About three months after I entered school, I was inducted into the military. My examination was in Oakland. When I told my professors that I was being called to serve as they asked me what I was going to do about it. I told them that I was going to say that I was gay.

The Korean War was over. The Vietnam War hadn’t yet begun, and there was no war or national emergency going on. There was no national need for me to be in the service.

I knew that I was so sexual that I would be caught the first day. I didn’t want a dishonorable discharge. I thought about it quite a bit. At the end of my examination I fill that form that asked me if I was gay. They waited until you had done all of the other tests.

I marked “gay.” They told me I could leave.

Then every year for five years after that I was sent a notice. I told the examining psychiatrist, who was obviously gay himself, that I was gay. I started describing all the things that I did. And he said: “well, we don’t want your kind.”

I shot back: “well, I don’t want your kind!”

They never called me anymore.

It was kind of a strange thing for me not to go into the service. I had been in ROTC at Louisiana state university, and had excelled. I would have made a good soldier but I would have been crippled by my sexuality because I couldn’t control myself.

So that was my military career. Consequently, throughout life I’ve thought that if someone were harming me, I would protect myself and my country to the death. But I would never be aggressive to someone without reason. I don’t believe in wars are killing, and I step over aunts on the sidewalk. I don’t steal or take things.