“Linda had expressed for so long the dismay that she and her father had given their entire careers to this country and this country would not recognize her as a human being in return,” Avakian said. But she also wanted to be with the woman she loved. She wanted to be buried in Willamette, where her veteran father was buried. To Campbell, he said, her military service and her marriage were two of the most important things in her life. When he first met Campbell and Lynchild in 2012, he was the Oregon state labor commissioner. “But this was a fight.”Īvakian is now a professor at Willamette University, and a vice president at Clark College in Vancouver, Washington. “The word ‘fight’ is used so often in politics it loses its meaning,” he told CNN.
In the process, he got to know the couple he describes as “remarkable.” Dan Sherwood/Design Pics /Zumaīrad Avakian was one of the Oregon state leaders who helped Lynchild secure a place for her wife at Willamette.
Willamette National Cemetery in Portland, Oregon. The right to a military burial for gay spouses was guaranteed nationwide with the legalization of same-sex marriage in 2015, but only a handful of known same-sex military couples are buried across the 172 national cemeteries in the US – grounds reserved chiefly for military members and selected family.įor most, the honor has been hard won with bravery and unerring love. When Campbell died in 2018, her ashes were buried with her wife’s and sealed behind a stone carved with a sandhill crane, a symbol for their undying love.Ĭampbell was the first gay veteran to secure burial rights for her spouse, and the pair were the first same-sex military couple to be buried together at a US national cemetery.Ĭampbell put their legacy into words in 2013: “Our nation will know and everyone who passes by here will know that we lovingly, proudly and legally were wed, and that we have earned the right to be here in this hallowed space.” Oregon state leaders helped her convince Veterans Affairs to allow Lynchild’s remains to be interred at Willamette. Too soon for a nation that had not yet federally legalized same-sex marriage, leaving Campbell with little recourse when Veterans Affairs denied her request for Lynchild’s burial on the same hallowed ground to which other military spouses were entitled. Too soon for Campbell, who lived another six years without the love of her life. She had chosen her nearby waterfront apartment so that she could see, from a distance, the place where her wife silently waited for her.
In Willamette National Cemetery in Oregon, lines of marble rise row on row above acres of vivid green.
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