Red White and Bacon

I will relate this following experience as in the letter I expressed to a friend who is the president of the group, PFLAG, the organization of parents and friend of lesbians and gays.   I can not report to you that this experience is a condemnation of the professional conduct of many of the people I had the honor with which to serve.  They are huge amiable Americans and I am blessed every day of my life to have known these people.

Dear Rabbi Horowitz,


I wanted to write to you to express my own feelings of justification that DADT was repealed. As you know, I was a member of the Armed Forces from 1992 to 1997. Though I do not report being "gay" myself, I will report that I did feel that I was living in a very unfriendly environment and that I was uncomfortable with my breif service in the time from July 1996 to my discharge for a mental health condition in Jun 1997. In July 1996, I began tenure as a general surgical resident. I will report to you that I not well liked as a resident. I was not given opportunities to scrub in and I found the rigor difficult. I was once paged to a "sex hotline". I felt I was regarded as different and on more than a few occasions, my command structure made clear to others that my performance was unacceptable. In my own home, I was living with a soon to be married senior resident. On one occasion, I was summoned into his office to view pornography which I did at the time feel was a test to see if I was "turned on" by the opposite gender. I did not have any romantic interests at the time and found this to be nearly humiliating as it felt to me at the time. I do not know if this was a factor in my discharge or the pursuit of a mental illness for my discharge. I remain skeptical that the miltiary will be friendly to those with same sex predilictions. I personally feel upon further consideration that this climate may have been a factor in the jeopardy I found myself to have encountered in my breif exposure to Active Duty Air Force in a Medical Setting.

As to my mental health, I can only report that I have complied with all treatment and that discharge with a mental health diagnosis which was unestablished and unclear to me was a major factor in future mental health decline as well as job insecurity. I remain on disability and hope that perhap sometime in the future I may find myself in a more productive and useful role. Any comments?

Sincerely,

C.J. Brenner
 
Reply:

Hi Craig,


Thanks for sharing your military experience with me. I have no illusions that LGBT individuals in the military will have an easy time of it, just as they often do not in civilian life. Your experience sounds awful and a good deal like how the DADT policy was misused by those in command. It was a bad law when it passed, and bad laws don't get better over time. We are well off to be rid of it.

Having said that, the struggle for equality is not nearly over in the military or in society. The reality is that racism isn't over, despite the fact that the military was desegregated under Truman and despite the Civil Rights act of 1964. Minorities, even minorities with mental health disabilities, deserve our attention and our alliance to help make the situation better. I guess that is all part of tikkun olam. "I may not be able to finish the task, but neither may I desist from it altogether."

David .