Gay Veteran Says New Policy Falls Short : Military: O.C. attorney fears Clinton compromise means others will have to make the sacrifices he did.

For nearly all of the 20 years he served in the U.S. Army, David A. McDowell was the living embodiment of the new policy on gays in the military that President Clinton announced last week.

He wasn’t asked, he didn’t tell, and as far as he knows, he wasn’t pursued.

But to safeguard his Army career, McDowell had to make extraordinary sacrifices to hide his sexual orientation for nearly two decades. He made a conscious decision to forsake all relationships, remain celibate, stay out of all gathering spots for gays and keep his innermost feelings secret from even his closest friends. He wouldn’t even risk being seen hugging a male friend off-duty.

McDowell’s disciplined life was driven entirely by fear--fear of destroying his lifelong dream to complete 20 years of service in the Army and retire honorably, with a full pension, so he could then embark on a law career.

So why is McDowell, who retired from the Army in 1988, such a vocal critic of Clinton’s new compromise policy, which in essence forces future members of the armed forces to mirror his life?

“No one should have to live the way I did,” said the 47-year-old Vietnam War veteran and Laguna Hills tax attorney. “I spent 20 years hiding. I was constantly on the defensive, constantly avoiding entrapment, constantly suspicious of people who wanted to get close to me. I was able to survive in the military for 20 years by hiding out.”

Looking back on his military career, McDowell has no apologies, no regrets, for the life he chose. But now, as president of the Orange County/Long Beach chapter of Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Veterans of America, he is working to ensure future veterans are freed from the fear that dominated his years in uniform.

Under Clinton’s policy, members of the armed forces will no longer be asked if they are gay and Defense Department investigators are not supposed to pursue them on a mere suspicion of homosexuality.

However, they are still susceptible to discharge if they engage in homosexual acts, even in their private time.

Feeling betrayed by Clinton, McDowell and many gay activists insist that sexual orientation should not be an issue in the military at all, unless it involves misconduct while on duty. They have said the compromise codifies discrimination and sets a double standard for performance.

“The whole idea of the Clinton policy is that they are asking gays in the military to be monks or nuns,” McDowell said. “The fact that I chose to do that was my conscious choice because of the reality at the time. But people shouldn’t have to live like that just because I was willing to do it.”

But many enlisted men and women criticized the compromise for a diametrically different reason, saying they believe the presence of homosexuals is not compatible with life in the barracks and on the battlefield and opens the door to full acceptance of gays in the military.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff supported the middle ground, maintaining that a total lifting of the ban would have threatened national security and eroded unit cohesion and troop morale.

A discreet, no-nonsense military man, McDowell had no desire to flaunt his sexual orientation while serving in the Army. He didn’t want to have sex in the barracks or ogle his fellow servicemen or even announce to the Army that he was gay. Such overt expression, he stresses, has no place in the military. But he does wish he could have confided in a few close friends without fearing an end to his career and carried on a quiet, private relationship when off-duty.

“It’s not like you have to run around and tell everybody. It doesn’t mean I have to shout it from the rooftop,” he said. “But you should be able to tell a friend. People can’t really know me unless they know I’m gay. They don’t know who I really am unless they know.”

Only when McDowell was 40 years old and two years from retirement did he start taking risks by associating with fellow gays.

In 1986, while serving at the Los Alamitos Armed Forces Reserve Center, he began volunteering in his free time to staff a gay hot line, and served as a “buddy” to five men who were dying of AIDS. But even then he was careful to park his car several blocks away, walk east for a bit even though the hot line office was west, and then double back, just to ensure he wasn’t being followed.

Now, at the age of 47, he compensates for his repressed lifestyle with uncharacteristic expressiveness, hugging his friends when he greets them at gay veterans’ meetings. “I’m making up for lost time, I guess,” he said.

McDowell, who enlisted in the Army in 1968, graduated from a Texas flight school at the top of his class, then spent a year and a half flying dangerous helicopter missions in Vietnam. Guided only by the light of the bombs and tracers, he piloted night missions, landing on the war-torn front to deliver supplies and pick up wounded.

Later, he went on to be commissioned as an officer and serve quietly until 1988, retiring as a major.

When he joined the Army at the age of 22, McDowell was routinely asked if he was gay. He answered no, he says, since at the time he didn’t realize he was. For the next eight or nine years, he fought off homosexual feelings, believing it was “just a phase.” He agonized privately, but couldn’t risk talking to anyone. Instead, he read psychology books and kept his thoughts to himself.

While in Vietnam, it was easy to explain why he wasn’t with women, since there were few women around, he said. Later, by the time he was certain he was attracted to men, he would bring female dates to functions to ward off suspicion. Few people asked him personal questions, and those who did, he shunned.

When McDowell finally admitted to himself he was gay in the mid-1980s, he was already halfway toward retirement and wasn’t about to risk a discharge. His unwavering mission was to complete his 20 years so he could retire with a $20,000 annual pension and pay his way through law school.

“I simply lead a celibate life until later in life,” he said. “I was afraid of being discovered, so I did nothing that they could get me for.”

McDowell decided that, if confronted or blackmailed, he would resign rather than lie about his sexual orientation. But his secret was never discovered, even when at one point his private life was investigated before he was granted a high-level security clearance. No one asked him about homosexuality, so he didn’t have to lie.

He knows he missed out on many of life’s pleasures during his 20s and 30s, a virile time for most men, straight or gay. He couldn’t risk a relationship, bring a partner to a party or have a picture of a lover on his desk. And he avoided any social situation such as saunas that might give him away or make him uncomfortable.

While straight soldiers worry about being accosted in the showers, McDowell said nothing could be further from most gay soldiers’ minds, since they go out of their way to avoid any impropriety.

“If there’s anyone uncomfortable in the showers, it is gay men,” he said. “I remember one (heterosexual) friend who I was attracted to wanted me to go with him to a public sauna when we were stationed in Germany. I kept making excuses because I was afraid I’d get turned on. Finally, I ran out of excuses and went, but I was in fear the whole time.”

Still, he doesn’t complain or dwell on such unpleasant memories, since the Army pension was enough to pay his way through law school and now covers the payments on a house in Mission Viejo. “I made my choice,” he says. “I wasn’t miserable. But I was an unhappy man. It was an uncomfortable lifestyle.”

Calm and disciplined, pragmatic and efficient, McDowell is now the guiding force of the Orange County gay veterans’ group in its campaign to lift the ban on homosexuals in the military. The other veterans look to him for leadership, a skill that, ironically, he learned as an Army officer.

Before joining the Army, McDowell, who said he led a sheltered life in a white, middle-class area of New York, had never left home. He says flying dangerous missions in Vietnam gave him courage, while continuously changing bases and supervisors trained him to handle a life of what he calls “managed chaos.”

The military, he says, is a part of him, and he wouldn’t change that if he could.

“Overall, my experience in the military was good,” he said. “It was my rite of passage into manhood.”