Another time when I was almost/possibly outed was when I was enlisted and living in the barracks; my unit decided to have a health and welfare inspection. As most military members know, these inspections most often come with no notice so that the soldiers have no time to get rid of any contraband. With my case, I couldn’t get rid of or hide my small duffle bag that had the stash of women’s clothes in it.
I was nervously standing outside my room when the two NCO’s finally came to my room to inspect. After looking at the other roommates stuff, they came to my wall locker. After sifting through my stuff, they came upon my duffle bag - it had a lock on it - and they asked me to open it. I tried to convince them that it was just clothes but they still wanted to search it.
It was then I broke down into tears and was trembling at the thought of getting “outed”. I asked if I could have just one NCO inspect the bag and they agreed. Mind you, this guy that was about to look into that bag was a big muscular black guy that looked like Debo from the movie Friday; very intimidating man. As he was rummaging through the bag, with the look of bewilderment he gazed up at me and asked, “What are you?” With extreme fear, the only answer I could muster was, “I’m straight…”
After he was finished with inspecting the rest of my stuff, I asked him if this situation would remain confidential. Although he assured me of this, it was years later, after I pinned on my Warrant Officer rank, that I caught up with an old enlisted friend and after doing a little reminiscing, found out that the NCO had told a few of his buddies of what he found in my room before he retired. Apparently, rumor went around about me that I had “all these sex toys and stuff” but I never heard or was just oblivious to the rumor. Looking back, it was an enormous scare for me but with and anti-climatic ending…which was a good thing might I add…
