THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Sunday, July 10, 1994                  TAG: 9407100026
SECTION: FRONT                    PAGE: A11  EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 
DATELINE: CAMP MURRAY, WASH.                 LENGTH: Medium:   56 lines

LESBIAN COLONEL BACK AT JOB AFTER REINSTATEMENT JUSTICE OFFICIALS HAD ASKED A COURT TO DELAY HER RETURN.

Two years after Col. Margarethe Cammermeyer was kicked out of the National Guard for being a lesbian, the highly decorated Vietnam veteran was back at her old job Saturday.

A federal court ordered her reinstatement last month, ruling her discharge based on her sexual orientation was unconstitutional. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Thursday refused to delay that order.

A smiling Cammermeyer, dressed in a camouflage uniform, arrived in a white Mercedes-Benz and entered the main gate at the Washington National Guard headquarters, south of Tacoma.

She returned to her job as chief of nursing services for the 164th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. As a regular reservist, her work obligation is two days per month and a 15-day annual training mission. The job pays about $12,000 a year.

``She has to catch up on some administrative things,'' Guard spokeswoman Donna Hubbert said. ``She has to get a new ID card. She has to get a physical because she's overdue.''

Guard commander Maj. Gen. Greg Barlow asked Cammermeyer to report to work Saturday after the appeals court rejected the Justice Department's latest effort to block her reinstatement.

``I never knew the military to move so fast,'' Cammermeyer said Friday night in a telephone interview. ``I'm more disappointed that it's taken two years to get here.''

The Justice Department wanted her reinstatement delayed until its appeal could be heard, or at least until the court rules in a similar case involving a homosexual Navy sonar instructor.

The 52-year-old Cammermeyer is a 26-year military veteran who was awarded the Bronze Star as an Army nurse in Vietnam.

She was discharged involuntarily in 1992, three years after disclosing her sexual orientation in a security clearance interview. The military had maintained a longstanding ban on homosexuality until its recent revision to the policy commonly called ``don't ask, don't tell.''

A Justice Department spokeswoman, reached Friday in Washington, D.C., declined to comment. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Washington National Guard Col. Margareth Cammermeyer drives into

work Saturday at Camp Murray, near Tacoma, Wash., two years after

being discharged for being a lesbian.

KEYWORDS: GAYS IN THE MILITARY U.S. NATIONAL GUARD by CNB