Kiosk - Conduct Unbecoming (page 2)

Conduct Unbecoming
(continued)

It was only at UCLA, when a childhood friend sat with her in the lounge area of the dorms and confessed that she was a lesbian, that Jules realized the potential. Actually, the overwhelming sense of being uncomfortable made her question herself. Looking for answers, she headed to the campus Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Center, and joined the mentorship program. There, she paired up with her mentor Jessica, a large, militant lesbian who stomped around proudly wearing leather boots and a flannel shirt. Jessica seemed to never have had a moment of doubt about whether or not she was a lesbian, nor did she appear to understand why Jules would feel ashamed or afraid. They met once a week for hour-long and decidedly awkward conversations.

Needing more of a support group that could understand the difficulty of being gay, young, and a first-generation Asian-American, Jules discovered Korean Q. The first meeting she attended was at a restaurant on the fringes of Koreatown. She sat parked her car across the street, debating whether or not to go in, paranoid that she might be recognized. Eventually, she entered the restaurant. As she was sitting with the other women enjoying dinner and passing around photographs, a woman sauntered in. Her hair was in a disheveled ponytail, and she was by no means dressed up, but Jules was captivated nonetheless – she seemed to radiate playful hilarity and cheer. At the end of the night, Jules had her number. But it was more than a month before she picked up the phone. Erica and Jules dated for two years, until graduation. For Jules, their first kiss was anything but boring.

“It is difficult not to conclude that a large number of undetected homosexual men and women are performing their military roles satisfactorily and that their sexual conduct does not come to the attention of their commanders.” – Defense Department commissioned study, the PERSEREC Report, 1988-89

During college, Jules joined the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) program. After college she entered Officer Candidate School, followed by the Marine Corps. She “clicked” with the Marine Corps, just as she had with Erica. She loved the strategy, creative problem-solving, and academic aspects, as well as the runs and hikes that pushed her to her limits on three hours’ of sleep. At less than 5 feet tall, she was often difficult to see, hunched under her ninety-pound pack full of gear. Other cadets nicknamed her “The Pack with Legs.” Fortunately, there was little time during boot camp to discuss dating prospects, as talk focused on the mission and how they could get the job done. Jules finished the Marine Corps boot camp second in her platoon, and shipped off to basic school as a second Lieutenant.

At basic school, Jules learned infantry tactics. She learned how to operate rifles, pistols, and Berettas, and was qualified as a marksman at 500 yards. As involved as she was in her training, she also felt the need for a gay community. During down time, Jules and a bisexual friend would head to Washington D.C. and slip into Dupont Circle, a gay district. There, they would meet up at Kramerbooks & Afterwards, a 24-hour café. Each weekend trip helped her get through the days when she couldn’t be herself. However, the emotional relief was accompanied by the fear that someone would recognize her.

Jules finished basic and Military Operations Schools in 2000 and was deployed into the Media and Publication field. She shipped out to Okinawa ,“The Rock,” Japan, an environment still hostile towards Marines even though it had been five years since the Okinawa rape scandal. It was also the site where, in 1994, 21 Okinawa Marines were questioned about their sexuality; one of them ultimately was criminally prosecuted and confined to the brig for over a month. Jules acted as a spokesperson for commanders, created press releases, dealt with the media, and collected historical documentation of Marines in Japan.

Second Lieutenant Jules also trained and commanded a group of marines. “I’ll never ask you to complete a task that I cannot do,” she promised them. Every pull-up that a Marine did was matched with one of hers; every step on every hike could be placed into one of her footprints. While Jules was primarily stationed at the Public Affairs Office of the Third Marine Expeditionary Force, she and her troops deployed elsewhere. They made a trip to Yongsan, Korea, the same place where her father had learned English from an American G.I. They hiked deep into the jungles of Thailand, where Jules ate a cobra at the behest of a foreign Colonel. She and her troops also headed off to mainland Japan to support combined military exercises.

While Jules enjoyed the military work, it took months of silence while testing out her new acquaintances before she could locate someone she could talk with honestly. The lack of a personal connection with anyone weighed her down, and, given that she was deployed there from 2000 to 2001, an eight-month period of cultivating alliances meant that she was largely on her own. In addition, people began to wonder why a good-looking Marine woman like Jules, with her short black hair, muscular body, and mischievous brown eyes, wasn’t dating anyone. Rumors spread: “I think Jules might be a lesbian.”

"In civilian life, people are not compelled to live with individuals who are sexually attracted to persons of the same sex, and the committee finds no military necessity to compel persons to do so in the military." Senate Armed Forces Committee, 1995

One of the most popular arguments of opponents of gays in the military was that forcing straight men to shower with homosexuals was tantamount to having them shower with women, morally objectionable, and particularly unacceptable to the generally conservative men who joined the service. This ignored the fact that gays had served in the military, albeit quietly, for decades.

The Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy was implemented in 1994, but despite training in all military branches, it was violated from its very inception. The Servicemembers’ Legal Defense Network, an organization that directly handled complaints from gays in the military, issued a series of investigative reports cataloguing the successes and failures of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. It also documented various gay soldiers’ experiences. Reports stated that a Navy officer asked a sailor, “You’re not going to tell me you’re a fucking faggot, are you?” A security clearance investigator said, “I’m not going to ask you if you’re homosexual, but if I did ask, how would you respond?”

The Servicemembers’ Legal Defense Network acknowledged that the growing trend from 1998 to 2001 was one of “lesbian baiting.” Women who turned down dates from male personnel were suddenly rumored to be lesbian. Other female military members that brought up charges of sexual harassment, misconduct, or rape faced the same treatment. So did those who reported domestic violence or filed for divorce. Rumors or evidence appeared, and hundreds of women were investigated.

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