Now that the old policy anbout gays in the military has been changed, i have reflected on an experience I had while aboard an aircraft carrier in the Gulf off the coast of Vietnam.
It was one day after working sixteen consecutive hours and I just wanted to shower and hit the bunks for some much need rest. After an incident a few days earlier I checked the showers for other people. I wanted to find the showers either full or empty. If there had been just one or two other people I would have waited for another time.
A couple days earlier I was resting in my bunk when another sailor, dressed only in a towel wrapped around his waist, kneeled beside my bunk and inquired if I was heading to the showers. When I looked over at him his privates were exposed to me and he was aroused.
I informed him I wanted to rest first and would shower at a more convenient time.
This afternoon, I just wanted to get my shower and get out before the guy could get me alone.
The showers were empty so I picked a stall and began to shower. In just a minute or so another person entered the shower area and picked the stall next to mine. If the walls of the showe stall had made a complete enclosure things would have been fine but the wall separating the showers had a two or three inchgap. i noticed something protruding into my stall from the stall with the other person in it.
It was his penis.
I quickly finished my shower, grabbed my towel and clothes, dressed wet and toweled off my head once I was back among people.
Once a few weeks later I was working in a docking line where two hundred men were
positioned like a tug of war competition pulling an aircraft carrier up to the dock. While struggling with the weight I felt a hand caressing one of mine. "Surely this isn't what it seems" I thought.
Just a few short weeks later I was discharged from the service and a couple of years later I had just dropped my wife off at work and was coming home when I saw someone sitting on my front porch. It was the same sailor who had tried to entice me aboard the ship.
I let him stay for a couple of days then sent him back to New York, never to hear from him again.
Do I have a problem serving with gays in a military setting? No, I didn't then and I certainly don't have a problem working with gays in civilian life either.
The only time I've had second thoughts about a persons sexual orientation was once I was called out of town on an emergency and the only employees available to go with me were a female and an openely gay man. since we would have been required to spend the night and it certainly would not have been appropriate for the female and I to share a room for the night, I didn't believe it would have been any more appropriate for me to have shared a room with the gay man so I excused both from the trip and handled the situation by myself.
Rightfully so or not so right, that was the decision I made and I believe it to have been the appropriate one. Some allowances have to be made but one has to let the situation dictate whats appropriate.
The military will function just as effciently after the new policy goes into effect as it does now: maybe even better as a percentage of troops can stop living in fear.
Americans should not have to give up their rights, even as a soldier or sailor. No American should have to live in fear of government policy.
I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice and let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
-- Senator Barry Goldwater: 1964 Republican National Convention,
July 16, 1964 in San Francisco, CA
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