Some day a child and his parents will have this conversation:
“Gee Dad, you mean the military didn’t used to let gay people serve?
“Not only that says,” says the boy’s other dad. “For nearly 20 years the service let gays serve, just as long as they didn’t admit they were gay.”
Well, that the boy has two “fathers” is just thrown in for dramatic, poetic license. The point I am making is that at sometime in the future the fact that the U.S. military had an anti-gay policy will become archaic. Maybe not in the lifetime of most of us reading this. What? All six or seven of us?
But the fact “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” ended today will fall into the past, probably faster than the memory of a racially-segregated armed forces.
There will be some fights. Hopefully, not, or not more than some fisticuffs. I mean, people fighting others in their own Army or Navy isn’t a good thing but it’s going to happen. If so, hopefully the fights won’t be bad and more importantly, we can hope there is not something worse like lethal violence.
The thing is, the only difference between today and yesterday is that guys shooting the bull in the barracks may openly talk of their “hot new boyfriend,” and it’s going to tick someone off at some time. I never saw that happen in four years in the Navy, albeit 30-some-odd years ago. But we knew.
We knew the guys who were queer and gave them space and try not to give anyone mixed signals. That is not different from college. Life can be more complicated than we perceive it.
The U.S. military always has and always will be the snapshot of the American man and woman. McDougal from Boston calling a Willie Roy, a Texan a “chump,” and Tex comes right back with a fake sneer for the Bostonian. “The only thing good from Boston is beans,” Tex replies. Ngwob, the dark, black soldier over there in the corner. Just listens quietly at the barracks banter. A naturalized citizen, we never even heard of the country in Africa he came from but one bunch of his people were almost totally driven into extinction by another. Stephens walks by outside. Rudy from St. Louis calls out: “I think I’m in love!” Stephens, the well-put-together blonde specialist tells Rudy he couldn’t handle her, plus he’d never want a woman that would regularly kick his ass for good measure. And Stanislaus, the gay guy from Ohio, just spruces up the area around his bunk and laughs with the rest of his friends.
It may madden some now, that President Barack Obama the first black president, signed a bill making it legal for an openly gay person to serve in the military. Even in the military may at first raise its ugly, bigoted head, at least a very little bit. But this too shall pass and the military can get on with the business of protecting their buddies first, and then their country.
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