Major Conflict by Maj USA (ret.) Jeffrey McGowan Page B

what can be had in the private sector. As a single guy on his own I never had a problem, but raising a family on army pay is no easy task. It’s troubling to me, especially now, when we’re asking so much of the members of our armed services, to see young servicemen and -women struggling to support their families, even sometimes having to go on welfare. Though the pay gap between military and civilian workers has decreased slightly over the past few years, and the imminent-danger pay for soldiers in combat has increased, there’s still a long way to go. I think it’s shameful that the men and women we ask to defend our country sometimes have to struggle to meet the basic needs of their families.
    None of this was on my mind, however, when I arrived at Fort Sill on that hot afternoon at the end of June 1988. No, at that point everything was up. All the buckets were full. Fort Sill, Oklahoma, may not have looked like the setting for a Broadway musical, at least not one by Rodgers and Hammerstein, but I sure as hell felt as if I were in one. Everything was about possibility and hope. I’d yet to earn even an ounce of cynicism. Though the question of my sexuality had caused me some pain in college (and much more pain for Greg, though I was far too callow to be aware of the pain I’d caused him), I’d somehow managed to stuff the genie that Greg had nearly succeeded in freeing forcefully back into the proverbial bottle of my own denial. Not only did I get the genie bottled, it seemed as if the original seal had never been broken. I was a free man now, young, bursting with excitement, having realized a dream born so many years before in Jackson Heights. I was a soldier now. I was a lieutenant in the United States Army.
    Like any young person who has had a dream come true, I saw only good things ahead of me. I couldn’t wait to get up in the morning so I could put on my uniform and go off to work. Everything was new and interesting and worth learning more about. To top it off, I was now getting a decent paycheck every two weeks, something I’d never experienced, even when I worked full time in the summers as a bookseller for Doubleday. Being on my own and supporting myself for the first time was a great feeling. I’d never before felt so independent, that it was only me calling the shots. It wasn’t just the paycheck that was fueling this, of course. Along with the tremendous pride I took in being a lieutenant there was also a certain amount of validation that came with it, the respectability that is automatically granted to soldiers. Everywhere I went, people acknowledged me because I wore the uniform, and this acknowledgment gave me a great sense of pride and power and responsibility. Though I had wanted to serve in the Airborne, I soon discovered that the Artillery has an illustrious history of its own and is, in fact, an excellent branch in which to serve. I’d done some research, but it wasn’t until we passed by Key Gate on the afternoon of my arrival in late June that I began truly to appreciate the unique role the Artillery has played and continues to play in the U.S. military. What remains of Key Gate are two sides of a large stone wall with an iron gate in the center. On the left side two large cannons are affixed to the wall, crisscrossing each other. To the left of the cannons are the words “Fort Sill, Oklahoma,” and to the right “Home of the Field Artillery.” A large, old cannon sits in front of the other side, beneath the words “Key Gate.” Within the fort itself the sides of the road are dotted with vintage artillery pieces, statues commemorating this war and that battle, and many generals and famous commanders, including Major General Philip H. Sheridan, who first staked the site of Fort Sill out of the Indian Territory in 1869, and the fort’s name-sake, Brigadier General Joshua W. Sill, who was killed in the Civil War. Everything