‘What’s going to happen for us?’ These gay military veterans wonder what Biden’s new pardon means for them

After President Joe Biden pardoned American veterans who were convicted under a military law that banned gay sex for more than 60 years, Mona McGuire and Karla Lehmann have been left wondering whether the announcement will affect service members, like them, who accepted less than honorable discharges rather than face court martial – a lasting stain on their military records.

The predawn silence was shattered by heavy banging on the doors of the US Army barracks in West Germany that morning in May 1988. Mona McGuire and Karla Lehmann were handcuffed, pulled from their barracks, interrogated for hours and eventually kicked out of the Army for admitting to charges of sodomy and an indecent act to avoid a court martial and prison. “I wasn’t going to prison at 19, 20 years old for loving another human being, for loving another female,” McGuire told CNN. In the decades since, McGuire said, she has led “an honorable life” while overcoming her emotional scars. She lives in a Milwaukee suburb with her two sons and her wife. She has worked at a printing company for the last 35 years. “I was able to recover and strong enough to carry on,” she said. Lehmann retired in 2016 from the Milwaukee Police Department after 26 years on the job and is now a victim advocate for the Michigan State Police. She and McGuire remain friends.