I was a Korean translator, 98G2LKP, 1974-77, so my service was much earlier than most here. I honestly don’t recall if I knew anyone was gay then. It was a different period. I remember there was snide remarks about two gals in my barracks, roommates, but whether they were lesbian or not I couldn’t say.
Yeah, but you’re Canadian.
The reaction of a coworker (late 50s), let’s call him Mike, whose son let’s-call-him-Mickey also was a coworker, when a third coworker explained that “your son never talks about girls because he’s not going to bring one home” (it took several repetitions for the message to get through) was…
“oh. Oh. OOOOOOh. So he’s what do they say now, gay?”
“YES!”
“Oooooh. Oh, ok.”
4th coworker: “you don’t mind?”
“Why should I mind? I did my military service in the Legion!.. now, his mother… she better don’t find out, but why should I mind?”
The Legion is the Spanish Army’s version of more-macho-than-thou and this guy’s military service was in the 60s.
From what I’ve seen, the soldiers who “don’t wanna serve with no fags” (I’m not typing it that way to insult their intelligence, it’s really the phrase I hear the most.) have never been around someone they knew was gay. If you serve with someone who’s gay, obviously you come to realize that they are just another soldier with the same skills and defects as every Hispanic/Asian/white/black/male/female/old/young/married/single/Christian/Atheist/Muslim/etc/etc out there.
If the military wants to prosecute homosexuality, I want them to see them investigate marital infidelity with the same vigor.
Erm… do you want me to go into graphic detail? 
I’ve been in the army for over 18 years. Active and National Guard. Never had anyone in any of my units that were openly gay or even speculated about. Just due to statistics I’m sure there where some but I never knew anyone.
I was in the Navy in the mid-1990s. DATD was just getting underway then.
I knew quite a few lesbians who weren’t exactly open, but whose sexuality was kind of an open secret. They were tolerated, and sometimes even welcomed, because, frankly, lesbians won’t present a certain obvious problem to a unit due to their sexual activity.
That is, in that era they generally didn’t get pregnant, while their straight counterparts were getting pregnant at quite high rates and presenting problems with ability to deploy, financial issues, tardiness and absenteeism, and even early separation. This was especially true of the single moms.
The dirty little secret about many of the lesbians was that they were better suited to the more physically demanding jobs than their straight counterparts, and were welcomed into units for that reason as well.
The only known gay guys I knew (remember, this was a different era) were exposed because of disciplinary problems. One was teased relentlessly about his sexuality and threatened to retaliate by naming his sexual partners - on a ship with only 350 people on board, this would have caused a major disciplinary problem, and he was reassigned before he could make his threat good. Just as well.
The other guy was arrested overseas for assaulting an American minor boy, and was court-martialed. It was a case of date rape, essentially.
I have no doubt that I worked alongside a lot of good decent gay people whose sexuality was completely unknown to me. However, I am pretty clearheaded about these things, based on what I have seen, and I believe that open service of gays cannot work unless sexual misconduct by straight and gay servicemembers alike is punished in a more strict and consistent manner than it is now.
I was bleeding like a stuck pig and mostly out of it as a green job when a navy medic sorted me and my other colleagues out ,gay as fuck he was totally good at his job andI always told everyone afterwards about the job he did and his orientation ,but I always kept it quiet about his being in the Royal Navy,how fucking embarrassing is that !having your life saved by a navy fuck !
I was on active duty from '73-'84. Sometime during my first 2 years, I remember a friend being put on legal hold because one of the other women accused her of being a lesbian. There was an investigation and no evidence ever came forward, but the legal hold was enough for the accused to lose her orders of choice due to schedule and she ended up assigned where I was. I have no idea if she was gay or not, and I never really thought about it. She was a good technician, and we shared a warped sense of humor. And she taught me to play Mille Bournes.
Chances are that I served with gay men and women, but I’m not much interested in other peoples’ sex lives, so it was never an issue with me. Frankly, I had more problems with the dirty old men who thought I was hot to trot because I was a single woman in uniform.
Hot to trot? :eek: Does anyone say that anymore???