Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Mormon pamphlet: "For Young Men Only"
From: mike@batpad.lgb.CA.US (Mike Batchelor)
Date: Mon, 06 Apr 92 14:47:47 PDT
Organization: The Batchelor Pad

I wrote:
> Next installment (if anyone is interested):  How Scientology forced me
> to come to terms with the guilt, and being gay.
>
> (yes, it gets /more/ bizarre!)

OK... I got a number of comments via e-mail about this, so I will
continue the saga. :)

The scene is a couple of years after the end of my last post.  In the
meantime, I had avoided going on a mission (whew!), and had been
attending a local college in Texas.  But I ran out of money, and not
knowing really what it was I wanted to do with my life, I decided not
to get another student loan and continue studying nothing in
particular.  I moved back in with my folks.  That didn't last long.  I
got ultra-itchy to get out of the house and away from home.  I paid a
visit to the local Navy recruiter, with the idea of investigating the
ROTC as a way to finance my education without going into debt
(monetarily).  I got the snowjob from the recruiter, and wound up
considering enlisting.  He thought I'd be able to qualify for the
nuclear propulsion program. I went and took the ASVAB, and scored a
perfect 100 (that should have been a clue, but I missed it at the
time).  I scored 90% on the Nuclear Field test.  I was a hot
commodity, although not quite as hot as the black applicant who did
just as well on the tests.  I decided to enlist.  My parents were
furious.  My granddad was excited (he was a retired LCDR).
Interestingly enough, as I was being queried by the recruiter to fill
in the blanks on the application, he glossed right over the question
"Have you ever had a homosexual experience?" and volunteered a NO
response for me.

So off to boot camp I go.  I actually enjoyed boot camp.  In the Navy,
it's a cinch.  No really difficult physical exertion is required - a
few workouts and a 4 mile run we had to complete, and that was it.  I
didn't have to worry about a thing for two months.  They woke me up,
they took me to eat, they took me to piss and shit, they took me to
class, they told me when to sleep.  No worries, no responsibilities.
So I get out of boot camp, and go on to the basic propulsion school
for Machinist's Mates, finish that one up in three days (they had a
self-paced program at that time) and I am off to Orlando, FL for
Nuclear Power School after a slight delay to have two wisdom teeth
extracted (one of them later developed a rather painful abcess, due
to the dentist having left a fragment in the socket).  Nuclear Power
School was very intense, and I did very well in the six months I was
there.  I remember on one occasion dropping a couple of hits of acid
with some friends and going to a movie (Steve Martin and Lilly Tomlin
in that movie where she gets stuck in his body - I forget the title).
Coming back onto base while flying was a real trip, let me tell you!

So I graduate with honors, and am off to prototype training in
Connecticut (land-based prototype of one of the submarine power
plants, used for training purposes).  I might mention here that during
Nuke School in Orlando, I developed quite a crush on this guy - Michel
St. Marie, from Webster, Mass, who was also a very good buddy.  No one
called him Michel, though;  Mike is the name he went by.  He was
completely straight - with me at least - and we never did anything,
not that I wouldn't have wanted to!  He was about 6' tall, 180 lbs. of
well-muscled East Coast tough guy.  Anyway, we were both assigned to
Connecticut for training, and since there was no on-base housing at
that facility, we all got an allotment for civilian housing wherever
we could find it.  Mike and I and one other guy found a three-bedroom
house in Southwick, MA, about 20 minutes away from the training
facility in Windsor, CT.  Mike once told me about a girlfriend that he
had intended to marry, until she dropped him for another woman.  But I
digress...

We finished training there, and Mike went off to his ship.  I
qualified for additional training as a shipboard plant chemical tech,
so I stayed for four more months.  Finally, I am off to my ship, the
USS Long Beach, which was in Bremerton, WA at the time undergoing
overhaul.  Now the nuclear trained enlisteds had an option at their
two-year point, of extending their six-year enlistment for two years,
and in return, they received a rank advancement, and a re-enlistment
bonus.  I did this immediately upon reporting to the Long Beach, and
my bonus totalled almost $20,000.  This was paid half up front, minus
taxes, with the balance to be paid in yearly installments.

So here I am, 2000 miles from home, still basically a raw recruit,
having so far lived in the rather sheltered environment of naval
installations and training facilities.  I'm 22 years old.  I go out
to see Seattle.  One day as I am walking around the city, I am
approached by a young woman who wants me to come with her to see
about a free introductory program for improving my public speaking.
OK, sure.  Why not?  I did get nervous in front of training classes
(everybody in the nuclear engineering dept. on the Long Beach was
required to teach refresher classes from time to time).  So I follow
her to the office.  I'm given some kind of personality profile test
(?), and so I go along with it.  After looking at the results, she
tells me about several other programs that would help me (I forget
exactly what areas the test indicated I needed some work on).  But
I decide to go with just the public speaking course for now.

