Major Conflict (Hardcover) ~ JEFFREY MCGOWAN (Author) Cover Art

Major Conflict (Hardcover)

By: JEFFREY MCGOWAN (Author)

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Review

"[McGowan's] style is familiar and easy, as if he's confiding his experiences to a trusted friend."

First line

I've always wanted to be a soldier. I can't remember a time when I could imagine being anything else. It was, I think, my destiny; my path was preordained.

Publisher's note

Love of country and personal love combine is this groundbreaking memoir of one gay man's life in the military--and beyond. In Major Conflict, Queens-born Jeffrey McGowan tells how he enlisted in the army in the late 1980s and served with distinction for ten years. But McGowan had a secret: he was gay. In the don't-ask-don't-tell world of the Clinton-era army, being gay meant automatic expulsion. So, at the expense of his personal life and dignity, he hid his sexual identity and continued to serve the army well.

Major Conflict is a moving account of his years in the military, the homophobia he encountered there, and his life afterwards. McGowan presents a vivid portrait of his experience as a soldier in the Persian Gulf, where he commanded U.S. troops in Desert Storm, eventually rising to the rank of major. Ultimately, however, he realized that the army held no future for gay men—even closeted ones. Desiring more of a personal life and tired of hiding his true identity, McGowan resigned from the Army he loved in 1998. In February 2004, he married his partner of six years in New Paltz, New York, making front-page news in The New York Times.

By turns a stirring account of military life and a tender story of gay love, McGowan's memoir will be read by all those who made Find Me, Conduct Unbecoming, and Love, Ellen national bestsellers.

Annotation

In this memoir, former soldier Jeffrey McGowan, who signed up in 1980, tells of his military life and his life as a closeted gay soldier who came to realize he could not live by the policy of "don't ask, don't tell." Jeff grew up in Jackson Heights, Queens, and, in the mid-1980s, attended Fordham University, where he joined ROTC to help defray the high cost of tuition. He also worked in the famous Doubleday bookstore in Manhattan, where he developed a relationship with another man and began his double life. McGowan tells how he took to the military, with its discipline and camaraderie, and became a model soldier who fought in the Gulf War. He resigned at the rank of Major in the late 1990s, and wrote this memoir to share his personal journey and to shed some light on the issue of gays in the military who serve well and proudly.

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