Dave Lara

Joe and Matt got the time off, joined me and two other gays that I'd found on the ship at the Hong Kong Hilton.

We rented a double suite and we spent the whole night talking about what it was like being gay.

It was the first time we had ever been around our own kind.

When the others went back to bed, finally,

Matt and I stayed up talking seriously if two men could make a life together.

Society said that we were either insane or criminals.

We didn't even know if our love was valid.

Matt eventually went to bed saying he just wished he could find someone to love.

It was there that we called ourselves The Group, and that's with a capital T, based on a novel by Mary McCarthy.

It's a story, a very campy story, of women who meet at Vassar, and then we follow them through their life, and the principal themes being job discrimination, sexism, and men.

Like us.

It was rough because I always lose my train of thought at some point.

Oh yeah, the group became our band of brothers.

We had shared experiences.

Things that we knew about.

And like our straight compatriots, our band of brothers got us through the worst of war, the pain, the suffering, and the dying.

It was a tradition at the time for sailors to buy Zippo lighters and have their ship name, their job title, their base etched on those lighters.

We had ours etched with the group and our bond was sealed.

I mention Band of Brothers because we were seeing the worst of war.

Matt and Joe every day at Dong Ha were under constant rocket attacks.