Halfway through boot camp Greg White learned that everyone there “came in with some feeling of being different.”
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I wrote my memoir to chronicle the adventures I’ve enjoyed sharing with my friends over the years. At first glance, you may think me the well-dressed man who knows which fork to use, and not the man in camouflage who can hit a target five hundred yards away with an M16. I may not fit the military mold, but I don’t know how to be anyone but myself—and being myself hasn’t always been comfortable, or even safe.
When stories of bullying LGBT youth started gaining attention, and some of those tortured chose to end their own lives, I wished they’d had a moment of hope long enough to get past that hateful experience and survive. I wrote this book not just for me, but also for those struggling in the military and elsewhere. I wanted to show that if I can make it through boot camp, anyone can; if I can overcome my insecurities in a hostile environment, so can others.
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I entered boot camp in 1979—fifteen years before Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell—feeling less masculine than everyone else, and burdened by the secret of being gay. Midway through the thirteen weeks of boot camp, the struggle to survive and become a Marine trumped my fear of exposure (though it remained on my mind daily). I learned that everyone came in with some feeling of being different. I served with young men who had been pre-judged for the color of their skin, for their weight, for their poverty. The battle for acceptance is waged on many fronts. There were even guys who chose boot camp over jail.
The Marines taught me skills I carry with me every day. I learned that no matter how exhausted I felt, I can always take one more step, then another. I wish everyone could hang on for a moment past any self-doubt. It does get better …
♦◊♦
Senior Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant McKinnon ordered us all onto the quarterdeck outside his office. It was a small area, so with all seventy of us gathered there around McKinnon, we looked like a religious flock listening to a very clean-cut Jesus. Important information was always given—and received—with a near-religious reverence.
“Listen up, Privates. The Marine Corps requires that all recruits pass a basic physical fitness test in order to serve in active duty. You must be able to do at least three pull-ups to pass this test and stay in this platoon.”
DiBello, standing next to McKinnon, wore only a white T-shirt and his camo trousers. The T-shirt was tight. The thin cotton did a lousy job of hiding his chest hair, which his muscled chest pushed unevenly against the damp fabric. His sex appeal was fearful to me, and complicated not only by his authority, but by his ultra-hetero masculinity. I felt the same confusion I’d encounter for the rest of my life when trying to determine if another man was gay merely from appearance: was he gay just because his body type was similar to mine? Was he hetero just because it wasn’t?
DiBello peeled off his sweaty T-shirt. I hoped I was discreet about it, but I was taken aback. It was almost as if he removed his shirt for effect. I knew he was in good shape, but I wasn’t ready to see the most perfect chest ever. I’ve always figured that guys who know that their body is incredible tend to strip in confidence. I didn’t know if he had worked out hard to get that definition, but I did know that he didn’t have to do anything to get the perfect chest hair he sported, and I resented him for that. No matter how many pushups I did, I couldn’t push a thick mat of black chest hair out. If I looked like that, I’d go shirtless all the time. The same goes for peeing at a public urinal; if I had a fat hose of a penis like Jhimchek, I’d whip it out and pee free of shyness or the need to employ the cupped-hand shield.
I figured everyone was thinking about sex all of the time, but I was the only one thinking about having sex right then—not about having sex right there in the boot camp setting, but someday, somewhere else. And as much as I hated DiBello, he was incredibly hot and easy to think about sexually. Fear doesn’t make objectification difficult. It just makes it weird.
He had the kind of startling good looks that even a straight man could appreciate as ideal. I found some of my fellow recruits attractive, but not many. Pritchett was handsome, but his nerves knocked him down a notch. They were contagious. He was the kind of guy that you’d kiss with closed eyes, then open yours to discover that his had been open the whole time. Moment ruined. Marks had a cute face and a matching tiny, compact body. He was proportionally perfect, but if I projected us to a prone-in-bed position, his height ensured that no important body parts lined up.
I never felt compelled to flirt or make an advance on anyone, not just because I was afraid that my offer would be rejected and I would be kicked out, but because I wasn’t doing that yet in the outside world. Even if I had been openly gay, there is a time and place for everything, and boot camp was neither the time nor the place. Spending the summer with seventy young, fairly fit men was going to be more of a challenge than a pleasure.
Some of the guys were not in good shape. We had about ten very overweight guys who struggled climbing stairs and were the first to falter during incentive PT. The DIs would make fun of them and threaten them with being dropped—separated from the platoon and placed into that other, remedial unit to shape up.
Private Bowman was one of the fat guys. We’d become friends. We sat together in the squad bay and then found each other in the chow hall and ate together. In school, that’s how I made friends—I’d see someone a few times in class or in the halls, and then when I walked in the scary cafeteria and spotted them, I zoomed to their table as if being pulled to safety. I sought shelter in any familiar face.
♦◊♦
Bowman told me that he joined the Marine Corps to lose weight.
“My whole family is fat.”
“I bet your mom’s a good cook.”
“I had to get out of there. Everyone calls me fat, and they’re fat. My mom’s making me fat.”
“Wow. With the food in here you shouldn’t have a problem.”
“No matter what I do, I don’t lose weight. You’re lucky.”
“Trust me, Bowman, I’m not lucky.”
“I’m gonna lose fifty pounds. I’ll walk in my house after this and show them all. They’ll be sitting around watching TV, and I’ll be in my dress blues. I’ll just stand there.”
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Editors note: This is the first in a series of excerpts from Greg White’s personal memoir.
Photo: Dawn in Nebraska/Flickr
