Franklin E. Kameny
Private First Class, U.S. Army (1943-1945)
On May 28, 1943, three days short of turning 18 and during my second year of college in New York City, I enlisted in the Army. In enlisting, I falsely answered "no" the question asking if I had "homosexual tendencies."
I was called Sept. 20, 1943, to active duty. I did my basic training (infantry) at Fort Benning, Ga., through late 1943. I was briefly assigned to the University of Illinois, under the Army Specialized Training Program for training in Mechanical Engineering. Upon abrupt congressional cancellation of that program in February 1944, I was transferred to then-Camp Polk, La., where I was assigned to the 58th Armored Infantry Battalion of the 8th Armored Division as an 81-millimeter mortar crewman, which I remained until after the close of hostilities in Europe. We trained at Camp Polk throughout most of 1944.
We sailed for England from New York on a troopship in early November 1944. We took three weeks to cross on zig-zag course — punctuated by the occasional discharge and explosion of depth charges — to protect ourselves against German torpedoes. We landed at Southampton around Thanksgiving and were stationed in a tent camp at Tidworth Barracks on Salisbury Plain, near Stonehenge. The Battle of the Bulge erupted near the end of the year, and on New Year's Day 1945, we crossed the English Channel. After a brief stay in Normandy, we headed for eastern France. By the time we got there, the Bulge was gone. At the end of January, we moved from Alsace-Lorraine north through Belgium to the Limburg area of southern Holland.
In February 1945, with the Ninth Army, we saw front-line combat in Roermond, Holland. We entered Germany, pushed across the Rhineland and settled in there for a while. At the end of March, we crossed the Rhine, fighting bitterly and digging our way across Germany. We moved on into central Germany until the end of the European war in early May. I escaped without injury, although there were many close calls during which my survival was not at all certain.
We were the Army of Occupation in Germany until June, then the Army of Liberation in Czechoslovakia through that summer, fearing transport. Before I returned home, my journey took me through southern Germany, England and Germany again. High school German courses allowed me to serve as a semi-official interpreter, during and after combat.
This entire time I was well aware of my homosexuality, but I was not out in the Army. However, I did have a small number of unconcealed gay experiences with fellow servicemen while I was on active duty.
We eventually sailed for America in March 1946. I was honorably discharged at Camp Kilmer, N.J., on March 24, 1946, as a private first class, and I returned to college in September. My benefits via the GI Bill of Rights were indispensable, putting me through college and graduate school at Harvard.
I still proudly wear my Combat Infantryman's Badge on appropriate occasions, including my annual trip to the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery. Under the auspices of the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance, I have conducted a formal wreath-laying ceremony there every Memorial Day since 1980 in solemn memory of all of those who have died in our nation's wars, including those who were gay.
From 1961 to the time when organizations like the Services Members Legal Defense Network emerged, I was at the forefront of attempts to overturn the military's gay-exclusionary policies. I assisted many gay people, in the service and subject to the draft, to fight anti-gay discrimination in the military. I organized and conducted numerous demonstrations including protests against anti-gay military policies at the White House, the Pentagon and Independence Hall in Philadelphia.
Appointed by the president, I served for the full 20 years as a member of the Washington, D.C., Selective Service Board, to ensure that — should the draft be reactivated — gays in Washington, D.C., would get a square deal.
I believe my front-line service in World War II and my life as a gay American citizen have earned me the right to assert that gay Americans should have the same rights, privileges, prerogatives, eligibilities and benefits as non-gay Americans. We need not tolerate being second-class citizens, shunted off into the fringes, margins and sidelines, and we will not tolerate it. We are first-class citizens and will remain there.
During World War II, I knew why I was fighting. Over the years since, I have come to know even better for what I fought. And so I have come to realize that not only does the war continue, although with different issues, different enemies and different modes of combat, but also that I remain on the frontlines and with an equal certainty of victory, because we are right and our enemies are wrong.