Jewish Daily Forward: Double Marker: A Gay Jew in the Navy

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.forward.com/articles/134316/

Ex-Sailor Recalls a Time When Honesty Led to Discharge



Courtesy of Korrie Xavier
Ship Shape: Korrie Xavier, in Navy blues, gets a handshake and a promotion from her commanding officer on the USS Boxer in 2000.

By Karen Loew
Published December 29, 2010, issue of January 07, 2011.

Will the law allow return, Korrie Xavier wonders, for gay former military service members like her, who left the service only because they had to?

Just five years after her bat mitzvah, Xavier joined the Navy as a seaman recruit. She was trained to maintain and fire weapons systems on the USS Boxer, an amphibious assault ship based in San Diego. She liked the structure, the camaraderie, and sailing to ports from southeast Asia to Abu Dhabi. Barely in her 20s, the Michigan native became the nerve center of Jewish shipboard life — all while hiding her sexuality under her Navy uniform blues.

“I loved being out to sea — in the middle of the night, when you’d hang off the fantail, and just listen to the water. It was incredibly calming, and you could see all the stars in the world,” she said. And she loved that it was possible to feel alone in a floating village of 3,000 people.

But the stress of lying wore on her, and four years into a six-year commitment, she wrote a letter to her captain: “For the last few years, I’ve been willing to compromise myself.… I realize now that there is no honor or pride in serving an institution that is so obviously ashamed of me.” Within months she was discharged, as the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell law required for service members who acknowledged their homosexuality.

As Xavier, 32, reflects on the decade between her exit from the Navy in early 2001 and the new law’s signing on December 22, she prepares to visit her sister, who pursued another law of return and lives in a settlement outside Jerusalem with her husband and new baby.

“It was certainly easier having being Jewish as what kept me different, rather than being queer,” she told the Forward as the DADT law was set to change. Authorities like the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network expect that gay former service members, who have been prohibited from re-enlisting in any branch of the military, will soon be allowed to do so if they’re otherwise eligible. In light of these changes, Xavier’s experience has a special poignancy and provides a window into a time when being both gay and Jewish in the military was a double marker of difference.

FULL story at link.

[Jamastiene]

1. K&R

[UTUSN]

2. O.K. I seldom UnReKKK but "Navy blues" does not mean DUNGAREES. It means

the dress uniform, like going out in public/Liberty.

And, you don't "hang out at the fantail" in the "middle of the night." You work all day, then eat, write letters to your family and others, play cards, play the guitar, or (nowadays who-knows, do computer?). You don't do most of these things IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT.


Here's what I e-mailed to Gawker when he/they said, "ALL sailors have been Gay forever": ALL the branches prolly have ten percent like the rest of the human population --- DON'T push the FANTASY of somebody.

[Sonoman]

3. I am with you on the 'Blues" part, but hanging on the fantail...

and smoking dope under the stars is something I will always cherish.

While I was not part of the crew, I was sometimes assigned to a ship(s) in the 7th Fleet.

I spent many an hour under the stars, whacked (this was a long time ago).

Sonoman

[TheMadMonk]

4. Watch on, watch off is a good way to find oneself at a loose end...

...in the middle of the night. And the middle of the night is the best bloody time of all to veg out over the fantail (or ANYWHERE within sight of sky or sea) on a ship at sea.

Where I come from "Whites" are the dress/shore uniform. "Blues" are the everyday work uniform. Strangely enough that's how Hollywood has always portrayed the US Navy too.


On your last observations a couple of points. The US armed forces were openly discriminatory. That automatically excludes the "swish" gays. And to all intents and purposes it excluded anyone wanting to live as an openly gay person. Particulary for male gays. So normal poulation ratios are NOT going to be applicable.

On the matter of "that tired old joke", meh. If grizzled old CPOs can survive the "Saaaaay-looooor boy" appelation, your outrage on their behalf is probably unneeded.

Further on the subject of "that tired old joke", tradionally, the Navy has been the service most tollerant of gays in the ranks, and it should bloody well be worn as a badge of pride.