Gays In The Military. Vincent Cianni

I went in to talk to my commander about the harassment the second time, he said, “Let me set up a meeting between you and me and the squadron commander.” A week later, my unit commander stood behind my squadron commander and didn’t say a thing. The squadron commander said that he’d been informed of the harassment, he’d been informed of my complaints, and one of the first things he said to me was “I have no doubt that eventually Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell will go away. I understand that we’ve been having some problems, however Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell isn’t gone.” That’s all he said to me. And then we got the order that our unit was being deployed to Iraq and we started training.

      I was seeing a cardiologist. I had a condition that would not have allowed me to join without written approval from a doctor. And that’s what they used. So in the midst of a deployment, I was discharged—general under honorable conditions—for erroneous enlistment. I lost my insurance and my job. I was told by one of the officers who signed my paperwork, it would be as if I never joined, and my service didn’t mean anything. After three years, they decided to look at my medical records. They were looking to get me out without Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. I lost everything I’d worked hard for.

      Shortly after I lost my job, I lost my apartment. Medical bills racked up from seeing a cardiologist. I had a hard time finding work for a long time. I went from the military to a seasonal position. I still have all of my medical certifications, but right now, EMTs are not in high demand. My goal is to save up money so I can get back in the medical field.

      I hate them for what they did. I don’t understand how people could do that to someone. I keep all of my medical and military documents, all of my certifications, awards, medals. Sometimes I think about framing them because I’m proud of them. I’m proud of what I did. But at the same time, I feel like I’m justifying my service to myself, that I did serve. I would hope that my service mattered to someone.

      DUSTIN: I was born December 16, 1985, in California. We moved to Colorado when I was twelve. My dad got laid off from his trucking job, lost everything, so we lived in our motor home for a couple of months and then stayed in Canon City for a year and a half. My parents split up, so me and my dad left for Sterling, Colorado. I wanted to get into law enforcement and one of the things that they look for is military background. I thought that would make my dad proud ’cause he was in the Navy. I was skeptical with my vision; I thought that was going to hold me back, so I lost interest.

      My parents had gotten together again and I was dealing with coming out. I tried hiding it. My parents didn’t accept it and to this day I’m really not out about it. Family life went to crap and my parents threw me out of the house and took away my truck. I ended up moving my stuff in with a good friend of mine. He was straight and only had a little one-bedroom apartment. That’s what got me through a lot of it, plus a lot of beer.

      My parents retired from the Department of Corrections and they moved up here. I stayed back; I had a good job doing insurance and was licensed. Then that company fell apart. Everybody got laid off. I had nothing and my one roommate wasn’t paying his part of the rent so we were falling behind and my dad’s like, “We’ll come get you.” He brought a truck and we towed my second car and put everything I owned in two cars and a pickup.

      [Zach and I] started talking. I finally asked him out and would drive into Boise all the time to see him. I loved him right away. We got an apartment together ‘cause we both were in bad housing situations. We started making our home together and then it was time for him to go on deployment. I’ve always been proud of him, but it was rough on me. I didn’t know if he was going to come back. I was scared. Part of me was grateful for him getting discharged, so I didn’t have to worry about him—he would be with me.

      I wanted to be as strong as he was. He’s helped me so much financially, now it was my opportunity to do the same for him. He was the one that gave me the courage and support to do it. I’ve always had an interest in the Marines. I thought they were the most respected. I wanted to be the best of the best. So I sat down with a recruiter. He told me, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is going away, but here at the Marines we don’t accept it. If that’s who you are, you need to find another branch.” I had to sign papers about not being gay.

      When I was at the Military Entrance Processing Station [MEPS], they had me do the standard eye test, ‘cause they said I was color blind. They pulled me out of the screenings and sent me to a downtown eye doctor in Boise and did a full eye exam there. According to them, I’m not color blind or as bad as what MEPS was saying. And so they signed off on it and they passed me through. I swore in and when I did, that was honestly one of my proudest moments of my life. I was in tears as I took my oath. I was happy that I was going to be there like Zach and make him proud of me.

      I had to wait for my deployment. I ended up talking to my recruiter; I just wanted to go and get it over with so he bumped me up. It was originally targeted for March and they ended up bumping it up to January. My day came, and I left. Day four on base, they went to do my vision screening. They said I had myopia and that my astigmatism was more severe than what they had thought it was. My corrected vision was their baseline of what their noncorrective vision is allowed, so it was pretty much three strikes right there.

      ZACH: The whole plan was [Dustin] was going to go in. I actually moved in here with my friends as their roommate while he was gone. We sold a lot of our stuff—our dog, our thousand-dollar couch, everything—just to prepare for him to leave. I was happy doing it, ‘cause that was a big step for him to take. Within two weeks everything that we planned is just thrown out the window again. He was coming home to no job. I was only doing temp work, so money’s not exactly steadily coming in. It was supposed to be me here with my roommates and all of a sudden it’s either they have to let him stay or we have to find another place to live. We didn’t know where we were going to go from there.

      DUSTIN: I felt like I failed. I know in my heart that it’s not my fault. I was afraid of what we were going to do and where we were going to go. I didn’t know how things were going to be. And it turned out after being here for a little bit it just never felt like home. It felt like we existed in that back room. We had to deal with car repossession; it was tough. We struggled financially for quite a while after me coming back and here it is now, six months after me getting home, and we’re just now starting to get back on top of things.

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      CHARLES CHRISTOPHER BYRNE, PLATTSBURGH, NY, 2011

      OPERATIONS SPECIALIST SECOND CLASS, U.S. NAVY, 1989–1999

      SPECIALIST E–2, U.S. COAST GUARD, 1999–PRESENT

      Chief of Operations. Appellate leave; special court martial; awaiting discharge results

      I was born in the Philippines in 1969 and was adopted by my aunt because she was not able to have kids. She adopted a girl from her older sister, got married to an American sailor and moved to San Diego. I never knew my real father. He was also a sailor.

      I decided to join the U.S. Navy in the delayed entry program because they offered money to go to school. I went to boot camp, expected to only do one term, then go to college. But the Gulf War started. I was an operations specialist with Intelligence, so I kept being sent out. I was married at the time, and my wife got pregnant—we had our son in ’91. She couldn’t deal with me being gone so much and wanted a divorce. My concern was my son, so we stayed on good terms.

      My first encounter [with a man] was on board ship. The individual was a good friend of mine. He was married. We were drunk. Out of the blue he made a move on me, and I did not resist. We were hanging out more and I think it became obvious. It was reported and the Naval Investigative Service [NIS] got involved. Next thing you know, we’re at the NIS station at the base in Bremerton being interrogated. I didn’t know what was going on, but I was denying everything. They had no evidence. Three days of interrogation, and then on the third day, out of the blue, in the middle of interrogation, a guy came in and said this interview was over. The investigators left the room, and then this guy came back in and he apologized, “The charges have been dropped.