I could give you a mirror
To show you disappointments
I could give you a history
Could you ever listen to me
Eurythmics ~ I Could Give You (A Mirror)
When I was in the military, they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one. Inscription on Leonard Matlovich’s tombstone.
On June 22, 1988, just a month before his 45th birthday, Matlovich died of complications from HIV/AIDS. He was buried in the Washington DC Congressional Cemetery because no military graveyard would allow it.
It was because of people like Leonard Matlovich that I chose to enlist in 1986 and served close to 10 years as a Navy Submariner – The Silent Service.
Tags: Announcements
Michael Bedwell wrote,
Thank you for posting about my late friend, Leonard Matlovich. And thank you for your service to our country, inspired by him and others.
But he would want me to correct one thing, a misimpression that many have. Because his discharge was under “Honorable” conditions, he could have been buried in any military cemetery he wished. However, he chose Washington DC’s Congressional Cemetery instead, which he discovered on one of his frequent walks near the house we shared as roommates. Though smaller, it is half-a-century older than Arlington, and he loved its variety of individual stones versus Arlington’s tens of thousands of identical markers, and knew that because he did not have the status of someone like the Kennedy brothers, the Army administrators of Arlington would not likely have allowed the unique stone he wanted to serve the dual purpose of a memorial to all gay veterans.
He did it because he recognized that while our nation is filled with countless places memorializing its straight-identified forebears, there are few such places where gays can remember and honor their own, writing in “The Advocate,” “When Americans remember and honor those who gave their lives fighting it never occurs to them that some of the strongest, bravest, and most heroic were also gay. It is time for us, as a community, to remedy that.” In the same spirit, he later began a project to build a DC memorial to gay rights martyr, and Navy veteran, Harvey Milk but passed away before enough money could be raised. Video of his remarks during its dedication ceremony at http://www.leonardmatlovich.com.
He also chose Congressional Cemetery because Peter Doyle, Walt Whitman’s great love, is buried there, and, in additon, couldn’t resist the last laugh of being buried in the same row with the loathsome and apparently self-loathing FBI legend J. Edgar Hoover and Hoover’s longtime “friend” Clyde Tolson. I can imagine him smiling everytime one of Hoover’s ancient homophobic cronies curses as he or she has to pass Leonard’s gravestone on their way to and from Hoover’s.
In a touching tribute no one anticipated, a growing number of other out gays, including veterans, have since chosen to be buried in the same once obscure graveyard. And at his graveside every Veterans Day, Capt. Mike Rankin USN (RET) conducts a memorial service for all gay veterans who have passed—just as Leonard dreamed.
I urge everyone to visit his grave whenever they might be in Washington, and to pay him the greatest honor in the name of the fight to end the ban on gays in the military that he started 35 years ago: do all you can to see that our government follows through on their promise to unequivocally end the ban no later than February 2011.
Thank you.
Michael Bedwell
Creator, http://www.leonardmatlovich.com
Link | June 5th, 2010 at 8:53 am