On Thursday, lawmakers on Capitol Hill will introduce a bill to change that policy.

Here is a look at both sides of the controversy.

Brian’s Story: The view of friends, spouses and children through the plane's window gets larger.

The military aircraft is getting closer to landing and as soon as their feet hit the tarmac, the group of Marines make their way to embraces eight months in the making.

Sgt. Brian Fricke will have to wait a little longer.

"That will always sting a bit. Because I was gay, I didn't have anybody there," said Fricke.

He knew hugging his boyfriend on the flight line wouldn't be discreet. He'd violate the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy and face a dishonorable discharge.

His homecoming was the culmination of four years of hiding his true identity to all but his closest friends in the Marine Corps. "When you're out there you can't talk about your loved one. You can play the he/she game. 'Oh yeah, "my loved one" yada, yada..' but you really want to talk about your loved one. But you can't." Now his time is almost up in the military and he says he's not re-enlisting because of the policy that kept him in the closet.

He said on the ground in Iraq, the Marines who he did "come out" to had no problem with his sexuality. A recent Zogby poll backs him up, showing three out of four soldiers back from Iraq and Afghanistan felt comfortable interacting with gay people.

The Service members Legal Defense Network, which advocates against the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, said that since it went into effect in 1993, the Department of Defense has fired more than 11,000 service members because they were gay. The group says on average, 2 to 3 people are dismissed under the law every day. According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) at least 800 of those had skills deemed 'mission-critical' by the Dept. of Defense, including more than 300 linguists, of which at least 55 were proficient in Arabic.

A Colonel's View: Although he's retired from the military, Lt. Col. Bob Maginnis prides himself on being in touch with the top military leaders and latest Army strategies. In 1993, he argued before Congress that allowing gays to participate would hurt military readiness. He still believes that to be true.

"We already have a lot of sex going on between males and females in forced intimate situations--whether they're on aircraft carriers or in tents in Iraq -- and that hurts readiness," Maginnis says. He said it would be logistically impossible keeping people who are attracted to the same sex out of those intimate situations and it would make other soldiers uncomfortable.

"We're not making a moral judgement about homosexuality. We're making a judgement that as a category of people, they're suitability for the type of mission, the 24-7, very remote location, zero privacy, very demanding never off-duty environment is just not there. And therefore, we exclude them."

Maginnis dismisses a recent Zogby poll that claims 3 out of 4 soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are comfortable interacting with gay people. He said it is not a random sample and especially does not reflect the view of senior leaders who have to deal with these issues on a day-to-day basis.

When gay advocates argue the policy hurts efforts in Iraq, Maginnis said the number of people getting kicked out under "Don't Ask Don't Tell" are inconsequential. He says they lose about four times as many women who get pregnant and opt out and far more people who have to leave for criminal reasons.

He also points to February Department of Defense documents that show retention in the armed services remains solid. The Marine Corps and Air Force are meeting or exceeding overall retention missions. The Army met 109 percent of its year-to-date mission and Navy met 93 percent.