An Aching Is
Soothed
Washington DC
October 10th, 2009
by
Michael Bedwell
Gay
Military Signal Staff Writer |
Photo: Bill Wilson |
For many who
attended, two events in Washington DC on October 10th
brought a kind of healing they hadn’t realized they
needed. They had come to their nation’s capital in a
time-honored tradition of group protest, spurned by both
anger and expectation. For many, it would not just be
their first protest of such size, but also the first
time they would see in person the three-dimensional
monuments to the history of their collective birthplace,
previously only seen squeezed and flattened out onto TV
and movie screens, in textbooks and on postcards.
Whatever part of the country they came from, they were
now surrounded by the physical manifestations of its
core beliefs.
For instance,
it’s one thing to grow up hearing the name Lincoln over
and over and quite another to climb stairs toward 38
classic Greek columns and first see through them his
figure 19-feet high carved majestically out of white
marble. It is to feel at once that every legend about
him is true, that it is possible for goodness and wisdom
and indomitable strength to reside in one mere mortal.
One is not dwarfed by the experience but inspired, even
comforted despite the fact that outside that temple the
world seems even more irrevocably divided, more insanely
violent than when he held the Union together through
will and war while breaking the chains that bound.
But the
healing I’m thinking of didn’t take place there.
What healing? Because we grow up internalizing
the belief that LGBTs are somehow “other,” because we
continue to be legally, in most places and most ways, a
kind of second class citizen, many of us often feel
disconnected, looking in on what it means to be
“American,” our sense of self pressed up against the
windowpane of patriotism. Whether it’s a cheery chorus
singing, “This is MY country, to have and to hold,”
a city billy belting his solipsistic, “I'm proud
to be an American where at least I know I'm free,”
or the more traditional anthems with their lyrics about
“sweet land of liberty,” “Freedom’s holy light,"
and “liberty in law,” within some they can
simultaneously resonate and raise the question, “When
does Freedom ring for us?”
The sky,
while cloudy, was both beautiful and spacious over the
300,000 graves in Arlington National Cemetery around 11
a.m. that Saturday, including those of its three best
known residents, the Kennedy brothers, the sod of the
most recent not yet blending with the grass around it.
Like religious pilgrims, a constant stream of people
wound up a slow hill, where, next to the Memorial
Amphitheater whose cornerstone contains a Bible, copies
of the Declaration of Independence and U.S.
Constitution, a 48-star American flag, and an
autographed photo of President Woodrow Wilson, Lt. Dan
Choi, cofounder of Knights Out, the organization of gay
West Point graduates, retired Navy Capt. Mike Rankin,
and I were stopped by a civilian security guard; not for
any unintended offense, but out of unexpected
admiration. He recognized Dan from seeing him on
television a few nights before and wanted to shake his
hand. After congratulating Dan on outing himself to
fight Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, laughing about his having
challenged the clueless Elaine Donnelly in Arabic, we
were told the Office of the Sergeant of the Guard of the
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was just a few yards more.
There, we delivered the wreath to be later presented as
previously instructed, and Dan stepped into the nearby
restroom to change into his dress blues, Mike already
wearing his.
Further along, on its own small plaza in front of the
Amphitheater, was the Tomb itself, a large, white marble
sarcophagus, the side overlooking the nation’s capital
below bearing figures of Peace, Victory, and Valor.
Though the opposite side reads, "HERE RESTS IN HONORED
GLORY AN AMERICAN SOLDIER KNOWN BUT TO GOD," there
are three crypts in front of it as echoed in
the memorial's other colloquial name, the Tomb of the
Unknowns.
The unknown from the first World War rests beneath the
sarcophagus. One crypt in front of it holds the unknown
from World War II, and another that from the Korean War.
The third crypt is now empty, as it has been decided it
will remain after its former occupant, who died in
Vietnam, was identified through DNA and reburied in St.
Louis 15 yrs. after internment here.
At noon
sharp, there was a classic changing of the Honor Guard
who protect the Tomb 24-hours a day, every day of the
year. Assignment to the Guard, all noncommissioned
officers, is a coveted one in the Army, and 80% of those
who apply are rejected. They are part of the
3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment
or “Old Guard,” the
oldest active infantry unit, known as the
“Face of the Army,”
representing it in ceremonies
at home and around the world, instructed by an Act of
Congress to march with fixed bayonets. They are also the
“Escort[s] to the President.”
As at other such ceremonies
around the world, the change is one most find
fascinating for its precision and discipline. At
Arlington, members of the three shifts, or Reliefs, of
Guards are even matched for height. The viewing area was
packed, multiple languages were heard, and one scanned
the crowd to try to determine how many LGBTs had come
for our 12:15 appointment.
Photo: Bill
Wilson |
A light rain
was falling by the time Dan, Mike, and former Army Major
Andrea Hollen and former Army Lt. Anthony Woods, the two
others of the maximum of four allowed in the official
party, joined the Guard Host at the top of the stairs
outside the Memorial Display Room. Together, they made
up a cross section of the gay community about as well as
any four people alone could. Asian, Caucasian,
African-American, Jew, Baptist, male, female. Andrea was
among the first women to graduate from West Point and a
Rhodes Scholar; Dan and Anthony, Iraq veterans.
