Dave Lara

In the olden days, it was mostly men that went to war.

And in fact, the term band of brothers comes from that old time period.

They were men that had similar life experiences.

Wives, children, regular jobs.

They were drinking buddies.

And you can depend on these band of brothers to get you through the worst times.

that war threw at you.

My mother died and an absent father made a life-changing event for me.

I was 17 and the juvenile courts of Los Angeles declared me an adult.

They called me emancipated.

So I took my emancipated ass and I joined the Navy.

But I didn't have a band of brothers.

I was a criminal.

Being gay had laws against my existence.

There were penalties that included jail, whether I was in or outside of the military.

There were witch hunts looking for me and my kind.

But I had no choice.

I made it through boot camp and was assigned to hospital corps school to become sort of a nurse, not quite a doctor, but most definitely a bedpan washer.

I joke, of course.

A hospital corpsman does what a doctor does to save a man's life in the field.