CHICAGO — Katy and her partner were still teary-eyed from the exchange of a promise to spend the rest of their lives together — made hours before one of them was to ship off to Iraq for more than a year.

But when the two women said farewell at the base, all they could share was a hug.

Even as Americans debate whether it’s right to legalize same-sex marriage, caution remains a fact of life for servicemen and women communicating with a gay or lesbian partner back home.

“We still sign our e-mails with ‘I love you,’” even though the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy makes it risky, said Katy, 24. Like others interviewed for this story, she spoke on the condition that her full name be withheld, for fear it could be traced to her partner. If her partner were “outed,” she could lose her job and the free college tuition that enticed her to enlist in the first place.

Katy tries to be discreet with the care packages she sends. She is guarded in her phone conversations. She knows if something happens to her partner overseas, the armed forces would not be contacting her.

In the military, “If you’re a same-sex couple, your family doesn’t exist,” said Tony Smith, Air Force veteran and gay-rights advocate. “That’s the bottom line.”

To carry her through the separation from her partner, Katy has relied on friends, family and the letters she gets from Iraq. On the mantel in her North Side apartment stands a photo collage she recently made of pictures from her partner’s youth — from towheaded childhood to desert fatigues.

“I’m sure there are things she isn’t telling me” about the hardships of life in Iraq, Katy said. “I think it’s because of the ‘worrying’ factor.”

While gays and lesbians in uniform must remain in the closet, some of their stateside partners are carefully seeking solace through a small, mostly anonymous collection of grass-roots groups. They include the Gay Soldiers’ Partners Network, an online support group created in February by an Indiana woman whose girlfriend left for Iraq in January.

“Not really being an Army person, I didn’t know where to go,” said the woman, the creative director of an advertising firm. “I needed support — because I was losing it.”

She channeled her “worry energy” into www.gspn.us, which initially received 100 hits a month from the significant others of lesbian and gay service members. Users post tips on everything from what to send in a care package (not chocolate — it melts) to how to interpret military jargon or correspond with same-sex partners using “code words.”

Postings have dropped off in recent months because of fear, said the site’s founder. “It’s not like you can start up a little support group in your town,” she said. “By the nature of the beast, we are closeted and paranoid.”

The Arlington, Va.-based Military Community Services Network connects same-sex families with the sort of financial help, support groups or stress counseling available to the spouses of heterosexual soldiers.

“The families I’ve talked to understand the challenges of being a military family, whether you’re straight or gay or lesbian, and the sacrifices you need to make at wartime,” Smith said. Along with the fears of anyone whose loved one is engaged in war, he added, same-sex partners back home face an added nightmare: inadvertently ending the career of a soldier who is deeply patriotic and devoted to serving his or her country.

Some 10,000 lesbian, gay and bisexual Americans currently are serving in the Middle East, estimates the Washington, D.C.-based Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which provides free legal counseling to lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people in the military. A total of 1,693 service members were discharged in 2002 and 2003 because of their sexual orientation.

Even in a nation draped with yellow ribbons to show solidarity with those at the front, “I can see where the (same-sex) partner would be in a quandary,” said Kathy Moakler of the National Military Family Association, a nonprofit advocacy and referral group.

NMFA, which has no position on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” lists more than 200 resources for military spouses and children on its Web site. Moakler encourages the relatives of deployed personnel to form their own support groups if they can’t find one nearby.

“There’s a lot to be said for sharing the common experience of having a loved one deployed,” she said. “Until the policy is changed, the service member has to be discreet, I’m sure.”

With her unit, Katy’s partner keeps her private life private. Just before her departure overseas, she and Katy made plans for a ceremony that would include vows for a lifelong partnership.

“Initially, I was so stinkin’ excited,” the soldier explained on a tape mailed from Iraq at a reporter’s request. “I wanted to tell people really bad, and couldn’t.

“I knew people would notice I was wearing this ring,” she said. “But it was really important for me to wear it anyway. I just figured I’d deflect questions the best way I could, and that’s what I’ve done.”

Service members dealing with news from home — joyous or heartbreaking — often have to keep it to themselves. Even medical officers and chaplains are required to report anyone violating “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” said Dr. Mike Rankin, 67, a military psychiatrist who teaches at George Washington University Medical School in Washington, D.C.

Rankin disclosed he was gay after retiring from a career including service in Vietnam and 24 years in the Navy Reserve. He served as Arkansas’ commissioner of mental health under then-Gov. Bill Clinton, who as president pledged to end discrimination against gay service members but compromised by signing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

Under the policy, “We’re being fired from our jobs for no other reason than being gay or lesbian,” said AJ Rogue, president of American Veterans for Equal Rights, a coalition of 400 gay, lesbian and bisexual veterans. “It has nothing to do with our job performance.”

Lesbians are most vulnerable under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” said Steve Ralls, spokesman for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. Although women make up some 15 percent of military personnel, they account for 30 percent of gay discharges.

Nearly 80 percent of Americans believe gay people should be able to serve openly in the U.S. military, according to a December 2003 Gallup poll. Yet the topic remains a “wedge issue” in both parties and is unlikely to play a prominent role in the 2004 presidential race, said Aaron Belkin of the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

But with large numbers of troops abroad for the foreseeable future, “I feel there is a very real possibility that by this time next year we could see movement to begin repealing the ban,” Ralls said.

In the meantime, advocates recommend caution, and other groups remain sensitive to the issue as well. The American Red Cross of Greater Chicago, for example, would refer same-sex partners looking for counseling to a civilian therapist who would not have to report a relationship under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” said a spokeswoman.

In Iraq, Katy’s partner has, with trepidation, connected with a few service members who have a same-sex partner back home. “It’s a weird, paranoid way of living,” she said. “When you do find somebody, it feels so much less lonely.

“All these people out here — they’re engaged, they’re married, they’ve got kids on the way, and they get all this support from each other,” she said. “They get to talk about their husbands and wives like it’s nothing. And they get to be sad about it, sort of publicly.

“There’s some really good people out here,” she said. “I don’t know how they’d feel about my and Katy’s relationship. It makes me sad that I can’t tell them that she worries about them, too.”