An Older Gay Veteran Who Served In Closeted Silence
Over the years Tony and I have known quite a few older gay men who served in the military. I personally dated 2 Marines before I met Tony. The one thing all these gay men in the military shared was that they were all in the closet and all served in silence. It’s not just men. There were women, too.
Decades before openly gay Americans were legally allowed to serve in the military, Joseph Patton, a gay man, served in silence.
Here’s more. The article mentions what it was like to be gay and in the military in the 1950s, and how this man’s father told him that being in the military would “make a man out of him.” The same old hetero bullshit we’ve been hearing since time began.

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