Annapolis graduate and Vietnam veteran Mike served more
years in the Navy than Dan has lived. |
Yet it was
what they had in common that brought the many LGBT
spectators here. It was what led a gay high school ROTC
student to drive all the way from New York. It was as
victims of bigotry shared by the four descending the
stairs in their community’s name. Mike had been forced
to serve in silence for three decades before retiring.
Andrea gave up her Army career rather than continue to
do the same. Anthony was kicked to the curb under DADT
last year after outing himself, and Dan is in the
process of being discharged now.
Photo: Bill
Wilson |
But it was
larger than that. One doesn’t have to be entirely free
to honor those who died for freedom, to know that some
of them were gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. As
Dan has said, most of our servicemembers have always
been “unknown.” And this was one of those days on which
we would not be denied our right to express our
gratitude for all who fell for Liberty even as legally
we remain second class citizens. Victims, yes, but it
was the valor of the truth about ourselves we would no
longer deny. So when within the overall solemn silence
that pervades the ceremony the Sentinel announced that
this wreath was being presented by “Knights Out-LGBT”
and that those in uniform should salute and everyone
else place their hands over their hearts while Dan’s and
Mike’s hands jointly placed the wreath before the Tomb,
many teared up as Taps played, feeling a kind of pride
they’d never experienced before. And for the first time
joined the words “gay” and “American.” Were those the
sounds of countless camera shutters I heard . . . or a
symphony of faster beating hearts?
|
Afterward,
the four were swarmed by those wishing to take their
picture or simply shake their hands and say thank you. A
video of the complete ceremony can be viewed at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF6Z03mDJzs
It reminded
me of that day in 2003 when the US Supreme Court
overturned sodomy laws. In San Francisco, the giant,
iconic rainbow flag in the Castro was lowered for a time
and a giant American flag raised in its place, rippling
toward another day yet to come.
Act II: Honoring the Best
Known Gay Soldier
L-R:
David Mixner,
Randy Wicker,
Jose Zuniga,
Tracy Thorne-Begland,
Frank Kameny,
Rev. Troy Perry,
Michael Bedwell at podium, Alex Nicholson,
Lt. Dan Choi,
Capt. Mike Rankin [Ret]; Photo Marta Evry
Two hours
later, many of the same attendees and same emotions
joined a larger crowd, Dan, Mike, and other activists
representing the entire forty-five year history of
fighting the military ban, for a DADT protest and
memorial for Leonard Matlovich, the first active duty
gay service member to challenge his discharge. It was
because he knew the standardized gravestone required of
all but the most famous interred at Arlington could
never be the memorial to all gay veterans he envisioned
that Leonard chose Congressional Cemetery, fifty years
older but far less known, for his final resting place.
Photo: Elvert
Barnes |
AVER Chicago
President Jim Darby and his partner Patrick Bova
provided the flags for the color guard, a large Knights
Out banner was displayed, and Potomac Fever, made up of
members of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington DC,
proudly opened the historic event with the National
Anthem. Movement pioneer Randy Wicker led the first ever
gay rights demonstration in the United States—a protest
of the military’s ban on gays in 1964. To this audience
spanning college students to retirees he said, “I’ve
lived long enough to tell you that this country is worth
fighting and dying for.” |
Dr. Franklin Kameny and Rev.
Troy Perry; Photo: Carly Collins |
He was followed by Movement legend,
Frank Kameny, declaring that, 66-years later, he
is still angry that he had to lie about being
gay in order to fight for his country in World
War II. He first led protests at the White House
and Pentagon in 1965, and his 1973 interview in
the Air Force Times inspired Leonard to
eventually out himself. He said he believed we
were finally close to the “reversal of one of
the more disgraceful episodes in our country’s
long history.” Leonard’s lead civilian defense
attorney at his discharge hearing, David Addlestone, described
him as the greatest client he’d had in 45-yrs.
of practice. Mike Rankin read a poem dedicated
to the memory of all LGBT veterans written by a
friend killed in Vietnam. |
Former Sixth
Army Soldier of the Year Jose Zuniga outed himself
during the 1993 gay march on Washington to help the lift
the ban struggle under President Clinton.
“In an age in
which our history is relegated to dusty bookshelves or
buried in Internet archives, it is all too easy to
forget the heroes who helped shape in adversity and
triumph the world in which we live today. Leonard
Matlovich was just that, a hero who helped shape an
important part of our LGBT history. In our culture of
celebrity in which ‘courageous’ is an adjective easily
bandied about, we must understand the courage it took
Leonard to stand up in the mid-1970s and say ‘No!’ to a
military that would send him to war and honor him for
his bravery but could not condone the idea of his loving
a man. . . . Leonard’s life, Leonard’s sacrifice,
Leonard’s memory all demand action on our part. Indeed,
the final chapter of his life cannot be written while
his cause remains unfinished. Nothing we say at this
memorial can match what Leonard Matlovich, in so many
senses, has done in those sacred moments in which our
natural inclination toward self-preservation was
supplanted by a burning need to begin that long and
arduous climb toward equality. What matters now is what
we do, what change we effect, and what future we build
for our community.”
