Stars and Stripes reports that “today’s military is ‘a cross-section of America’ that’s stronger than ever, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said while marking five years since the ban on homosexuals openly serving in the military was repealed.”

“’Don’t ask, don’t tell,’ instituted in 1994 by the Clinton administration, prohibited those who ‘demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts’ from military service because their presence ‘would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability.’”

“In 2011, President Barack Obama lifted the policy, in which servicemembers were not to ask about others’ sexual orientation or talk about their own.”