stolen from an andrew sullivan reader

"I appreciate the comparison you highlighted between the gay vet who confronted Mitt Romney and the black veterans in history observed by Ta-Nehisi. I am a former soldier, having served in the US Army from 1985 until 1989 before being discharged after a witch hunt. My sister is a retired soldier and my son is currently serving. We have a tradition of military service going back to at least the Second World War. It is my father, who fought with the storied 761st Tank Battalion (the Black Panthers) and his generation for black soldiers and airmen that I want to talk about briefly.

On my mother’s side, there were three Tuskegee Airmen.

My father, as I said, was a tanker. Before WWII, both my father and my uncles had lived every day of their lives in either Louisiana or Alabama, respectively. My father joined the Army the week following the attack on Pearl Harbor because the Army would let him fight as either infantry or a tanker but the Navy would have had him shining shoes or being a cook. My father wanted to fight.

He spent four years in the Army, was decorated with the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. When he came home at the end of the war, he went to college where he met my mother, who had spent the war building airplanes as a ‘Rosie’. Because my father served, he and my uncles got the GI Bill that allowed them to go to college. World War II made my father who he was.

My parents stayed in Alabama, where I was born, until 1968 when they moved us to California. The 1968 election was the first time my father ever cast a vote in the nation he had fought and bled for. When I joined the Army my father was very opposed to it - partially because my sister had joined four years earlier, partly because of his memories of serving in a segregated military. To convince him that my reasons were good, I told him that it takes a special kind of man to go and fight for a country that does not consider him enough of a human being to go to school where he wishes, to vote in elections, to live where he can afford and to work in any job he is qualified for. That generation of black men who signed up and served knowing that they would return home and not be able to vote were very special men.

When I think of the generations of gays and lesbians who served in our military, I think that whether the likes of Romney (or a non-trivial swath of the GOP for that matter) realize it or not, they are in the debt of these folks and are in the presence of the very best of America.

I am not trying to blow my own horn. This is not about my service. I went in because I felt that I had grown up in a nation that did consider me an actual citizen and if my father could put on the uniform when he was, at best, a second-class citizen I could do no less. I just want us, as Americans, to acknowledge that gays and lesbians have served and continue to do so and that these are the very best of our nation. They get up and they do their duty knowing that the man or woman they love back home is not considered their actual, wedded spouse and yet they do it anyway. We should honor them as the exceptional Americans they are."

knock knock

There's clearly someone ready for this troop to walk in after his year in Iraq. Before we sit through another hour of name calling we should just watch how happy dogs can be.



See? I can do feel good.

t

not to throw stones

Mayor Nagin of New Orleans has ordered the evacuation of New Orleans by noon tomorrow - one side of the city by 8am and the other side by noon. Buses will be running through midnight tonight to get folks out and will then resume at 6am tomorrow. Why can't they run all night? Planes? Military airlift? Anything? Jesus Christ, could somebody please roll the military in and get everyone out without a six-hour gap? I'm f&*^ing amazed. I'm sure President Bush has some kind words from his front porch down in Crawford or wherever he might be. Bush is a jackass.

over the edge

I’ve already spilled the beans to X on this entry, she’ll get nothing out of it. This whole boyfriend-girlfriend thing is horribly conducive to speaking, and bouncing things, off the other. You get what you get.

I’m perplexed by the huge condo / apartment buildings in the greater D.C. metro area: every one taller than three stories is laden with balconies. Yet, I never see anyone out on the balconies – they are clearly and idea used to sell and rent, but are rarely used by the suburbanites. Of course, if there were no balconies no one would move in, “Honey, there’s no balcony. I need fresh air in the evening. I need somewhere to entertain.” We, here on North Park Dr., spend a ton of time in our courtyard. People in the New England, those out West, those in three stories or less DO spend time outside: in courtyards, on porches, on the lawn, watching people. Nobody sits on the stoop outside a thirty-story monstrosity…nobody. If you live in something that big you want privacy, and with privacy comes the highly-valued personal balcony. In the end, it might house the bike, the boxes from moving in that you were too lazy to break down, the recycling, or the bag of garbage that goes down on Tuesday mornings. “Hey baby, you forgot to take the hidden garbage down this morning. I was planning on have the gals over for mint juleps on the balcony this evening.” As if…

I was down at NAS Pax River today. As with every trip to the ‘base’ I realize once again that I’ve got no idea how I spent twenty years in the military. I had a great job, I loved where I lived, but I was lucky. There is nothing that mixes when you put me and military together…I think I knew that when I was 21.

T.