SAN DIEGO COUNTY AND THE GULF WAR : Gay Military Couples a Gulf Apart

When James Darby, 23, writes to his lover aboard a battleship in the Persian Gulf, he signs his name with only his first initial. Before the ship sailed, the couple sketched out typical dreams: marriage, raising a child, buying a house and a convertible.

But Darby’s partner is a man--and disclosure of their relationship could cost him his job, since the Pentagon prohibits homosexuality in the armed forces. To protect his lover, Darby keeps the relationship secret.

“You have to hide everything. You get used to playing the game,” said Darby, who recently left the Navy as a 3rd class petty officer after serving almost five years. “I feel for the wives waiting at home, but frankly, I think it’s a lot tougher for me because I have to hide our relationship. I can’t be there for my husband.”

Darby, who usually refers to his lover as his spouse, has no access to the sympathy or services offered to military spouses with loved ones deployed to the Middle East. The Pentagon discharges about 1,000 men and women each year for being gay.

But many gays who have been in the military believe that 5% to 10% of the military is homosexual. And, during the war, these men and women, as well as their partners at home, are leading desperate lives of secrecy. Those waiting at home are gripped with anguish and feel almost smothered by their isolation.

“Sometimes it just feels like someone is crushing my heart,” said Teresa, 44, whose lover recently deployed to the Middle East. “I feel like I am the only one out there.”

Teresa asked that her last name not be used for fear that military officials would figure out who her partner is and discharge her.

“I have always been openly gay. I have always been proud of me and who I am,” she said. “. . . I am not hiding me, I am not talking about me out of respect for her. . . . For me, it’s been hell.”

When her lover deployed, Teresa stopped sleeping in their bedroom. Now she uses the guest room--leaving the bedroom exactly as it was. Her lover’s sneakers are in one corner; her boots are in another--sprawled exactly where they had been tossed. And it will stay that way because it is too painful to be there without her.

“It feels like I am walking around in a fog,” Teresa said. “I feel almost like a drowning person.”

She and others are joining many voices in the gay community in asking for the right of lesbians and homosexuals to defend the nation. And they want those left at home to have the same privileges and support as their heterosexual counterparts.

Last month, Army reservist Donna Jackson, who was scheduled to be deployed to the Middle East, told her supervisor that she was a lesbian because she did not want to fight a war while “being in the closet.”

She was also concerned about the dearth of services available to her lover if she deployed. The San Diego resident was later discharged--and her case served as a painful lesson to those in the gay military community, which informally calls itself “family.”

Earlier this month, activist Miriam Ben-Shalom, a former Army Reserve drill sergeant, wrote President Bush offering a trained battalion of 250 former military members, most of whom are gay and who left the armed services within the past five years.

The battalion she proposes is modeled after the Civil War’s all-black 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment, whose members were also told they were unfit to serve. Bush has not responded to the offer.

“We are born American citizens and we enjoy, for the most part, the same privileges and freedom that others do. Many of us want to accept the other responsibility of being a civilian--defending our nation,” said Ben-Shalom, who appealed last year to the Supreme Court, with no avail, to alter the military’s anti-homosexual directive.

Some activists say that because so many gays are fighting in the war in the Persian Gulf, it will lead to the demise of the military’s policy that discriminates against homosexuals.

“With this war, the policy cannot stand. You cannot have these people coming back from the war, look them in the eye and say, ‘You are no good,’ ” said Jim Woodward, vice president of the San Diego Veterans Assn. Woodward, who has also appealed to the Supreme Court to knock down the military regulations, points out that police departments across the country have opened their doors to gays.

Pentagon officials, however, believe the country is not ready for such a change.

“Homosexuality is incompatible with military service,” said spokesman Maj. Doug Hart. “The Department of Defense has no plans or intentions to change that policy,” which has been in place at least since World War II.

According to regulations, gay men and women are banned because “homosexual conduct seriously impairs the accomplishment of the military mission” by undermining discipline, order, and morale.

