Military Gays Forced to Battle Quietly to Keep Their Jobs

You feel it when she walks into a room. There is a sense about her, commanding, powerful, razor-sharp and smooth. She is among the best that the military has; her commanders like to show her off.

She’s up for yet another promotion now, but her rank is too high to mention here. And I certainly can’t publish her name. Even her branch of service she asks me to leave out.

This is because this officer could be found out: Her sexual orientation does not conform to military rules.

“I put this uniform on and I am another person,” she says. “The only thing I discuss outside my professional life are my pets. I deliberately make myself unapproachable. I don’t do the party thing. I invite no one over to my house and I rarely go places where I am invited.”

That’s how she’s made the military her career, how she’s managed to survive several internal investigations to determine whether she is gay. They have asked her to confess. “To what?” she has asked. “You know,” comes the reply. But she’s played it too smart.

So, yes, she has “won” repeatedly, beat the system so to speak. Still, she says she is left shaking inside.

The officer has many such stories to tell, of witch hunts and smears, of willful ignorance and fear.

Suddenly, a new commander-in-chief might lift the 50-year-old ban on homosexuals serving in the military, just as President Truman did for blacks back in 1948. And the military Establishment is having a panic attack.

The officer says her straight colleagues talk a lot about the bathroom now. Maybe they’ll get stared at in the shower, or goosed, or find an unwelcome intruder in their bunk. Maybe they’ll just up and quit, they say, leave the military to the limp-wristed, the perverse and the weak, leave it to the girls.

“I had a guy come up to me wanting to know if we would have to re-evaluate our policy on sexual harassment now,” the officer says. “I said, ‘What do you mean?’ So he says that when he’s platoon sergeant and somebody screws up, he yells at them and calls them faggots. He says what’s he supposed to do now, ‘the faggots might find that offensive.’ ”

The officer is one of many gay service men and women I’ve talked to lately. They are, all of them, proud of their military careers. They’ve served with distinction, and with their wits. The longer they’re in, the better their survival strategy is honed.

A lesbian soldier I’ll call Janet married another one I’ll call Bill, who is gay. The marriage has never been consummated in the traditional sense, but the cover their arrangement provides allows them to relax.

And more than ever these days, they realize that they’ve become best friends. Bill was discharged from the service recently after his doctor confirmed he has AIDS.

Then there’s Michael, who had top security clearance when he was in the Navy for more than 10 years. But the Naval Intelligence Service suspected that something wasn’t quite right about this man; they investigated him several times. And no, nothing ever stuck.

Except the pressure, that is. The anxiety ate at Michael; his security clearance was revoked. Michael left, and joined the Marines, for a large cut in pay. And he may be safer there, because his cover looks good.

His best friend, a fellow Marine, is straight. And Michael is close to his buddy’s wife. He’s godfather to the couple’s child.

President-elect Bill Clinton says he’s not backing off his campaign promise to lift the ban on homosexuals in the armed forces, even though he’s already taking a lot of flak months before he assumes the office that has the power to better our world.

Nonetheless, Clinton has also says he will listen to the naysayers first. They’ve been talking for a while.

Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says it wouldn’t be right to lift the ban, that “lifestyles” wouldn’t mix and that good order and discipline might be compromised as a result. Sen. Sam Nunn, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, says he’d even be concerned for the safety of the homosexuals themselves.

In other words, the testosterone defense: Couldn’t help myself, your honor, boys will be boys. Maybe Sam has Tailhook on his mind.

But Clinton says that conduct, not sexual orientation, should be key. And it’s a measure of how far we really have to go, that in 1992 this utterance can whip up such a stink.

Homosexuality is not a communicable disease. Tolerance can, and must, be taught.

The military as an institution should know this better than most. You mess up, you get out. One standard, blind to gender, race, religion, sexual orientation and everything else. The military should not care that somebody was just having a bad day.

You wonder why gays and lesbians, subject to the vilest form of official bigotry, would chose the military life. I’ve been wondering, so I’ve asked.

The answers I’ve gotten have to do with serving one’s country, about doing a job well, about discipline and pride. This, of course, is what heterosexuals say as well.

And the high ranking officer adds this: “Ten years ago, I was afraid to get out. Only I didn’t realize that it gets worse as it goes on. And I must confess that I have another reason for staying in.

“I have a fine sense of irony. I have a real desire to retire after all these years of them hunting me. I want to be the big one who got away. They are just so frustrated about it. It would just make their life so easy if I got out.

“But I do think that I can do some good where I am, not just for homosexuals, but for women and just for fairness in the (military), and that is the satisfaction. It’s the only satisfaction of the job.”

Dianne Klein’s column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Readers may reach Klein by writing to her at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7406.