Serving in Silence
Wednesday, November 30th, 2005Over Thanksgiving weekend, we were at home watching television when we heard the sound of an approaching vehicle followed by a loud Pop! My father and I burst out the front door to see two police vehicles in the act of pulling over a light truck. The driver had struck our neighbor’s parked car and fled down the street. The driver had been drinking and was arrested. Our neighbor was halfway to the street when her daughter ran outside and called "Mommy!" with a voice that reduced her age to single digits. Fortunately no one was in the car or hurt in the accident. We could then focus our attention on helping our neighbor deal with the situation. After an hour or so we all settled back into our lives and routines. Afterwards I couldn’t stop thinking about an email from a friend of mine who’s been corresponding with a soldier in Iraq. The soldier’s truck had recently struck an IED and exploded, but somehow both soldiers onboard escaped unharmed. In fact, they took this accompanying photo shortly afterwards, the truck still burning in the background.
At first the photo perplexed me. Were these roadside bombs so commonplace that our soldiers viewed them as just another photo op? Then it hit me that this was proof and communication of the clearest kind. These soldiers had heard the loud Pop! of the explosion and then run for their lives. These soldiers were grinning, happy to be alive, and this photo was the sincerest form of truth that they had survived another day. These two incidents, the car accident on my family’s street and the truck bombing in Iraq weren’t that different. Immediately afterwards, the first thing everyone wanted to do was reassure the people who loved them that they were alright and receive that same reassurance in return. A call and an embrace, like with our neighbors. The exchange of love within families. I thought about how amazing it was that someone could be in an attack and email a picture of survival as soon as the same day to reassure their loved ones. And then I thought about the many gay men and women serving in the miltary who can’t communicate with their loved ones for fear of losing their jobs, or possibly their lives given the current state of affairs.
Why is that, I wondered? These gay men and women are involved in daily fire fights and car bombings. They have the same experiences as other soliders. They have the same reactions as other soldiers. They have the same families and people back home who love and care for them as other soldiers. But if that person is their boyfriend or girlfriend or committed partner, they cannot communicate their affection or receive it in return. In fact, due to the scrutiny of mail and communication, feelings are supressed for fear of suspicion. They communicate less frequently than other soldiers. And one of the most treasured outlets for the support of a soldier, the letter or phone call from home, is basically denied. Like the french resistance during WWII, they can either rely on communicating in code under constant fear of discovery, or they can remain silent.
Our neighbor’s daughter, currently older than some soldiers serving in Iraq, wanted immediate reassurance from her mother that she was safe. Our men and women in uniform are trained and conditioned but beneath all of this they are still human, and human beings look for reassurance when they are frightened. The longer they have to wait, the greater the stress. And the greater the stress, the greater the burden we are asking them to bear.
It is amazing to me that we continue to debate whether to allow completely qualified, able-bodied men and women to serve in the military based on their potential to date someone. We have married couples in the military. We have dating couples in the military. And despite the inherent stress this adds to the relationship, these married and unmarried couples serve overwhelming with dedication even distinction in every branch. It seems very odd to me that the gender of the couple should make a difference and yet I realize that this is not something that is likely to change based on a rational arguement. Attitudes have to change before rationale can.
So while other service members are reassuring their families, we ask these soldiers to face fear, grief, injury, and death in a cone of silence. I suppose that asking them to bear this greater burden while we work through our own ignorance is no different than the scores of black amercians who served their country by taking the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs, whatever the cost in earlier American conflicts. Its clear this burden increases during this holiday time as thoughts turn to family and spending time with the people we love. It is always more difficult for service personnel to be deployed at this time of year, away from family, away from home. At this time of year I know its a comfort for our soldiers to know that they can write a letter or receive a card from those they cherish; a time of year when we tend to say, more than any other, just how much we care. And our gay men and women in uniform will observe the holidays in the same way they observe every other day of the year. They will be standing their posts in silence, thinking of the things they long to say and hear from those they love.
And so I think its particularly appropriate that we remember to express ourselves at this time of year. We live in a country that values personal expression and freedom and yet many of the people who serve it do not enjoy those freedoms. We can express the simple gratitude for our freedom to say, "I love you," with action. The best way to honor those serving in silence is to do what they cannot: speak out. I believe that if we speak where others are forced to be silent that we can make a difference. We can tell the people we love that we love them. We can stand as an example for our country’s freedom of expression. Stand as an example to the rights that we have. Stand as an example for the right we will all rightfully share, one day. We can stand up before our neighbors and the world to lead with our voices for others to follow. We can change the world by being the change we want to see around us.
