Over 60 column, 2/2/93
I expected at 68 that I would have an immunity from surprise at political hypocrisy and epidemic bigotry, that I would have seen it all, but I am shocked at the sanctimonious rantings of our military leaders and the political opportunists who see an advantage in encouraging homo- phobia.
What topped it for me were those who said if President Clinton had been in the military, he would understand their fear of gays and lesbians, their terror at sharing a pup tent with [fill in with the bigoted word of your choice].
Well, I was in the military, a volunteer in the hairy-chested, hetero-obsessed paratroops. I served in combat. My credentials esta- blished, let me tell you about the military.
I served in the paratroop military police, and I arrested many rapists and marched them to court-martial. All were men charged with raping women.
I took action against a number of what were called gangbangs and was ordered not to act against others. All were aggressively heterosexual.
In France I worked controlling traffic within the corridors of a US Army whorehouse. No gay men, just long lines of panting heteros.
I served as a jeep driver for officers all the way up through general, some of their names in the history books, in the United States, Great Britain, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria and Italy while I delivered them to houses of prostitution and waited long hours outside - on wartime duty.
At the end of the war, I drove two Red Cross women volunteers through Germany, Austria, Italy and France, at government expense, while they "visited" generals.
I drove American movie stars to appointments with married generals; others lived in the generals' headquarters.
I even saw a Capt. Kay Sommersby, a British citizen for whom Gen. Eisenhower managed to finagle a commission in the US Army.
And, of course, all the propaganda had the Japanese and the Germans raping and pillaging. Then the Russians and the Chinese, who never did such things when they were our allies, started doing them when they became the enemy.
And, of course, US soldiers never did.
But, once, when we were back from the front in France and I was on patrol, we caught two male paratroopers engaged in a homosexual act. One soldier was a many-times-decorated company corps man.
The division provost marshall agreed with us; they were not charged. They went back to combat.
War and sexuality go together. We who are over 60 remember wartime romance, tidied up for the movies. Facing death, men and women seek life.
War is an excuse, a stimulus, an additional motivation for sexual activity. I celebrate that when it is romance, deplore it when it is brutal. And in the military, sex is usually heterosexual and often brutal.
Our military leaders are in no position to preach the sanctimonious homophobia I hear from them. There were gays and lesbians in the military in my war and all the wars before that. They are in the service today and they will be in the service in the future.
If President Clinton had served in the military in combat or peacetime, he might indeed be more familiar with the sexual climate of the military services. Remember the recent Tailhook parties where blatant heterosexual Navy pilots sexually harassed women?
I would hope his military service would have made the commander-in- chief even more opposed to the mistreatment of military personnel whose love life is different, but often less violent and exploitative, than ours.
All the arguments I have heard against gay men and lesbians in the service I have heard before.
Once, in the back of an Army truck in France, a fellow paratrooper picked up a huge block of wood and started to hurl it through the windshield of the jeep behind us. My comrade in arms did not believe a black man should drive. We fought and I won, but that was a segregated Army, an Army in which Gen. Colin Powell would be serving hash to white generals.
Later we heard that women could not be integrated in the military. They would inflame the troops, war would stop when they had their monthlies, rampant pregnancy would rot the Army from within.
Today we know that many of our best military enlisted persons and officers are female. Male officers told me that when Pease was a Strategic Air Command base the best mechanics were all women.
Those who oppose gays and lesbians in the service have called upon those who have served our country, who are certified patriots, to speak out. This old soldier has spoken.
He salutes the commander-in-chief, commends him for his courage and hopes he will be allowed to lead us in the real wars of our time: against the poverty, unemployment and underemployment, homelessness, ignorance and illness that afflict our land.