We spoke to Bill (he/him) in Rochester, NY on April 3, 2026. Bill served from 2002 to 2010. While he was on active duty, he served in the US Army, including as a frontline medic assigned to a combat infantry unit in the Iraq War, and he was later honorably discharged as a Sergeant from the Connecticut Army National Guard. Bill comes from a multigenerational military family, and he told us that he enlisted as a matter of “expectation, not choice.” 

Bill was not out when he entered the military, although he had enough of a sense of his sexuality to know that he had to keep it hidden under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. “I knew that I had to mind my tone, and I had to mind my mannerisms,” he told us. “I had to put it aside because if anyone found out that you were out, your life was over.” Bill was not aware of other queer people serving alongside, but he now reflected that “we were everywhere, we just didn’t have the luxury to know that.”

Bill came out soon after leaving the military. However, he initially struggled to build connections, including with the queer community. In large part, that was because he didn’t have the space and the support to process the traumas of his experiences on active duty, and he found himself coping in ways that led him to “a dark place.” His experience in the military had created a person with two seemingly incompatible parts, which he described as “the before Bill and the after Bill.” After years of healing, he learned to hold his whole self at once. “I can exist just as Bill,” he said. “Both parts can exist at the same time.”

Today, Bill lives as an out gay man with his husband in Rochester, New York. He acknowledges that his time in the military shaped parts of his personality. But, more than that, in the years after his discharge, he recognizes that it had to be his own choice to build a life that honors “being gay, being HIV+, being a veteran, and being a whole person.” Bill is surrounded by a rich circle of friends and is open about his identity, experiences, and struggles. For him, this openness is an act of compassion to himself – his past self and his present self.