Out in the Military Now!

Question from subscriber: The [US] Military. How do you feel about it? What kinds of experiences have you had with the military, or with military people? Don’t Ask Don’t tell. How much do you know about ? how does it affect you? What’s your opinion on the way the military and “the glbtq” interact? And if you would say “we need to get rid of it” (“it” being “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”) can you give some details on how we should go about doing so.

I feel great about gays in the military. I think a gay person is just as qualified, if not more qualified, to serve our country. I’m very comfortable with military people, my friends from high school, my girlfriend’s step-brother is in Afghanistan. I also really understand that I was really close to joining after high school because I screwed around to much and thought I had wrecked my chances of going to college. I knew I was better than just hanging around… getting a job in a deli, or whatever. Being from a low-class family, you have to look for ways to get that college money.

And that GI bill was sold pretty hard, wasn’t it? That whole build up to the Iraq war, all the years leading up to it that bill was so hard to us. It was like, we’re not going to give you any financial aid, but if you join the reserves just two weeks a year, one week a month or something. You know, you’ll never really have to do anything [dangerous]. Remember those kind of commercials being everywhere? I certainly remember the Navy recruiters who used to talk to me every day at lunch, and they had me goin’ on it.

So I’m glad in the end that I chickened out (*shrug* hey, that’s what happened). And I also knew that I was going to end up being jailed because I’m really not good at taking orders. I would have just ended up banging my head against some sergeant until he threw me in lock up and said “Just throw her out, she doesn’t know how to listen!”

OR I would have just started shouting, “I’m gay!” the second I didn’t want to do it anymore. Oh, I would totally, if I was straight and they brought the draft back, and I didn’t want to go I’d be running around kissing people. “I can’t go, look at this!” I would be so out of it. I don’t understand why the guys in the 70’s, instead of burning their draft-cards? Couldn’t they have just said they were gay then? I don’t know, I wasn’t born till ’83; the year the first virus was attacking American computers.

How do I feel about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell? Well, fuck that shit. I think we know how the whole community feels about it; Fuck that. And it’s not a step in the right direction. And there’s nothing positive about it. I know a bit about it. I know that it was a Bill Clinton backstab called a compromise with the Republican congress. He campaigned and said numerous times, as I recall, that he was for open military service. But then Colin Powell and the Republicans pushed him on it, and he made a “compromise”. This was the best he thought he could do, I guess. Whatever. Not good enough is the end story.

Barack Obama has said he is in favor of repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, so vote for him if that’s what you want. I know there have been failed bills. What I think is most important is that we in the gay community need to realize that this is our job. This is not the veteran’s job, this is not the people who are out fighting’s job, this is our job to get this taken away.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. Let me use a little visual aid. Let’s say you [ in the video the King of Spades = you] are soldier in the army, or the military, whatever. Let’s say you’re a gay person in the military. Well you’re not allowed to speak up or organize, because you lose everything. And what I wonder about a lot is: what about that gay soldier’s family back home? I mean, do they even report their families? Can they? Are those people receiving the same support as other military families? Are they languishing?

Are they allowed to call the person the love knowing that it might be the only time they hear their voice that month, or god forbid ever again (knock on wood), and not be able to say “I love you”. All because they have to be afraid of getting outed. I mean, there’s a million bad things that could happen to you if your outed in service, I don’t have to tell you that…

What we really have to start realizing is that it can’t be left up to these guys. I mean, I don’t know if they revoke your rights and benefits if you come out as a veteran, but I’d bet not with things the way they are now. So we can’t ask the people who have already given their lives to us to fight for their own rights. This is the fight that we owe them. This is our fight because these people are fucking muzzled. They are forced, literally forced, not to advocate for themselves.

So you and I have to do it. They can’t speak a word about it, and all those nice Republican families who would probably listen to the gay families (probably even change their minds about it), will never hear those stories. And that’s part of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell; it puts a muzzle on these people so that they can’t tell. So that they can’t just say “We are you military. We ARE the people who are defending you.”

I think we’re totally able to get rid of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell completely. Let’s throw it out. Let’s get a constitutional Amendment for that! I think that time is coming soon. Again, if you believe in Barack Obama, like we did in Clinton, he’s supposed to open it up for us. So if you believe in Obama, vote Obama. More importantly, we all have to speak up more about this. We all bitch about it, and I think a lot of straight people do to, but we’re all talking around it. Nobody talks directly to the people who are against it, and calls it for what it is.

Note:
YOU ARE NOT UNDER ATTACK BY THIS LESBIAN. PLEASE LISTEN TO MY SIDE, AND I WANT TO HEAR YOURS!

If you prevent a gay person from serving in our military, you are endangering my country. Because you are weakening our military at a time when we’re already in two wars, and there are freaking terrorists and nuclear weapons floating around out there all over from bloody Russia. Thank you Russia, I mean… Soviet Union for falling apart. Every one of those people you take off our front lines, you put us in danger. Not because of their sex, either. They don’t have sex! They go out there and they fucking fight! They don’t get to have sex for a really, really long time. This is not about their sex and the way they have sex. This is about your sexual preferances and how you feel about sex, and you are putting YOUR sexual preference above national security. You know what I call that? Treasonous. You put national security BELOW your personal preferences, and I think that’s selfish, and it is treasonous.

Now you may not like me using the word treasonous, but I call a spade a spade. That’s what it is. You have to realize that. So whether they are black, white, illegal immigrant; if somebody is willing to go out there and fight for us and die for us, then you better not say shit to that person, because they’ve done a helluv a lot more for this country than you have, haven’t they?

Jenime is an artist living in the SF bay area. You can watch her musings and ravings any time by visiting her channel on YouTube.