I slept with a gay man for six months in Afghanistan. No one asked. He did not tell.

A Marine silent no longer on gay marriage
By Roger Dean Huffstetler, Published: April 3
Roger Dean Huffstetler is a former Marine Corps sergeant.



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I believed I knew the men in my B-hut better than I knew most of my friends at home, yet the man sleeping next door had a secret he dared not reveal for fear of being removed from active duty. It never crossed my mind that he was gay — or that I could have done so much more to be his friend.

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Even as a kid, Andy was exceptionally affable, the kind of person who could talk to a trash can. He never met a stranger, and he unfailingly seemed to know where he was going. Andy was surrounded by a close group of friends, always together, always laughing. It’s fair to say everyone enjoyed being around him.

In our teens, Andy and I would go on mission trips around the country, helping to clean or build homes, with a little vacation Bible school on the side. Perhaps Andy knew then that he was gay — it seems likely — but he flirted with girls, same as the rest of us. If he did know, he kept it to himself, and I lived in ignorance about it.

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No, I never gay-bashed. I didn’t bully, I didn’t hate, I didn’t torment.

But I did say “fag” to a fellow Marine in front of Sgt. Santiago. I did stay seated in the pew when my minister challenged, “Don’t let anyone tell you that this church is soft on homosexuality.” Silence is a most powerful consent.

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The rest of this lstory here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-marine-silent-no-longer-in-his-support-for-gay-marriage/2014/04/03/48f3caec-b9ea-11e3-9a05-c739f29ccb08_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/04/1289570/-A-remarkable-op-ed-on-gay-marriage