What it is, finally, is a question of integrity. I came to believe that not only do I have a responsibility to myself to be honest and open about who I am, I have a responsibility to the people around me as well. That is integrity, and without it, I’m nothing. Ironically, I learned that lesson from the army, the very institution that would have excluded me had I been open about my sexuality from the start.
Writing this book has given me the opportunity to come clean about who I am and to provide a glimpse of what it is like to serve our great nation. I am the man I am today because of the military. Everything I’ve achieved, everything I have, I owe to the United States Army.
I hope that this book will spark a conversation about changing the rules that govern the debate surrounding gay people and the services. Today, we serve honorably at all levels of the military, as we have since the dawn of history. We should be able to do so openly. So what should be done? The first step would be to remove the prohibition against homosexuality in the Uniform Code of Military Justice and allow gay men and women to serve openly, as the Canadians, the British, the Australians, the Israelis, and others have already done. I understand that changing the law is much easier than changing the culture. Still, we have seen the successful integration of African Americans and women into the armed services, so there’s little doubt that over time the same kind of integration would work with gay service members. The training used today to educate soldiers about women and minorities would require little change to ensure that gays were included.
The broader culture has embraced gay men and women in unprecedented ways over the last decade or so. We’ve gone prime-time, in fact, with shows like Will and Grace and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy regularly winning the battle for network ratings. The mainstreaming of gay Americans makes it all the more imperative that the military catch up with the culture at large and put an end to a discriminatory policy that seeks to continue to define gay people as second-class citizens and unfit for service. Morale and unit cohesion depend largely on strong leadership and integrity, not on whether the man next to you happens to be gay.
We are diminished as a nation when our institutions fail to live up to the ideals of democracy. And the military is diminished when it fails to allow all Americans who are qualified to serve openly and proudly on behalf of their country. When the awesome and terrible decision to go to war is made, all Americans must take ownership of what follows, and all Americans—rich, poor, white, black, gay, and straight— must close ranks and do their duty.
Let us marry. Let us serve. For we, too, are Americans.
MAJOR CONFLICT. Copyright © 2005 by Jeffrey McGowan, MAJ, USA (Ret.).
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information, address Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
While all of the incidents in this book are true, some of the names and personal characteristics of the individuals involved have been changed in order to protect their privacy. Any resulting resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and unintentional.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McGowan, Jeffrey.
Major conflict: one man’s life in the Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell military /
Jeffrey McGowan.—1st ed.
p. cm.
1. United States—Armed Forces—Gays—Government policy.
2. United States—Armed Forces—Biography. I. Title.
UB418.G38M35 2005
355’.0086’6420973—dc22
[B]
2004057017
www.randomhouse.com
eISBN: 978-0-307-41911-8
v3.0
Major Conflict Page 29