I'm a veteran like you. I didn't stay in the military, despite that I was being promoted ahead of schedule, because I failed a routine security clearance polygraph, tripped up on the question asking me if I have sex with men. I never heard a word from my command about it, and I knew several other mostly-closeted gay people who were doing fine. I trusted my immediate superiors, up to and including my wing commander, but I knew the polygraph would be a sword of Damocles hanging over my career. So I left, with regret.

I don't regret it anymore, for sure! Leaving the Air Force made a whole new world available to me, one that I didn't even know existed.

But I still follow military news pretty closely.