Dalan Wells (L) and Marine Sergeant Brandon Morgan (R)
You may remember this photo above from February 2012, when Marine Sergeant Brandon Morgan was welcomed home by his boyfriend of four years, Dalan Wells, at a Marines Corp Base in Hawaii.
Seeing Wells, Morgan jumped into his boyfriend’s arms and the moment was captured for the world to see.
Two days later, after the shot was posted to a Facebook page for Gay Marines, the pic had over 18,000 “Likes,” and the couple was famous.
Many felt the pic represented the progress gays and lesbians have made in the military as “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” had ended just six months before.
A year after the photo took the internet by storm, Morgan proposed to Wells.
The happy story comes full circle as we get the news that hunky and inspiring couple got married last weekend in Honeoye Falls, New York.
I recently wrote about Tanner White, an openly gay HIV+ U.S. Marine who invited hunky out singer/songwriter Steve Grand to the upcoming annual Marine Corp Ball in Wilmington, North Carolina.
“This video is for the all-American boy, Steve Grand. Steve, you are an amazing singer. I’ve seen some of your blog videos and they were awesome. I would like for you to go with me to the 2015 Marine Corps ball In November Hosted in Wilmington, North Carolina as my date. Hopefully you say yes. If not, it was worth a shot.”
U.S. Marine Tanner White joins in the recent tradition of inviting a celebrity to be his date to this year’s Marine Corps Ball being held in Wilmington, North Carolina, this November.
“This video is for the all-American boy, Steve Grand. Steve, you are an amazing singer. I’ve seen some of your blog videos and they were awesome. I would like for you to go with me to the 2015 Marine Corps ball In November Hosted in Wilmington, North Carolina as my date. Hopefully you say yes. If not, it was worth a shot.”
So, come on Steve Grand! It’s not like he’s asking you to take off your shirt or anything! And he’s cute! And a Marine!
Roger Dean Huffstetler, a former Marine Corps sergeant, has penned an op-ed for the Washington Post chronicling how he came to not only tolerate homosexuals, but stand up for the community:
No, I never gay-bashed. I didn’t bully, I didn’t hate, I didn’t torment.
But I did say “fag” to a fellow Marine in front of Sgt. Santiago. I did stay seated in the pew when my minister challenged, “Don’t let anyone tell you that this church is soft on homosexuality.” Silence is a most powerful consent.
I would think: Civil unions, what’s wrong with that? I considered myself “accepting” and “tolerant,” excusing the soft discrimination that’s easy to shrug off, the implicit inequality of separate but equal.
The irony was that I had always imagined that if I’d lived in the time of segregation and the civil rights movement, I would be the white Southerner who was proud to march with the NAACP — that I would tear down bigoted beliefs and demand equality for all, even putting myself at risk if need be.
But I didn’t do those things. I watched the fight right in front of me without question, inactive and accepting — just like the generations before me.
Well, no longer.
If you’re reading this and you go to church every Sunday but you know that discrimination is wrong, or you’re serving overseas and worried that you or others in your squadron can’t be themselves, there is something you can do. Write. Speak out. Find the Andys and Sgt. Santiagos in your life and make amends. There is still time to be on the right side of history.
I really encourage you to read the entire piece over at the Washington Post. I think a LOT of folks have experienced a similar genesis.
Sexy US Marine and underwear model Alex Minsky joined the ladies of The View to talk about the loss of his leg while serving that led him to alcoholism, and his personal revival via personal training that led to his successful career as a model.
Regular readers of The Randy Report know I’ve covered his back story before: The military vet returned to the U.S. after losing his right leg due to a car bomb while stationed in Afghanistan. After beating a short, intense round of alcoholism, he began a tough workout regimen to regain his physical and mental health.
One day a photographer noticed the tattoo-covered Minsky leaving the gym and an unlikely modeling career was born.
Check out more of Alex Minsky below and his interview today on The View.
US Marine Hal Faulkner receives his new Marine papers after almost 60 years
Seventy-nine year old Hal Faulkner, dying of terminal cancer, had one last wish.
Having entered the US Marines in 1953, he was given a dishonorable discharge in 1956. The discharge papers read “homosexual.” He avoided sharing that unearned shame with most for decades.
Although Faulkner had only come out to his family in 2005, with the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Faulkner asked his family for help with one last wish as his health waned.
He wanted his military record upgraded to clear his name. Time, however, was growing short. A correction of military records usually takes at least six months, as well as a lawyer.
The activist group OutServe-SLDN helped Faulkner get a pro-bono lawyer from the New York firm Winston & Strawn.
When lawyer Anne Brooksher-Yen saw the case and the time frame, she was worried, even when the military agreed to expedite the case.
“I didn’t know whether expedited was going to mean six weeks or six months,” Anne Brooksher-Yen says. “So I did have a conversation with him that we might not be able to get this done before he died.”
The Marines acted on his dying request in just two weeks. Last Friday in Florida, a small group presented Faulkner with his honorable discharge.
For Faulkner, it was never about the benefits, says his lawyer Anne Brooksher-Yen.
“It was really overwhelming seeing Hal finally have this wrong righted,” she says. “He is such a wonderful loving man, and he served with honor in the military and it was so important to him.”
“I don’t have much longer to live,” Faulkner said, “I will always be a Marine. Thank you. Semper fi.”
The young marines answered him back with the Marines battle cry: “Oorah.”
Fred Sainz of the HRC says many discharged as gay don’t know they could file for possible “honorable discharge” status. Such a change in paper work could lead to many well-deserved benefits like access to VA loans and health care.
