book reviews and summaries, comments, analysis
It has taken me almost FOREVER to write this book review, which is a real pity, since this is the only book about 'gays in the military' that you really should bother reading. I read in last summer, when I was living in Northampton, Massachusetts. The region is widely viewed as a lesbian mecca, and while this statement is too extreme, it has a large kernal of truth. There are many lesbians (god bless 'em) in the area, and they are very socially and politically active. I would recommend they read a book reviewed elsewhere on this site, Honorable Discharge: Confessions of an Army Dyke. Not that I agree with the premise in that book--as the reader will see shortly, Berube's book is much better-- but they are more likely to relate to the issues discussed, as they are from a woman's perspective. Berube--while touching on the issue of lesbians in the military ('butches', as he calls them often)-- spends most of his text on the male perspective.
Gay activists expecting to see a book that falls into the 'Fags were fine in the military until Ronald Reagan and all those bornagain Christians came along" are gonna be REAL REAL disappointed in THIS text. Being gay was no problem in the military until psychiatrists developed cute little oppression theories and wondered if it might be more 'compassionate' to dismiss gays from the armed services. When did this happen? Why, just prior and during WWII! The primary motivation was to get respect for the profession of psychiatry and if that meant a few hundred--few thousand--few hundred thousand, by now--gays in the US armed forces had a tougher go of it, well, that was just too bad. By the 1950s the idea that gays were unfit for national service, threats to national security, dissatisfied snivelers and commie sympathizers was (with a little help from Philby, Burgess, Maclean, Chambers...) firmly entrenched. The focus changed from dismissing people on the basis of what they did; to dismissing them for what they were. Sound familiar? The entire network, the sickening web of government paternalism that characterized the 'no way you can do it without help from us' politics of the 1960s and early 1970s, culminating in quotas under the guise of 'affirmative action' (no quotas on us homeboys, though! Sorry folks..we were on the wrong side of the fence!); all dates back to this period. It fell apart under the cumulative weight of its own stupidity in the 1980s. May it never rise again.
Berube deals with the problems gay men and women endured serving in the US Armed forces with dignity and calm professionalism. He daels with delicate emotional issues with maturity and discretion. To Randy Shilts, US Navy ships are floating drag shows filled with t-rooms in the bulkheads. To Berube, they were a difficult environment where men might have to seek moments of affection in such isolated places as anterooms near gun turrets. Berube makes clear that 'campiness' and 'double entendres' amidst personnel were a way to survive and endure in a military setting; a way to release tension and relax. To Shilts they were verbal personal ads. To Berube, having to share bunks on troop trains meant that men might be able to get together 'once the curtains were drawn in those lower bunks." To Shilts all that would matter was an orgy en route. (Or en root-- i can't miss the pun). In summary, Berube talks about Soldiers, who happen to be gay.