Two Words

After three years, it is likely safe to admit that starting the Call To Duty (CTD) project was a very innocent and naive endeavor.

We were aware, of course, that the void we were intending to fill was a very necessary niche; however, I don't think that we fully understood the size of the void, nor did we comprehend the pedantic details and endless coordination of schedules filling that void would entail. Add on the challenge of creating and implementing the project within four months and you can see that accomplishment of the mission was quite miraculous and involved an incredible amount of luck.

Even rushed preparation becomes comforting in its own pattern, and the cusp between preparation and action bears a tremendous amount of uncomfortable anticipation. The cusp for the CTD project occurred at Harvard - a necessary starting location if we were to have any chance of attracting the funding and attention required to prepare CTD in such a short time - creating a situation that really was a trial by fire.

How did we prepare the speakers for this challenge? In all honesty, we didn't. Knowing that the purpose of the whole tour was to humanize the debate into something tangible rather than simply argue points of data, the panel was instructed not to prepare anything but the most basic of notes, and simply tell their story as they would a friend. Given the media experience earned in promoting the tour over the few months prior, we sandwiched the speakers between myself and Alex so as too bookend the panel with a little insurance against failure, even though there were very few similarities between a couple of well thought media bites and an eight minute intimate monologue. I would go first.

Of the five stories, mine should have been the least interesting: I was not discharged under DADT, nor did I serve in Iraq and Afghanistan. The only thing I had to offer, really, was the openness of my sexuality while serving, and even that was shared by one other panelist - Patrick, who did serve in Iraq - if to not as strong a degree.

My role, then, was not to relay my story, though the speech revolved around my experiences. Instead, it was to reveal to the crowd who and what a gay soldier was, and how a gay soldier thought, spoke, looked, walked, and joked. Most of that was accomplished with one sentence, the first: I served five years in the United States Army as a Korean linguist. It wasn't until I revealed my initial coming out story, which included the first unintentional joke in the speech, that the audience really warmed up and leaned in eagerly to hear more. The audience was ready to hear the rest of the panel with more willing ears than may have been offered otherwise.

In later events - in more conservative areas - this eagerness was accomplished with two words:

Good evening.