For gays who stay in the military, it means a life of concealment. Some disguise their sexual orientation with macho jokes, fictitious girlfriends and lies about their evenings. They live in fear of “witch hunts,” being turned in by unfriendly colleagues or jilted lovers. But today, with a war raging in the Middle East, their partners also suffer.

Many have become bitter toward the military because it has robbed them of their loved ones. They are also angry because they know their partners are putting their lives on the line for a military that would boot them out if it were known they were gay.

“It’s time for people to know we are there,” said Darby, who served aboard the amphibious assault ship Tripoli, based in San Diego.

Darby accompanied his lover to his ship when it pulled out for the Middle East, and, while the heterosexual couples cried and kissed, the two men kept an awkward distance.

“This is so wrong--we are people, too, and we should have our rights,” said Darby, who drove away from the pier crying so hard that he had to pull over.

Darby has written more than 50 letters--numbering each one--to his lover, who left last fall aboard a battleship. He has shipped five care packages. In one, he mailed 12 dozen home-baked chocolate chip and oatmeal butterscotch cookies.

In another, he mailed 6 dozen home-made brownies. Darby tries to quell his anxiety by keeping busy--he now works six nights a week at a supermarket as a clerk. He has volunteered for community service. But he cannot keep his worry at bay.

He leans on his friends. But the holidays--usually his favorite time of year--were difficult. For the first time, Darby didn’t bother with Christmas decorations. At a New Year’s party, he burst into tears upon hearing “Auld Lang Syne.”

“There is no difference between me and any heterosexual person,” said Darby, crying. “It’s the loneliness. I have friends at sea, and I know their wives. But I can’t talk to them about their missing their husbands--people don’t realize you feel the same things.”

Darby has to hide the relationship. When he was still in the Navy, and colleagues asked him about his weekend, Darby would talk of the activities he planned with his “girlfriend,” whom he gave a fictitious name based on his lover’s real one. He would try to remember names of “straight” bars so he wouldn’t be revealing more than he intended if he named gay clubs.

When Darby has visited his lover aboard his ship, he pretended to be just a friend. He did not sit in his lap or hold hands, as he would do in a non-military setting.

Darby’s father served in the Navy for 22 years. His younger brother is also in the Navy--assigned to a vessel in Long Beach that is poised to ship out to the Gulf. So Darby is accustomed to the military traditions. Hiding his homosexuality had become almost automatic when he was a sailor.

But coping with his personal loss has been more difficult than he expected.

“I feel lost, like somebody took a part of me and never gave it back,” he said. “We are a puzzle, and he’s my missing piece.”

Darby has withdrawn from what had been a busy social life. He stays home now, though he limits his time watching television news to twice a day because it so upsets him.

He has put together a scrapbook, holding mementos such as tickets to the Gay Pride parade, his partner’s evaluation report, the note Darby received along with a dozen roses on their anniversary: “Jim, I will love you always and forever.”

Though he works from midnight to 8 a.m., he stays awake to check the mail every day--hoping for a fresh letter from his partner. But he has heard nothing since war broke out. Instead, he ends up rereading the older letters, scouring them for consoling words of warmth. Usually, the letters make him cry.

Before shipping out, his lover told Darby that he believed he would die in combat. And, as America teetered toward war, he wrote Darby more and more letters. Each one spelling out his love for his partner--and none touching on his fear:

Hi Sexy, 03 Jan. 91

I hope you are doing OK. I have my good days and my bad ones. Then I have the times I miss you so much that I cry. Which has been happening a lot.

Well we pull into the Gulf tomorrow and Saturday we anchor to get supplies and mail (can’t wait to get yours) and maybe liberty. If I get liberty, guess what the first thing is I’m going to do?

Yes, you are right, call the love of my life, you!! I can’t wait to hold and feel you holding me back.

. . . . Well I love you and miss you very much.

I love you always & forever, your husband.