A decorated Vietnam veteran drummed out of the National Guard because she is a lesbian vowed on her last day in uniform to fight the Pentagon's order cutting short her military career.

"The hard thing has been dealing with the loss, dealing with taking off the uniform for the last time today," Col. Margarethe "Greta" Cammermeyer told a news conference Thursday.Cammermeyer, a 27-year veteran who won the Bronze Star for service in a Vietnam field hospital, sued the Pentagon in U.S. District Court in Seattle.

The lawsuit, which seeks to overturn the military's ban on homosexuals and reinstate Cammermeyer in the Guard, argues that Cammermeyer's constitutional rights to equal protection, freedom of speech, due process and privacy were violated.

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Cammermeyer, 50, who served as chief nurse of the Washington guard, is one of the highest-ranking soldiers ever removed from the service because of homosexuality.

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