Cardiff: I think the great thing about the military is that it’s a true equalizer in the sense that it’s color blind (for the most part) and a real meritocracy.
I saw Southern guys that came in pretty racist and left being willing to lay down their life for a black guy (or Asian guy or Mexican guy or whatever).
I remember sitting around a campfire telling jokes and we got to the gay jokes and our team sniper piped up and asked us to quit. When we asked why, he said because he was gay and he wasn’t joking. Well, we all took a long moment and thought about that and that was it. We shrugged and moved on. He was one of us and his being gay didn’t change that one bit. We gave him shit in the showers pretty regularly after that, and he responded accordingly, but there wasn’t a single one of us that wouldn’t charge out under fire to bring him back if he were wounded or dead and we knew the same went for him.
I think when you get the sort of easy familiarity that comes from sports or the military, you can discuss pretty much anything and feel comfortable doing so. There isn’t a single guy I served with that I don’t consider family.
