less-than-honorable
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