JULY 23, 1993 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 5

A dedicated soldier who could no longer live a lie

Continued from Page 1

His coming out process made headlines. On the Saturday evening before the March on Washington in April, there was a fundraiser being hosted by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF). During the evening the crowd was electrified when Sgt. Jose Zuniga was introduced. He had recently been named the Sixth Army Soldier of the Year for 1992, and the Army's Military Journalist of the Year. During combat in Operation Desert Storm, he had been given the Combat Medical Badge, and three Army Commendation Medals. Other decorations included the Army Achievement Medal, the Good Conduct Medal, another Army Commendation, and the recently awarded Meritorious Service Medal-all since September 1989. And here he was, on April 24, 1993, announcing publicly that he was proud to be gay.

The next day he participated in the March, walking with the Gay Veterans contingent and speaking at the rally. Although still an active member of the service, Zuniga knew what fate awaited him when he returned to the Presidio, his base in San Francisco. Simultaneous with his announcement in Washington, he had a letter delivered to his commander with the same news.

The military machine moved quickly, and not so kindly, against the soldier who turned 24 in early May. Discharge proceedings were started and he was moved from communal quarters so that other service personnel would no longer have to share a shower with him. He was notified on May 10 that he would be given an honorable discharge because of his exemplary record, but the paperwork would take another two weeks to be processed. The next day he was cited for a uniform violation.

During his public announcement on April 24, Zuniga was wearing the Meritorious Service ribbon, but the Army now maintained that he never received that commendation. Zuniga said that before he left for Washington, he called the military personnel office at the Presidio, where somebody told him the commendation had been posted in his record. Since he was sure the award had been approved, he bought a ribbon and pinned it on with the others.

Officers in the personnel office have since signed statements saying that conversation never occurred, according to Zuniga.

"I came out (of the closet) because I didn't want to live a lie," he said. "It doesn't make sense for me to lie about something as basic as one ribbon. I have five Army Commendation Medals. Why would I add one more and put myself through this horror?

The standard procedure for this type of violation is to issue a reprimand and keep it in the sealed part of a serviceman's file. In Zuniga's case, the army issued a reprimand which was placed in the public part of his service record, and also demoted his rank from sergeant to fourth specialist before he was discharged. Zuniga points out that they wanted to "bloody his nose" before letting

him go.

In an interview with the Chronicle, the recent veteran discussed the reasoning behind his decisions and activities.

His speaking tour is designed to put a human face on the issue, something he sees as important because "a number of Americans don't think they know a gay man or a lesbian and they listen to whatever the fundamentalists have to say about the gay community, who are trying to identify us as the fringe element," Zuniga said. "I thought it important to come out and talk... to be able to get those headlines that say 'Soldier of the Year, kicked out of the army for being gay.' That's the most important message right there, showing the irrationality of a policy that would have one of their best soldiers kicked out just because he's gay, a totally irrelevant fact."

Unlike some of the other gay military personnel who aligned themselves with a particular advocacy group, Zuniga has been "ecumenical," helping out as much as he

can with the Campaign for Military Service; the Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Veterans of America; the Human Rights Campaign Fund; the NGLTF; and the ACLU.

After he announced his homosexuality, Zuniga had the option of going into the standby reserve, part of President Clinton's temporary solution to the issue of gays in the military until the policy is reviewed and a decision made in mid-July. But Zuniga chose to be discharged.

"I didn't want Big Brother looking over my shoulder... you're still in the military jurisdiction and anything you say or do is

awards, and as President Clinton began to distance himself from his pledge to lift the ban outright, Zuniga knew he had to make a public statement.

In the aftermath, he still has a love for military service and would return to it as his career, but only when the "atmosphere" changes, something he believes is possible.

"It changed back in the 1940s when blacks were integrated into the service. It changed when women were allowed to actively serve. But it's gonna take a lot of commitment on the part of commanders . . . It's gonna take a lot of sensitivity training,

KEVIN BEANEY

Joe Zuniga: "If we lose this battle we're allowing the government to place a stamp of approval on discrimination against gays. And that's not going to stop in the military."

punishable by the UCMJ [Uniform Code of Military Justice]. I wouldn't be able to live my life the way I want to live it."

Now that he is actively speaking out for equal rights for gay men and lesbians, he considers himself "a soldier in the fight, [using] my career as a weapon."

Zuniga was raised in an Hispanic family with a military heritage. "My great grandfather was in the Spanish army, my grandfathers were in the Spanish army, my dad was in the United States Army. It was in my blood; I wanted to continue that lineage, that military history," he said.

He was in ROTC in high school and at Texas A&M University and had high ideals. To Zuniga, military service was not an obligation but was a "tradition to serve my country and fight for the principles and the values and everything my family had fought for over the years."

