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He nodded. “Only thing I ever wanted more was David.”
I didn’t like the sliver of jealousy that went through me. It was unexpected and troubling.
“So what did you do?”
“I did what my father said. I never mentioned it again. Not to him, not to the army.”
“And David?”
“Things didn’t go as well for him. His parents kicked him out when he told them he was gay. I begged my parents to take him in since he was only seventeen and still had a year of school left. I told them if they didn’t, I wouldn’t enlist.”
“Did they?”
Vincent nodded. “Peanut butter and jelly, remember?”
I nodded. I knew that feeling all too well. I admired Vincent for having the guts to use it to get what he wanted.
“David enlisted, but we weren’t in the same unit. He was a great soldier, but he didn’t have the leadership skills needed to move up the ranks. By the time I’d worked my way up to Major, he was still a Private First Class.”
I had no clue what any of that meant, but gathered it meant the two men hadn’t been on equal ground, professionally speaking.
“Did that cause problems between you?”
“No,” he said. “He was just so fucking happy,” Vincent murmured. “All he’d ever wanted to do was serve his country. If that meant cleaning the base bathrooms, he would have done it, as long as it meant he was giving back.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?” he asked as he looked at me.
“Was that what you wanted? To serve your country?”
His eyes shifted back to the view and then he nodded. “I loved everything this country stood for. Freedom, equality, justice…I would have laid down my very life for it.”
The heaviness in his voice had me reaching for him, but I realized what I was doing at the last moment and clenched my hand in my lap instead.
“Something happened,” I observed. “Something changed.”
“Everything changed,” he responded. “David and I were stationed at the same base. We didn’t see each other often, but every once in a while we’d find a way to meet up.” He looked at me and said, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was still in effect at that time.”
I stilled because I realized what he was telling me…and what it meant. “You were discovered.”
Vincent nodded. “Someone saw us holding hands one night. A few seconds of giving in to that need to touch one another, and that was it.”
“What happened?”
“We were both discharged. Other than honorable.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s a step above a dishonorable discharge. It was the military saying we’d never been soldiers. We lost our benefits. It was like we’d never been…that none of the sacrifices we’d made had mattered.”
“Vincent…” I began, but he shook his head.
“I lost David after that. Not all at once, but that was when it started.”
“What do you mean?”
“David had always been someone who went full throttle at things. When he lost his parents, his home, I think the military became that for him. Besides me, it was all he had. Without purpose, he just…he didn’t know who to be, I guess.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“I had some money saved up, so when we were discharged, I bought us a little house in Maryland. I guess I still thought something would change at that point…that someone would stand up and do the right thing. They’d see that all David and I had wanted to do was serve the country we loved. I reached out to the military asking them to reconsider. Especially the type of discharge.”
“Why that?”
“Because it was like a stain on our careers. Potential employers wanted to know what we’d been doing all those years, but as soon as they discovered the OTH, they looked at us like we were nothing. No one cared why we’d gotten discharged…they made up their minds about us as soon as they found out it wasn’t an honorable discharge.”
My heart broke for him, but I didn’t know what to say.
“I tried reaching out to every branch of government I could think of. No one gave a shit. We were less than nothing to them. For every person who refused to help us, I lost another piece of David. He’d already been struggling with PTSD as a result of the combat he’d seen. The depression that followed made everything so much worse. We were struggling financially…”
“What about your parents? Couldn’t they have helped you?”
“My mother died a few years after I enlisted, and my father had no interest in me after I was discharged. The last time I spoke to him, he asked me if I was happy that my deviant ways had brought shame to my entire family. I wasn’t even notified of his death. I had to hear it from my brother, even though he was overseas at the time.”
