Gays In The Military. Vincent Cianni

also gay and we wound up dating two local civilians who were friends. Then duty assignment to D.C. meant immersion in another kind of fantasyland where things were not as apparent as in San Francisco.

      Several years later, I wind up working with HIV-infected active-duty service members. People have no clue how important the Department of Defense was in HIV research. They link HIV with gay men but do not link gay men with military service, choosing not to inform officially unacknowledged active-duty gay men of the need to understand and address the threat of this disease within the uniformed services. The contributions of those brave men and women will likely go unsung in the history of the pandemic, just as the sacrifice of today’s service members gets yellow-ribbon bumper stickers or priority boarding at the airport, but not a lot of substantive understanding or ongoing support.

      PAGE 51

      MIKE ALMY, WASHINGTON, D.C., 2010

      MAJOR, U.S. AIR FORCE, 1993–2006

      Air Control Systems Manager. Deployed to the Middle East four times; discharged under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell; pursuing reinstatement

      In my early thirties, I was trying to fully understand who I was as well as the implications of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. I had been in the military ten-plus years. I had every intention of staying twenty years to retirement and make a full career out of it. I realized it was a sacrifice I would have to make, keeping my private life separate from my professional life and in all likelihood never having a significant relationship.

      When I was in Iraq, the Air Force restricted all private email accounts; we had to use government email on the government network. We used that primarily for work purposes but also for personal use. I used my email writing to family and friends. My unit rotated out of Iraq and the new unit came in and someone, somehow, stumbled upon my private emails. Instead of just deleting them, [he] proceeded to read them, found a couple emails that peeked his interest and raised them up to his squadron commander. They ordered a search of my emails—over 500—and pulled out maybe a dozen or so that were damaging to myself as far as DADT. So in the middle of the Iraq War, during the height of the insurgency, they were searching private emails to see if someone’s violated DADT. They conducted the search without ever getting a lawyer involved. They forwarded those to my commander back in Germany.

      About six weeks after we had been back in Germany, my commander called me into his office and the first thing he does is read me the duty policy on homosexuality. I’m sure I must have turned ghost-white because I had no idea that any of this was occurring or had taken place. Then he hands me the stack of emails. I look at them and I recognize them as ones that I had written. But in the back of my mind I’m thinking, “How the heck did you get ahold of these?”

      He asked me to explain the emails. I said, “I’m not going to make a statement until I talk to a lawyer first.” We went around and around for about twenty minutes and he realized that he wasn’t going to get anything out of me. He relieved me of my duties right there on the spot. It had a horrible disruption to the unit. A few months later they suspended my security clearance, took away part of my pay, and the whole thing dragged on for about sixteen months before I was finally thrown out of the military. On my last day I was actually given a police escort off the base like I was a common criminal or a threat to security.

      Initially I was suicidal because I was devastated. I couldn’t compose myself; I didn’t want to get out of the house, I just wanted the entire thing to go away. That lasted for probably a month or so, and it was really only through a few very close friends that really gave me strength because I had none of my own at that point. They’re the ones that pulled me out of that initial phase. I’m sure I was depressed for two or three years afterwards.

      I knew the rules as far as DADT. I never told. The Air Force in essence asked by searching private emails. I refused to answer the question. And yet I was still thrown out. I maintain to this day that the Air Force violated DADT by searching the emails. And yet no one else was held accountable for that. No one else was punished.

      I didn’t realize it at the time, but looking back on it, I realize you can never be fully honest or open with people that were close to you, with people that loved you or people that you worked with every day. There is this constant barrier around your private life. It takes its toll after a while. You become so compartmentalized and so internalized that you don’t even realize it.

      PAGE 53

      ZACHARY WERTH, BOISE, ID, 2011

      SPECIALIST, IDAHO ARMY NATIONAL GUARD, 2007–2010

      Medic. General discharge under honorable conditions, erroneous enlistment; used as a smokescreen for homosexuality

      DUSTIN HIERSEKORN, BOISE, ID, 2011

      PRIVATE, U.S. MARINE CORPS RESERVE, 2010

      Discharged for medical reasons two weeks after basic training

      ZACH: I was born April 9, 1987, in Challis, Idaho. My mom had me at a very young age. My father was out of the picture when I was two. Mom dated a lot of older guys in the military. My grandpa was a lieutenant colonel, Green Beret. He would make me fold my bed with hospital corners before I got any presents at Christmas. It was, “Yes, Sir” not “Thanks, Grandpa.” So it was always pushed on me to join the military.

      Towards the end of high school, my mom kicked me out of the house. I graduated and came down to Boise State University. My brother was having problems, so I put college on hold. My mom became dependent on pharmaceutical drugs; she had credit cards in my name and ruined my credit. At that time they were offering a $20,000 enlistment bonus. It was a chance to pay off my debt and go back to school with the GI Bill. I wanted to help people, so I chose to be a medic. I swore in on November 1, 2007. The day I graduated from basic training, I shipped off to San Antonio where I started medical training.

      San Antonio is much bigger than Boise, so I got to go to my first gay bar. Somebody poured a date-rape drug in my drink. I was going to pass out, so I ran out and fell into a cab. I had my dog tags on, so the cab driver knew where to take me. I ended up waking up in the hospital because I was dehydrated. They did a toxicology report and my platoon sergeant had to do a report on what had happened. They asked where I had been and I had to tell them what bar it was. I used the excuse that I didn’t know it was a gay bar. I didn’t go out for quite a while. I’d spend my weekends on base. I was still scared about being open. Everything was smooth until I got home.

      I was stationed with a CAB Scout unit in the medical platoon. I had MySpace, but I didn’t have my profile set to private. Somebody looked me up before I got home and told other members of my platoon that I was gay. People ask me on my first drill if I was gay; they told me it was talked about among some NCOs [noncommissioned officers]. One of them was extremely homophobic and he went to his team leader, a staff sergeant. He was not my team leader, he was not my squad leader, he was not my platoon leader. He was nobody I had to take orders from, but he took time to call my house one night and tell me, “What you do in your personal life had better stay that way. I don’t want to hear about it, I don’t want to see it, and I don’t want to hear any complaints or I’ll go to the commander with this.” He went out of his way to find my number and threaten me, so I figured if he could do that, how far would he be willing to go to find something incriminating against me.

      I was seeing Dustin and I was scared because I was our provider. That’s my job. It’s something I’d worked hard to achieve—my rank, my medals. I was terrified that he’d tell, no matter what I did. Whether I played their game or not, they’d turn me in anyway. I turned to my commander. I was very cautious about what I said, but at the same time I’d gone in there unplanned. I’m tiptoeing around the issue, trying not to out myself and trying to let him know what has been going on. I was scrambling for any outlet to get away from them, to not be outed anymore than I already was. I looked at getting transferred to a different unit. I didn’t care if it was ridiculous bullshit training that had nothing to do with my job.