|
Long Time Passing
by
Wes Davey, MSG, USAR (Ret.)
|
My military
career began shortly after high school when some
of my friends and I received draft notices. A
few weeks later we said good-bye to our parents
and boarded a bus to a military processing
station in Minneapolis. My dad, a typically
stoic Minnesotan, dropped me off at the bus
station and waved good-bye as if I were just
going to an afternoon Twins game.
At the
processing station someone in uniform yelled at
us to count off to 12. I was number
"11", my friend sitting next to me -
we had attended elementary through high school
together - was number "12." The number
12’s were told to stand up and then welcomed
into the Marine Corps. Numbers 1 through 11 were
to become Soldiers in the United States Army. My
military career had begun.
Basic training
at Fort Campbell, KY was followed by orders to
go to Fort Lewis, WA, a place where many
draftees bided their time before being sent to
Vietnam. By then my older brother was already in
‘Nam, and I volunteered to go there too. That
transfer never happened, and after serving two
years of uneventful stateside duty I received an
honorable discharge, said good-bye to military
life forever (I thought), and went home.
|
|
After a summer
of working as a carpenter I took the tests
required to become a police officer for my
hometown PD. Somehow, between the oral
interviews and written exams, I ended up being
#1 on the hiring list. Four months after turning
21, I became the youngest person ever hired as a
police officer for that police department.
I soon did
what many other gays who are in deep denial did:
I got married. Not only did I get married, but
after just six years my wife and I were parents
to three boys and two girls. To help support a
growing family and bolster my police officer’s
salary, I joined an infantry battalion in the
Minnesota Army National Guard.
By then (1977)
the Guard was slowly beginning to change –
becoming more professional with the
implementation of NCO development courses and
shedding the remaining Vietnam era draft dodgers
who only wanted to party during weekend drills.
Soldiers were now starting to take pride in
being a part of the National Guard. I certainly
took pride in being an NCO, and with the
exception of several breaks because of civilian
job changes, I remained in the reserve
components until retiring at the end of 2005.
So there I was
- family man, NCO in the MNARNG, police officer,
and in my free time doing all kinds of
"macho" things because I loved doing
them: skydiving, scuba diving, flying planes,
hunting, competitive pistol shooting,
backpacking in the Rocky Mountains, and canoeing
in the wilderness area of northern Minnesota.
Yet hidden
deep beneath that macho exterior were feelings -
no, attractions – that weren’t going away
and which I couldn’t deny any longer; they
were attractions I had repressed since grade
school.
I grew up in a
small, southern Minnesota town during the
"Leave It to Beaver" era of black and
white television – not that I watched TV very
much, my friends and I were almost always
outside. In the summertime we did outside
chores, played baseball, explored the nearby
woods and ravines, swam in lakes almost as soon
as the ice had melted, fished…and in the
winter we ice skated on nearby outdoor rinks or
on frozen lakes, and quit only when our feet
were nearly frostbitten. I was a
"normal" kid.
Just a normal
kid alright, and I knew nothing about gays or
what it meant to be gay. My friends and I had
used the word "queer", but truthfully,
we had no idea what that meant, not a clue. By
6th grade, though, I thought my friend Mike was
awfully cute, and cute in a way that none of the
girls in our class were.
During high
school I began to know that my attraction to a
wrestling teammate was different from how my
friends felt, so I kept that attraction hidden.
I didn’t understand what this "guys are
cute, girls aren’t" going on in my mind
all added up to, but I clearly realized these
thoughts were something I couldn’t share with
anyone.
I
"knew" what queers were like by then,
or at least the stereotypes society had
instilled in me: they had limp wrists, walked
with a swish, and dressed differently. Queers
were like the boy in Mr. Larson’s homeroom who
once wore a blue satin shirt to school
("yeah, he’s a queer", but still,
kinda good looking…).
As an adult,
those "guys are cute" thoughts not
only remained, they were often agonizingly
present. Reconciling my attractions and the
ingrained stereotypes of queers I had with my
"macho" lifestyle was difficult. Above
all else, I knew that I was "normal"
and no different than anyone I worked with in
the military or in law enforcement.
