Secrets Of A Gay Marine Porn Star (2 page)

Jennifer started the article off by talking about me, later weaving in the other people. But she kept coming back to me, to my story. Still, I thought the piece was beautiful. I felt Jennifer had captured everything that we revealed to her. She had grasped the situation fully. There are a lot of issues about gays in the military that people don’t think about. For example, she really understood the suffering of my friend, Jim. Jim is the type of person who feels emotions very deeply, even if he doesn’t always show them to everyone. Jennifer, being perceptive, really had empathy for him. In the article, it was clear that she sensed how painful living in secret was for him. Jim told her the story about being out to sea on the USS
Constellation
. The fighter jets can’t take off and land from the deck of an aircraft carrier when the ship is in the port of a crowded city like downtown San Diego. The ship sails way out to sea and then the jets take off from their air station on land, fly out to the sea and land on the deck of the aircraft carrier off the coast of San Diego. The same is true coming home from a deployment at sea. They always let the fighter pilots with wives and fiancées and girlfriends fly off early, while the ship is way off the coast. Flying back to the air base is a really big deal—there’s always a large crowd and huge celebration waiting to greet the returning pilots.

Jim is one of the most senior guys in the squadron—and he’s got a lover back home. Yet, he has to ride into the port on the ship because he doesn’t have a wife or a fiancée or a girlfriend. That really affected him. Jennifer picked up on that and she really told those stories remarkably well.

She also understood that it’s not enough to be neutral. There’s no such thing as “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” You cannot be sexually neutral. She powerfully conveyed that in the article. She revealed how I would have to take fake dates to military functions. One gay Marine officer friend, the same observant friend who caught the “one-glove faux pas” called them “stunt babes.” She put that quote in there and it was fantastic that the general public was finally reading about these kinds of situations.

After I finished the article, I also recall having a feeling of loneliness. I hadn’t seen myself as alone before, because the gay military community is very closely knit. But Jennifer, in her poignant way, had portrayed an image of me, and ultimately of all of us, as being isolated and lonely. She used me to convey the idea to her readers that “Don’t ask, don’t tell” means that gays in the military can’t trust anyone, not even other gays in the military. All it takes is one person to get caught and questioned or to get angry or jilted and turn the whole group in. I hadn’t seen that because I hadn’t wanted to see it. But I really was lonelier than I had realized.

I couldn’t worry about the loneliness, however, because the reality of the possibility of my “sordid secret” came crashing down on me. Of course Brandon already knew that I had done eight pornographic films—meeting him was the reason I stopped. But I wanted to reveal it to someone else who could help me with the legal problems should the worst-case scenario happen. I began to feel I might really be in danger. Once the Marines found out this was me in the
Times
story, they might do an investigation. An investigation might lead them to my porn past. If they found out about that I could go to the military prison at Fort Leavenworth for many years. I panicked.

That night, I said to my friend Tim, “I’ve got to tell you something.” That’s when I told him that I had done porn. He nodded saying that his partner mentioned that he had seen me in a video but Tim had refused to believe it was me.

I went to work that Monday. The whole drive up I felt paranoid. Freaked out. I had no idea what the reaction among the Marines would be. But, to my relief and surprise, nothing out of the ordinary happened that day. Not a single word was said about the article, which, in all honesty, brought more of my emotions to the fore. Along with the fear of being discovered was my absolute pride at being part of such a groundbreaking story. The world didn’t know that I was “R” yet, but I kept thinking that in a few months, when the freelance writer Max Harrold wrote his profile on me for
The Advocate
, everyone was going to know.

Tim Carter, fearing the worst, advised me to clean everything out of my apartment that was remotely gay-related. Monday evening, I boxed up all of my books by gay authors, all of my photographs of my friends and me at gay pride festivals and parties, my address book, my computer and everything personal in nature and drove them up to Tim’s, where he stored them in the basement. If the military searched my apartment, the investigators would think I had no friends or any kind of a personal life at all.
I’m so glad I live in a free fucking country,
I thought as I hauled my personal life up to LA.

