Marine Told to Prove He’s Gay to Get Discharge

Rolf Lindblom has a problem. He’s gay, he says, and he’s proud of it, but the guys he works for just wouldn’t understand. So he’s kept it quiet, even inventing a mythical girlfriend during the last two years to make sure his colleagues wouldn’t get suspicious.

But that’s a frustrating, pressure-packed way to live, and recently Lindblom has been feeling fed up. He’s tired of hiding his homosexuality. He wants to be himself. He wants to get away from the guys he works for.

Unfortunately for him, those guys are the U.S. Marines.

Lindblom, a 25-year-old sergeant who works as a computer programmer instructor at the Marine Corps Reserve Training Center in Chavez Ravine and has compiled a top-flight record in his five years of service, is petitioning the corps for a discharge on the grounds that he is a homosexual.

Such a move is not unique--159 Marines were discharged because of homosexual behavior or admissions last year--but it is rarely publicized. Homosexuality is technically grounds for a court-martial, but for the sake of the corps’ image, most such discharges are quietly granted through administrative channels.

Lindblom has gone public because the Marines have refused to consider his discharge application unless he gives them something he wants to keep to himself.

Proof.

Explained a Marine Corps spokesman, “There has to be something more than somebody saying they’re a homosexual.”

But Lindblom says he fears an admission of homosexual conduct might lead to a court-martial. “I don’t trust them,” he said of his superiors. “I don’t think I need to provide them with more information.”

Another corps spokesman said that because the Marines have no interest in keeping homosexuals, those who admit such practices generally receive honorable discharges. The discharge can be downgraded to a general one if it involves homosexual acts with a subordinate or a minor, involves force or coercion or has occurred aboard a naval vessel or aircraft.

No statistics are kept on Marines who falsely claim that they are homosexuals to gain early discharges, but the spokesman said it is reasonable to suspect that this occurs.

The Naval Investigative Service is investigating Lindblom’s application, but because he has refused to talk to investigators, it is likely that he will be turned down, forcing him to decide whether to eventually detail his homosexuality or to live out his term in the corps for two more years.

“Provided they let me be myself, I guess I could live with it,” he said.

Lindblom, who has been stationed at the Chavez Ravine center for two years, has received several job performance awards, including one for being Los Angeles’ outstanding Marine.

He said the pressure of being a homosexual is greater for him now than it was at previous assignments in South Carolina and Okinawa because Los Angeles has an active gay community. He said he has joined the American Civil Liberties Union’s gay and lesbian chapter, wants to be involved in gay political activities but worries that increased involvement in the gay community may heighten the risk of “being caught doing something I could be court-martialed for.”

Lindblom said he was “asexual, never had any involvement with anyone” when he joined the Marines at age 19 in New York. He declined to discuss whether he considered himself a homosexual then.

‘Just Needed Some Time’

“I just needed some time,” he said. “You’ve got to grow up sometime. It was OK initially. It gave me some time to be away, do some things.”

Early in his Los Angeles assignment, he said, he invented a far-off girlfriend, Maritza, to whom he would allude when the subject of women came up. Several other gay Marines have employed similar devices to avoid suspicion, he said. “You have to provide a mirage to keep them off your back.”

Because he is also a part-time student at USC, taking courses for a bachelor’s degree in engineering, fellow Marines “didn’t think twice about why I didn’t show up at their parties,” he said.