Finally the
light came on and I knew that there was only one
possible answer: all of those stereotypes
propagated by our society about queers and
instilled in me since I was a kid were wrong,
completely wrong. Gays (not "queers",
now that I admitted being one to myself) were
"normal": they could be great fathers,
police officers, and NCO’s; they could have a
strong religious faith….they can
be whatever they want to be, just like
straight people.
Having come to
a resolution about being gay and being normal,
I had to face the fact that I had a family and
two careers going on. Telling my wife was the
hardest; telling my children, well, that could
wait. We, my wife and I, made a decision to stay
married until our youngest son had graduated
from high school. There was no way that I could
not be an everyday part of my children’s
lives; no way, absolutely no way.
I made the
decision to set aside the gay part of my life,
an active gay life anyway, and chose to continue
being a closeted Soldier and police officer, and
an out-of-the-closet husband and father. Some
might think that was the wrong decision, but
every gay or lesbian who is married has to make
that decision on their own, doing what they
think is best. Married life for my wife and I
changed after that, but we were friends, and we
did the best we could to raise our children and
keep the family together.
The inevitable
separation came the summer of our youngest son’s
high school graduation; I moved out, and my
ex-wife and I moved on with our separate lives.
And we remained close friends.
My career as a
police officer was over by then, but I continued
on in the military – switching from the
National Guard to the Army Reserve. Because of
the "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell"
policy, I kept my private life private while
wearing a uniform.
My military
career eventually spanned parts of five
different decades, allowed me to travel around
the world (and to Iraq in 2003), and ended in
2005 when I finished my career in the duty
position of First Sergeant within a
Psychological Operations Reserve unit of the
Army’s Special Operations Command (USASOC). I
took great pride in being a member of that unit
and was grateful to be the leader of some
extremely intelligent and great Soldiers.
It’s fair to
say that being in the military requires personal
sacrifices of all service members. For gay and
lesbian service members, giving patriotic
service to our country requires an additional
and unfair sacrifice (staying in the closet)
which clearly should not have to be made. Morale
suffers needlessly, all too often really good
service members are lost to homophobic witch
hunts, lives are often irreparably harmed, and
for what reason? For no good reason at all.
|
Now, out of that
final closet in which I had kept hidden in far
too long, I feel an obligation and duty to speak
out to end discrimination against gays and
lesbians in our military. I owe that to the gays
and lesbians who have given honorable service to
our country, to those who currently serve with
honor, and to those who would like to serve in
the military I love.
More important
to me than the awards and medals given to me
during my military career are first, the
acceptance and love I’ve received from my
family before and after coming out to them, and
second, the comments I have received from fellow
Soldiers after I came out of that final closet
imposed by "Don’t Ask, Don’t
Tell."
Some of those
comments from fellow Soldiers: "You
have always been a good person and that is what
is most important in life. I have the highest
respect for you and the many things you have
done for our country, just be yourself and go on
with life. There's room on earth for everyone...
Thanks for all of your support and please stay
in touch."
|
"First of
all, thanks for telling me. Of course it
wouldn't change our friendship …Gregg and I
both fully support you and understand all the
reasons that you have had to keep it from people
that would've accepted it a long time ago."
"... some
people, in the military or not, are going to be
ignorant or judgmental, but you'd get that in
any society in the U.S. and that small
percentage is not reason enough to not allow
gays/lesbians in the military... because it
hurts the military more than helps
it."
"You
definitely were a great leader, you were an
amazing friend to many, and followed Army values
to a T. And you're going to continue to do
even better work, to make the military better
and to help to ensure that all who want to serve
in the military have the opportunity to do
so. I'm very proud of you, for who you
are, for what you've done and what you're
continuing to do."
Editors note:
MSG Wes Davy, ret., was awarded an Iraq Campaign
Medal, an Army Commendation Medal and eleven
other medals and ribbons during his many years
of service.
|