Hampton Roads veterans join 'don't ask, don't tell' discussion

NORFOLK

Gary Crouse had been in the Navy just a few years the last time the government considered allowing gay men and women to openly serve in the military. This time around, he's retired and watching from the sidelines.

Crouse, 54, left the Navy in 2007 after 20 years as an electronics technician. Throughout his career, he didn't discuss being gay.

When he entered, being gay was forbidden. Then, in the early 1990s, President Bill Clinton tried to change the law and failed, leaving the military with a compromise known as "don't ask, don't tell."

"Maybe it's better it happens now," Crouse said Tuesday, the day the Pentagon released a report concluding that repealing the policy would have minimal impact on military readiness.

Crouse said the U.S. military should reflect the American tenet that all people are created equal.

"Just because you feel uncomfortable around some people doesn't mean you can discriminate against them," he said.

Crouse will speak this morning at a forum hosted by Human Rights Campaign at Five Points Community Farm Market in Norfolk. He'll be joined by two other veterans who favor repealing the policy: David Crandall of Norfolk, a straight man who retired from the Navy in 1983; and Aiden Vox of Richmond who was discharged from the Army under "don't ask, don't tell."

Crouse is new to public advocacy but said he feels called to share his experiences.

"As a gay veteran, it seems like it's my responsibility to help out as much as I can," he said.

Repealing the ban on openly gay service members would make the military stronger, he argued - partly because gay service members would be able to concentrate on doing their jobs without worrying about being outed and booted from the military.

"For those currently in, it will lift a really big burden off their shoulders," Crouse said.

He believes young sailors, like young people in general, are more tolerant of gays and lesbians in their midst.

"As a free society that reportedly is about individual rights, to ask somebody to hide who they are is ridiculous," Crouse said. "I think the younger people really don't care anymore who people are sleeping with, or love."

David Crandall has been out of the military for 27 years, but he's certain that the armed forces should finally acknowledge the service of gay and lesbian members already in the ranks.

"I think it's got to be done," said Crandall, a nuclear-trained machinist's mate who served on one surface ship and four submarines. "I'm against any kind of discrimination for any reason."

Crandall remembers the difficulties of integrating women onto ships. He served aboard a submarine tender that had 45 women assigned soon after the Navy allowed mixed-gender crews aboard support ships. He's still bothered by how badly they were treated, but he's proud that the military has been on what he called "the cutting edge" of integrating marginalized communities, including blacks and women.

He isn't worried about how gay and lesbian military members will be integrated into the ranks - they're already there.

"They've been serving forever," Crandall said.

Kate Wiltrout, (757) 446-2629, kate.wiltrout@pilotonline.com

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