This documentary film about homosexuality in the American military during World War II features interviews with 10 gay men and women who served in the armed forces. Phillis Abry, a radio technician in the Women's Army Corps, was able to carry on a homosexual relationship without being detected and receive an honorable discharge. Others, like Marvin Liebman, who was in the special services of the United States Army Air Corps, were identified as gay, having "psychopathic" personalities, and were discharged as undesirable. Mr. Liebman was interrogated when military censors read a letter he had written to a friend whom he addressed as "darling".
Another veteran, identified as Clark, was an Army clerk and typist who helped create a mimeographed newsletter, The Myrtle Beach Bitch. The campy publication, which was circulated privately among gay servicemen, eventually got him into trouble. He was court-martialed and served nine months in prison. He has spent years challenging his undesirable discharge status. Many of these veterans had to lie to avoid persecution from within the military ranks and prosecution from without. In the witch-hunt atmosphere that pervaded the military, people suspected of being gay were relentlessly interrogated and manipulated into identifying other homosexuals. Many were sent to psychiatric hospitals or imprisoned for months in "queer stockades." Discharged as undesirable, they often found themselves pariahs, unwelcome in their hometowns and unable to find work.
Servicemen staged drag entertainments for one another in which many of the performers were gay. As Tom Reddy, who served in the Marines, recalls: "I went in at 17 and came out at 21, and I knew I was a man. It took nerve to put on a dress and run out there in front of 500 or 1,000 of your peers that were all pretending to be so macho." These and many other personal testimonies are woven into an portrait of 1940's military life that uses Army training films, newsreels and period documents. The final exchange between Senator John Warner and Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer regarding the implementation of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy ends the film with a bang.
This 72 minute reflective documentary based on the book of the same name by Allan Bérubé is simplistic with a bitter undertone. There are brief flashes of humor, but it is mostly upsetting in the dark secrets that it reveals. The documentary shows not only the long tradition of gays in America's military but also their tradition of serving with distinction before meeting with betrayal. Mark Adler composed the original music. The screenplay was written by Arthur Dong and Allan Bérubé from Bérubé's book. Arthur Dong directed.
