Since Adam has been out for a couple days I thought I might take this opportunity to bore everyone and write another guest blog to fill the gap. You have all been briefly introduced to me, but it occurred to me that you may not know how I came to know Adam.
I seem to remember our first encounter happening sometime during the spring semester of 1993 at the University of Wyoming. Adam was a freshman and I had recently transferred to UWYO as a second semester sophomore.
Adam and I had a couple of classes together; Non-Western Political Cultures and Introduction to International Relations if I recall correctly. At this point all I knew is that I was attending classes with the guy from the Denver area. We attended these classes through the semester and I, being the shy guy I am, always sat at the back of the room. The one memorable feature I remember this early on about Adam is that he was the guy up at the front of the class challenging the instructors and making sure all his questions were answered. I on the other had would come up with the periodic stroke of brilliance from the peanut gallery and otherwise keep to myself.
At some point during all of this Adam and I befriended each other and went out and did things periodically. This was mostly taking day trips down to Denver or Ft. Collins, or otherwise goofing off like undergrads do.
Towards the end of the spring 1993 semester, Adam and I had discussions regarding our housing situation and what we might like to do about it the following year. We had initially decided we would explore getting an apartment off-campus and creating a household for the following academic year. This fell through because of my own indecisiveness, which I?m sure has driven Adam mad a time or two, and I had planned to return to California to pursue my studies there. I put that off for a year and instead returned to the University of Wyoming for the 1993-1994 school year (hey, I said I was indecisive).
At the end of that year, I decided to leave UWYO and finish my undergraduate degree at San Francisco State back in California. After graduation in fall 1995, I left for the Army for a couple of years. Of course this was a colossal disaster because we all know how well, “Don’t ask, don’t tell” works. Thanks go out to Adam’s brother Seth for pointing me in the direction of the Servicemen’s Legal Defense Network (SLDN) which helps people such as me deal with the harassment in the military. My superiors in the military kept asking inappropriate questions to which my standard answer was, “You know you can’t ask people that” which would be appended when they got insistent by my saying it again and adding, “Would you like me to jump the chain of command and let your superiors know you are asking inappropriate questions?” By the time I got kicked out (Honorably, but for reasons not related to but probably not contested because of my homosexuality) I think it was well known that I like to be entertained by other men.
For most of the last 8 years or so Adam and I have kept in touch with the modern miracle of the telephone and e-mail. Once in a great while we get together and reminisce about our undergraduate days and think about what is going on in the future. During this time I’ve had no less than 3 committed partners, of which I keep hoping the current will be the one.
So that’s basically it, the story of how I met Adam and a bit about how I ended up on the east coast. I’m sure Adam will have plenty to say when he gets back since I’ve left quite a few gaps.
Although I entered the military before the time of “don’t ask, don’t tell”, perhaps in some ways it was better then. I do remember being asked if I was a homosexual when I enlisted and answering “no”. This was right before I came out and actually had sex with a man, so it wasn’t quite so much a lie then as it would be just a few months later. I think a lot of people I trained with knew about me, but since the “gays in the military” thing wasn’t big yet, it wasn’t on a lot of people’s minds. So my experience overall was a good one. I feel lucky, because I’ve read a lot about what’s happened to some gays and lesbians in the military, and I don’t know if I could have made it through that. When is this country going to come to its senses?
Of late I’ve taken the attitude if the straight people want to have their heads so far up their asses (ironic, eh?) then I’m all for letting them die for god and country earning their medals while getting shot. They may have glory after all is said and done, but they’re dead and I’m alive. Who’s the smart one now? 😉
But then I kind of take that attitude with anyone/any organization that rallies behind nonexistent fear of homosexuality. I’ll never understand why the military is so threatened by us… Should I have found myself in a foxhole, I would have been more worried about getting killed by the enemy sitting on the next hill than making out with the guy I was in there with. The guy I would be in the foxhole with and myserlf would likely be smelly trolls by the time we were out there that long anyhow. Yuk!
Ah… this takes me back. I remember the Polish History and Politics class…
uh…
sorry… the Russian History and Politics class.
The picture of Adam at the front of the class being all studious amuses me 🙂
I’m sorry you had a shit experience with the armed forces Chris 🙁
Mateo’s experience reminds me of my very brief encounter with the CIA. I guess it would’ve been about the same time as Mateo was getting into the military too. It was at the tail end of the Reagan administration, gays weren’t welcome in the CIA, and they asked me if I was gay on my questionnaire and in the interview. I answered no, and at the time believed it. I guess overall they either figured I was anyway, because they didn’t take me, and I started to figure out why I didn’t “like girls that way” a few months later. Hmm, I still wonder if I would’ve been a good spy…
Based on my one overseas travel experience with the Army, I am glad I’m out of there. That trip gave me a new appreciation for how lucky I am to be an American. I just wish our country would stop being so ugly to everyone else.
People here complain about having a leak in their roof, the folks I saw would have been happy to have a roof.
I agree with the last comment about people in other countries. For my two week army training one summer, they sent us to Honduras. The people there were very friendly and seemed relatively happy. We went there to help build a school, build a bunch of outhouses, and help out with an orphanage with donations and labor. These people had so little…I can’t even imagine having to survive that way. But I’ve always appreciated my country even before that, no matter how fucked up its views were on certain things.