After about two weeks of coming to this place twice a week, I get
called into the office of the director of this branch.  He starts to
tell me what they are /really/ all about.  This place is the
Seattle branch office of Scientology.  I had never heard of it before,
but I was intrigued.  He talks to me about auditing, a process where
the student strives to attain a state called 'clear,' where all their
personal hangups are resolved, and personal strengths can be used to
best advantage.  This talk about personal hangups strikes a chord with
me, as I recall the things in my past that I am ashamed of.  I am
startled then, when he asks me if there is anything in my past that I
am afraid of or ashamed of.  He is very persistent.  Pretty soon I
find myself spilling the beans - the whole story about my sexual
adventures and desires, the secret encounters with the Bishop's son,
messing around with my younger half-brothers, all of it.  I am in
tears.  I don't know why I opened up to him, but I did.  He assures
me that my problems can be resolved by auditing, and that I definitely
need to go into the full program right away.  He is not judgemental
at all, but my own judgements are what are foremost in my mind.  I
don't know if he knew just how guilty I felt about all of this, but
the effect was just the same as if he had played upon my guilt
intentionally.  He urges me to sign up for auditing right now.  He
says it will cost $4500 for the course that he thinks will suit me best.
I don't have that kind of money on me right now - it's all in my
checking account (I only have about $2500 left of my bonus, having
spent the rest on other things).  I leave the office, go all the way
around the harbor to the ship in Bremerton, get my checkbook, go
back to the office in Seattle, and write him a check for $2200.  The
ship is scheduled to pull out of Bremerton the next week.  He tells
me my account will be transferred to San Diego, the Long Beach's
home port, and that I can start the auditing when I get there.
I don't know what I was thinking.  I don't know that I was thinking
at all.  I just wanted to not feel like this anymore.

The next day, I realize that I have been completely foolish, so I go
back to the office and tell him I changed my mind, I want my money
back.  He refuses, flat out.  I signed a contract, and they intend to
keep it.  I leave in a state of near panic and disbelief.  I go back
to the ship and find the chaplain.  I tell him about the fix I am
in, without revealing what it is that I was thinking about when I wrote
the check.  He's very supportive, doesn't ask what it was that I was
trying to do with the auditing thing.  In fact, he's pretty angry that
these Scientology people have pulled a fast one on one of his sailors.
In spite of following his suggestions, and making my demands as strong
as I can, the director of that office still refuses to refund my
money.  The ship leaves for San Diego.

When we get there, and I get my bearings in the new city, I seek out
the local Scientology office.  I get my account transferred down
there.  As soon as the San Diego office has verified that I have paid
the money in Seattle, I demand a refund.  They give me a refund
request form, which I fill out and send into the main office in Los
Angeles.  Eventually, I get most of the money back, minus 15%
administrative fees, about a year after I had written that check.  In
the meantime, I had come face to face with the guilt I had been
carrying around since my early teens.  I resolve not to ever allow
anyone to take advantage of me like that again.  I was gay - so what?
I start going out to the clubs in the San Diego area, and find that
there is an entire community where I am welcome, where I can feel like
I belong.  They aren't what I had feared at all - there are hardly
any swishy, feminine types, which is what I had feared I was going to
become just a year ago.  I meet other sailors, too!  I wasn't alone
anymore, and it felt great.

After a six month cruise to the West Pacific, I get right back into
the swing of things in San Diego.  The Thai boy was fun - he
propositioned me in a restaurant in Pattaya Beach - but there is
nothing like good ol' Amurrican males. :)  Not long after returning to
San Diego, I start to get the feeling that the other sailors in my
division are catching on.  I decide it is best that the Navy finds out
on my own terms.  I go looking for the Chaplain again, but he is on
leave.  The ship's doctor will do - he works with a lot of gay sailors
in his division.  So I come out to him.  I find that he is pretty
supportive, and he wishes me well, but refers me to the legal officer,
who is the one who can get the ball rolling for my discharge.  With
the paperwork initiated, it is just a couple of weeks before I am
transferred to the legal hold division at the shore command.  The
other sailors don't give me too much grief.  Mostly, they are jealous
because I am getting out early, and they aren't.  My Chief Petty
Officer doesn't believe that I am really gay, and says as much on his
statement to the admin review board.  My lawyer (supplied by the JAG
corps on base) has that statement thrown out.  The admin review board
was a joke.  I had had one incident in the past where I was AWOL for
three days, and missed ship's movement.  I had long been punished for
that:  reduced in rank, a $75 fine, and ten days restricted to the
ship.  But they drag that up and use it as an excuse to give me an
other than Honorable discharge (I got a General Discharge Under
Honorable Conditions - reason:  Misconduct due to commission of a
serious offense, i.e., AWOL for three days).  Allow me to quote from
the comments of the Commanding Officer in the transcript of my
admin board:

"In announcing the findings and recommendations of the Board, the
Senior Member gratutitously stated that the discharge recommendation
was based on MM3 Batchelor's unsuitability due to homosexuality,
thereby implying that if MM3 Batchelor had only committed the serious
offense, the Board would not have recommended discharge.  Since the
Board thereafter recommended a general discharge, even though the type
of discharge warranted by the service record is Honorable, the Board
members must have considered the serious offense in deciding the
appropriate characterization.  In my opinion, the Board members were
entitled to characterize the discharge as general by considering the
serious offense for that purpose even though that offense standing
alone was not sufficient in the view of the Board members to warrant
discharge."

Doncha love military intelligence? (NOT!)  BTW, the woman who was
called upon to act as the prosecutor came up to me after the hearing
and apologized for all the things she had said.  She said that she
didn't agree with the Navy's policy at all, and wished that she was
able to refuse the assignment, but she had no choice.

Anyway, so here I am... my discharge came through on July 1, 1987.  No
one has ever asked to look at it when I applied for jobs, and no one
has ever questioned the odd three year, eight month term I served.
Which is fine with me.



[] ---
[] Mike Batchelor -- mike@batpad.lgb.CA.US -- cerritos.edu!batpad!mike
[] Long Beach, California
[] TNG Quote: "You were travelling in close formation at over 80,000 kph, only
[] 10 meters from Cadet Albert, and you didn't even know his orientation?!?"