All the talk about repealing our military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy brings back a flood of memories. I remember a day long before such a policy existed and how things were for me as a very young recruit.
In 1959 I was 17 years old and a private in the U.S. Army. I was a true country boy from, shall we say, the suburbs of Hiawassee, Ga. I had never been off the farm or out of the cornfield, but I wasn’t dumb country.
I quickly learned from watching and listening and I figured out right away that the way I felt inside could get me beaten up or even killed (with the tacit approval from higher up) and it would get one a dishonorable discharge for a “Section 8” (mentally maladjusted to the military). Basic Training gave me some useful information to protect myself. I never once did anything that the Army could classify as “deviant” in any shape, form or fashion. I became something of a master at hiding in the middle of a crowd.
What the Army never understood, and I did not know myself at the time, was “it is not what you do, but who you are inside” that is most important. I was gay then, but I wanted what the Army had to offer me and I was not about to let something like that or anything keep me from the opportunity I had set for myself. I honestly thought that my feelings could be controlled and they were for the three years I traded with my Uncle Sam.
I have always been a watcher. I saw that there were several good looking, manly men who were assigned to each barracks. Most often they did nothing unusual but show off a little skin and hair, let others see them in the shower, etc. If a soldier reacted in any way, made a pass or reacted in a way out of the “ordinary” toward these men, day or night, they were instantly targeted. One day soon I would notice that a soldier was no longer in our unit. They had been shipped out, given a dishonorable discharge or a “Section 8” and life in the barracks went on as usual. It happened 100, or even 1,000 times. It was the military custom.
I think it happened a lot more often in basic training while they were still sort of testing to see what they had.
What they had with me was a scared little kid—a kid with this one chance out of the cornfields, one chance to learn and grow. Even though I knew I was different and knew deep down that I was attracted to other males, I determined early on that nobody would ever know that. Nobody.
The U.S. Army was going to be that chance for me and I looked once, but only once, at the men I recognized as bait and never gave them the opportunity to target me. Later on I could have safely had a couple of affairs with other like-minded soldiers, but I declined. I wanted to take no chance on becoming yet another statistic.
It seems strange to recall that it was okay to get smashing drunk on a regular basis, okay to catch all the prevailing contagious diseases, okay to get as many girls pregnant as you liked—it was even expected. But show any interest in another man and you were not fit to serve your country. Even a small hint that you had a feminine side would get all of your sides back home to momma on the next train.
I declined on all accounts and led what some might have called a rather boring life and used the Army as a chance to grow up a bit, to travel and to learn. I could never quite fit myself back into the little cornfield box from whence I came. It was all as I had dreamed it, only better. It continues on today on the eve of 2010.
I have hope for the repeal of our hateful “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy, but it will be a long time I am afraid, before it will be safe to serve this country as a gay soldier.
