From
the Editor:
New York, July 4th 2006
Sgt
Denny's Rant
What It Means To Be A Gay
American Veteran In 2006
Recently, USA
Today asked me for a sound bite on "What it means
to be an American in 2006." Its a fair
enough question for a mainstream national daily
publication for an Independence Day story; and I thought
it was significant that they took the trouble to seek
comment from a national gay spokesperson. It got me to
thinking 'what it means to be a Gay American Veteran in
2006'; and that led me to consider all my various
identities. I am gay, first generation American, a
veteran, Jewish, an activist, a cancer survivor, and
disabled. The list goes on, and at various times in my
life the order of identities shifted and combined in
different forms. My perspective is that of a senior
citizen (yet another identity). As I progressed through
life's stages, I thought of myself as a first generation
Jewish American, Judeo-Queer teen, gay, sailor, soldier,
sergeant, American veteran, AIDS widower, gay Jew,
activist Gay American, cancer victim, cancer survivor,
gay disabled senior, and cranky old fart.
It is with all
that baggage that I now write, with anger, what it means
to be a Gay American Veteran in 2006.
I'm not
particularly brave, just stubborn. I came of age in the
1960s, which meant that I rejected anyone telling me
what to do. If I was told, "You can't do
that." I thought, "The hell I can't!"
Quitting the blissful life of a 'gay college student
trollop' and joining the US Navy was, in retrospect, not
a particularly brilliant decision. But, I did it out of
patriotism, at the height of the Vietnam War, as a child
of WWII refugees to American Freedom. I thought of it,
at the time, as an adventure; it was a sacrifice. It was
also the start of a proud ten year, two service,
military career. While keeping my mouth shut about
homophobic jokes and remarks, I was notorious for
speaking up about discrimination against other
minorities. I left as a Sergeant First Class so that I
could live the freedom that I'd sworn to defend over and
over during reenlistments. I was a senior NCO with a lot
of responsibility, living with a long term companion,
leading a double life; it just didn't seem right
anymore, so I resigned without explanation.
Several years
later, I met Leonard Matlovitch who was a Vietnam Hero,
with 18 years service, Purple Heart, and Bronze Star,
who came out publicly and was promptly dishonorably
discharged. I saw him first at a gay street festival in
San Francisco where he had a booth, running for City
Supervisor. I went up to him and told him, "You're
my hero!" He asked, "why?" And I said,
"Because I served in silence." That tall
handsome mustachioed Air Force Staff Sergeant bent down
and kissed me. I didn't wash my lips for weeks! Lenny
and I became friends because in those days, in that
place, gods such as him and Harvey Milk walked the Earth
like ordinary mortals and one could simply walk right up
and get to know them. While the early gay rights
revolution raged, I mostly stayed home with my lover and
washed the dishes (even during a revolution, someone has
to do the dishes). Meanwhile, Lenny constantly went off
to the front lines to do battle by giving speeches and
leading parades. It was an incredibly optimistic time
with gay rights rising; before AIDS, before the
assassination of Harvey Milk. No one imagined what dark
clouds loomed just over the horizon. Just a few years
later Harvey Milk was murdered inside City Hall; and a
few years later, Lenny was one of the first to die of
AIDS. Lenny, that incredible funny brave brilliant man,
had won his case in court after ten years in the
headlines. He wrote his own epitaph, inscribed on his
gravestone, between two pink marble triangles, in the
Congressional Cemetery in Washington DC: "A Gay
Vietnam Veteran; They gave me a medal for killing two
men, and a discharge for loving one."
After Harvey
Milk's assassin got off with a slap on the wrist, there
was a candlelight march and then a riot, the first of
many to follow, with battalions of police bashing gay
heads with batons. Having hung up my dish washing apron
to march with a candle, I fled the riot of blood and
burning police cars back into the warm arms of my lover.
He reminded me, dryly, that I hadn't finished the
dishes. Its all a distant echo now; a decade later he
too was gone, a victim of AIDS. Somehow, sadly, I
survived and voted for William Jefferson Clinton for
President in the early 90s. Clinton had promised to
emulate Trueman, who had integrated Black Americans into
our armed forces, by allowing Gay patriotic volunteers
to serve openly. It didn't happen. Instead a cruel
cynical law was enacted. Known as 'Don't Ask Don't
Tell,' it had the pretense of allowing gay Americans to
join and serve provided that they did not ever reveal to
anyone that they are gay nor engage in homosexual
activity. And for more than a decade, since, thousands
of proud brave lesbian and gay volunteers have been
discharged simply for being who they are. At the same
time, however, gay rights progressed with more and more
civil rights legislation in cities and states across
America. It was only a matter of time, it seemed, until
equality would also be achieved in our armed forces.
And then George
Bush became President of the United States of America
and proceeded to divide our nation with hatred, using
Lesbian and Gay Americans as his political scapegoat. In
our armed forces, which are supposedly battling for
freedom around the world, official government homophobia
is pervasive. Throughout the military, unit moral is
ruptured by incessant homophobic suspicion of any and
all personnel. After all the progress of the past 40
years of rights activism, today young queer American
Patriots are having their lives ruined by regressive
ideological bigotry as government policy.
A few days ago,
an 18 year old gay man, who had picked up one of our
brochures at the local gay center, telephoned me and
told me that he'd just signed up to join the United
States Marine Corps; he wanted some advice and
encouragement from gay veterans who had been through it
all and who would understand. And I thought to myself,
'Oh my God, I was him so long ago; and at that time no
one could tell me that a little queer could not make it
in the military.' And now, with what is happening today
I want to scream at him, "NO! Don't do it! You'll
suffer." What the hell do I tell him? |