Colonel Cammermeyer Given Warm Reception By Students
OLYMPIA - Col. Margarethe Cammermeyer's speech to a school assembly was almost anticlimactic.
Less than a week after heated debate at a school board meeting on the invitation to Cammermeyer, a lesbian who won reinstatement to the Army National Guard, her speech Friday was warmly received by about 600 students, teachers and parents at Olympia High School.
There were no protests. Even a few students who stayed seated during a standing ovation at the end of her talk on the history of women in the military were attentive.
"I have nothing against Colonel Cammermeyer herself, and she's a very honorable person, but I don't think her sexual preference is moral," said junior Katherine Greer.
Cammermeyer was invited to be guest speaker by the Student Activist Club.
"We thought she was a really strong woman that this student body would benefit from hearing," co-chairwoman Abby Kelso said.