After years of doing everything that twenty year olds do to mess up their lives, I finally gave in and enlisted in the Army. Considering I was an out of the closet gay man for more than five years, it was a hard decision. Basic training was tough, but do-able and advanced language school came next.

Then I met the man who would one day become my husband. He was coming out of the shower and I was going in. What followed was a bizarre game of cat and mouse before a date of beer and pizza. My husband didn’t even know we were on a date until I held his hand in the movie theatre.

What came next took us both by surprise: an emotional rollercoaster, discovery, and finally discharges under the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy. Surprisingly, that upheaval was only the first in a long series of events that have taken through Washington, D.C., Phoenix AZ and law school, and now to Los Angeles.