There have always been homosexuals in the military. It seems that Alexander the Great was actually Alexander the Fabulous. So the current hoopla over whether or not there should be gays in the military is not really an issue of "readiness" or "a reflection of societal evolution" so much as it is a political football that crops up every ten years or so. "Don't ask, don't tell" was one of the most ridiculous policies the military ever adopted...or more accurately, it was the most non-policy ever. Nobody ever asked before the policy came into play and the only ones who ever told were the ones who wanted to get out of going somewhere unpleasant. So the CINC made it illegal to do what no one was doing anyway. For years prior to "DADT", homosexuality was grounds for a discharge...due to a mental deficiency. The old "Section 8" discharge became the "208/209" discharges of the late fifties and sixties. These were administered for unsuitablility, undesirability, and behavior unbecoming...but they were only administered on homosexuals in extreme cases because generally speaking, the leaders in the military just didn't know what to do about it. Proving it was the hitch. So most homosexuals that were discharged were cited for something other than homosexuality.
I grew up in a Sea Bag. My dad, whom I lovingly refer to as "The Chief", was a Navy man and our family moved every two years. San Diego was our "home port" and we spent more time there than anywhere else and in 1964 the Chief retired there. I joined the Army the same year. What I am about to tell you may seem incredible, considering my SoCal roots, but I never met a homosexual in California. Well, never directly, anyway. In junior high school and high school we called each other "faggot" and told jokes about "queers" and had our doubts about one or two of our classmates...but honestly, I had no notion of what it would mean to be homosexual, or how that whole dynamic would work out. We believed that gays would dress a certain way or talk all lispy and act swishy and sashay through life and would be immediately identifable. In other words, we were totally ignorant.
When I got to Bad Kissingen, Germany, in the late fall of 1964, I first came in contact not only with homosexuals, but also the Army's ways of dealing with them. Three cases in point:
One of the first things I had to do once I was settled into my new platoon was to get a driver's license. In Germany there were over a hundred road signs that we had to learn and of course, we had to learn the German road laws. Each military unit had licensing authority for the vehicles it operated. It was common to set up a consolidated office on each post where new guys could receive instructions on the German road laws and signs, take the tests, and then go back to their units for the road tests, etc. On Daley Barracks, Bad Kissingen, that office was on one of the upper floors of the Mess Hall. PFC Walt took me to that office and introduced me to the Spec 4 that was in charge of training and testing. Spec 4 Foley was a Boston Irishman, small, wiry, blue eyes, dark curly hair...and the most effeminate person I had ever met. There was only Foley, Walt and me in the office and Foley was really putting on a show, gushing and swishing around the office like a little fairy queen...hmmm...bad simile...like a little girl pretending to be a fairy queen...better? After getting all the information for my license and giving me a large sheet of road signs to study, Walt and Foley went into a smaller room off the licensing office, sat with cups of coffee, and lit up. While I studied they sat and talked and I noticed that the flamboyant behavior vanished.
When I felt I was ready to take the test I walked back to the smaller room. Walt told me to have a seat. He explained that Foley was just putting me on. They giggled their way through the story of how Foley, when he had first arrived in the unit, had gotten drunk one Friday, came back to the barracks, and climbed into the wrong bunk...one that was already occupied. This caused quite a stir and resulted in Foley being labeled "questionable". Foley, a draftee with little regard for the opinions of his superiors, thought it was funny to play with the minds of the bosses. He acted girlish and swishy and soon found himself in charge of the license office. A bunk and locker were set up in the smaller room adjacent to the office, and he was admonished to remain away from the rest of the troops. Because of his "special" assignment, Foley never had to stand in formations, participate in parades or inspections, pull any extra duties, or anything else; he just ran the license office and stayed out of the main stream of life in the squadron. Foley finished the story, signed and stamped my paperwork, and then winked at me. He wasn't gay. But the squadron leadership thought he MIGHT be, so they handled the situation with segregation and isolation.
A few months later there was a minor stir in the ranks as one of the black soldiers from the Headquarters Troop was going to be discharged under the provisions of AR 635-209. He had gone on sick call with a complaint about his nether regions. The medics examined him and reported to the First Sergeant that the injuries to the soldier's rectum were of a specific nature and absolutely not in concert with his explanation of how he got injured. Dispite his vehement protestations to the contrary, it was determined that he had been receiving import into a purely export orifice. The soldier protested mightily. Right up to the point where his orders were cut, his travel arranged, and his bags were packed. And he might have gone home leaving many of us wondering if he had been railroaded had he not been caught in an extremely intimate fairwell embrace with another soldier the night before he left. His embracer was not far behind him....uh...that is to say...his buddy came aft....no...well, anyway, the second soldier was dishcharged as well.
By the summer of 1965 some soldiers were receiving orders to Vietnam. Fearing that and perhaps inspired by the previous story, one soldier reported to his squad leader that he was gay and wanted a discharge. The squad leader didn't have a clue what to do so he took it to his platoon sergeant. The platoon sergeant wasn't any wiser than the squad leader so they went to the First Sergeant.
Our First Sergeant was a huge man. He had a neck that was exactly the same width as his skull. He was thick and strong and spoke with some sort of accent that few could decipher. He was soft-spoken most of the time but known to have a fierce temper. (On one occasion he was angry about something - I don't think anyone was ever sure what it was - and stood in front of the whole troop formation and ranted and railed at us for a solid ten minutes and then stormed off. The platoon sergeants in front of their platoons stood in shock and glanced questioningly to their left and right but no one really knew what had just happened.)
When the squad leader and platoon sergeant brought the problem of the soldier claiming to be gay to the First Sergeant, he quietly told them, "Bring him to me".
When they brought the soldier to the First Sergeant, they were told to wait in the hall. The First Sergeant took the soldier into his office . The squad leader and platoon sergeant wondered what was going on when just a few minutes later the soldier ran out of the office, looking very pale and shaken. He didn't even slow down as he headed out of the building. The platoon sergeant stuck his head into the First Sergeant's office and found him seated at his desk looking at some paperwork. The First Sergeant glanced up, gave the platoon sergeant a faint smile, and said, "He changed his mind". And that is all that was ever said about it. It was some time later when the story made the rounds that what the First Sergeant had done was to close and lock the door, tellthe soldier there was only one way he would get his discharge..."Prove it". The soldier apparently chose not to.
Over the twenty-six years of my active duty career, I don't recall ever having anything to do with any soldier who was openly homosexual. I don't think I ever asked a soldier if he was gay, and I am pretty sure no one ever told me they were gay. So I can honestly say that homosexuals, in my experience, were never discriminated against, since, in order to discriminate you have to be able to recognize a difference. But once again, in an effort to fix what isn't broken and force an issue onto the military that doesn't need more issues to deal with at this point, the politicians have generated more social engineering policies to make themselves appear to be compassionate and forward-looking to their voters. We got along fine without all the politcal "concern" for our welfare.