The Defense Information School (DINFOS)
Life at DINFOS was nothing like the Corps. There were no inspections, no formations, no drill. Just classrooms and the broadcast studio. They crammed what was essentially a two-year journalism program into twelve weeks. It was intense, and it kept you on your toes. But it was also fascinating. We weren’t writing fairy tales — we were learning to put together the military’s version of the nightly news. Radio copy, press releases, training films. For a kid who’d always wanted to write, it was the first time the Marine Corps felt like it had lined up with my natural talents.
The school itself was run by an Army Sergeant Major. The Marine Corps had one liaison officer, a major, but day-to-day authority flowed through the Sergeant Major. At first he seemed like a good guy for a lifer. He invited students into his home, put football on the TV, tried to act like he was everyone’s uncle.
But there was a dark side.
He plied young troops with alcohol, then took advantage of them.
One night I was at his home for dinner. His Japanese wife served the meal, his two little boys ran around the table. I sat on one side of him, with the Marine major on the other. In the middle of polite small talk and dinner rolls, I froze. The Sergeant Major’s hand was on me under the table. I sat stunned, my heart pounding. I looked toward the major, silently begging him to notice. He didn’t.
When the major excused himself and left, the Sergeant Major pinned me against the wall as I headed for the door. “You gonna give me a little bit?” he whispered. My throat tightened, every instinct screaming for escape. I told him I wasn’t that way. He pretended to let it drop, offered me a ride back.
I made the mistake of going with him.
We went out back to his detached garage. His car was parked too close to the wall on the passenger side, so the only way in was to slide across from the driver’s side. I had no way out. As soon as he slid in, he wrapped me in a bear hug and grabbed my crotch.
I was terrified. I had never had an encounter like this in my life. I croaked out the only words I could manage: “Sergeant Major, I’m not that way. Please let me go. You’re like a father to me.”
He sneered: “Your penis is too small anyway.” Then he drove me back to the barracks. His parting shot: “Tell anyone about this, I’ll kill you.”
I ran inside crying, humiliated, ashamed. My roommates — fellow Marines — looked at me and shrugged. “What did you expect? Everybody knows that guy’s queer as hell.”
But I couldn’t keep it bottled. I went to the chaplain. I went to the MPs. Each one said the same thing: “He’s a 30-year Sergeant Major. You’re a PFC. Who do you think they’re going to believe?”
Word got back to him anyway. Suddenly I was flunked out of DINFOS. My shot at being a military journalist was gone. I was reassigned to a combat unit — an assignment that Sergeant Major surely hoped would finish me off.
The devastation wasn’t about combat. I was a Marine; combat was always in the cards. What gutted me was losing the chance to follow my uncle Jack’s path, to be a journalist. I lied to my family, told them I hadn’t made it through the course, but I never said why. The shame sat heavy on my chest for decades.
It wasn’t until years later, when I finally told the truth to the VA, that someone called it what it was: Military Sexual Trauma (MST). They awarded me disability. Until now, I had never told the full story to anyone else.