IN VICTOR VOE’S FAMILY, MILITARY SERVICE SKIPPED A GENERATION. BOTH HIS
grandfathers served. And, as an airman himself, he’s been joined now by his brother and brother-in-law in serving the United States.“It was never really something I considered when I was growing up,” he concedes. But confronted with a taxing job market, he says,“I needed to try something different, so I enlisted a year or so after college.” Eight years later, the active duty serviceman is fighting in federal court to remain in the Air Force. He was discharged not because he is gay — but because he’s HIV positive. Voe and Richard Roe (which are pseudonyms) are challenging the legality of the Pentagon’s “Deploy or Get Out” policy, which prevents service members living with HIV from deploying outside the country without a waiver. They see the policy as discriminatory.
BODY
Scott Schoettes
LIVING THE WITH HIV IN MILITARY
A policy change threatens to drum HIV+ people out of the military. But they’re not leaving without a fight. BY JEFF SIMMONS
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DECEMBER 2019/JANUARY 2020
METROSOURCE.COM
The new guidelines were announced by the administration in early 2018. They direct the Pentagon to identify service members who cannot be deployed to military posts outside of the country for more than 12 consecutive months. Such troops are then recommended to be severed from service. Since the military considers people with HIV as non-deployable - unless they get a waiver - they face immediate discharge. Lambda Legal, the Modern Military Association of America and the law firm Winston & Strawn LLP filed suit in May 2018. They were initially unsuccessful in seeking a preliminary stay against the practice, citing discrimination. But then the government began discharging HIV positive members, and a subsequent court filing – challenging the discharges - was successful in securing an injunction. This past September, the US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit weighed the Department of Defense’s appeal, which reasons that the two airmen could no longer perform their duties because their fields required them to deploy frequently and their condition prevented these deployments.
THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST Scott Schoettes, HIV Project Director and Counsel at Lambda Legal, argued the case. He dismissed the government’s contentions that the servicemen presented a heightened risk of transmitting HIV in the battlefield, and that it was unable to provide necessary care to those with HIV. In fact, both airmen adhere to treatment regimens that have left them non-transmittable and with undetectable viral loads. “There is certainly an atmosphere where these [prejudicial policies] are being more tolerated or encouraged,” Schoettes says. “It does create an atmosphere in which populations vulnerable to these kinds of attacks suffer the consequences.” He adds, “If you are in the Air Force now, you have to worry about being discharged. It would end your military career - as they have attempted to do with our named plaintiffs and five other individuals we know about.” Both airmen are demanding their impending discharges be ruled unconstitutional and stopped. Their goal is to continue to serve. Voe stresses that the case is not about seeking payouts but policy change. “I really hope that there are people out there who know we are not doing this for monetary advantage to get something from the Air Force,” Voe says. “We want to be able to serve in the military and do what we promised to. We are not doing this for ourselves.” ■
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METROHIV
A BIASED POLICY