Tim sent an e-mail to everyone in my computer address book. Looking back, it was probably more cryptic than necessary. It said something like, “Our friend is okay, but do not try to communicate with him.” The problem is, most of my friends didn’t recognize Tim’s e-mail address. They were more afraid after getting this e-mail than they were before. Suddenly, I was without e-mail, without any of my personalized possessions, without my computer, and I was too afraid to call anyone, out of fear the military was tapping my phone. This truly was a terrifying time.

Meanwhile, a friend who had connections at the highest levels at Marine Corps headquarters got a message to me saying that there were debates about what they should do with me. There were two generals named Van Riper, brothers I believe, who, it was said, wanted to crucify me. General Krulak, the commandant of the Marine Corps, the number one general, was a Holy Roller, a Bible thumper (which I once was), and he worried me the most. I know how that mind-set works: anything to further God’s will is justifiable. But apparently in the long run he was political enough to realize, “It’s better to just let this go.” It was this opinion, I feel, that eventually won out.

Back at my battalion, a couple of weeks after the article, I was talking to my commanding officer. We were having one of our daily talks about battalion business and at the end of the discussion he abruptly said, “Oh, and there’s something else I need to talk to you about.” I had a feeling of what was coming. I just looked at him.

He pulled out a black-and-white photocopy of the
Times
article. I could see that there were highlighted portions. “This is an article that was in the
New York Times Magazine
about a gay Marine who goes by the initial ‘R’,” he said. “There are a lot of people who think this is you.”

Before I could say a word, he held up his hand. “I’m not asking if this is you,” he said firmly. “In fact, I already checked with the base legal section and I can’t ask if this is you. And quite frankly, I don’t give a damn if this is you. If someone gives you a problem about this, you come see me about it.” And then he added, “As long as you’re in the Third Marine Aircraft Wing and General McCorkle is the commanding general, you don’t have anything to worry about.”

The Marine Corps was taking care of me.

SLDN, in their fund-raising literature summing up their accomplishments for 1998, described how they intervened to prevent a witch hunt at Camp Pendleton after the
Times
story. I’m sure they did, but at the time, I wasn’t aware of any efforts they were taking on my, or anyone else’s behalf. Maybe they were instrumental in keeping me out of trouble at this point. I don’t know. But I can say one thing with authority, while I was living it, I felt like I was on my own.

A few days later, the lieutenant who worked closely with me, the executive officer of my battery, approached me. He also showed me a copy of the article and said all the Marines in my command were discussing it. “Is this you?” he asked.

“I’ve seen this,” I replied simply, “Do you think whoever that is could answer that question honestly without getting in trouble?” He just shook his head as if he understood. I was his boss, but we were good friends, as good as a commanding officer and an executive officer could be in that situation in the military. He was disturbed because in his heart he knew it was me. Yet I had the gut feeling that he was more upset because of the fact I hadn’t confided in him.

Every Marine feels a loyalty to the Corps that people who aren’t Marines can’t understand. I could see how a Marine would read that story and think that I had betrayed the Marine Corps. I had gone outside the ranks and talked to a reporter about all of these very personal and hidden issues. Even though I had done that, I was not an exception to this sense of loyalty. The whole time I was talking to Jennifer—and my friends were talking to her—we made sure that we painted the military with dignity. We loved the military. We loved what we were doing. We just didn’t like this one law because it forced us to live our lives counter to our military values of honor, courage and commitment. That’s totally what we conveyed to her and that’s how she wrote it. I pointed that out to the lieutenant.

But after being approached by both my commanding officer and my executive officer, I realized,
Everyone knows that it’s me being quoted in the article.
I still had a month to go. And, let me tell you, that month was hell. Every day I came in and every day everyone was looking at me as if they had cracked the code and identified me as the impertinent “R.”

