Why I marched in the World Pride 2019 Parade in New York City.
On the train from NJ to NYC I was a four-year-old tow-headed boy in a small town in Southwestern town in Colorado when the vibrant LGBTQA+ community in Greenwich Village lead by heroes like Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson among other fought back against yet another police raid of the Stonewall Inn at the end of June 1969. Little did I know the impact this event would have on the movement that started in the 1950s by groups like Harry Hay’s Mattachine Society, One, Inc,, and Daughters of Bilitis ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots ) or on myself.
In 1991 I was forced to resign my commission as an Army Officer while serving in Kuwait in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm as a Division Liaison Officer with the 3rd Brigade of the 3rd Armored Division after confiding to an individual that I was gay. This was 4 years after my graduation from the United States Military Academy at West Point where I first began to understand that I was gay and what that mea