Seeking anedotes about gay soldiers who've been discharged for sex

[crazyfish]

Ok, I have a project in mind, and I'm working on the MC's backstory. His story begins in present day. He served in the US Air Force back in the 1980's.  The guy gets embroiled in a sexual relationship with his superior officer and gets nabbed for homosexual misconduct.  I'm assuming he'd be discharged dishonorably? Would he be punished?

 

I don't know anything about the Military, and this part of his life is a minor detail.  Actually it just to show how much of a heartless guy he is. The officer was very serious about him. But the Relationship was fun for the MC precisely because of the intrigue and tension and suspicion, and when he's caught, he loses interest in the officer. But I wonder how it would work in real life with the dishonorable discharge in your record. 

 

 

[Pete Bruno]

If you have the time to sift through the many results, just Google it (if you haven’t already here is one link with some interesting answers http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080202182627AAlc69V), you will be surprised at what you find, however I do know there are different types of discharge.  It could dishonorable or less than honorable, not sure which they would use.  But either one causes you to lose benefits and effects your resume. Another thing, if he was an enlisted man and involved with an officer, the officer would more than likely be busted down for fraternization. 

 

One true anecdote I can share came from my sister (a lesbian) who served in the Army for 24 years.  She retired a Command Sargent Major which is the highest rank an enlisted person can achieve.  Her MOS was Army Intelligence (talk about an oxymoron!)  and they were tasked with  among other things investigating soldiers for various reasons by doing forensic tests on their computers.  Her boss knew she was gay, he and his wife attended parties at her house (she shared with her lover) and it was never a problem.  She always told me that the brass used  the DADT on people who were total fuck-ups and it was the only way to get rid of them.  I have no evidence of this, it is just anecdotal, but it came from her.

[Bill W]

A dishonorable discharge can be a kiss of death with future employers, if they find out about it.  It doesn't always turn up in a background check, unless you are applying for a job that requires a security clearance, but that would definitely limit those types of employment.  It could be even worse than having a criminal record. 

[Tomas]

There were "Undesirable" or "Administrative" discharges that were also used for "forbidden" sexual relations amongst other things. Not as devastating as a dishonorable on the surface, but ranking right up there when the reason for them was questioned.

[crazyfish]

Thanks guys.  Yep so the MC was probably let go with a general discharge. That works.

[hh5]

again with the corporal klinger? he finally get his section 8?

[Dark]

A general discharge in the 80s was not likely when you're talking homosexuality. If there's an officer/enlisted relationship also, then they most likely threw the book at the two involved. The officer would most likely be looking at jail time for breaking military law and as an officer would be more heavily penalized. For both, they could be busted down to airman basic (enlisted). A lieutenant/captain is more likely for that to happen vs. a more senior officer, though being busted down to lieutenant rank is practically a given.

 

Remember, this is the 80s you're talking about, when the AIDS scare was growing exponentially and male-male relations are (fir whatever reason) more heinous and threatening to the stereotypical macho man, of which the armed services all have a high percentage of. Also, this was a time when being a serviceman (or woman) was still very highly regarded - officers and airmen were held to a higher level than "normal" citzens and anyone thought to be tarnishing that rep were just raked over the coals. Anyone with a less than honorable discharge is going to get questioned about it and it would be very hard to get hired afterwards as it was legal (still is, depending on where you live) to be discriminated against based upon your sexual orientation.

 

My father and 2 uncles served in the air force during the time you're talking. I'll put the question to my dad and see what he says with his background in investigating officers suspected of "conduct unbecoming." My brother received a dishonorable discharge from the marines 4 years ago and it still haunts him. From my perspective as an air force brat and an officer, in the 2000s, cases of suspected homosexuality were usually dealt with within the squadron (think escalating bullying) until the person in question was reassigned or caught doing something else.

 

Fraternization (having an overly friendly - sexual or not - relationship with someone significantly higher in rank than yourself is treated very very seriously. It is possible, depending on the ages of the people involved that the older person (not necessarily the higher-ranked) could take most of the blame for "leading the other astray." That would usually end up with one perso receiving the max punishment and the other person receiving a lesser one, generally falling under "conduct unbecoming." Depending on the situation, that could end up being as little as a formal letter of reprimand. One of those wpuldn't get you promoted, but wouldn't get you a discharge, either.

 

Whatever you decide, you should definitely find and read military law regarding your possible scenario. They're no joke. Breaking military law is an automatic felony, which have higher penalties than state law.

Edited August 4, 2013 by Dark

[methodwriter85]

You should probably try contacting dkstories. He would probably have a really good grasp of 80's-era military.

