O’er the Land of the Free, and the Home of the Brave?
The Non-Confomist Conscience makes cowards of us all.
-Sir Max Beerbolm
In the United States Navy, any deck seaman can identify a shade of gray on sight: haze gray, bulkhead gray, deck gray… Life aboard a ship consists of grays, in every direction. Late in the day, even the ocean takes on darker hues of gray, toward the deepest black on a starless night. You might identify the older, more experienced deckhands by their long faded shirts and dungarees, as if the blue pigments where steadily forced out over the years, in conformity with the gray regime.
We were “haze gray, and underway” in January, 1991, when the black sky was littered with light gray tomahawk missiles aimed at Baghdad. I upheld my oath to “defend my country from tyranny” by sitting on a stool in Combat Engagement Center (CEC) staring intently at a radar scope, in search of enemy aircraft to shoot down. Four illuminated buttons stood within reach of me, which when depressed, would lock a fire control radar on the enemy, telling the ship’s guns where to fire. The blue light bulbs in CEC cast a bluish gray over my radar, the captain, his combat officers, and the friends of mine firing missiles across the aisle from me.
I had been misled by the many choruses sung in Basic Training, there was no “rocket’s red glare,” at least not on my radar screen, only white blips, all going outward. I stared at my scope for weeks, straining my eyes in search of the enemy aircraft. Perhaps they hadn’t received their Desert Storm invitations, “Formal attire required.” Were the three missiles fired at us their R.S.V.P.?
As the days dragged on, I found fear being largely supplanted by anger, initially directed at Saddam Hussein, for his tyranny. What the hell was I doing here, a few weeks before my twenty-first birthday? I wasn’t even old enough to buy an all American Budweiser, yet here I was, warrior in my multi-hued gray, floating fortress. I can’t start to explain or even recount the thoughts and images flying through my mind, faster than the tomahawks and scuds. Somewhere in the deluge, question marks preceded by the simplest question words entrenched, impossible to ignore. What? Why? How? What was this all about? Why were we here? How could I go on? What can I possibly do? Why am I so angry? How can I continue?
Perhaps the biggest question, a combination of the disparate insecurities, apprehensions and past held beliefs became, “If an enemy aircraft ever does show up on my scope, can I press the button?” I increasingly focused on the four, illuminated buttons, the center of my responsibility vis-a-vis my oath, “defend my country from tyranny.” What does tyranny look like? How could I spot tyranny? If I miss it, who will point out tyranny for me?
In the Bible, tyranny was easy, synonymous with evil, always held in check by the superior power of good. Well, we were clearly superior in power to the Iraqi forces, so we must be the power of good, right? The thoughts eventually opened fire on my conscience, poor little Jimminy Cricket assaulted by thought bullets. The ammunition came from distant Sunday sermons, Aesop’s Fables and Marvel comic books. War is wrong. I should turn the other cheek. “Blessed are the peace makers.”
Wait a minute! “Blessed are the peace makers.” Some bit of familiarity rang in there. The “peace makers” sure sounded close to “peace keepers,” the popular post-Cold War term for armies, “peace keepers.” My head spun with so much empty radar scope time to contemplate the situation. I found some solace in the writings of conscientious objectors, in a book given to me by a fellow fire controlman. Here was an easy answer to hold tight to. I could be a conscientious objector. Department of Defense 1300.6 defines a conscientious objector as a person who has, “a firm, fixed and sincere objection to participation in war in any form or the bearing of arms, by reason of religious training or belief.” What a great way to sum up how I felt (although the vagueness of religious belief left a discernible gap in my intellect, but that’s what I get for thinking way too much). Clearly I was a conscientious objector.
With the many shades of gray on the ship, there must be a gray for conscientious objectors, right? Wrong! The few friends I told about my feelings acted like homophobes whose best friend had just come out of the closet. We were supposed to be warriors, especially fire control petty officers. Hell, these are the same guys who lined up in Forward Plot to pull the trigger on a sixteen inch gun, and who cheered on missile launches as if each was a Super Bowl touchdown run.
One book I had access to, Advice for Conscientious Objectors in the Armed Forces, mentioned the chaplain as your most likely ally in the filing process. I visited our young, vibrant, Catholic chaplain, despite my strong objections to the views of his Vatican refugitive boss, in hopes of finding a fellow, peace-loving soulmate. “Why did you join the Navy,” he asked, “if you have such strong feelings against war?” I answered, “I never fought a war before. I didn’t know I hated fried liver until I tried it.”
The chaplain chuckled warmly at my reply and proceeded to spend the rest of the time trying to talk me out of being a conscientious objector. He urged me not to tell anyone else on the ship my feelings, and said I should “stick it out,” as if the war was some difficult trigonometry class. Of course, what could I expect from a chaplain who nightly, over the ships intercom, prayed for the fire controlmen and gunners mates to “put ordinance on target.” I suppose our chaplain wasn’t the first man to ask for deadly accuracy in weapons, but many on the ship, including myself, would laugh at the absurdity of such prayers.
Before I left his office, the chaplain asked if I was masturbating on a regular basis. I have to admit the guy caught me off guard. What on Earth did masturbation have to do with “a firm, fixed and sincere objection to participation in war in any form or the bearing of arms?” I thought lack of sex led to aggression, thus my high school wrestling coach urging us to abstain a few days before a match. How the hell could he blame my stagnating warrior instincts on a buildup of seaman (no pun intended, though apropos). The chaplain made no explanation of his sudden “Doctor Ruth/Catherine Elders” curve ball, but instead reiterated I should keep my feelings to myself.
A year later, yellow ribbons torn off the trees, General Schwarzkopf finally out of your faces, and my ship safely mothballed away (like a wedding dress or tuxedo waiting for a funeral for new life), newly elected President Bill Clinton betrayed the gay and lesbian community by asking those interested in joining the military to stay in the closet. “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” he said, like some asinine Barney song refrain to the tune of “Over the Bounding Mane.” For me, the words had a familiar ring, like the chaplain on hearing my confession. “It’s natural for you to have these feelings, just don’t tell anyone.” Bill Clinton made no masturbatory recommendations explicitly, but then how else were gays and lesbians supposed to seek sexual pleasure if they were barricaded in a closet? I guess, like the chaplain, Bill Clinton somehow linked ejaculation to military prowess, in which case he too might make a mighty warrior.
I stayed in the closet after the chaplain’s masturbation lecture, not because I put any stock in his authority, not because I was scared and not because I felt pressured to conform; I stayed in the closet because my beliefs and feelings were not a black and white matter. The more I contemplated the issue, the more complex it became. I was the only experienced weapons designation system operator on the ship. Forty of my friends trusted me to relay accurate information to them, and the entire ship’s crew relied on me to designate attacking aircraft. While I was never forced to target an enemy jet, the decision to stay a warrior, really more a decision to avoid a more difficult decision, haunted me throughout the last days of the war, and to this day.
Any deck seaman can identify a shade of gray on sight: haze gray, bulkhead gray, deck gray; but our leaders, right up to the President of the United States, strive to make everything black and white, like the pieces on a chess board. I can tell you from experience, the closet they have helped to reinforce is a tight fit and masturbation hasn’t made me any better at chess or any more supportive of the new, “don’t ask, don’t tell,” post-cold war order, even though my country owns both bishops and both queens, perhaps in drag… If you don’t ask, I won’t tell.