NIU students should continue to pressure NIU’s ROTC to stop banning homosexuals, a lesbian and former Army drill sergeant instructor said Friday.

Mariam Ben-Shalom, who was kicked out of the Army in 1976 and 1988, offered a personal and emotional appeal to an audience of about 40 people to continue the fight against the anti-homosexual military policy.

“Silence shall certainly equal death. You need to keep the pressure on,” Ben-Shalom said.

andwritten letters to Congressmen, daily phone calls to the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, and public protests by students and faculty can help change the policy, she said.

“Congressmen really do read handwritten letters,” she said.

Ben-Shalom said the Department of Defense is “scared,” and with a continuous fight, the anti-homosexual policy will change in two to three years.

Ben-Shalom originally was banned from the Army in 1976 because of her sexual orientation. She claimed the policy was unconstitutional, and after a 11-year court battle, she was allowed back into the Army in 1987.

However, when she applied for re-enlistment in 1988, a federal court in Chicago overturned the decision and she again was banned from the military.

Ben-Shalom has appeared on popular TV talk shows like Donahue, Geraldo and Sally Jesse Raphael to publicize her cause. Her legal battle also has appeared on the front page of the Chicago Tribune.

She congratulated NIU for its stance to eliminate the ROTC program at NIU if the policy is not changed in two years.

“You should take a look at yourselves and realize what a gesture of caring that is. It is a dream, but then again you all dreamed, and look what you did,” she said.

She offered to personally support NIU in protests or whatever help the school needs to fight the policy.

“I will keep going until I see the day when it is no longer necessary, or until I die,” she said.