Just news
Jealousy and revenge in the USMC
Ex-drill sergeant Cheryl Jameson paid for her lover's jealousy
with the loss of a 10-year career and nearly a year in prison
BY
DELL
R I C H A R D S
hen Barbara Baum and Cheryl Jameson
joined the United States Marine Corps,
neither one expected to end up in jail.
But both served more than six months in
the brig for “sodomy and indecent acts.” The
formal charge: they were lesbians.
“I could have gotten 43 years max,” said
Baum. “They said they had to protect society
from me.”
Ironically, the closed, male-dominated
society of the Marine Corps afforded neither
Baum nor Jameson any protections — not
even those guaranteed under the U.S.
Constitution.
Their shocking saga of jealousy and
revenge began routinely enough.
Homosexuality was the farthest thing from
Baum’s mind when she signed up. An
Indiana University student before she enlisted,
Baum answered the standard USMC question
of whether she had any homosexual
tendencies with perfect honesty.
She could. She was straight.
“I came out in the military,” said Baum.
“This was my first experience.”
Baum was so naive that when another
recruit asked her if she thought one of the drill
sergeants was gay, she said the woman
couldn’t be: everyone had to sign a paper
saying they weren’t in order to join.
Therefore, Baum reasoned, the corps was free
of homosexuals,
Jameson — who would later become
Baum’s friend and ally — knew better.
A professed lesbian from the liberated city
of San Francisco, Jameson knew from the
start she’d have to lie. Covering up her
sexuality was the only way she would be
admitted.
“It’s fraudulent enlistment if you lie,” said
Jameson, but she was willing to pay that price.
She hoped to become a policewoman, and to
get some training in the Marines.
But Jameson was wary from the start. And
as a result of her circumspect behavior, she
served two four-year terms with honor and re­
enlisted each time.
“I needed a top security clearance and got
W
it,” said Jameson, who held the tough and
coveted post of drill sergeant.
“Cheryl was an outstanding drill
instructor,” added Baum.
Baum was less careful. Once she realized
that over half the women were lesbians, she,
too, became involved with another woman.
And because she saw lesbianism all around
her, she thought there was no need to hide.
But time was against the two women, as
was the system, which pits lover against lover,
woman against woman.
While the debate about homosexual rights
rages on a philosophical plane, Baum and
Jameson bring it down to much simpler
dynamics: jealousy and revenge.
According to them, the melodrama that
could rival any daytime soap started when the
ex-boyfriend of Baum’s girlfriend tried to get
the woman to return to him.
He was infuriated. The thought of Baum
and his girlfriend together drove him wild.
The man — who was also in the military
— parked his car behind Baum’s to block it,
then broke into the two women’s motel room
to talk to them.
“He held me hostage most of the night,”
said Baum.
When that strong-arm tactic didn’t work,
he turned their names in to the Naval
Investigative Service (NIS) — the arm of the
military that investigates alleged cases of
homosexuality and other “crimes.”
When nothing came of that, the 24-year-
old military policewoman thought she’d be
okay.
“When I wasn’t discharged then, I didn’t
worry," said Baum. “I trusted my lover not to
say anything.”
But the wheels had been set in motion and
when Baum’s lover was called in, she gave
intimate details of their encounters. It was
enough to bring Baum into the widening net
— and later to convict her.
Baum was on her way to a prime
assignment in Hawaii months later when she
got the bad news: she was being charged with
“sodomy and indecent acts.”
She would also be charged with
obstruction of justice for not cooperating and
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by refusing to "name names" during the initial
investigation.
Baum eventually did break down: the
Corp’s little shop of horrors broke her.
Thrown into the brig, she went for weeks
without eating or sleeping. She was watched
by psychiatrists who feared she would commit
suicide. Although she doesn’t say so, she had
what sounds very much like a nervous
breakdown.
“I got sick,” said Baum. "For six weeks, I
couldn’t keep anything down. I didn’t eat for
two or three weeks when I first got in the
brig.”
By the time she was willing to cooperate,
NIS investigators had an inch-thick computer
printout of the women involved, line after line
“of little, itty-bitty names,” said Baum.
Baum told them what she knew not from
personal experience but from what she’d
heard. And, as is common in the military,
gossip equals proof.
“All it takes is hearsay,” said Baum.
“They don’t need evidence.”
Since that time, Baum has gained back
some of the weight she lost. But even today
at 105 skin-and-bones pounds, the ordeal’s
heavy toll is still visible. She is frail, her eyes
dart from place to place nervously as if she
were still a captive.
Jameson’s scars don’t seem as raw. With
10 years in the Marines, she learned one of the
military’s few valuable lessons: being stoic is
the only way to survive, either mentally or
physically. But the 28-year-old’s pain comes
through in other ways. She seems healthy,
even brawny, but her humor is so brittle, it
often nears the breaking point.
“I joined the military to travel but spent
most of my duty in California,” said the
California native. “Then I got to Parris Island
— the USMC recruit depot in South Carolina.
“There’s this big sign as you come on
base: ‘Where it all begins.’ It should have
said 'Where it all ends.’ ”
Jameson was also the victim of betrayal.
Her lover gave her name to the NIS when the
woman found out Jameson had gone out with
someone else at the beginning of their affair.
“My lover got angry with me and turned
me in," said Jameson.
She wanted to get back at Jameson — and
she did.
Jameson was called into NIS hearings
three times and asked about other women’s
sexuality before she was actually accused of
homosexual acts herself. And she didn’t find
out about her lover’s allegations until she saw
the woman’s 15-page statement implicating
dozens of women during the court martial
held just two days after she was charged.
“I suspected it but I didn’t want to believe
it,” Jameson said.
During the hearing in front of a standing-
room-only crowd, Jameson’s judge brought in
a copy of a medical textbook in order to get
specific information about the sex acts
involved.
“He wanted all the gory details,” said
Jameson.
Even though she was a career veteran,
when found guilty she was stripped of rank,
pay and retirement benefits. She paid for her
lover’s jealousy with the loss of a 10-year
career and nearly a year in prison.
During her time in the brig, she was not
allowed to talk to Baum even though they
were in the same area.
“We were told not to even look at each
other,” said Jameson.
She was given a computerized list of
women she was not allowed to communicate
with, including the woman who held power of
attorney for her.
Whenever she was deemed insubordinate,
she was put in segregation — an isolated cell
— with no word when she would be released.
She was put in isolation once for writing a
letter to the woman who had power of
attorney.
“They found a letter in my foot locker,"
said Jameson. “ It was considered deception’
and I was kept in the ‘seg room’ for the
night.”
Today, her hopes of becoming a
policewoman are long gone. Instead, she
talks of somehow using her computer skills
and finally getting to travel.
Even though their lives have been ruined,
both women are trying to pick up the pieces of
their careers, wondering how they will hide a
less-than-honorable discharge and 13 years of
combined military service on their resumes.
But both Baum and Jameson have said
good riddance to the military.
“It’s a game with them, a scam,” said
Baum. “They play people against each
other.”
“They kept asking about what they called
this world-wide 'Lesbian Mafia’ that goes
after people,” added Jameson. Apparently,
this “Mob" is a subversive unit that the
military believes recruits and indoctrinates
innocent, young heterosexual women into the
ranks of lesbians. The reason for this
fallacious fantasy is obvious: the truth is too
hard to face.
“If they kicked all the lesbians in the
military out, there wouldn’t be anyone left,”
said Jameson.
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