Our group USNAOut is making a Documentary about gay grads of the United States Naval Academy - here is the trailer
OUT OF ANNAPOLIS
der Brucer
I have turned down repeated requests for interviews
Did you leave before they found out?
Are you kidding? If they found out, I would have been tossed out of the Academy.
If they found out anytime during my 10 years of Commissioned service, I would have been thrown out.
If they found out during the two years I worked for Honeywell, I would have lost my job.
If they found out during the 20 years I worked for Hughes, I would have lost my job. (Maybe, in the last few years I could have gotten away with it). I did take Woody to my retirement party, so some people should have been suspicious.
The key to staying in the closet during the later years was the need to maintain a security clearance. Even after the government no longer automatically denied clearances to homosexuals, if a long timer came out, he still lost his clearance based on the fact that he had lied about his sexual "tendencies" during the initial screening process.
I never told my wife, and didn't tell my Father until after I retired.
My living a dual life of deception (which later on included separate identities) is one of the reasons I don't want to do the interview, nor write a Bio for the USNA OUT web site. I don't want to be a model of "if you're clever and disingenuous, you can get away with it".
der Brucer
