When I was forced to endure the humiliation of being fingerprinted and investigated and eventually forced to resign from the Air Force and the Academy in the summer and fall of 1979, I experienced some situations that surprised me and others that deeply disappointed me, as you might expect.
One day, when I was required to visit Harmon Hall, the administration building, I decided to walk across the Terrazzo level from the academic building. I got no more than a few yards across when several former students noticed me, saluted, and stopped to talk. Soon, others joined them and there was a crowd. When some were forced to leave, others took their places. Most knew what had happened and were, I suppose, showing their support. Eventually, I had to leave to make my appointment. When I got to Harmon Hall and spoke with the officer with whom I was required to meet and told him what had happened, he said, "I hope the commandant [of cadets] didn't see that."
Soon after all of this occurred, someone higher up in rank decided that I should not be sitting in the English Department each day that I was required to come in. I suppose they felt that they were somehow showing support for my situation and so I was transferred to Harmon Hall on an editing project, just to get me out of sight and out of mind. I used to drink milk in those days and bought some from a vending machine in the building. I lifted the carton to my lips and drank deeply. It was badly spoiled and I nearly gagged. That felt like one more humiliation on top of so many others.
On my last day in the Air Force, I was finally allowed to remove all of my possessions from my former office, all of my books and other personal property that the OSI had sifted through for more evidence of my perversion. These items had been boxed and set aside. Nobody helped me, but I had already gotten used to being shunned by my former colleagues because they had good reason to keep their distance. (A few of them had taken me to lunch at the golf course cafeteria, to show their support, soon after the OSI appeared with their accusations and proof in the department on that fateful day. Across the dining room this noon time, I noticed the same two OSI agents having lunch and mentioned it to the others. That was the last time I ate there with any of my former colleagues. I had been banned from eating in the cafeteria in the academic building since cadets occassionally ate there, so I would have to get into my car and drive to the golf course to eat lunch every day. I didn't want to get the others in trouble or have them be accused of being gay since the military often covered someone under a dark cloud of suspicion for merely "associating with known homosexuals".)
On one of my last trips up the elevator from the parking garage below, the elevator stopped between floors and the door opened only slightly--not enough for me to even think of trying to get out. I could see people's feet walking past and that was about it. Even trapped for a few minutes (it eventually continued its lift upwards and then fully opened), I kept thinking that the building itself didn't want to see me go. But I eventually took the last box out, said goodbye to a few of the others, including the secretaries who seemed saddened by my departure, and I left without any ceremony and drove home.
It had been on my 30th birthday, a Sunday, September 23rd, 1979, that one of my military attorneys called to say that my forced resignation had been approved. I supposed that happened that way because fate wanted me always to remember the significant phone call and that day and date forever.
When I first arrived at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota in January 1974, I needed an alarm clock and bought one at the base exchange my first week there. I used that clock to wake up for the next four years at Minot until I left in June of 1978, for my Air Force Academy assignment. I took it to Colorado Springs and used it there until my forced resignation was approved on October 12, 1979. Less than one week later, I awoke in the middle of the night and heard that clock laboring to keep time, whining and throwing an electric fit. Needing sleep, I got up and unplugged it. The next morning, hoping that those rude noises were a temporary glitch, I tried plugging it back in. It was dead. I liked to think that it had performed its mission while I was in the Air Force and since my Air Force career was over, it had no further need to function properly.
I still have that clock among my possessions as a souvenir of those terrible times. So anyone who sifts through my things, tossing out what they deem useless, or should they wonder why I kept this non-functioning alarm clock, they'll know why. If they do decide to toss it out then, they will at least be aware of its significance. It won't be like Rosebud in CITIZEN KANE and go to the raging furnace without a second thought.
More than two years later, not long before his graduation, I saw one of my former students at a retail store on Academy Blvd. He was with his girlfriend and told me they were planning to get married soon. Tragically, a few years later, I discovered that he had been killed in a plane crash. His name was on a memorial plaque affixed to a boulder off of the main, paved path between the Goldwater Visitor's Center and the Academy chapel. (Ironically, it was Goldwater, a retired military officer and former U.S. Senator and presidential candidate in 1964, not long before he died who wrote an editorial, supporting the right of gays to serve openly in the military.) Don certainly knew what had happened to me, but it didn't seem to matter to him as we spoke and then wished one another well when we had to leave.
Along with my roommate at the time, Gary, I went back to the Academy in June of 1982, for the graduation of those who had been my students in the academic year of 1978-9. I remembered them all, those many who had persevered and completed their four years. Except for Don, I don't believe there were any others who had died while on active duty. In 2002, they would have been eligible for retirement. Again, I don't know how many of them stayed in the Air Force long enough to retire, but the numbers are typically high for Academy graduates. They were 17 or 18 years old when I was their instructor. I was 28-29, not that much older.
It was a long time ago. And we were all so much younger then. The first day I walked into my first classroom to begin teaching I don't even recall. But I do remember several of my students, and several of the moments in those nine classrooms where I taught in the fall and spring and the one summer makeup class, as well, before my military career ended.
And I remember the lyric from the Air Force song that they always sing at graduation. It seemed to apply to me especially: "We live in fame or go down in flame. Hey! Nothing can stop the U.S. Air Force!"
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