past is present

Reddit rediscovers gay Vietnam vet whose headstone tells his story

A photo of an anonymous headstone at the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C., went viral in Reddit’s r/pics forum this month, getting more than 89,000 upvotes.

The inscription on the headstone reads “A Gay Vietnam Veteran: When I was in the military, they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one.”


As the Reddit user who uploaded the pic noted, the grave is that of Leonard Matlovich, an Air Force technical sergeant who challenged the U.S. military’s ban on gay service members before his 1988 death from AIDS complications.

Related: 12 American LGBT war heroes

As the Los Angeles Times reported after his death, Matlovich was a technical sergeant who volunteered for three tours of duty in Vietnam and earned the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart during his service. And he came up with the idea for his headstone after being diagnosed with AIDS nearly two years before his death.

Jeff Dupre, a longtime friend, told NPR’s StoryCorps in 2015 that he met Matlovich at a Thanksgiving dinner. But Matlovich had a lot on his mind that day, as Dupre recalled. “He said, ‘Well, you know, they’re looking for a candidate to challenge the gays in the military laws. … Someone who has a good record to make it legal to be in the service and be open. I’ve got these awards from the service. I think I can do it.’”

So Matlovich came out in a letter to his commanding officer, not long before a portrait of him graced the cover of a 1975 issue of TIME, under the headline “‘I Am a Homosexual’: The Gay Drive for Acceptance.”

Leonard Matlovich TIME cover
(Photo: TIME)

“It was pretty wild,” Dupre said of the cover story. “There it was on the rack. He was glancing up, shiny eyes, curly hair, with the headline: ‘I Am a Homosexual.’ And I just stared at it. I just couldn’t believe it.”

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Matlovich was forcibly discharged from the Air Force after he came out, but he fought for an honorable discharge and won. He also fought to be reinstated, but the Air Force opted to give him a $160,000 settlement instead.

“He … was the epitome of a perfect soldier, one of those people that stuck his neck out, and he was proud to be the person to challenge that law,” Dupre said.

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