Tuesday, September 20, 2011

DADT Bite Me

Finally, it's over, done, fini, terminado. Anyway you say it, most importantly DONE.

I truly do understand those who do not agree with DADT being repealed. You don't want to serve or have your family member serve with openly gay people. I respect your opinion while I disagree with it.

However (as my former Senior Drill Sgt was fond of saying) I have news for you. You or that family member has already either served or is serving with a gay soldier but until now they could not admit it, no matter how much they wanted to trust you or your family member with that information.

You cannot know how hard it is to come to drill or duty station after a week, weekend, vacation and reduce your relationship to the words "friends, the gang, a group of us," was it fair, probably not considering how many straight soldiers who went on ad nauseum about their wives, husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends, to the point of giving details I would expect to find in playboy and hustler forum magazines (which by the way is a violation of UCMJ - Uniform Code of Military Justice). I know of four married couples in my former reserve unit who were commiting adultery, it was an open secret, but no one ever dropped dime on them. I know of male soldiers pressuring female subordiantes into sexual acts, the upper echelon looked the other way.

I finally refused to play this game. I came out publicly in uniform on the front page of my college newpaper on Coming Out day. Did I violate the UCMJ, yes. Did I know I would lose my career, yes. But I recalled the words of one of 981st Sergeants. He once told me "Sometimes being brave doesn't meaning going along, sometimes it means going against the grain". He truly taught me to stand up even when you know the buzzsaw that is the Army will bite you in the ass. I did violate the rules and I own up to it, and I still want to go back in. I love my country and my army that much. Only this time when I'm asked what I did last weekend I can say "I killed our dinner experiment and had to buy Allison chinse dinner. I swear I don't know why she loves me."