Read Out in the Army: My Life as a Gay Soldier for Free Online Page A

were made to run back up the stairs and stand to attention in the corridor. This was repeated for some time. He then kept us stood in the corridor in silence, soaked and out of breath, for what seemed like hours. Eventually he sent us back to our rooms to arrange our lockers, which held all the equipment we used and which had to be kept to an immaculate standard. He inspected us an hour later, by which time it was gone 1 a.m. We had to be up at six!
    After the locker inspection, and just as I was sure it couldn’t get any worse, he made us all change into different orders of dress, thus destroying the locker lay-outs we’d just spent an hour arranging. We were experiencing what is affectionately known in the army as a beasting.
    The clock ticked past 2 a.m. and while everyone was changing into chemical warfare outfits with respirators affixed for the second time, Ryan went to the platoon office and asked to speak with the sergeant privately. Five minutes later, it was all over. We were pulled into the corridor and told it was finished, the truth had emerged.
    Robertshaw from 3 Section told me in the shower afterwardsthat Ryan had admitted to writing on his wall himself. It was him all along. Crying out for attention, I suppose. The news filled everyone with anger, but everyone knew that, ultimately, we’d collectively pushed him to it. The following morning Ryan left the army and was never seen again.
    I’d love to tell you that I pondered over the events of that night for days and weeks after, but, to be honest, twenty-four hours later we’d all moved on. Basic training was just so time-consuming . A long time after, I recalled the events over some beers while away on a course with other soldiers and it occurred to me that maybe Ryan was gay after all. He’d written those words on his own wall and blamed the rest of the platoon for his actions. He’d pretty much blamed everyone but me. He’d singled me out as his only ally. Why did he do that? Perhaps Ryan suspected I was gay. I wished he’d approached me directly and told me of his problems. I honestly had no idea at the time and, if he had come and spoken with me, perhaps we could have discussed our sexuality. It might have helped me to consider who I was and understand the feelings I was trying so hard to repress. I had no choice but to continue to keep my secret to myself.
    Towards the end of our time in Harrogate a few of us discovered a staircase behind a boiler-room door leading up to the lofts. Once there, we had a huge space completely hidden away from the other 2,000 people in the college and, more importantly, from the staff who policed us with iron fists. Amusingly, we used to call the loft space ‘Heaven’, which is aptly the name of a nightclub I’d discover in the future. I wished we’d found it sooner, but for the last six weeks it was the place to be once ‘lights out’ was called at 10 p.m. every night – very annoying if you wanted to watch
Shameless
(which everybody did), with offenders punished severely for breaking the lights-out rule.
    Up until joining the army, I’d lived quite a sheltered life. Mumand Phil had tried their best to give me a proper upbringing. During my time at the college I was exposed to just about every taboo there was. Smoking. Everybody smoked. I didn’t. Porn. Everybody had a DVD they guarded with their lives. Porn would be traded in the evenings and the boys would share reviews the next morning over breakfast. I became superficially involved in this black market, although I had no interest in the content of each film. I let peer pressure get the better of me where this was concerned. If the platoon staff discovered these DVDs they’d confiscate them – probably to their own rooms. I have to say, my sheltered upbringing was soon behind me and heavy drinking became the norm. After spending six weeks confined to camp, most of us were trusted to go out into the world on a Saturday afternoon. This, of course, led