[TetRefine]

I asked my dad (who was a nuclear artillery Army officer in the '80s) how they dealt with gay people back then. He told me that since his unit dealt with nuclear arms and highly sensitive information, being gay was simply out of the question. They looked at being gay as a liability and more susceptible to possible black mail. When your dealing with something as sensitive as small nuclear arms, you can't have people who are "more susceptible" to black mail, or so their line of thought went back then. On the other hand, he told me that they had a guy in their unit they all knew was gay, but everyone kept it from the upper echelons because they all liked and respected him, and he kept his private life to himself. 

[Gene Splicer PHD]

I know your story is focused on the AF, but I was in the enlisted Navy, stationed on a supply ship that operated in the West Pacific in the early/mid 80's, and we had an "incident" that led to some of the questions you're asking. It's a little long-winded, sorry.

 

Here's some background you can skip if you want, but it plays into "the incident" and some stupid gay sailors getting better treatment from the Navy than (I think) they deserved. My issue with their treatment has nothing to do with being gay - it's about being really stupid.

 

We typically deployed with a battle group - an aircraft carrier and its various escorts, for around 4 months at at time. We made frequent port visits to purchase fresh produce to distribute to the battle group. And FYI, it was an all male crew, we didn't have any females on-board (which changed after I left).

 

Back then, supply ships often got captains or command staff that were "phoning it in" with regard to ship's discipline. They were this way because they often came from air wing/carrier detachments and were, career-wise, on track to captain a carrier. Carrier captains usually start out as pilots, then move up through running the various air divisions, and on up to commanding the air group (which is just a little bit below commanding the carrier). At some point in there, they need to get qualified to command a ship instead of some airplanes, so they go off the carrier and leave the air group to command a couple of support ships or subs for short tours. But the upshot is that these captains aren't so interested in how the ship is actually run, their focus is different.

 

First, the ships themselves were older, and usually didn't have all the fancy paint or armor or cool guns, so awards,like the "Battle E" (for efficiency in battle) was great for a destroyer crew, it didn't mean so much for us box kickers. We concentrated on getting the "Supply E" or whatever, but the captain could really give a rip about our awards unless it directly affected his ability to get back to the carrier. Second, these captains spent a lot of time impressing the carrier with response to their needs. So, we always made sure that the needs of the carrier/air wings were met, because these were his pals and future commanders. And finally, they didn't see these as important commands to have. It was kind of a "party" because of all the trips to cool ports (like Australia, or the Philippines, or wherever we were sent to get stuff).

 

Often, on the way back to port after a deployment, we'd visit several ports along the way. Many ports can't support a carrier in port - 5,000 people in town at once, where to put the thing, etc.- so these supply ships would detach from the battle group, and are "fun" for the crew because they can go where a carrier can't.

 

At anchor or in port, a ship is put on "inport" or "anchor" watch rotations - basically every division/department is manned (after working hours or on weekends) by a skeleton crew while the rest of the sailors go on liberty. When you're on liberty, you're not expected to be aboard - it's a day off, or it's after working hours. Some departments rotated watchstanders every other day, others rotated every three or four days, whatever. But essentially, every x number of days you'd have to stay aboard for a "duty day". This is to explain why our participants in "the incident" were on board, and not out in town.

 

Our captain at the time of the "incident" was nick-named (not by us) "Captain Candy", and was a really laid back guy. It wasn't uncommon for us to have a "party on the patio (pier)" when we were in port where going on liberty wasn't an option - like Oman, where we weren't allowed in town, or were in a hurry to get back to the battle group. We'd load all the produce/supplies, and then we'd put out grills, and pallets and pallets of beer, and the crew (except for watchstanders) would be a little tired the next day. If we were on liberty, it wasn't uncommon to find the captain in a bar somewhere, and if you knew him a bit, he'd buy rounds for all his sailors, that kind of thing. So he was not necessarily the most discipline-focused guy.

 

So, what happened:

We were anchored in Singapore for a week, on liberty. No other ships in port, it was a very routine port visit. The ship had a chapel, which was a small space used for church services. One night, six crewmembers (I was not one of them but I was on-board so I heard about it first hand) were caught having a nice little orgy in the chapel.

 

There was a lieutenant and an ensign, and the rest were enlisted petty officers (e-4 and above) and seamen (e-3 and below) in the group. No chiefs. Basically, middle to lower management types. All of them were gay. I knew two of them fairly well, and you couldn't have found two more obviously gay men, they made no attempts to hide their interests (which actually was kind of annoying and concerning for the rest of us gay sailors - I knew of at least 10 other guys that were into guys). They'd been caught mid-act, and I guess there was a lot of panic and yelling and so it got a little more attention than just some minor "drinking on the ship" or fighting or whatever would have gotten.

