then it hit the fan. It hit my fan. And all of the sudden I became fearful and anxious.”

James didn’t know she was gay in 1952 because she hadn’t even heard the word. But she had been coaching basketball and softball, and some of the women who played wereshe can say the word nowlesbian.

In 1955, the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) started investigating James because of her friendships. It was the first time she realized she was different, she says.

The OSI searched James’ room, rifling through her personal letters and files. Investigators questioned her on and off the base. She was interrogated after going to a dance club in New York and eating a sandwich at a local shop. She was even stopped after using the bathroom.

Within fourmonths, OSI arrested James and two other women. An investigator told her was a threat to national security and that he would tell her friends and family she was gay.

She relented and agreed to sign anything they wanted. On August 17, 1955, she was dishonorably discharged, a humiliation struck at the heart of who was.

“I had a discharge that was not an honorable discharge,” she says. “I come from a military family. My grandfather was a Union soldier. My father was a World War I. My cousins, my foster brother were military and had been injured and hurt through World War II.”

James moved on, but she never got over it.

In 1968, she appealed the discharge and had it upgraded to “general under honorable conditions.” But that designation falls