KEVIN
SCOTT
Military's
Loss;
Corporate Gain
by
Denny Meyer
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Kevin
Scott is an assistant vice president for a major national
bank corporation. He is openly gay and has been
active in an employee group that worked to get a non
discrimination policy and partner benefits
implemented. He lives in a house with his long term companion and their
dog. He'd always wanted the love, the
house, and even the dog; but his career path is not
the one he'd originally chosen for himself.
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Since
his year's in high school in Junior ROTC and as a
Civil Air Patrol cadet; he'd had the military in mind
all along and intended to become a career
officer. In fact, in his senior year in high
school, he was Cadet Commander. His efforts
earned him a provisional Army ROTC scholarship; right after high
school, he entered The
Citadel,
South
Carolina's four year military college. He
excelled. Yet, in his junior year, realizing that what
he was being taught about the undesirability of
homosexuals in our armed forces contradicted who he
knew he was, he did not take the
commission and career that had awaited him. This
was in 1990, when being discovered to be gay meant a
dishonorable discharge and disgrace. While no
one wants to experience that, it was as well a matter
of personal integrity for him to not compromise the
very values of honesty he had been taught and believed
in.
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At
the time that he graduated from The Citadel, in 1990,
there was no network for LGBT cadets or service
members to seek support from. As was the
experience of so many others, he thought he might be
the only gay cadet and reservist; a very lonely place
to be for anyone. Had it not been for the
bigotry of rejection regarding gay service in our
armed forces, and had he not had to deal with it
alone, he would have gone forward with his dream and
his potential of becoming an Army officer. |
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Instead,
Kevin took police training, first working with the Sheriff's
Department in Mecklenburg
County, NC, and later with the Hickory Police
Department just north of Charlotte, North
Carolina. One might not imagine acceptance being
possible in rural American law enforcement agencies at
that time, but in fact interaction with foreign
business interests, in the global economy, have
influenced forward looking local administrations to
understand affirmative action, while our armed forces
have remained insular and resistant to progress to
this day. After five years as a police officer,
as he transitioned to becoming a private investigator,
he was able to come out to his colleagues "the
Southern way, one on one, over beer," as he put
it. During this time, Kevin met his life partner
and spoke openly about himself in an article in the
Charlotte Observer on National Coming Out Day. |
In his
current corporate position, he is able to be active in
negotiating for further affirmative action within his
company, while advancing on the merit of his ability
without discrimination.
"The
military is loosing out on the brain power of so many
qualified and highly skilled people," he said,
"while American corporations are benefiting from
fully accepting those same individuals."
In 2003
he decided that Citadel cadets and graduates need not
have to go through what he did without support or
advice. He founded the Citadel Gay and Lesbian
Alliance
to bring together gay graduates with those
who are currently struggling with the issues he'd had
to deal with alone. Any advice given is nuanced
primarily as a reality check. Graduates serve as
"family" for current cadets, telling them to not do
anything that would compromise graduating (thus
advising them no differently, really, than any mother
or aunt would). Beyond that, gay cadets are not persuaded
either way to go forward with military service or
not. Rather, they are simply made aware of the
realities involved at the current time with the DADT
policy in effect. What most of the gay cadets
and graduates have in common is that they had all been
highly motivated towards a military career; hence the
heartening understanding engendered by the alliance.
©
2008 Gay Military Signal
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