Is Britain, after all these years, finally a country for an old ex-Royal Navy operator called Joe Ousalice ?

Joe, who is 68 years old, was born in 1951 and joined the Royal Navy when he was 24 in 1975. He then served as a radio operator for the next 18 years and was on board MV Myrmidon as part of the task force dispatched to liberate the Falkland Islands after the Argentinean invasion in 1982. After that did six tours of duty in Northern Ireland and he was seconded to a Nato task force and was awarded a Long Service and Good Conduct Medal and three Good Conduct badges.

Twenty-six years ago, when he was 42, he was dismissed from the Service and unceremoniously stripped of his medals. Joe has said : "The Navy wasn't just my job, it was my life. But to do it I had to hide another important part of me, which I did because I loved the navy life so much I didn't want to give it up. But I shouldn't have been asked to choose. I was made to feel like I was disgusting and in the end I was hounded out on some trumped up charges, and told that because I was attracted to men, my 18 years of service counted for nothing. It was heart-breaking. It took me years to recover."

During those 18 years Joe was forced to lead a “double life” and was careful not to associate with other sailors whom he knew were gay. This was a time when the Navy still insisted that gay personnel were not only detrimental to good discipline but also prey to blackmail and servicemen were either disciplined or discharged for homosexuality under military law. It would not be until 2000 that the ban would be lifted, decades after being gay was decriminalised in Britain by the Sexual Offences Act of 1967.

He described his treatment by his superiors while in the Navy "abysmal". "Every couple of years they would drag me in and make some story up in an attempt to get shot of me - they knew I was bisexual. On one occasion they said I had been seen taking drugs in Portsmouth. I've never taken drugs but it shows you the level they'd get up to".

At the 1993, when he was 42 years old, he was accused of being in bed with another sailor, which the Service said was 'prejudicial to good order and naval discipline.' He denied the charge, but was was forced to reveal his sexuality and was discharged from the Navy because he might "corrupt" others.

He recalled that : “After the court martial was completed, a guy came in with a pair of scissors and said ‘Sorry, mate, I need your medal’, and just cut the medal off me. The fact that I had been to the Middle East, to the Falklands, to Northern Ireland six times means a lot to me and that medal is proof to me that I was good enough for all those years, and yet somebody can just come and take it from you.”

Joe's case was taken up by human rights group 'Liberty', which had threatened court action if he was refused the return of the Good Conduct medal. Emma Norton, its 'Head of Legal Casework' and Joe's lawyer, said the Ministry of Defence policy has had a "devastating impact on a lot of lives" and "The MoD discriminated horribly against LGBT members of the armed forces for decades. They subjected people to degrading and intrusive investigations into their private lives, destroying careers and damaging lives."

As a result, the Ministry has said the medal will be returned to Joe in person and added in a statement : "We accept our policy in respect of serving homosexuals in the military was wrong, discriminatory and unjust to the individuals involved" and Joe was "treated in a way that would not be acceptable today and for that, we apologise". 

After waiting 26 years, Joe said he still wanted an apology from "someone in authority" and for his medal to be returned to him by a Rear-Admiral, the same rank of officer who originally awarded him the medal. Needless to say, in Britain in 2019, where living ex-servicemen and women are counted for so little, this would appear to be most unlikely.

Joe : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zX9lyLsPZk