Reichen Lehmkuhl in his Air Force days, and on the cover of his new book.______
Reichen Lehmkuhl envisions a day when gays and lesbians can be open about their sexual orientation—or gender orientation, as he prefers to call it—and be allowed to serve in the U.S. military. Sure, there will be some trying times when the ban on gays in the military is first lifted, but, Lehmkuhl says with pride and without hesitation that the ban soon will be lifted. Yes, soon, he stresses.
Perhaps that will happen about the same time when we see an openly gay athlete in one of the four major professional sports—one who comes out of the closet on his own.
Both will happen around the same time, in the next couple of years, he said, 'when people wake up and basically say, 'We don't care anymore [ about sexual orientation ] ,' Lehmkuhl said. 'It should be a non-issue. I really think people are going to start not caring, realizing it's simply about love.'
Lehmkuhl speaks with plenty of first-hand knowledge, of course. He is gay, a former captain in the U.S. Air Force who hit the mainstream world full force when he won the $1 million prize on The Amazing Race ( CBS-TV ) , and since has carried his striking good looks and sculpted physique into one of the most famous openly gay relationships ever—with Lance Bass of the band *NSYNC.
'We have to lift the ban on gays in the military, so gays can join and serve openly, so that people in the unit know who is gay and who is not. There has to be counseling set up for the gay military members, plus human relations training to expand to include sexual orientation,' Lehmkuhl said.
'The Department of Defense continues to fail miserably at providing any reasonable rationale for this ban on gays, other than it might offend the people who already are in ( the military ) who do not want gay people there. That excuse was used for racial minorities, to keep them out. In 1948, President Truman ordered the integration of the military. Sure, it wasn't pretty at first, but we set up counseling as well as human relations training, and today we have a fully racially-integrated military. The same thing happened with women in the military.
'If the argument is that straight men don't want to take showers with openly-gay men, then all we need to do is buy 69-cent shower curtains. It's not that difficult.
'A gay man and a straight man can stand next to each other in a robe and brush their teeth. I know; I've done it. I've served with people who know I'm gay, and they're straight, and once we got to know each other, it was not a problem. Heck, they even got to know what kind of guys I liked and what kind I didn't like. Ultimately, a friendship and trust was built.
'As for the sleeping arrangements, well, there are men and women right now in the U.S. military sleeping together in the same barracks overseas in the Middle East, especially medical personnel. Are they all having sex with each other? No; they're completing a mission.'
Lehmkuhl entered the Air Force Academy after graduating from high school.
He'd return to flying for the Air Force immediately if the ban was lifted.
And to help the cause, the popular, well-spoken Lehmkuhl wants to speak to Congress and, 'anything else necessary.'
'I'm just tired of the excuses,' he said.
Lehmkuhl, 32, chronicled his amazing Air Force journey, plus his childhood, in the recently-published 'Here's What We'll Say: Growing Up, Coming Out, And The U.S. Air Force' ( Carroll & Graf ) . The 343-page book details Lehmkuhl's experiences, along with some endured by fellow cadets. As mentioned in the Author's Note at the start of the book, 'Some of the events in the final chapter of this book that are portrayed as having happened to me actually happened to others. I integrated their stories into my own to ensure that their stories were told.'
Lehmkuhl said '99.5 percent' of the book was his personal life stories. However, names were changed throughout the book, along with squadrons, even Lehmkuhl's.
Lehmkuhl, who now lives in Southern California, speaks regularly across the country. He also writes articles, essays and blogs about gays in the military, about why the policy needs to be changed.
'It's been a crazy road,' said Lehmkuhl, whose life story is being discussed for a movie. 'I never envisioned this.
'I started writing this word document to get a bunch of past memories and traumatic experiences out of my mind. Then it turned into this ( near- ) 400-page word document. Then I got an agent and a publisher, and it's become this book that everyone in America is reading. It's really crazy.
'People often ask me what it's like being a role model for the gay community. Well, it's hard to see myself as a role model to the gay community because I'm not perfect and I have not done everything right in my life, so how can I be a role model for the community? But, I do take pride in being a role model for someone who is well versed on the problems that we have with the ban on gays in the military.'
The book details Lehmkuhl's sad childhood, with few friends and his long resentment for living in a trailer park. It also goes into meticulous details on life at the academy, from the moment he arrived on an Air Force bus through every yell, every tear, every rant, every rave and every perfectly ironed uniform.
There also are Lehmkuhl's sexual experiences at the academy, including a sexual assault of sorts when he was a freshman, blind-folded and forced to do naked push-ups into a guy's mouth. Lehmkuhl details his orgasm, but never identifies the participants.
'I think I focused a lot more on the tragedies of my childhood than I could have focused on the happy times. But I think that had to do with the mood of why I sat down to write the piece,' he said. 'I sat down to write it to clear my mind of a lot of things that happened to me in the past that I was hung up on and that I was afraid to admit to people. It takes an adult and it takes maturity, which you can only obtain through life experiences, to open up to people about such things.
'I wish I had focused more on the happy times in my childhood, but then the book would have been a lot longer. And I think I ended it quite abruptly. But, by the time I got to the end, there were so many names [ mentioned ] and so many tiny little situations that I had to change to protect the people who were involved in those incidents that I was losing my ability to tell a story that was really close to the way it happened. So, I wanted to leave it as I could, thus it would be as close as possible as how it really was, to give the reader a real idea and a true idea of what actually happened at the Air Force Academy.
'I'm flattered that a story about things that happened to me is able to explain the problems of a huge issue that we need to address.
'If I had to write it again, I'd do it the same way because I have an obligation to protect the gay servicemen in the armed forces, some of whom are still serving. And I feel very strongly about that. I'm really glad, though, that I was able to get their stories told.'
He added: 'The push-up story … yes, that was [ about ] me. The reason that I don't write that much more about it is because, as a cadet at the academy, I had to completely block it out of my mind as if it had never happened—or it would have stressed me out too much. I [ was curious ] about that night for years. I always wondered who it could have been [ with ] , but, after a while, it became an issue of, I had to forgive the people who did it. Yeah, I have my hunches, but I'm not really concerned.'
Lehmkuhl said he is still in contact with 'a lot' of his former Air Force friends and noted that many were surprised by his memory when they read the book.
Lehmkuhl said his mom and her husband Allen ( not Lehmkuhl's biological dad ) no longer live in a trailer park. 'They got out … yeah!' he said, laughing. The two are now retired, living in Florida. He enjoys fishing and golf; she enjoys cooking.