When he enlisted, he hoped to continue his journalism training, but there was no opening in that program at the time. He instead selected medical training and, while stationed in overseas during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, served first as editor for one of the army newspapers, and then volunteered as a medic during the ground war.

But there was another battle going on: his internal conflict of sexual attraction versus society's teachings that many gay men and lesbians wrestle with. During his Persian Gulf tour, he began having what he considered "unnatural feelings" towards a close friend. "I had listened to exactly what my dad had said about homosexuals; I'd listened to what our church had said about homosexuals, what society was saying, and I fought with these feelings for a very long time."

After coming back to the United States, Zuniga's confusion continued. Eventually, he was able to reconcile himself with his sexual orientation. "Finally there comes a time when you have to come to terms with it, have to accept it, because you can't change it. There's no on-off switch for these types of feelings."

Once he accepted himself, Zuniga could not reconcile his orientation with the discrimination that exists in the military. As the army continued to commend him with

a lot of education," he said. With the fallout from the Tailhook scandal, the military is faced with similar issues. "The military's going through extensive education and sensitivity training on that area alone because soldiers don't understand what constitutes sexual harassment."

He is pleased with the progress that has been made so far regarding the debate on the ban and says not enough attention has been paid to it. "A lot of people will chalk this up as a loss if the ban isn't lifted. But you know, when this whole debate started, it was all an issue of whether homosexuals should serve in the military at all. It's no longer that issue any more.

"Now the issue is how should we let them serve, how can we allow them to serve in the military. It's no longer the argument about being detrimental to national security and the blood supply. There's been a lot of education because of the debate that's been going on, and that's very

important to note."

He dismissed the hearings held by the Senate Armed Services Committee as "ridiculous" and "grandstanding" on the part of its chairman, Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga. Interviewing sailors with their commanders and TV cameras watching, those personnel are "obviously going to say exactly what the party line is... because they don't want to be labeled as gay sympathizers. They don't want to go through the witch hunts and the investigations that thousands of other service members have gone through."

The demoted and ousted soldier does not support anything other than full acceptance of gay men and lesbians in the military. He was especially critical of openly-gay U.S. Rep. Barney Frank's proposed compromise, which is "saying that you should be asexual in the workplace... Barney Frank is telling gays not to talk about what they did on Saturday night. Is he willing to tell heterosexuals to do the same thing?"

When reminded that Frank's suggestion was based on his assessment of the political reality, Zuniga countered that "it was nowhere near deadline time. He decided that everything we tried had been a failure, that we didn't have the votes in the Senate."

Quoting David Mixner, the gay campaign adviser and friend of Clinton, Zuniga said "[in June] there were 45 votes for lifting the ban [in the Senate], and that's more than we had in the very beginning." Keeping the military metaphor, Zuniga said, "You don't barter your rights, you don't wave a white flag in the middle of a battle. You fight it out until the very end and then you talk about compromise. I just thought it was very unfortunate that [Frank] should propose something like this when he did. We all realize that there are political realities here and that sometimes you have to give in, but not now. It's too soon."

Zuniga is realistic, too, when looking beyond the battle. "What I'm telling people around the country is: Look, if the ban is lifted, gays aren't going to come out of the closet by the thousands, because society is so mired in discrimination. A gay soldier is not going to come out and put himself in an uncomfortable position, or put his colleagues in an uncomfortable position, just for the

hell of it." Again referring to the impact of the individual, "the single most important step in winning this battle is for people to come out of the closet and put that human face on the issue. And have a soldier be able to say, 'Yeah I know another gay soldier and I've worked with him. It wasn't a problem and he didn't harass me, and if he does there's the Code of Military Justice that will deal with it.'

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So what now for Joe Zuniga? “Right now I'm focusing all my energy and attention on this speaking tour and trying to make sure the ban is repealed." That included making a 60 second announcement for the Campaign for Military Service which is being shown around the country, once more helping put a human face on the issue.

He's also dealing with his response to being demoted in rank. Calling it a "kangaroo court," Zuniga said, "The ACLU and I are filing suit against the Army for unlawful command influence. It's a trumped up charge, and we have a way to prove it. . . They went out of their way to make (my discharge) miserable for me and it showed."

If the ban is fully lifted and the military starts to change its atmosphere, Zuniga holds out the hope of returning to the service and make it his career as he originally planned. If the effort falls short of that goal he sees himself either working in journalism or continuing with the gay rights movement. He has been waging the battle against oppression for several months and has no plans to quit: "We need to come together as a community and say we're not going to tolerate discrimination, we're not going to tolerate anything that oppresses us anymore. And we're not going to accept any compromise like the Barney Frank compromise or the Sam Nunn compromise-any type of proposal that would extend the closet, that would continue the status quo-we won't accept that."

Whatever his future field, this Soldier of the Year has the determination and clear thinking to continue inspiring others and be commended for it.

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