 

The 4 enlisted crew spent the night in the brig, and were given "administrative" discharges. An admin discharge is neither honorable nor dishonorable, but "according to the needs of the navy". Administrative discharges are usually appealed to "honorable" after the fact. But the idea behind them is to get the sailor out of the service as soon as possible without a lot of paperwork.

 

The two officers had letters of reprimand put in their files and were "asked" to resign their commissions.  Letters of reprimand are almost always a big hit to an officer's career, and depending on what's in the letter, can severely impact their ability to get promoted. For these guys, the reprimands ended their careers, albeit "voluntarily". 

All of them were off the ship that day, flown back to the states for processing out. 

 

There were no witch-hunts. There were no other attempts to purge the ship of "the gay", because it wouldn't have been prudent of the captain to report these incidents as anything other than an administrative problem. That would have affected his career path and caused a shit-storm of an investigation - Navy Intelligence would have gotten involved, and there would be audits and investigations and other questions raised about the way the ship was run. I'm pretty sure the battle group commander blessed the effort to broom the whole thing under the rug. Because we were a supply ship and this was a "party cruise" for the captain, it wasn't seen as important as an accident on board or a fighter crash or whatever. So that's why the ship's command staff took the actions they did. It was just a low priority deal.

 

These were some pretty stupid crewmembers. First, who has sex on the ship while in port (at sea is different )? That's just dumb. You wait for liberty, and then you go do that in town.That's what cheap hotels are for. Even worse for the officers, who, being officers, should have known/dealt with the impact their actions could have had - were they pressuring the enlisted types? Who would know? Would the enlisted men talk about that in an investigation? It could have been a real "a few good men" situation there. And of course, there's the "don't shit where you eat" rule - why were these guys screwing each other instead of finding some locals? It was just really kind of embarrassing for everyone involved.

 

And regarding being gay on board: Yes we got together, but we did it in port/away from the ship or, when at sea, we'd find spaces in the ship that were unmanned or under our control. I was a storekeeper, and my watch consisted of patrolling the various holds and checking for "bad guys" or damage or if we were sinking or strange situations. Anyway, I had access to most of the holds while on watch (and had a key to my assigned hold any other time), so we'd just use a hold in the middle of the night or whatever. You never messed around with an officer, even if he invited it. In fact, even people of higher or lower rank were kind of "off limits" without some serious conversation.

 

So that's the story of the gay sailors in the chapel, and of a slacker captain and his political motiviations, and why, even before DADT, you could either be really smart or really dumb about seamen.

 

Edits: corrected some typos, rearranged some paragraphs)

Edited August 5, 2013 by Gene Splicer PHD

[crazyfish]

I know your story is focused on the AF, but I was in the enlisted Navy, stationed on a supply ship that operated in the West Pacific in the early/mid 80's, and we had an "incident" that led to some of the questions you're asking. It's a little long-winded, sorry.

Thanks. I'm really grateful for your insight.

 

This provides a lot of inspiration actually. Thank you very much.

Edited August 5, 2013 by crazyfish

[crazyfish]

And regarding being gay on board: Yes we got together, but we did it in port/away from the ship or, when at sea, we'd find spaces in the ship that were unmanned or under our control. I was a storekeeper, and my watch consisted of patrolling the various holds and checking for "bad guys" or damage or if we were sinking or strange situations. Anyway, I had access to most of the holds while on watch (and had a key to my assigned hold any other time), so we'd just use a hold in the middle of the night or whatever. You never messed around with an officer, even if he invited it. In fact, even people of higher or lower rank were kind of "off limits" without some serious conversation.

 

I take it the gay seamen sort of looked after each other then? Or was it every man for himself?

[Gene Splicer PHD]

Yeah, to a degree, but always protecting ourselves first. I "pass" really easily for straight, so I never got any questions or rumors about me (that I know of). But there were people that knew I were gay, just as I knew they were gay, because we did talk among each other about other guys that were "friendly". 

 

But, some had reputations or had people talking about them in pretty rough/obvious ways. Sailors like to gossip, and "who was that way" was a topic, even (especially) among the rest of the crew. Anytime it was talked about, it was with a sly look and nothing was ever discussed in front of senior crew, like officers or chiefs (because they would have had to do something about it). But make no mistake - if some officer or division head or superior officer/enlisted got wind that I was "associating" with someone in a "detrimental" way, I'd have thrown them under the bus without a thought. And the others would have done the same to me.

 

Truthfully, I don't think anyone one really cared enough to do anything about the "gay menace", because at the end of the day, you don't care who's doing who, you care about how well your shipmates know how to put out a fire or make the ship stop sinking, or who can stage the cargo for the next unrep without screwing it up and making more work for everyone else.

