Leonard Matlovich: The Gay Military Hero You’ve Probably Never Heard Of
WASHINGTON — Leonard Matlovich. Does the name ring any bells?
It didn’t for
me until today. But it was his tombstone that I used to jog by a couple
of times a week just to read the words on it, because he left one hell
of a parting message to the world.
“A Gay Vietnam
Veteran,” it reads in bold letters. And then, this: “When I was in the
military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for
loving one.”
There’s no name
on the tombstone, which is tucked away in a quiet corner of the
Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C., where a handful of gay
veterans are buried together. It almost seemed better without a name.
Like it was more of a symbolic grave for all the gay veterans who fought
for their country but had to hide their true selves. I only noticed a
name today, on Veterans Day, on a nearby plaque. Matlovich. So I looked
him up.
It turns out
Matlovich was a hero, on a couple of fronts. To the military, he was an
Air Force sergeant who fought with valor and earned a Purple Heart and a
Bronze Star Medal. To the gay community, he was the first U.S. service
member to stand up and purposely out himself to challenge the military’s
ban on LGBT people.
It was March 1975 when he walked up to his commanding officer and handed him a letter stating that he was gay. According to a Time story on the incident,
when his commander asked, “What does this mean?” Matlovich replied, “It
means Brown versus the Board of Education,” a reference to the landmark
Supreme Court case that banned racial segregation in public schools.
Matlovich was
discharged and fought for years, unsuccessfully, to end the military
ban, which remained in place until 2011. But he went on to become a
vocal gay rights advocate at a time when there weren’t many. He tried to
create a memorial for the late Harvey Milk at the Congressional
Cemetery, he forced Northwest Airlines to reverse its ban on passengers
with HIV and was arrested outside the White House protesting what many
viewed as President Ronald Reagan’s insufficient response to the AIDS
crisis.
Today, as I
watched people stroll in and out of the cemetery, some paying tribute to
veterans buried here and others just letting their dogs run free on the
grounds, I asked them if they had seen Matlovich’s grave. Some didn’t
know him by name. But they all were aware of his epitaph. One mentioned
there was even a wreath-laying ceremony at his grave earlier in the day.
“It’s a big
deal,” said one woman being dragged along by her large dog. “Vietnam
vets come here all the time. It pays tribute to them all.”
I used to think
this tombstone was a gem that I somehow discovered and that nobody else
knew about — something I could revisit from time to time and feel moved
all over again by this person’s last message to the world. It turns out
lots of people know about it. That’s a good thing.
___________________
No comments:
Post a Comment