Sons of Harvard

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E. Lawrence Gibson

In 1975 Ensign Berg became the first Naval Officer to challenge the Navy's ban on homosexuality. He is a Naval Academy Graduate who placed in the top 10% of his class. The trial took two weeks during which each side presented expert testimony. Dr. John Money came from Johns Hopkins University Medical School, and Vice Admiral William P. Mack the Suprintendent of the Naval Academy testified that he thought that Ensign Berg should be retained despite what the policy was.The most compelling testimony came from his father a Presbyterian Minister and career Navy Chaplain who won a bronze star while serving in Viet Nam. He testified of knowing undetected homosexual officers in the ranks of Commander, Captain and Rear Admiral. He also testified that he knew openly gay combat marines serving in Viet Nam. For his testimony Chaplain Berg was forced to retire from the Navy and later died of a horrible cancer having been sprayed by agent orange in Viet Nam. The Berg case was settled in 1981 with an agreement made between the Jimmy Carter White House and the Pentagon to give only fully honorable discharges to all gay men and women discharged from the military. They also made this policy retroactive so that all persons who had ever been discharged could apply and have their discharges up graded to fully honorable. This is a great book. Compelling, sad, infuriating, and informative. I cry every time that I read the passages of testimony by his father. The father's love for his son is so strong that he willingly gives up his carrer by testifying for his son and against the present Pentagon policies. It's also a great love story between Berg and his lover who is the author of this book

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Dan Savage

The sex-advice columnist for "Savage Love" draws on his experience with the It Gets Better campaign to share pithy insights into a range of topics including health care, gun control, and marriage equality.

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Justin Chin

"Floating somewhere between fiction and memoir, Burden of Ashes is a mesmerizing literary dreamscape in which childhood, homeland, and lovers both real and imagined succumb to whimsy, revision, and denial. Acclaimed poet, performer, and prose writer Justin Chin has created a place where snake killings, demonic possession, and the enigmatic power of a good kiss somehow coexist. Chin bounds with wild grace through actual events and fictional outcomes, reconciling what has been lost, outgrown, and abandoned with what never even was."--BOOK JACKET.

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Scott Peck

All-American Boy is a compelling story, a beautifully written account of the relationship between a father and son - their fourteen-year estrangement and their ultimate reconciliation. Scott Peck was thrust into the public eye when his father, Marine Colonel Fred Peck, startled the nation with his Senate testimony that he had just learned that his son was gay, and that while he loved his son, he would be loath to see him in the military because of fear of what might happen to him. Scott immediately became the subject of enormous media attention as he eloquently spoke about his own sexuality, his family, and much else. Here is his story, recalling a terrifying childhood in the home of a violently abusive stepfather and the tragic death of an adored and vibrant mother at the age of thirty-seven. It is the testimony of a young man slated for a career as a fundamentalist minister - the quintessential All-American boy - who comes to terms with his own sexuality and the father who had abandoned him. A portrait of two polar opposites - the professional soldier and his outspoken son - it is a powerful and personal document, harrowing and lyrical, the debut of a brilliant young writer whose true story, written with a novelist's flair, is an unforgettable portrait of courage and of forgiveness.