In June 2023, U.S. Navy veteran Martin Cerezo was laid to rest at Willamette National Cemetery with full military honors. This burial had been his dying wish, and sadly, when he had passed nearly three years earlier, it had seemed nearly impossible.
There were two major hurdles.
Despite being a top-performing sailor, because of his sexuality, Martin had been dishonorably discharged from the Navy three decades earlier under the 1982 Department of Defense policy (before the onset of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, which was repealed in 2011) that banned homosexuals from serving in the United States military. Martin’s “Other Than Honorable” discharge from the Navy made him ineligible for federal and state veteran benefits, including military burial honors.
Martin, who had always dreamed of serving his country in the nation’s military, had started the process of upgrading his discharge status with the assistance of the Oregon Department of Veterans’ Affairs.
While his petition was progressing, Martin’s health took a turn for the worse. Since 2000, Martin had been living with cryptogenic cirrhosis of the liver. In 2019, he was diagnosed with liver cancer, and the following year, doctors informed him that he only had six months to live.
His mother, Cheryle Cerezo-Gardner, became his caregiver. While he fought for his life, Cheryle continued her son’s battle to restore honor to his service by petitioning for the upgrade of his discharge status which also provided him access to veteran benefits.
On New Year’s Eve in 2020, two days before Martin lost his battle with liver cancer, Cheryle was informed that he would be reinstated to honorable discharge status. However, there was another issue. Because Martin’s service had been prematurely terminated, he had not met the federal mandatory length of active-duty service necessary for a military burial.
Bowed but not beaten, Cheryle vowed to continue her fight, promising her son as much on his deathbed.
“I promised him that it would happen,” she told the Oregon Department of Veterans’ Affairs. Martin was unconscious at that point, but she knew he heard her voice, explaining, “He squeezed my hand. And Martin knew all his life that I keep my promises. If it had taken me another 20 years, I would have kept my promise.”
Fortunately, it did not take 20 years. With the continued help of ODVA LGBTQ+ Veterans Coordinator Ian Michael, County Veterans Service Officer Amber Locke, and Lawyers Serving Warriors, a legal group that assists veterans and families, Cheryle filed an appeal on her son’s behalf. Letters from Oregon Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden helped elevate the issue.
“We were told it could take five years to amend his service record,” she remembered. “But having two senators in your corner is not a bad thing. We got it done in three months.”
And on June 9, 2023, as Pride celebrations began to kick off across Oregon, she gathered with his family and friends at Willamette National Cemetery for a memorial service to permanently inurn his ashes — with full military honors.
“It was an emotional service,” she recalled. “I just felt thankful that I was able to do what I had promised I would do. It was exactly what he wanted. And it took a long time, but I’m just grateful we were able to get it done.”
That, too, was not the end of the story for Cheryle, as she is continuing her fight to help ensure no other veterans or veterans’ families have to go through what she and her son experienced.
“You know, Martin tried for over 30 years to get it changed, and every time he ran into a roadblock, it was as if he was reliving that horrible, horrible moment of getting discharged all over again,” Cheryle said. “People don’t understand what it means to lose your military service, it’s more than losing a job, when your government tells you that you’re not worthy, you’re not honorable.
“It’s a form of (post-traumatic stress disorder). Most people don’t have the resources or the ability to go through that over and over again — and they shouldn’t have to. These men and women who served their country have been through enough.”
Cheryle said her ultimate goal would be to see federal legislation or presidential clemency for all veterans who were discharged for no reason other than their sexual orientation or gender identity. Both Merkley and Wyden have long supported efforts to restore LGBTQ veterans’ military honors, and earlier this year, President Joe Biden announced broad clemency for LGBTQ service members who were wrongly court-martialed and forced out of the military for no other reason than their sexual orientation or gender identity.
In the meantime, Cheryle expressed her undying gratitude for Veterans Service Officers Ian Michael and Amber Locke, whom she said went “above and beyond” in their duties to ensure Martin received the honors he deserved.
Today, she encourages other Oregon veterans and family members who may be in a similar situation to reach out to ODVA or their county or tribal veteran services office for a free consultation and assistance.
“My main advice would be to never give up,” she said. “You have to persevere. And I would also advise people to look into every avenue they can think of. Those resources are important for people who have questions or just need moral support, somebody to stand with them, because it’s a lonely, lonely task to go through.”
For information or resources for LGBTQ+ veterans or family members, visit www.oregon.gov/odva/resources/pages/lgbtq-veterans.aspx or contact ODVA’s LGBTQ+ Veterans Coordinator at (503) 373-2327 or ODVA_LGBTQvets@odva.oregon.gov. To locate your nearest county or tribal veteran services office or other needed veteran services near you, visit www.oregon.gov/odva/Services/Pages/default.aspx.
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