In 1989, during a routine interview for top-secret security clearance, U.S. Army Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer revealed she was a lesbian-- and began an ordeal that despite her distinguished twenty-six-year military career, resulted in her discharge from the U.S. Army. Her dismissal garnered intense media coverage, stirred debate all the way to the presidency, and ignited her activism that continues today. In this revealing autobiography, Cammermeyer writes of her decision to challange the official policy on homosexuals in the military and of her victory in Federal District Court and beyond. But much more than a book about laws and politics, Serving in silence is about coming of age, being a mother, and finding one's center; about tne daily horrors of nursing in Vietnam; about "coming out"; and about a brave soldier's life.