For a men’s community that includes veterans among its members — and whose history is deeply braided with the history of gay men in the American military — Veterans Day is a day to honor service, to name what service has cost, and to tell the specific stories of LGBTQ+ veterans that have been so long left out of the official telling.

History

The original Armistice Day was proclaimed by President Woodrow Wilson in 1919 to mark the first anniversary of the end of the fighting on the Western Front. The day was formally established by Congress as a national holiday in 1938, with its original character as a day of peace: “a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace.”

After the Second World War and the Korean War, the day’s focus broadened. In 1954, under President Eisenhower, Congress amended the law to rename November 11 as Veterans Day, honoring all American veterans of all wars, living and deceased. The language of “world peace” was dropped in favor of language of service, remembrance, and gratitude.

Other countries kept the original frame. Across the Commonwealth, November 11 remains Remembrance Day, centered on the two minutes’ silence at eleven o’clock and the laying of poppy wreaths at war memorials. In France and Belgium, Armistice is still kept. In Germany and the Netherlands, the day is Volkstrauertag or Nationale Herdenking, the national day of mourning for all victims of war.

Observances

In the United States, the day is marked by parades, ceremonies at war memorials and veterans’ cemeteries, moments of silence (often held at 11 a.m.), the display of the flag, and the many small observances inside veterans’ own organizations and families. Many businesses offer free meals or discounts to veterans. Schools often hold assemblies in which veterans are invited to speak to students about their service.

For the families and friends of veterans, the day is often a time to make a phone call, visit a grave, write a letter, or simply be present. For veterans themselves, the day frequently carries weight that is difficult to name — memories of comrades, both those who came back and those who did not, and the specific textures of a kind of brotherhood that is forged in a way most civilians will never know.

The day is also widely used to call attention to ongoing concerns: veteran homelessness (an estimated 35,000 American veterans are homeless on any given night); veteran suicide (which continues at rates significantly higher than the civilian male population); access to timely and adequate VA healthcare; and the particular needs of combat veterans navigating PTSD, traumatic brain injury, and moral injury.

A Male Perspective

Veterans Day is for every man in Jonathan’s Circle, and the brotherhood includes men who served in uniform and men who did not. The day is for all veterans — the straight brother who came home from Iraq and has been quietly carrying what he saw there, the gay brother who served under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the transgender brother whose service was shaped by policy swings he had no say in, and the uncle, the father, the grandfather in every family whose service left a mark the family still carries.

For brothers who served, this day is yours. Whatever branch, whatever conflict, whatever rank, whatever story — the Circle sees you. Many Circle brothers have shared, over the years, that the hardest part of coming home was not the memory of combat but the loss of the brotherhood that military service forged. The Circle is one of the places where that kind of brotherhood can be rebuilt.

For brothers who did not serve, Veterans Day is a chance to listen to those who did, to say thank you and mean it, and to resist the easy politics that reduce veterans to a slogan on a billboard. The veteran brother sitting across from you at a Circle gathering is a specific person with a specific story, and the day asks you to honor the specifics.

Veterans Day also carries a long and specifically queer chapter that deserves naming each year. Baron von Steuben, the Prussian military officer who trained the Continental Army and whose discipline turned Washington’s troops into a fighting force at Valley Forge, was a gay man. He is one of a long, long line.

Harvey Milk served in the United States Navy during the Korean War as a diving officer aboard the submarine rescue ship USS Kittiwake, and was forced to resign his commission in 1955 after being officially questioned about his sexuality. He accepted an “other than honorable” discharge rather than face a court-martial. The USS Harvey Milk — a Navy replenishment oiler commissioned in 2021 — bears his name today, one of the few serving ships of the United States Navy named for an openly gay man.

Leonard Matlovich — a Vietnam veteran with a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star — came out as gay in 1975 in a letter to his commanding officer, specifically to test the Air Force’s discharge policy. He was discharged and spent the rest of his life (he died of AIDS in 1988) fighting for the right of gay Americans to serve. His headstone at the Congressional Cemetery in Washington reads: “When I was in the military, they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one.”

For more than two decades, the Clinton-era “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy forced tens of thousands of gay servicemembers to serve in silence. More than 13,000 were discharged under DADT between 1994 and its repeal in 2011. Many lost pensions, benefits, security clearances, and careers. The Veterans Administration still processes claims from DADT-era veterans whose service was cut short because of who they were. Transgender servicemembers have faced a different and more recent set of policy swings, with policies on open trans service repeatedly reversed by successive administrations.

For LGBTQ+ veterans in the Circle, Veterans Day often carries a complicated weight: pride in the service rendered, grief for the comrades lost, and the specific ache of having served a country that for most of that service did not permit a man to be fully himself. For every brother in the Circle — veteran or not, LGBTQ+ or not — the day is a chance to let a specific name be spoken, a specific story be heard, and a specific debt be acknowledged.

Summary

Veterans Day honors the service of all who have worn the uniform of the United States, and it is a day with a particular and often-overlooked chapter for gay, bisexual, and transgender veterans. For the men of Jonathan’s Circle, November 11 is a day to say Harvey Milk’s name, to say Leonard Matlovich’s name, to call a veteran we know, and to let the long roll of LGBTQ+ service be remembered alongside the broader one.