 

But you still had to be really careful about who knew, and what you did, because it was against regulations and you could go to jail or get kicked out. 

 

So, if I were to go out on liberty or spend a lot of time with anyone that other people knew about, that could be a problem, so we'd meet off the ship rather than leave together, that sort of thing, and we'd help with cover stories and cover for each other ("I saw Anthony with a really hot chick at Mariposa's. Hey Anthony, did you get any? Har har") . But generally, we just didn't associate with each other very much, it was too risky. We were all very much in the closet until the time and place was absolutely safe. Some were better at this than others, obviously.

 

This is pretty easy aboard ship and underway, because while you'd run into each other on the mess decks or elsewhere, there wasn't a whole lot of downtime to spend with other people. It was a working ship and we worked 16 hour days, we were always getting prepared for the next underway replenishment or organizing cargo, cleaning, etc. - there weren't many opportunities to socialize all that often. And when you did, you made sure your cover stories were tight and in place.

 

Off the ship, it was easier but could still be dicey. We went to the Philippines quite a bit so we knew the bars there, and places to go where we could meet up without a lot of questions. We always met at places where we knew other sailors didn't hang out, and you never needed an ID to get a room, so that made things easier. And there's that "don't shit where you eat" rule that we followed - it just wasn't a good idea for shipmates to get together (for sex) because...what if one of us gossiped or we got found out or one cheated on the other or...? And you're getting underway tomorrow and not hitting a port for three weeks, so you can't get away from each other...that could be a big issue. We do like our drama.

 

Also, my shipmates weren't sexy, really, especially ones that you worked with. You saw them all the time: At work, after work, getting ready for work, eating, being assholes to each other. There were 65 men in our berthing area (where we slept), and that's a lot of farting (I mean it. We ate well) and yelling and giving each other shit.  But it wasn't sexy. Also, the environment aboard wasn't sexy. A ship is a machine, and it looks like one, inside and out. Piping and wiring everywhere, chipped up paint, worn out floor tile or a metal deck. It was clean (because we cleaned a lot), but it's a machine and it looks and acts like one. It's metal beams and walls, noisy as hell with all the fans and machines around you. And it's rocking around and bouncing and vibrating. And the smells. Everything from oil and fuel to footlockers and the deck cleaning solutions (like pine sol only stronger) and the tile wax. So, not that it stopped us when we really wanted to get together, but there's no romance in it.

 

There's a longstanding tradition among military members - especially enlisted shipmates - that unless you actually need to report or do something about a situation in an official way, you just don't see some stuff. You look the other way. Some are more understanding of this than others, though, so we'd have "allies". As I said, many of the crew just didn't care as much as the media would like you to think.

 

Once, when I was really new on the ship, I was on liberty in the Philippines, and I found a couple of guys from my ship's department at a bar who'd obviously been there longer than I had. At the end of the night, we three headed back to the ship. These two guys were really close friends (although I had no clue how close, apparently). 

 

When we got to the top of the brow (where you actually step onto the ship's quarterdeck), you have to show your ID to the officer of the deck, usually a junior officer or somewhat senior enlisted man. There are other crewmembers on duty on the quarterdeck and the group is called the "quarterdeck watch".

 

These two were hanging on each other, like drunks do. One of them pulls his ID out of a front pocket in his jeans, and it's not his ID, it's his buddy's. So the other guy hunts around a little and gets his ID out, and it turns out that earlier in the night they'd had a little free time and hey, he's got the wrong ID, too. Then they had to make a little show of trading them ("hey bud, I musta grabbed your ID at the bar, blah blah blah"), and one of them was really red faced. It was pretty obvious that they hadn't swapped IDs, they were at some point both not wearing pants, and grabbed the wrong ones when they got dressed.

 

At least one of the sailors on duty knew what was up, and I got a raised eyebrow (more like a big wink) because I was "with them". When I stayed clueless (because I was), he just snickered and waved us onto the ship. If any of the other quarterdeck watch were to get "official" about the situation, he'd have been obligated to find out why these two had the wrong IDs - it's technically an infraction to be without your proper ID at all times - or ask a lot of questions about their sobriety and their activities ashore, or even give them shit about being "out of uniform". But usually, it's a lot easier to just not notice some things. Which is why the rest of the watch found something to do - the runner went for coffee, the officer of the deck suddenly found the quarterdeck log to be very interesting, etc. So the culture is "if it's not hurting anyone or impacting the ship, well..."

 

So, yes, you circled the wagons if you needed to, but generally, everyone kept a low profile and it wasn't that big of a deal for the most part.

Edited August 6, 2013 by Gene Splicer PHD