Second, soldiers share everything with each other. We share our hopes and fears, and we learn things about one another we would rather not. Those who train and deploy together often come to know one another so well that we can identify a colleague simply by the sounds his footsteps make when he walks into a room. There is something which compels you to open up to those with whom you serve. It often helps to talk about the family back home, the missed graduations, birthdays, holidays. And there are mementos we share with our fellow soldiers to help us along—often a picture hung inside a wall locker, a note kept in a chest pocket, a necklace with the name of a son or daughter, a tattoo, some way to honor those we love. When the mission has become too much, we remember these things. We share. We laugh.

Not for the gay soldier. I don’t have a picture of my partner posted anywhere in my personal items. I don’t mention his name. He doesn’t participate in family events, or in the life of the community, though he would add so much value. He sees me off, he shares in the hardship, in the long goodbyes, and endures a relationship made more difficult by distance, and time away. Even as I prepare for deployment, I am saddened that he won’t see me off when it’s time to say goodbye, surrounded by all my soldiers’ families. Rather our goodbye will be something only we share. When my fellow soldiers ask where my family is, I will simply make some excuse, or claim to be a single guy offering an “eh, don’t worry about me.”

As a gay soldier, I keep the personal to myself, revealing only what I can; enough to open up ever so slightly to my fellow soldiers to feel connected, but guarded enough that I don’t jeopardize my career. My partner becomes a “roommate” or a friend. So when a friend in the chow hall asked me the other day how my roommate was doing, I hesitated at first, unsure of how best to answer the question. Hopefully he never comes to my home; there is only one bedroom. Where does the “roommate” go?

Of course I can’t tell him. If military culture is supposed to encourage sharing and camaraderie among its members, then my enforced silence achieves quite the opposite.