Author: Vincent Cianni
Title: “Gays in the Military: Photographs and Interviews”
Publication: Daylight (link) , ISBN 978-0988983151, 252 pages,
large, glossy; hardcover
This “coffee table sized” book is an album of professional
black and white photographs of gay men and women who have been in the US
military, with a collection of interviews (I count 51) that run from page 121
to 240.
There are some other text items: a letter from Bruce Simpson
regarding denial of a good conduct medal; a commentary “Silent, Celibate and
Invisible” by Allan M. Steinman, MD, a commentary “Soul of a Sailor” by Lt.
Donald R. Bramer, and a commentary “Been There: History Witness and Some People
We Might Never Have Known”. There is a
summary epilogue by the author. The text
pages are double columned, and are printed to look like manual type face (Pica,
I think), and that made it a little harder on the eyes. There is no table of
contents. But, then, this is a “coffee
table book”.
The interviews are often compelling, and run the range of
situations from WWII to present day, after the 2011 repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t
Tell”. In many cases, servicemembers
were forcibly outed by others.
A number of novel situations appear. One, Goercke (the first one) joined the
Merchant Marine, an operation that has a relatively low profile. Ironically, I
had just visited the grounds of the Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point,
Long Island, New York Monday. Alan
Steinman (p. 208) served in the US Public Health Service, which as technically
under the DADT policy (carrying stethoscopes instead of rifles), before moving
to the Coast Guard. Katie Miller (p.
169) reports resigning her commission at West Point on “moral grounds” in 2010
over having to hide (and she was so close to repeal).
Two of the best known cases covered by interviews are Zoe
Dunning (p. 215) , who the book says was the only openly gay soldier allowed to
stay in the military in the 1990s, and Victor
Fehrenbach, a LTC in the USAF until 2011, and had served in the Gulf in all the
wars. Mike Almy (p. 145) is pursuing reinstatement, and Anthony
Loverde, as USAF staff sergeant, was reinstated in 2012 with the help of
Outserve-SLDN (Servicemembers Legal Defense Network).
A few of the cases that seemed important in the mid 90s –
Keith Meinhold, Joseph Steffan, Dirk Selland, and Tracy Thorne, are not
covered.
My own history, of course, I’ve covered in my books and
blogs. In brief, I was thrown out of a
civilian college (William and Mary) for “admitting” homosexual in 1961,
classified 4-F, volunteered for the physical two more times and became 1-Y and
1-A, and was “drafted” in 1968, and, after a stint in Special Training Company
at Fort Jackson, SC, graduated OK from Basic, was sent to the Pentagon (with my
MA in mathematics) and then mysteriously transferred to Fort Eustis for the
rest of my time, after my Top Secret clearance investigation had started. I would have been happy to do an interview,
but the point of my experience was more the effect that military service could
have on civilian life.
The photos are certainly impressive. The photo on pp 28-29 with the calves hairy
despite the tattoos is bizarre.
Question: Is Cianni interested in making an independent film out of some of the interviews? That would be an interesting and promising idea.
Question: Is Cianni interested in making an independent film out of some of the interviews? That would be an interesting and promising idea.
In 1993, the idea that gays could disrupt “unit cohesion”
and “privacy” in situations of forced intimacy sounded like “common sense” to
some. Foreign militaries (most of all Israel) and
then our own would show that this idea was a gross oversimplification at best,
even as much as McCain and all held onto even as late as 2010. In 1993, people really could live double
lives. With the Internet, all that
changed.
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