I had been personally invited to General McCorkle’s farewell party and, because I had such deep respect for him, I had no intention of letting my fears keep me away. However, I planned to arrive late, sneak in, say hello to him and his wife, Kathy, and then make a hasty departure. The party was in full swing with many of the officers of the Third Marine Aircraft Wing—the Third MAW—present when I entered the front of the Camp Pendleton officers’ club. Having been his aide for a year, I should have known that General McCorkle would be late, but I was too nervous to think about that.

As I stood in the doorway to the room where the party was being held, trying to find a discreet spot to slink off to, I heard a familiar, deep voice booming in the hallway behind me.

“Captain Merritt! How the hell are ya?” The general shook my hand as every eye in the room turned to watch his entrance. But because of where I was standing—absolutely frozen—they all saw me first. I was blocking their view of the general. I don’t know how many of them knew that I was the gay Marine officer from the
Times
story—probably all of them, maybe none of them. But I felt like Scarlett O’Hara in the scene from
Gone with the Wind
, when Rhett makes her go to the party wearing a slutty-looking dress after everyone in Atlanta has found out about her “affair” with Ashley. Scarlett enters the room and a hush falls over the crowd as they all stare at her with contempt and disbelief. No one said a word, however, at least not to my face, and this party ended with General McCorkle wishing me the best of luck with my law career. Just as Melanie was so gracious to Scarlett.

On my last day in the Marines I had a change-of-command ceremony. This ceremony represented me handing the command of my battery over to another captain. Before the ceremony my lieutenant took me aside and said, “Sir, everyone thinks you’re going to ‘come out’ today.” It sounded like he was accusing me.

I immediately went over to my first sergeant. “I don’t know what people are saying,” I told him very quickly, “but I would never do anything to disgrace this battery. This last year and a half hasn’t been about me. It’s been about the men and the Marines and this battery and I’m not going to do anything to diminish that or say anything to diminish that.” He just nodded. I think he was glad that I told him that.

Just before the ceremony, I checked my military e-mail account one last time. A gay acquaintance at Third MAW headquarters had just forwarded me a note that General McCorkle had sent to all the commanding officers in Third MAW the Friday before the
Times
story came out. The
Times
had sent an advance copy of the article to the Pentagon, which in turn forwarded it to the West Coast generals. In the e-mail, General McCorkle advised all the squadron commanders that any issues pertaining to this story were to be referred to the legal officers immediately. It confirmed my suspicion that the article really was a big deal at the highest levels. I was also angry because, while the
Times
had sent the Pentagon an advance copy, they hadn’t even bothered to give one to any of the participants in the story.

A few of my gay military friends came to the ceremony, but most stayed away out of fear of being associated with me. At the ceremony fifteen months earlier, when I had taken command of the battery, many gay servicemen had attended, proud to see one of our own taking command. Now, I felt like a pariah. I also found out afterwards that my men were trying to figure out which one was Brandon, my boyfriend who had a feature role in article. They mistakenly assumed a fellow Marine, Bossy, was my boyfriend, choosing him as the “gayest” over my real boyfriend, Brandon.

After I was officially out of the Marines, I was free to “come out” as the man behind “R” and I did my long-awaited interview with Max Harrold. A photographer came to my condo to take some photographs and, unlike the
Times
photos, these pictures would show my face.

Max Harrold took me to the offices of
The Advocate
and I met Judy Wieder, the editor in chief. It was a very friendly meeting. The article hit the stands in the December issue of
The Advocate
. George Michael was on the cover because he had just come out after getting busted for beating off in the park.

The article identifying me as the Marine from the cover of the
Times
was a two-page spread with a big photograph of me wearing my USC T-shirt with my sleeve rolled up showing my USMC tattoo. Unlike the
New York Times Magazine
article, however, I didn’t like this story. Max was incorrect about several things. He also left out several really interesting tidbits. I remember I wrote to Jennifer Egan fuming, “I just can’t believe this.” I pointed out all the things he got wrong.