Silent Service

At some point during my brother’s illness, my aunt and uncle came to watch my sisters and me. I  remember mercifully little about those days, but I remember that they brought us to see the  submarines in Groton.

Even when surfaced, most of a submarine is below the waterline.

~

At some point during my brother’s illness, my aunt and uncle came to watch my sisters and me. I  remember mercifully little about those days, but I remember that they brought us to see the  submarines in Groton.

I think I was initially disappointed at how little there was to see: a bit of the hull, the top of the  rudder, the sail. But before long, I was captivated by the sailors entering and leaving the boat. One moment, they were creatures of the land like me, oppressed by the same gray sky. The next,  they would disappear into a world I could scarcely imagine, away from gray skies and the  expectant gazes of well-meaning aunts and uncles.

Initial disappointment notwithstanding, I think I stood there for a long time. 

I don’t think I was  the first one who asked to leave.

Sometimes I half-jokingly blamed my uncle for my choice to become a submariner. But the truth is that I was entirely responsible for where I currently found myself: in the wardroom on the USS Seawolf, with my hand on my chest, my engagement ring barely discernable in my breast pocket.

Allan and I both wore engagement rings. Needless to say, under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell a single officer wearing a ring onboard would have raised questions. Being unable to wear it was just one  way that my love for Allan had to remain concealed. But I was reminded of it constantly.

For one thing, because a submarine is an engineering environment with a lot of rotating  machinery, those with rings are frequently reminded to remove them before performing  maintenance, lest they get caught in the machinery and someone loses a finger. Several married  crew members opted for ring tattoos on their fingers for that reason. What was more agitating  was the weapons officer - he was very fidgety, and whenever we were sitting at a table together  he would remove his wedding ring, stand it on its end on the table, and spin it like a top. Worse, it turns out this habit was contagious. Soon every officer started doing it, which is why there  were now five rings spinning on the table in front of me.

I chose to keep my ring in the breast pocket of my uniform. In moments when I felt alone or  frustrated - or the other officers wouldn’t stop spinning their damn rings on the table - I would  rest my hand on my chest, feel my ring through the pocket, and take a deep breath.

I tried to remember, in these moments, that nobody had to pressure me to join the Navy.  Growing up, I had carefully curated a series of associations that served as a proxy for “Jimmy,” a  proxy of sufficient accomplishment and wellbeing to deter any thorough investigations. Going to  college on an NROTC scholarship conformed to the pattern. But the price of my freedom from scrutiny was the freedom to be myself, whatever that was.

The tradeoff wasn’t fully apparent to me until two events converged in my sophomore year to  make it abundantly clear: I signed the paperwork that committed me to years of naval service  after graduation, and I finally came to terms with being gay. But the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell  policy dictated that if anyone in my command found out I was gay, I would be discharged. And  because I was then committed to service, discharge would mean I would have to repay my  scholarship. In other words, just as I had struggled my way out of the closet, I volunteered for  several more years inside it.

If my decision to join the Navy had autonomically conformed to the pattern, my decision to  volunteer for submarine service was very intentional. If anything it invited scrutiny (and no small  amount of maternal concern.) But joining the silent service was also an affirmative, if symbolic,  choice. They could force me into hiding, but I could choose stealth. I could go below the  waterline. I could disappear.

~

I had always found the wardroom - where I now sat with my fellow officers, spinning their rings  - to be one of the most difficult places onboard to disappear. I preferred eating with the crew on  the crew’s mess, which had a cafeteria-like atmosphere, when I could. A cafeteria could be a  fraught environment, but it was a fraught environment I had learned to navigate in middle  school. On Crew’s Mess I could recede into the bulkhead, eat quickly, and beat a hasty retreat.  But in the wardroom, officers were served multi-course meals by enlisted culinary specialists,  with the captain seated at the head of the table. There was no place to hide.

Sitting there, I recalled an early, and particularly harrowing, wardroom experience I had when I  was a midshipman on “summer cruise”: a weeks-long training exercise during the summer break  before my senior year in college, intended to allow me to experience life on a ship at sea.

Midshipmen on cruise occupy a liminal space. On the one hand, with very minimal shipboard  training we were almost entirely useless. And in an environment with limited food, fresh water,  and air, being useless is unforgivable. Anyone onboard who isn’t fully qualified to stand watch  and do his part to keep the ship operating was branded a NUB - a non-useful body - and  continuously reminded that they were breathing the air and eating the food of more productive  members of the crew.

On the other hand midshipmen were, in a sense, pampered. The implicit objective of this summer  cruise - particularly important since submarines are an all volunteer service - was to encourage  us midshipmen to join the submarine community. Inordinate amounts of time and care were put  into orchestrating the most rewarding possible experiences for us, and showing us the best  possible version of what submarine life could be. I once heard an Admiral say that he had the  best job in the Navy, but that being a midshipman on cruise was a very close second.

I had found myself in this awkward liminal space on the USS Connecticut the summer before my  senior year. One of my last lunches on board was, mercifully, wrapping up. The captain was  speaking with the other senior officers when the culinary specialist quietly asked me if I would like coffee and dessert. I don’t drink coffee, but I must have been feeling uncharacteristically  comfortable on that particular day, so I asked for some cake and a cup of tea. A few minutes  later, the captain caught sight of the culinary specialist carrying my tea out of the galley and  boomed “WHAT FUCKING FAGGOT ORDERED A FUCKING TEA?!”

For a moment, I felt exposed. But then I quietly raised my hand, identifying myself as the  “fucking faggot that ordered the fucking tea,” and the wardroom fell silent. Scrutiny quickly  shifted from me to the captain. He’d messed up. You’re not supposed to speak that way to  midshipmen. It betrayed the illusion of professionalism and camaraderie maintained to convince  us that submarine service was something it wasn’t, and it revealed his own blustering ugliness. I  was grateful; I could volunteer for submarines clear-eyed, free from misconceptions about what  lay ahead.

I quickly had some tea and cake and excused myself.

The wardroom I sat in now was nearly identical to the one where that tea had gotten me into so  much trouble. And while circumstances had changed - I much preferred being a lieutenant to  being a midshipman, whatever some admiral had to say about it - that booming slur still  reverberated. I reached again for the ring in my pocket, and looked through the open door and  across the passageway towards Radio. I wondered if Allan had replied to my latest email.

It used to be that sailors on US submarines had very limited contact with their families back  home. Sailors today can use email, but it’s only sent and received while at periscope depth and is  a low priority while on mission, so emails operate more like traditional snail mail - it can take  days to send and receive messages.

On top of that, a submarine at sea is a sensitive environment; not all messages to and from home  are beneficial or even wanted. If a sailor is unable to leave the ship because it's operating in a  sensitive part of the world or his expertise is mission-critical, then what good could it possibly do  to hear that a parent had died? Likewise, if a sailor confesses in an email that they’re struggling  with mental health and may be a threat to themselves or others, then the ship’s command needs  to know so that they can take protective measures.

For that reason, I had been warned not to assume that email communication was private. All  emails were sent out and received onboard through Radio Division, and Radio screened the  content for anything problematic. Exactly how this was done was never clear to me - I think an  algorithm flagged any messages with problematic words for further manual review - but I was  concerned enough about the lack of privacy that I didn’t want to risk writing “I love you” in an  email addressed to Allan.

At some point I had seen an episode of a children’s TV show - something like Sesame Street - where a character was sad because no one said “I love you” before they went to school that  morning. But another character corrected them:

“That’s not true! I heard your mom remind you to take your umbrella this morning.” “That’s not ‘I love you’!”

“Of course it is. When your mom told you to take your umbrella, she was saying that she  didn’t want you to get wet and cold and sick because she cares about you. So that’s a  way of saying ‘I love you.’”

So Allan and I adopted a code. We would sign off every email with “Remember your umbrella!” or “Wear your sweater!” It became our way of saying “I love you” when we otherwise couldn’t.

I hated that I subjected Allan to all this. It was one thing to choose a life of hiding for myself; it  was quite another to volunteer him for it. But he had supported me from the very beginning.

~

My mind wandered again, this time to my commissioning ceremony. Allan came to support me,  knowing that it would mark the beginning of years of hiding our relationship, on top of the  challenges that all military significant others face: punishing work hours, frequent relocations,  long deployments away from home, and persistent fears for my safety. In fact, early in our  relationship Allan had confessed that one of his greatest fears was being in an enclosed space as  it filled with water. All this must have been on Allan’s mind as he watched me take the oath.

I, James Pearson, having been appointed an officer in the Navy of the United  States, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the  United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith  and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any  mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully  discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me  God. (emphasis mine.)

Under the circumstances, watching me raise my right hand and swear to accept this life without  any mental reservations must have felt like a betrayal. It kind of was.

I winced internally at the memory, then glanced around the wardroom table. I was momentarily  surprised by the affection I felt, though it shouldn’t have been surprising at all. It was inevitable  that I would grow close to many of the men I served with. I could not have remained a stranger - a submarine is far too intimate an environment for that - and I wanted too much to be liked to be anything less than a friend.

I got particularly close to the other junior officers, and eventually found continuing to hide  myself from them to be untenable. So Allan and I invited them over, along with some non-navy  friends, for a barbeque, during which Allan and I interacted as we always did. There was no  dramatic coming out; just grilling, video games, a whiskey tasting. I was reminded, by this  ephemeral afternoon of just being myself, of the burden I carried when I couldn’t be.

Later I learned that when my friend and fellow officer Tim left our house with his wife Kandice,  he turned to her:

“Do you think Jimmy and Allan… are…erm…”

“TIM. YES. DUH.”

Everyone else we invited could see it more or less immediately. And for the time being, Allan  and I would remain concealed from all but this select group.

I took comfort in knowing that some true friends were among those seated at the wardroom table  with me. But so was the boat’s leadership, from whom I was still obliged to hide.

I knew that even as I sat there at the table, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell had already been repealed.  The repeal would go into effect shortly after we returned.

Then I would surface.

When I  finally did so, it would be - fittingly, for the Navy - via a piece of paperwork.

In my resignation letter, I would formally resign my commission and state my intent to leave the  Navy one year later. I would write that I had a significant other, that he was a man, that he had  given more than I had any right to ask, and that it was time to prioritize our life together. I would  personally hand it to every officer in the chain of command to get signed: I had waited long  enough. Then I would go to my stateroom and put my ring on.

✽ ✽ ✽