Rearguard action
Sir: Alasdair Palmer quotes my views ('Prejudices on parole', 10 June) on the undesirability of allowing homosexuals in the armed services, but he then goes on to say, 'As far as I can discover, no one in liv- ing memory has had direct experience [of disruption etc.] for the simple reason that the policy of discharging homosexuals has been rigidly enforced.'
Then Alasdair Palmer should have asked me. I could give several examples. I spent three years in the ranks, as a boy of 16-19, living in a barrack room with 24 other lads. In one of the other barrack blocks there was a rather good-looking choirboy to whom one of the musically inclined officers took a fancy. There was no real evidence of a physi- cal affair, though that probably went on. The point was that the officer lost almost all cred- ibility and was the subject of many private jokes. The lad concerned was regarded by his colleagues as someone outside the normal comradeship found in a tight-knit military community. Eventually, and because he did not fit in, he left the RAF.
No formal action was taken against either of them because part of the military ethic is that you do not tittle-tattle to the authorities about your colleagues. The policy of dis- charging these two individuals could not therefore be 'rigidly enforced'. We were not going to rat on a colleague, but neither were people prepared to accept the lad into the normal heterosexual community.
Many service officers could give yob fur- ther examples, as I could myself. I do not know whether Mr Palmer has ever shared a barrack room with other men, but I very much doubt it. Of all the close-knit military communities in which I lived for 43 years, none was prepared to accept the genital activ- ities of these perverts (the word by the way, is Peter Tatchell's own on page 48 of his illus- trated handbook for homosexuals, Safe Sex.) I find that when members of the chatter- ing classes like Alasdair Palmer talk about homosexuals, they do so in the abstract. They seem to think we are talking about rather pleasant-looking young men simply preferring the company of their own sex and going around holding hands. They would be well advised to ask just what these people actually get up to. Apart from anal intercourse, with the unavoidable haemor- rhaging and stench, there are the practices known as 'fisting', 'rimming' and others. I cannot bring myself to describe them here. It is this kind of physical activity that repels most heterosexuals, particularly when het- erosexual servicemen are expected to share intimate facilities such as washbasins and showers with homosexuals.
Mr Palmer should remember that hetero- sexuals have human rights too; one of them is the right not to have the company of homosexuals forced upon them. Above all, he should stick to topics that he understands.
Michael Armitage
Air Chief Marshall (Rtd), Cairn Court, Moonsbrook, Oakhill, Bath
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