On service, identity, and fighting for a country still learning to include us
It’s easy to say someone doesn’t care when you have never had to understand what caring cost them.
Sometimes that cost is time, comfort, or belonging. Sometimes it is a career. And sometimes it means raising your right hand and agreeing to put your life on the line for a country whose policies still tell you that part of who you are must remain hidden.
That contradiction is part of American history. It is also part of mine.
I served during an era when I could be trusted to carry out a mission in Iraq, but being open about my sexuality could threaten my military career. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” made silence a condition of service for gay, lesbian, and bisexual troops. The uniform came with responsibilities, but it did not come with equal freedom to acknowledge who we loved. (history.navy.mil)
So when someone casually suggests that I don’t care, I think about what they are leaving out.
I think about the people who served before me. I think about the communities whose sacrifices helped sustain a nation that continued to discriminate against them. And I think about how often people mistake criticism, exhaustion, or a demand for accountability for an absence of love.
You can care deeply about your country and still expect it to do better. You can serve it and challenge it. You can believe in its promises while telling the truth about the people those promises have failed.
The history we inherit
Buffalo Soldiers served a country that subjected Black Americans to racism, segregation, and Jim Crow. Their service required facing danger while navigating a society that denied them equal standing. Their courage belongs in our understanding of American military history. (home.nps.gov)
But inclusive remembrance also requires honesty about the complexity of that history. Buffalo Soldier units participated in military campaigns against Indigenous peoples. Recognizing the discrimination Black soldiers endured does not require overlooking the suffering of Native communities affected by those campaigns. Both histories deserve to be heard. (nps.gov)
That matters to me because remembrance should leave room for more than a comfortable story.
We should be able to recognize someone’s courage while examining the institution they served. We should be able to honor sacrifice without pretending every government decision was just. Otherwise, we turn human lives into symbols and stop listening to what their experiences actually teach us.
The Navajo Code Talkers offer another powerful example of service within that contradiction.
During World War II, they used their language to transmit vital military communications in the Pacific, helping the Allied war effort succeed. Yet Native children had been subjected to assimilation policies that sought to suppress their languages and cultures. A language people had been pressured to abandon became a means of protecting American lives. (archives.gov, neh.gov)
I sit with that.
What does it mean to give so much to a country that has asked you to surrender part of yourself? What does it mean to protect others while still having to fight for recognition at home?
There is no single answer. People serve for different reasons: family, opportunity, duty, survival, belonging, or a belief in what their country could become. Their experiences deserve that complexity.
Serving while keeping part of yourself hidden
My experience does not stand in for those histories. The oppression faced by Black Americans, Indigenous nations, and LGBTQ+ people has distinct roots and consequences. Respect means recognizing those differences.
Still, I find a connection in the question of belonging: how do you serve a nation that accepts your labor and sacrifice while placing limits on your humanity?
For me, that question existed inside a military uniform.
I was a soldier in Iraq. I had responsibilities that did not pause because I was also navigating identity, fear, and the possibility of being exposed under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
There is a particular weight to knowing that honesty about your personal life can become a professional vulnerability. You learn to consider who is listening. You think about what can be said, what should remain private, and whether someone you trust will protect that trust.
Those calculations take energy. They exist alongside the mission, alongside the distance from home, alongside everything else a deployment asks of you.
And still, you show up.
That part should count when people decide what your commitment means.
MySpace, distance, and one small soldier in Iraq
When I look back at my own chapter, I think about MySpace, connections stretching across international waters, and one small soldier in Iraq trying to find room to exist honestly.
That soldier was me.
A select few people became part of that chapter. What mattered was their willingness to connect when silence and distance could have kept us apart. For me, those connections helped give shape to a growing commitment to LGBTQ+ visibility and advocacy.
I would never claim that the movement began with us. Generations had already organized, resisted, built communities, and demanded change. My story belongs within that longer history.
But something does begin when a person realizes they can contribute.
Sometimes it begins with a conversation. Sometimes with finding people who understand what you cannot safely explain elsewhere. Sometimes with deciding that the next person should not have to carry the same fear alone.
MySpace was part of the setting of my story. Iraq was part of the setting. The restrictions of that era were part of the stakes.
The care was already there, even before I knew all the ways I would put it into practice.
Coming home with work still to do
When I returned home, I carried that commitment into community life.
I wanted to participate. I wanted to advocate. I wanted space for people whose lives were too often discussed by others without being heard on their own terms.
That chapter unfolded during the organizing, hope, and political change surrounding Barack Obama’s rise to become the first Black president in American history. I remember it as a time when the possibility of change felt close enough to help build.
My contribution was one small part of a much larger world of people showing up. I do not need to exaggerate it for it to matter.
History is shaped by public leaders, but also by people whose names never appear in a textbook: the volunteers, the community organizers, the people who make introductions, create welcoming spaces, and keep working after the excitement fades.
I wanted to be part of that work.
I still do.
What someone’s judgment cannot erase
Military service does not make me infallible. Advocacy does not place me above accountability. I can make mistakes, learn, apologize, and change.
But accountability should involve an honest view of a person’s actions. It should not require erasing everything they have given.
When I say that my care is untouchable, I mean that someone else’s judgment cannot reach backward and undo it. They cannot erase the decision to serve, the risks of that era, or the effort I made to contribute when I came home.
They can disagree with me. They can misunderstand me. They can decide I am not who they expected.
My history still happened.
And this reflection reaches beyond veterans. No one should have to enlist, endure oppression, or prove extraordinary usefulness to deserve dignity and civil rights. People who never wear a uniform contribute through caregiving, teaching, organizing, creating, and countless acts that receive little recognition.
I know what it feels like to have commitment overlooked. That makes me want to look more carefully at other people, too.
Before deciding someone does not care, consider what you may not have witnessed. Ask what they have carried. Look at what they have continued to do, even when recognition was absent and belonging was conditional.
I cared when I raised my right hand.
I cared in Iraq.
I cared when I came home and stepped into a community still fighting for room to breathe.
And I care enough now to tell the truth about all of it.
My care has a history. Someone else’s opinion cannot erase it.
— H.M. Gautsch | Poetic Veteran