This is for you, Kelly...

I went to high school with one of the funniest guys I've ever known. His sense of humor would have the entire drama/debate team in fits of laughter. A few years after high school he joined the Air Force. At that same time I was in the Army. We both wound up in West Germany. He completed his tour a few years after I did. He earned several commendations and was honorably discharged. Kelly finished college and landed a good paying job afterwards.

There is one thing I do know he hated. It was living in silence because he was gay. He wasn't one to lament about his problems, but he couldn't talk about who he loved the way I could talk about who I loved. This was before DADT. My good friend died in 1991.

I think he'd be happy to see the changes coming in this country. Gay marriage will happen and DADT is practically dead.

Here's to you, my friend.

:patriot: :toast:

have been here to see it. :pals:

K&R!

:hi:

:patriot:

:kick:

I met Randy at a Vet Center in the '80s. He did three tours in Vietnam, most of it as a Marine Corps Infantry squad leader. His sexual orientation and PTSD caused a big public flap--and hurt him deeply--when he joined the SFPD after the war. The abuse was so overwhelming that he finally quit, after having fought long and hard for the right to serve as a police officer.

Years later, when he was living in D.C. and suffering from AIDS, I used to take him to and from the hospital for his frequent visits and in-patient stays. At his apartment, he used to apologize for serving me his "gay" raspberry-cream coffee, lol. His constant companions were his two dogs.

Randy suffered more than his share of discrimination and abuse, and was jumped and beaten in his neighborhood and even in his apartment several times when he was sick and weak. Randy always tried to do his best, in a society that wouldn't allow him to be who he was.

When we lost him in '93, the Washington Post ran a nice obituary that highlighted the huge turnout of Randy's veteran comrades:



Here's to our friends, Kelly and Randy.

:patriot: :toast: