I left the Air Force intelligence service even before Don’t Ask Don’t Tell went into effect. I wasn’t particularly afraid the Air Force would discharge me for being gay, though I wasn’t unmindful of the possibility. I was sort of covertly out anyway, if that makes any sense, and nobody seemed to care.

In my experience serving in the 1980s, the Air Force was apathetic on the subject of gay service members.

However, since I held a top secret security clearance, I was subject to periodic FBI polygraph examinations, and the first one I underwent terrified me. Two FBI polygraph officers grilled me about my sexual orientation and told me I failed the test.

I expected to face serious consequences, including probably immediately losing my clearance, but several weeks passed with nothing happening and then several months passed. I never heard anything about supposedly failing my polygraph.

However, the incident shook me so much that I left the Air Force in 1990 at the first available opportunity.

I figured better to leave on my own accord than be forced out in disgrace with the stain of having had my clearance pulled.

I’m glad I left, and in fact never looked back or tried to use my clearance for anything. I kept in touch with Air Force friends, however, and they told me how bad things got after DADT went into effect, describing things as a “witch hunt.”

Coincidentally or not, DADT went into effect coincident with a strong push at the Air Force Academy to institutionalize Evangelical Christianity in the officer corps.

Many people have reported on the two phenomena, though few people have connected the dots to the erosion of official Air Force apathy on the subject of gay service members.