US Marine recruiter Sgt. Monique Wallace stands next to SGV Pride ED Paul Waters (center with black shirt) with other Marines at Pride festival Oct. 8, 2011 at Pasadena City College (Photo courtesy Paul Waters)
(CORRECTED) Allowing the LAPD to recruit in uniform at the Christopher Street Pride festival was incredibly grueling back in the day. Now the LAPD Chief and the LA Sheriff march in front of a law enforcement banner with scores of openly LGBT officers and deputies and their families as a unified contingent.
With the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the US military recruiters just had to be asked. And on Saturday, Oct. 8, the Marines showed up at the San Gabriel Valley Pride festival at Pasadena City College, lead by Sgt. Monique Wallace, the regional coordinator for recruitment marketing.
Paul Waters, Executive Director of San Gabriel LA/Valley Pride (who also secured the first recruitment by the LA Fire Dept, as well) was beside himself with excitement:
I remember that the Marine Commandant was the most resistant to making the change during the debate in Congress. But he also said that the Marines would step out smartly, and put the other branches to shame with their DADT repeal implementation. Well. It appears that they’re doing precisely this.
I think the Marines come off looking exceptionally well (added) in the Los Angeles Times article. Being the service “Leading the charge” is certainly going to play very, very well up the chain of command. And
shethe reporter did a nice job of tweaking the noses of the other services, without beating them up about it. Nuthin’ like a little inter-branch rivalry to get things moving, eh?
Attorney and former Marine Capt. Tom Carpenter, a longtime Servicemembers Legal Defense Network board member, helped represent gays in the military at this year’s CSW Pride parade. He says he suggested to Pride organizers that they put in formal requests to the services to provide a band and color guard to lead the parade next year. “If they can do it for Columbus Day and sporting events, they should be able to do it for our events, too,” Carpenter says.
The Los Angeles Times was on the scene and wrote up a very nice story. Here’s an excerpt:
Marine Corps recruiters at the San Gabriel Valley Pride event at Pasadena City College on Saturday didn’t care whether the young men who lined up to test their strength were gay or straight.
The Marines just wanted to see some pull-ups done properly:….
At Pasadena City College on Saturday, Wallace was among eight Marines at the recruitment booth. From the morning opening, the Marine contingent proved the biggest draw amid tables representing healthcare organizations, church groups and vendors of rainbow-colored garden decorations. It might have helped that the Marines handed out a lanyard, a pen or a sticker to each man who tried to do a pull-up, or to each woman who tried the flexed-arm hang. To the rare volunteer capable of performing 20 pull-ups went a navy-blue T-shirt……
Alan Chan, San Gabriel Valley Pride’s secretary, invited military personnel in the Pasadena recruitment office across from the college to set up booths at the event. The Navy, he said, did not have adequate staffing. The Army had previously committed to another event. The Air Force did not respond. And the Marines, who alone expressed interest, nearly had to plead poverty because the branch had exhausted its funds for the fiscal year and did not have $150 for the exhibitor fee. LA/Valley Pride covered the fee, said Executive Director Paul Waters.
Pride activists found it intriguing that the Marines were the only ones to show, given how adamantly their commandant had opposed the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Last December, Gen. James Amos warned that the distraction of repealing the policy could lead to risks for combat units, among other issues. But after President Obama signed the repeal into law, Amos vowed to help lead the effort and said the Marines would do the best job of implementing the change.
Tom Carpenter, a former Marine fighter pilot and a member of the board of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, said he was impressed “Marines are leading the charge.” He said the move would improve the pool of candidates strained by two wars.
“They had tens of thousands of felony waivers, and they were taking people convicted of drug use,” Carpenter said. “This will increase the pool of people available and allow people who want to serve the country to join.”
Carpenter said he resigned his active-duty commission as a captain in 1976 because of a ban on gays in the military. “I couldn’t live a lie,” said Carpenter, now a lawyer. Because he resigned, he gets no retirement pay. Through Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, he has helped keep people who were affected by “don’t ask, don’t tell” in the military. “We’ve saved a lot of careers over the last 17 years,” he said.
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Semper Fi.
Bring the troops home by Xmas. Cut the Pentagon budget and redirect military dollars to affordable housing for queer seniors, expanded health care for LGBT people regardless of marital status, and let’s remember not every sissy wants to be a soldier. Count me as one fag who does not want nor believes gay liberation will trickle down from the military industrial complex.