For Neal Snow, the “don’t ask, don’t tell” military policy was a step forward.
President Bill Clinton initiated the policy in 1993, allowing gays and lesbians to serve in the military, as long as they remained “in the closet.” While don’t ask, don’t tell, or DADT, tacitly OK’d gays in the military, that was not the case before 1993.
Before that, military applicants had to sign forms acknowledging that they were not homosexual.
It was that form that changed Snow’s life.
In 1992, as an Air Force ROTC cadet at the University of Maine, Snow told his commanding officer he was gay, and was subsequently dismissed from the program — technically for lying on the form about his sexual orientation.
Snow publicly came out of the closet with a press conference on the steps of the university’s Memorial Union, where he talked about his dismissal from ROTC. His story made regional and national news.
“Do I wish things had been different? Absolutely. I do dream about being in the military a lot. When something is taken away from you, you do miss it. It was my peak; I was having a great time, I was doing really well,” Snow said. “Unfortunately, at the time I was coming to terms with my sexuality, and that was at odds with the policy.”
In a recent interview with the Bangor Daily News, Snow said that, at the time, he was struggling internally, while trying to show a brave face publicly and share with the public how this policy was discriminatory.
“I could have easily not made it public — I could have been discharged and quietly slipped away,” said Snow, now 39. “I didn’t want to lose the opportunity to try to make a difference.”
Looking back, Snow doubts he had any real effect on the national debate over gays in the military. But, he said, it’s possible a few people heard his story and “maybe opened their eyes a little bit.”
Snow, who grew up in Sebago, joined ROTC in the second semester of his freshman year at the suggestion of a friend. He took to the military system, enjoying the efficiency of the Air Force organization and the way everyone worked as a team in a structured environment.
Then, as a senior, he was in training to work on a student crisis help line. One of the presenters talked about the challenges of being a gay student, and his friends taking the training with him kept talking about how they didn’t know anyone who was gay.
Snow told them he was gay. Within a week, he came out to his commanding officer.
“It’s all about being able to live with yourself,” Snow said. “I couldn’t live with myself being quiet and hiding.”
When Clinton started DADT the following year, Snow was heartened. It meant gays could serve, and “you didn’t have to sign the form, you weren’t a liar.” Further, the policy was meant to be a transition to full and open acceptance of gays in the military. Clinton, at the time, talked about making that transition in a year.
Snow didn’t think he could reapply to the military because the core reason for his dismissal was that he lied on a form. But he knew the situation would improve for gays in the military.
“I knew it would get better later,” Snow said. “I didn’t know it would take 20 years.”
So what happened?
“We had Republicans in office, that’s what happened,” said Snow, who said he used to be registered in that party, but quit over what he saw as anti-gay stances taken in George W. Bush’s presidential bids.
First, Clinton had to contend with a Republican Congress. Then the White House was Republican for two terms. Then President Barack Obama took office, pledging to end DADT. An effort led by Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins and Independent Sen. Joseph Lieberman made that a reality earlier this month.
“It’s shocking. I still don’t understand it completely,” said Snow. “’I understand that it’s the right thing — it’s just surprising it happened.”
Snow said he never met with any of his elected officials when he was a UMaine student. Snowe was a sitting congresswoman, and was elected to the Senate in 1994. Collins was first elected in 1996.
In a statement, Collins pointed out that more than 14,000 people were discharged from the military under DADT. She called the loss of those service members “especially disturbing” at a time when the military is stretched thin.
Collins said she decided to fight for the repeal based on testimony from some of those service members, as well as on conversations she had with Chick Rauch, a retired Navy rear admiral from Glenburn, and Dugan Shipway, a retired rear admiral and former president of Bath Iron Works, “who gave me compelling first-hand knowledge that dismissing brave, dedicated, and skilled service men and women because they are gay is wrong.
“The bottom line is we should welcome the service of any qualified individual who is willing and capable of serving our country,” Collins said.
According to Collins’ office, once the president, secretary of defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff certify that the military can function with the DADT’s repeal, former members of the military who were dismissed under the policy are eligible to re-enlist.
Snow today has been legally married to Dean Haspela for six years in Massachusetts, where he works as a professional in the retail field in Boston. He thinks the average gay person in the military just wants the change to happen quietly, without chaos.
He sees this change in the military as leading the way in society. When the military integrated blacks and whites, he said, it became a model for implementation in real society. The same thing will happen with gays serving openly, he said.
“I just want people to absorb this change, let it happen, see that the world doesn’t end,” Snow said.