In the early 00's, I spent six months of my life on a story for Salon about three closeted gay army officers (part 1, part 2). It was the best story I'd ever done, and it won a GLAAD Media Award. It pales in comparison to this piece:
My Life as a Gay Officer.
It is written from inside the war zone in Afghanistan, by an Army Lt. Colonel serving there on active duty. 
It's lonely in the Middle East. I lived in Kuwait for two years. It's hard on anyone--and no one was shooting at us.
Here's a glimpse of his life, from the piece:But I want to tell the guys I eat lunch with every day about my partner. After all, these are the guys I risk my life with—the guys who think they know me. I can tell you every detail of how each of them met their wives; how one of them still feels guilty about an affair he never had, but thought about; how one of them cried so hard the day his son was born.
Yet they don't know much about my life, except the most superficial details. Over the years, I have become good at evading and changing subjects artfully. To slip up—using the wrong pronoun when describing whom I was with during R&R, or mentioning who I talked to on Skype last night—is no longer something I worry about. I have become so good at this lying game it eats at my soul.
I cried reading much of it. It's the best thing I've ever read on gays in the military, because it's so incredibly candid. He cops to shitty things he's done, laws he has broken (confiding to close friends in the Army that he's gay, and married broke the law), he doesn't whine or preach, just lays out what life is like for him, and the isolation he feels.
I hope you'll pass it along.
Congress is expected to vote on overturning Don't Ask, Don't Tell this week. The vote is starting to look like it will fail. John McCain and some others are saying the country needs to wait, and not cram it down our throats. But another year--or two or five, or ten years, because a Republican house of Congress will surely refuse to repeal the ban--means another year or two or five or ten years with guys like this living like this.
It matters every single day to these guys. It's not politics to them: it's just a right to live without lying, without sealing themselves away
I hope you this piece helps some people see what life is like for the hundreds of thousands of gay soldiers living this way every day. I hope you'll pass it on.
Thanks.
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kfujioka
Nick Leshi
Judy Berman
Christopher di Spirito
SaucyB
gaypersonsofcolor
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Comments
It sickens me to no end that so many have to live in shame and fear in an enviornment that is so progressive in other ways (consideration of others, equal opportunity, sexual harassment.)
The Army has changed and evolved over the years, and I honestly feel that eradicating Don't Ask Don't Tell is an inevidiblity, not just a possiblity.
Thank you so much for sharing this!
Good post....thank you
it was such a powerful piece.
I'd lay odds that most of his men know or at least suspect that he's gay. There may be homophobes in his ranks, but I can garungoddamnty you that are not wonder if he's looking at thier butts when the bullets are flying. If he's a good leader, that's all they care about.
Thanks for posting this. It is particularly poignant on Memorial Day.
McCain's part in this makes me so mad because he has traded on being a "War hero" and representing the soldiers when he was not at all and sold out the Vietnam MIAs and their families. A sham.
Essentially, I don't have a lot of sympathy for this person. The focus of his piece, from the very beginning, is his "sexuality." I am not impressed, as I guess he wants me to be, that he "tried" to become straight, when "trying" meant having multiple sexual relationships with various women. Something is not right here, or he's not telling the whole story. Apart from the sexual relationship which was unfulfilling with these women, the more important point as far as I'm concerned is that these women weren't very meaningful relationships if all he takes away from them is the "sexuality" -- fulfilling or otherwise.
It should be noted that in the most mature and closest heterosexual relationships -- relationships that last a lifetime -- that despite what the media might have you believe, "sex" is not usually the most important ingredient in the relationship. If it is, all relationships are doomed to failure because our physical bodies are ultimately doomed to failure. Believe it or not, we are more than just the sum of our body parts.
So to me from the very beginning the "focus" of this author's attention is wrongly placed. Next, he apparently wants to be able to share his "sexuality" with his fellow soldiers, even though this could obviously create an uncomfortable situation -- for them.
I don't have a lot of sympathy for this point of view either. "I ask to be treated simply like anyone else in the service -- nothing more and nothing less." Well, the problem with this is he isn't like everyone else in the service. He is, according to his own admission, someone who is sexually attracted to the same gender with which he is living in close proximity to. It strikes me as more than a little immature, even selfish, for the writer of this piece not to accept a fundamental truth about life: there are times when ALL of us are expected to keep our private lives private. He wants to be able to share his stories of his homosexual relationship(s) with his buddies. Well, sometimes in life you don't get to share something with someone, no matter how much you might want to. What if you are a high school teacher who is also a swinger? Is that something that's appropriate to "share" with your fellow teachers? How about with your students? Is a teacher's sexuality something that should be "shared" with students? How about someone serving in the military who is, in fact, celibate? Someone who has no relationship beyond the professional one with the military has very little to "share." What is this person supposed to do? I know. How about being very professional?
Obvious anyone with any maturity should realize that if you are taking turns going around the table bragging about your favorite conquest stories during lunch, it is actually more appropriate and more professional to simply refuse to do so. And there are all sorts of ways one can do this with just a limited understanding of the English language. In fact, you could pretend for a few moments that you are a big-time Hollywood star who refuses to talk about his or her private life. "I don't talk about my personal life. I consider that private." But the reporters really, really want you to "share."
"Sorry," would be the mature response.
Or here's another one: "I respect your desire to share your stories of loved ones and significant others, but I prefer to think of myself as "married" to the military."
That's an option, isn't it? One that would not only be regarded as highly professional, but also wouldn't risk making your fellow soldiers uncomfortable.
But we are supposed to believe that the writer of this piece is somehow greatly burdened, his life a horrible "lie" because he is not allowed to share his sexuality with others, but there are ALL KINDS OF CASES in life where sharing our sexuality and doing so would be considered HIGHLY UNPROFESSIONAL.
What someone like me comes away thinking after reading this piece is that the main thing the author is looking for is not truth, not fairness, but SYMPATHY. If his relationship with his significant other is as meaningful and close and committed as he seems to be implying -- and fulfilling -- (and we only have his word to go on with this), then why is "sharing" this relationship of any necessity what-so-ever? If you really love someone, it is that love which is the most important, not how others react to your love. Is some kind of "validation" from the outside world really necessary?
We all have "don't ask, don't tell" relationships in life. For example, I am sure in my life some of my best teachers have been gay. I didn't ask -- and they did't tell. Why? They were in my life to be teachers, not sharers of sexuality.
I find your constancy remarkable, Dave. You post here from a moral perspective, but without the pulpit or admonishments. You are in the best sense a regular guy.
I watch on facebook as you post about meeting with high school students and how it affects you, and am affected in turn. I envy you in a good way the experience of having such a direct connection with them, and I am certain you have been a powerful force for compassion and good in the world.
Finally, your prose style is seemingly effortless. Accessible and plainspoken, you enlighten and instruct me as a writer. It's an honor to be able to say these things to you.