American Gulag - The Play

American Gulag by E. C. Patterson

Prologue (2001): Ask Me - I'll Tell

	The stage is set for a lecture. There’s a podium stage left with a sign on the front reading "Gay & Lesbian Information Lecture Series". The rest of the set is dark, but Act One is set to start when lit.
	OFF STAGE ANNOUNCER Ladies and Gentlemen, a round of applause for our keynote speaker, Dr. Winslow Gibbs, author of "A Question of Coming Out", "How to Make your Gay Relationships Work," "Gays and Lesbians in the Workplace: An Equal Right Manual," and most recently "The Army: Ask me - I’ll Tell." A round of applause please.
	If the theatre audience is dense and does not applaud, canned applause should stand in, on the ready. Enter Winslow Gibbs. He wears a suit and tie and holds his notes. He is 54 years old. He goes to the podium, adjusts the mike and clears his throat.
	DR. WINSLOW Thank you ladies and gentlemen. When I was asked by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance to speak to you today, I wasn’t sure which topic would be best to cover. Not many Gay folk care about war stories or the military subject, except from our legal rights point of view. I thought that maybe some tips on coming out or keeping the marriage together would be better suited. But I was told by Fitz Larsen, that there was such a misconception regarding the Gays in the Military subject, that this was the topic of choice.
	So, I’ll begin by saying that the current policy of "Don’t Ask - Don’t tell," is an advance on the older solutions. I can say that, because I have experienced the older solutions first hand. Now don’t take this the wrong way. I said it is an improvement, but there’s no substitute to full, equal rights. That’s the best solution one can provide. After all, the military is a microcosm of life itself - and if 10 percent of us in real life are homosexual - then how can anyone think differently about the Army.
	The military brass speaks of "morale" issues; that heterosexuals would feel unsafe to live and cavort with homosexuals in such confined space where performance is an issue. Yet, for 5 centuries we have been in one military organization or another - from the Gay battalions of Sparta to the battlegrounds of the Continental Army. After all, General Von Steuben was one of the gay boyz at Frederick the Great’s homosexual court. Von Steuben founded the Army that won the war for independence and started that little place known as West Point. And he ended up cozy at his life’s end with his male lover in a nice Washington, D.C. apartment.
	Alexander Hamilton, aide-de-camp to General Washington, not only wrote the Federalist papers, but the most wonderful examples of love letter to John Laurens, fellow aide-de-camp. So, we did not need to look solely to our 20^th century military establishment for the queer phenomena. Nonetheless, all major modern armies allow homosexuals to serve their country along side side their heterosexual compatriots, with 2 major exceptions - Turkey and the United States of America. And who knows - Turkey might come around or the term "major modern Army" could be redefined.
	All I can say is, Ask Me - I’ll Tell! However, when I was in the Army - I would not have said a word. It was 1967 and the Vietnam war was raging. Homosexuals have never been treated with any consideration in the military, but when there’s a war, new rules and regulations kick-in. And after all, homosexuality undermines the cohesion of the battlefield - now there’s an oxymoron - and is therefore to be rooted out and stomped into oblivion. To be caught in the act during times of declared war, meant a swift tribunal and prison. Of course, if a heterosexual is engaged in sex - opposite sex cohabitation - why it merits an Article 15 - something akin to a parking ticket. What’s wrong with this picture - Prison - a Parking Ticket. That is sex vs. sex.
	Now if you tell about your homosexuality today in the military, you can be discharged dishonorably. The day after this policy went into effect the Soldier of the Year came out of the closet. His performance was OUTstanding. He did the job. He was destined for military greatness - but he was Gay, so - his qualifications were cancelled. Dishonorable discharge!!
	But when I was drafted there were a few differences. First of all, I was in the closet - but I knew. So, I checked "heterosexual" on the questionnaire. (pause)
	Yes, they asked then - as you came in the door for your physical, you were asked - Are you a homosexual? Many said yes - and were spared the whole army thing - but suffered the consequence - being "outed" to the rest of society and by Uncle Sam. The rest of us lied. As a friend of mine told me once, that there are Black lies and white lies - and we all know the difference. But then there’s the pink lie - when you’re force to lie and conceal who you are on the pain of punishment. All Gay folk know the pain of telling the pink lie. All of Jewish Europe knew the consequences of not concealing who they were either. It’s that same thing - the same syndrome - only since when did any American institution mime fascism and call it patriotism?
	Imagine not being able to be who you are - not because you will receive society’s scorn and the possible loss of your loved ones’ love - but because you’ll be locked up and discharged in a manner where you might find employment impossible. Branded - like Cain - but not having committed Cain’s crime.
	Well, the American Army in 1967 had devised a way during boot camp - basic training - to identify gay men and separate them into their own Special Training Company in the hopes that gay men will be gay men when clumped together; thus, dishonorable discharges and prison sentences galore. These Special Training Companies were designed for misfits - those who could not pass the physical training requirements or the written tests or just acted alternatively.
	Not everyone who was unfit or illiterate was sent here. You had to be identified or suspected of being Gay - then, you were sent here for the other reasons. It was like a little prison zone - a gulag for misfits. Of course, what we really didn’t fit into was military life and particularly, heterosexual military life - the prevailing machismo that tough male, he-man Americans were the only stereotype acceptable to project into American culture. All else was counter-revolutionary. Ah, since when did a Communist concept become the hallmark of American patriotism. The odd fact is that most homosexuals in the Army slipped through this system - and many heterosexuals wound up in the Special Training Companies.
	I was drafted in 1967 and was a whopping 275 pounds. I knew I was homosexual, and had even been experimenting, as I saw it - but by the time I was drafted I was firmly back in the closet - a chubby closet at that. Naturally, I checked the NO box to the Homosexual question - as I truly believed that whatever I was, I couldn’t really be that. Classic denial.
	Well at that weight, I had no chance of actually passing the physical training. I managed to get down to 260 pounds - but it was torture. Finally, after a few weeks in basic training at Fort Gordon, Georgia, I was taken out of the general routine and was allowed to help out in the Quartermaster’s hut. I was relieved. No more PT - that is Physical Training. Then, I was told I would need to go through the confidence course. The thought of it was terrifying. The confidence course would have me doing low-crawls under barbed-wire while live ammunition was going off - bullets whizzing overhead and artillery canisters rumbling all around me.
	So, as I thought about this, I gradually thought I was losing my mind. I walked around in a daze. Finally, they found me in the Quartermaster's Hut, huddled and crying. I was told I did not need to do the confidence course. And I recovered almost immediately. Two days later I was told to pack my gear - I was put in a jeep and delivered to the Special Training Company. I had seen members of the Special Training Company at the PX and at the Barber’s. They were always marched in formation - never allowed to talk to anyone else and were quarantined both in time and space. So, at 260 pounds I could have slipped through the cracks and been discharged as unfit - but because I cried, it was assumed that I was a compounded misfit -an overweight and a sissy. So I was destined for a different military fate. I was destined for the American Gulag.
	(lights up on Act One’s set. The older Winslow Gibbs will narrate throughout the play, but will rarely be seen.)

Act I (1967): Welcome to the Gulag