It was an honor to meet and interview retired Marine Staff Sgt. Eric Alva yesterday, the first U.S. military personnel wounded in the Iraq war, who last fall came out as a gay man. Eric is now working with the Human Rights Campaign as a national spokesperson in an effort to repeal the U.S. military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy that discrimintates against gays.
When I arrived at The Abbey to chat with Eric and with HRC President Joe Solomese, Eric, 36, stood to shake my hand and I immediately noticed that he was missing his right leg. His injury occured on March 21, 2003 when he was in charge of 11 Marines in a supply unit in Iraq and stepped on a landmine.
During his months in rehabilitation at Walter Reed Army Hospital, among his visitors were President Bush, First Lady Laura Bush and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Alva was awarded a Purple Heart for his service and received a medical discharge from the military.
Neither the president, first lady, Rumsfield or anyone else in the government knew that this American hero who they were so proud of, was a gay man. But it took two more years before Alva felt compelled to come out personally. By that time, he had retired from the military and settled into a committed relationship with Darrell Parsons.
'I knew I was going to leave my career in the military and that in a way it was kind of good because now I could start to live my life as a gay man," he said. "But on a personal level I thought, 'Well, who would ever love me because I'm missing a leg?' Of course I was proven wrong on that. I feel blessed every day having Darrell in my life because he loves me for who I am."

Alva joined the military in 1990 when he was just 19 years old and served for 13 years including tours of duity in Somalia and later in Iraq. Although he was aware that gays were banned from serving, he says he was entirely focused on becoming a marine and had not yet fully come to terms with his sexuality.
"I kind of put that side of my life on hold as far as even going out. My goal was to become a m arine and become a good one. I didn't realize until after I joined the marine corps. that that was a part of my life that I was missing and so i would start meeting people when I'd go out."
He learned in the fall of 2002, around Thanksgiving, that he would be going to the Middle East and arrived in Kuwait in January 2003. "We had a mission. We knew we had a job to do. Of course that mission was kind of different later on. Regardless of that, the men and women serving, we still have a mission. But I think i speak for a lot of people who would like to see it go differently than it has the last couple of years."
Alva thinks the military's 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy is "ineffective" and all the more disgraceful given how much the country is in need of good soldiers.
"A lot of people want to believe that the witch hunting still doesn't exist. It does. It still exists. I'm not one that was under investigation but you kind of have to wonder why the numbers [of those discharged] have decreased since 2005. Are they keeping people in now because they still want that [gay] person behind a weapon to still be in Baghdad or Afghanistan? Are they waiting until they finish their duty to kick them out? Or are people accepting and not telling because they finally realized that the person doing the job is just an outstanding individual qualified to do that job? But the bottom line is, it's a policy that needs to be changed. I think any job in the military, any person male or female discharged just for who they are. Whether it's a cook or being a linguist, the bottom line is the military is losing people who are qualified to do the job of defending this country."

Our conversation was so inspiring to me that I have to share it with Out In Hollywood readers in two parts. The second part will be posted early tomorrow with Alva sharing his thoughts on Gen. Peter Pace's recent anti-gay comments, the reaction he has received since coming out and speaking up, and what his plans are for the future.