An interesting and poignant quote...

[itzamirakul]

I found this quote in the NYT readers forum for discussion of Frank Rich's column. It is so poignant that I wanted to share it for those who may not have ever read it.

"When I was in the military, they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one." Epitaph of Sgt. Leonard Matlovich

[Brian_Expat]

1. Wow. *blinks* n/t

[dsc]

2. That actually is a pretty famous quote

If I recall the man was a VietNam vet who died of AIDS in the 1980's. That is on his tombstone in a military cemetary (maybe even damn I am drawing a blank but the one Kennedy's flame is in).

[murielm99]

3. Arlington?

[dsc]

4. Yea that's the place

I just couldn't think of it.

[itzamirakul]

5. I thought it had to be well-known but I posted it

because I had never seen it before and thought that there might be others, who, like me, want to take that quote "and roll it up like a scroll and tuck it away among the things that were once thought to be real."

(The last quote is my bad job of mangling and paraphrasing a biblical verse. I can't even source it - it just became one of those things that memorized itself in my brain - like the quote that I originally posted

[Dark]

6. Yeah, wow. n/t

[kweerwolf]

7. I've always loved that quote.

One day while I was experimenting with learning to build web pages for my GLBT Democratic Club I started building a page with quotations just for fun. It really didn't have much to do with the club, but so many people seemed to enjoy it that I kept adding to it (and the Matlovich quote is one of the ones I used).

I think one of my favorite quotes along the lines of the one from Matlovich is this one:

Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men
holding guns than holding hands?
- Ernest Gaines, African-American author

BTW, the "quote page" is located at: http://www.kcpridedemocrats.com/quotes

If you have any additional quotes that would be good there, please feel free to send them to the link at the bottom of the page.

[Q3JR4]

8. Thanks for the link.

I have pages and pages of quotes that I really liked, none of which are orientated towards gays and lesbians. This should help I'm thinking.