Former Navy
Lt. and Top Gun Tracy Thorne-Begland, who was discharged
twice, under the original ban and DADT, after outing
himself on Nightline in 1992, described how every
morning at 5 a.m. during basic training his class went
on a five-mile run. They were led by someone carrying a
guidon whose pennant represented the class and streamers
represented all the accomplishments of the unit, and it
was passed from person to person as the run progressed.
"I hope
when our kids
are of age to
join the armed
forces they will
be able to do so
regardless of
who they choose
or who they are
born to be." -
Tracy Thorne-Begland
and son Chance.
Photo: Patsy Lynch |
“In our
community, in the gay and lesbian military community,
that staff, that pennant, and those streamers lay on the
ground for decades. Members of the armed forces looked
at that staff with that pennant and all of their
accomplishments as dedicated heroes and no one picked it
up. No one showed the courage. No one until Leonard
Matlovich came along. And in 1975, Leonard picked up
that staff, he picked up that pennant and he picked up
all the streamers that represented the hundreds of years
of service of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines,
and he ran with it. Leonard lived a life of truth that
represents all of us here today. And when he could run
no more with that staff he handed it off to the next man
and the next woman; the Keith Meinholds, the Joe
Steffans, the Grete Cammermeyers, and the Justin Elzies,
and the Dan Chois that are carrying that staff here
today. They carry that staff with the tens of thousands
of streamers that represent the tens of thousands of
lives that have sacrificed for their country and not
been recognized for who they are. And those are the
individual moments that make up Leonard Matlovich’s and
our movement. So as we stand here today on the eve of
this great march, we should remember his contribution,
we should fight for our rights, we will stand for
equality over injustice and we will stand for the truth
over bigotry. The lives of the many kids growing up
today demand it.” |
David Mixner,
one of the leaders of the 1993 effort, and the person
who first suggested the national march the next day,
arrived in a wheelchair, having been in intensive care
just weeks before. But he rose to the podium and to the
occasion, saying his doctor could not stop him from
coming to speak about his friend Leonard whom he
described as often having been “a prophet in the
wilderness.”
“Never was I
more honored to stand by anyone’s side, nor saw more
nobility and dignity than I saw in Leonard. Leonard
would want us to fight today and I’m gonna fight. I was
and am a strong supporter of our President. I worked
very hard for his election. But I did not elect him to
follow Congress; I elected him to lead Congress. I
didn’t elect him to wait until something is placed on
his desk; I elected him to lead us to freedom.” He
called for cutting off funding for discharge
investigations, and for a stop-loss order.
Photo: Carly Collins |
Alex Nicholson, fresh from a
cross-country voter education tour, thanked
those who’d been fighting the ban for so long,
and described how difficult it had been for him
to come to terms with his DADT discharge,
eventually traveling with his Army veteran
partner, Jarrod Chlapowski, to visit Leonard’s
grave when they were thinking about creating a
new group for Iraq and Afghanistan era gay
veterans. The result was Service members United.
Now conversant in five languages, he said that
whenever DADT is repealed he would be at a
recruiting station the morning after.
One of those
Alex has mentored spoke next, employing some of the same
Arabic he had. Dan Choi was not yet born when Leonard
was discharged, but grew up to be oppressed by the same
military bigotry, choose to out himself to fight it, and
become the current public face of such
discrimination—just as Leonard had thirty-four years
before. Like Alex, he refused to ever be silent again,
and wanted everyone to ask themselves how they would
answer if, years from now, someone asked them what they
had done. |
Those
attending had applauded, laughed with, been moved by
each of the preceding speakers but the final one summed
up the event’s purpose of inspiring action with
remembrance with a rip-roaring “sermon.” Metropolitan
Community Churches founder Rev. Troy Perry told stories
of his own proud Vietnam-era service, the many times he
and Leonard had fought together for civil rights, how he
was both sweet and courageous. “Whatever we do we cannot
stop this struggle! To young people, I say to them, ‘If
I die together, keep our struggle going until we win all
of our freedoms’!”
After everyone was urged to contact their
Congressperson and ask that the DADT repeal bill be
named for Leonard Matlovich, they followed Lt. Dan Choi
and retired Navy Capt. Mike Rankin as they once again
bore a wreath, placing this one on his grave as flags
from every military branch saluted in the breeze. It
brought to a close two events many will long remember.
For they had reminded everyone that no matter whom they
love, no matter what the law denies, no matter what
bigots take away, they can never take away the fact that
we are a people, that we have a history, and that we are
Americans, too.
Photo: Carly Collins
More photos
and videos at
www.leonardmatlovich.com
Editor's note: Michael Bedwell, Gay Military Signal
staff writer, was Leonard Matlovich's friend and
roommate in both Washington DC and San Francisco. Mr.
Bedwell organized the two events described above, and is
the creator of
www.LeonardMatlovich.com
© 2009
Gay Military Signal |