COLUMN: "Singing the ROTC Blues"

From Tim Farrell's "Speaking Strictly For Myself," Spring '92 I have a few close gay friends who financed their college educations with Reserve Officer Training Corps scholarships. When they graduated and went on active duty, I started collecting little hints and tips for them about how not to get caught. As is the case with most homosexuals, my gay ROTC friends didn't choose to be gay and, not being heavy political types, want only to serve out the time they owe and get out. Since I don't have to worry about getting caught, I do all the asking around on their behalf. I struck a goldmine of information while on a trip to California a couple of years ago. I was at a bar in San Francisco when I ran into three gay soldiers who were stationed at an Army base in the Northwest (I shouldn't say where). After chatting with them a bit, I asked them if they had any advice for my friends from school who were gay and going on active duty. One of them, who had been stationed at several bases in the Southeastern United States, reported nothing but horror stories about redneck homophobes and long, suffocating months of closeted existence broken only by an occasional, long-awaited trip to a gay club in Atlanta or Dallas. Two of them had been based in Germany before they were sent to the West Coast. They said Germany was tolerable as long as you were stationed at a larger base in the south, such as one near Frankfurt or Munich. Smaller bases in Europe, they said, were hell for gays -- isolated, gossipy and without a big city to disappear into. They said Berlin had a cool gay scene, with little risk of getting caught. They gave me the name of a club in southern Germany where all the gay American soldiers hang out. They cautioned, "Never park your car outside a gay bar -- C.I.D. [the Army's Criminal Investigation Division] copies down the license numbers and will use them to identify you." One of them was particularly helpful and gave me the name of his boyfriend, who it turned out was a colonel, a rather high rank in the Army. I called the colonel up and mentioned his friend's name and explained that I was a college student on the East Coast looking for information on behalf of a few friends of mine. We arranged to meet a week later. Sitting by the ocean eating pizza, I listened closely as the colonel delivered a two-hour synopsis of how to survive in the military as a homosexual. He dated his female co-workers every so often to temper suspicion; he traveled hours to distant cities when he wanted to go to a gay bar, rather than risk being seen at the local one. He advised, "The most dangerous time you have is when you first join a unit. You haven't proved your value to them. It's a very dangerous thing to switch units or switch chains of command. You don't always have protection when you leave your local gay network." "You have to watch yourself. I've gotten totally drunk on my leisure time and made an ass out of myself a few times and let too much information out, but luckily I tend to drink with friends." He warned me about the military's "plants," who go to the gay bars and take down the names of service people. "They're active duty -- usually they've been caught themselves for one reason or another, and they've made a deal with the military in order to stay in," the colonel continued. "They'll go around to all the bars and other gay establishments and write down all the names of the servicemen." "They'll sit in a bar like anyone else, you know, like they were looking to hook up, and then they'll eavesdrop on different conversations. I saw this one prick seduce this one fellow so he would talk. He got the guy's name, position, unit address -- whatever was needed, then he was gone." He explained that your vocation in the Army can make a big difference in how you're treated if you're gay. For example, the Army needs doctors and nurses, so homosexuality is often ignored in the medical ranks. "Jeez," he exclaimed in his Southern drawl, "Probably half the Nursing Corps is gay!" Finally, he warned me about my friends on ROTC scholarships. "Tell them they've got to be very careful. If the Army finds out they're gay, they'll kick them out and then sue them for their tuition. I don't know the stats, but I do know a number of folks who have gotten caught being gay, been sent to [military] jail, then sued for thousands of dollars." A Penn Navy ROTC student was recently involved in a similar case, although there was no jail term. · It's pretty pathetic that, in 1992, the military is still spending taxpayers' money on such an elaborate program of discrimination and harassment. Gay Penn friends of mine now on active duty feel like criminals. They have to live with the daily stress of the closet and the fear of getting caught. Two of them are extremely unhappy and they feel that a Penn education wasn't worth the four years of hell they're going through now. Sadly, Sheldon Hackney allows ROTC to remain, arguing that we're in a better bargaining position to change the Army's anti-gay policy if we allow them to stay. In my opinion, that's a weak non-decision, but if we accept it -- which unfortunately we must -- we should then ask: what is Penn doing in the meantime to help its gay ROTC alumni, while it deliberately violates its own non-discrimination policy waiting for national defense policy to change? The information I've casually sought out about being gay in the military and avoiding persecution is valuable. Penn should gather that kind of information, publish it and make it available to ROTC students. There should be some sort of anonymous, confidential hotline or counseling service available so that gay ROTC students can discuss their situations with sympathetic administrators who may be able to advise them. More importantly, the Law School should offer some legal information or advice on what to say and do when under military investigation for homosexuality, what rights one has, and whom to contact for legal representation if one is criminally charged by the armed forces. Penn should be reminded that it has a responsibility to its non-discrimination policy. Since the president chooses to disregard that policy by allowing ROTC to remain, at the very least the University should offer some support so that when gay ROTC students have to face their dilemma, they won't feel deserted by their alma mater. Tim Farrell is a senior American Civilization and Religious Studies major from Boston, Massachusetts. "Speaking Strictly For Myself" appears alternate Thursdays.