Sgt
Denny's Rant
An
Inconvenient Hero
Leonard
Matlovitch was hardly the first gay American hero,
but he was the first to get major mainstream media
attention and bring gay issues to the front pages
of newspapers, Time Magazine, and even to network
TV evening news. Before Leonard,
homosexuality as a topic was taboo and totally
unfit to print in the papers and even to mention
on TV where hetero non-dysfunctional family
situation comedies were the norm. Lenny
could not be ignored because he did not fit the
standard false stereotype of an outrageous effeminate; quite the contrary, he was a warrior, a
Vietnam war hero with 18 years of service as an
Air Force Staff Sergeant who had earned a Purple
Heart and Bronze Star in battle. For numb
brained ordinary folks, this was an amazing
contradiction worth reading about.
For
the United States Air Force. the Pentagon, and our
American government, he was a most inconvenient
hero. The military was well aware that we
were serving, but just as today, they wished it
wasn't talked or told about. Well before
America's entry into World War II, our armed
forces began developing psychological evaluations
to weed out queer recruits. A major secret
study in the late 1950s determined that
homosexuals in our armed forces did not pose a
security risk. We've been on their minds all
along. Lenny let the cat out of the bag, and
there was no way they could ever stuff the truth
back into silence. Leonard Matlovitch, a
decorated Vietnam hero, simply wrote a letter to
the Secretary of the Air Force stating that he was
gay. It was not a whim, it was carefully
thought out and planned; they discharged him
promptly, he sued, the case dragged on for ten
long years of incessant publicity, and he
eventually won and was ordered to be
reinstated. By that time, of course, the Air
Force was quite sick of him, he had a new life as
a hapless gay hero, and for a considerable sum of
money, they agreed to part ways forever.
Lenny
was also a most curious hero for gay folks as
well. Although there were nearly a million
living gay veterans who had served from World War
II onward; for most gay people, a 'gay man in
uniform' was some sort of incongruous
fantasy. Yet, there he was, an openly out
war hero, a tall handsome sergeant through and
through, conservative, slightly unfashionable, and
a Republican from the vast hetero heartland.
For gay folks, he exemplified the amazing thought
that one could truly be anything one wanted to be.
I
met Lenny in the Summer of 1979. He had
recently come to San Francisco where he was
welcomed with open arms. Having already
spent several years in demand on the speaking
circuit, he decided to run for election to the
Board of Supervisors in the one American city, in
that era, where being openly gay was normal.
At the Castro Street fair on a balmy late summer
day, I saw his booth emblazoned with a hand
lettered sign saying 'Leonard Matlovitch For
Supervisor.' My heart skipped a beat in awe
that he might really be there in person; he was
already nationally famous. I went up to him
and told him that he's my hero. In
characteristic humility, he asked,
"Why?" "Because I served in
silence," I told him. And then that
tall handsome sergeant bent down and kissed
me. I didn't wash my lips for weeks!
In
those days, the gods of gay liberation walked the
Earth like ordinary mortals. One could stand
on the street corner chatting with them for hours,
invite them over for drinks, and hang out with
them when they weren't off on the front lines of
the revolution leading marches and giving
speeches. And so, we became friends.
Lenny had lots of friends, of course; at least 410
of them, anyway. That's how many people
voted for him, alas (according to the account in Conduct
Unbecoming by Randy Shilts). Some called
him a carpetbagger; others said he was terribly naive.
In fact, he was simply a very down to Earth folksy
ordinary guy who just wasn't part of the big bad
world of politics.
He
didn't win the election, but he did eventually win
his case. The Air Force gave him about
$175,000 to go away. He took that and
established Stumptown Annie's, a pizza parlor in
the gay resort of Guerneville on the Russian River
about an hour north of San Francisco. The
menu was full of wild concoctions including a
hundred thousand dollar pizza -served in a
Mercedes Benz. Lenny's sense of humor was
downright corny. He'd sit in his living room
and tell a bunch of friends, for whom he'd just
made a spaghetti dinner, that he was into
S&M, "you know, Sneakers and
Makeup..." Oyyyy.
Leonard
Matlovitch wasn't trying to be a hero. He
was just a real ordinary guy who served his
country to the best of his ability and spoke up
honestly about who he was.
His
gravestone reads: A Gay Vietnam Veteran; They gave
me a medal for killing two men, and a discharge
for loving one.
|