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6 » pink weddings magazine
a MilitaRy tale
Royal Navy Petty Officer
Craig Hewitt
talks to
Pink Weddings
Magazine
about his experience of coming out, being openly
gay in the military and meeting that special someone
M
y fiancé Joshua and I have been dating
since November 2012, which doesn't seem
that long – but you always end up moving
more quickly when serving for Her Majesty
due to busy schedules and deployments each year.
I had been single for quite some time and decided to
use trusty old dating sites to find a possible partner for
life. The site which I commonly used and found very
simple was a site app called Grindr. You may think it a bit
of a controversial gay ‘hook up’ app – but if you’re meant
to find love then no matter what app or site you use,
true love is just around the corner. People say everything
happens for a reason, and I think that day I logged onto
Grindr and found him was my moment.
Telling Joshua I was in the Navy didn’t really bother
him, but at this perfect time in my life I was shore-
based, which meant I would be staying at home in my
base port of Plymouth for a couple of years – not going
away to sea or even going on deployment. I have
currently been serving Her Majesty for more than 12
years and have had many challenging experiences, but
nothing that I couldn’t deal with myself or with support
frommy superiors or friends.
Coming out for me (not only in the Navy but also
with my family and friends) was the biggest challenge of
my life and found me questioning a lot of how I felt
about people.
*****
I knew I was gay fromwhen I was 15, but felt I had no
support from friends or even family. With my dad being a
hardy Essex man and mother a good old northern lass, I
felt I would embarrass them and make them the laughing
stock of their friends. So as a lot of young gay guys do, I
kept it hidden until only five years ago, when I was 25.
I had had female relationships, which kept things
hidden but made me upset within myself. I decided one
day to trust my true feelings and tell my friends one by
one – to my surprise, they all accepted me and made me
feel slightly relieved.
Parents were next and the support from friends got
me through this, but things with my dad went pear
shaped and our close family bond became broken. It
took more than six months, with no contact from him,
for him to realise that I hadn’t changed but I’d actually
grown up and become more of a man – along with being
a happier person in myself.
The challenge of being a gay man within the Navy
now dawned on me – having my friends serving alongside
me, I knew this wouldn’t stay quiet for long. It didn’t, and
the word got out that I was now ‘out’. With laws in the
forces only changing in 2000 to allow LGBT personnel to
serve, the stigma of being a gay man was still quite a
sensitive subject – but as I have found throughout the
past five years, Facebook, LGBT forums and equality and
diversity groups within the Navy support you in every way
possible. I became personally involved in working with
welfare matters, like deaths and marriage break-ups, and
also got involved with LGBT personnel, where I supported
them through their troubling times.
Joshua and I have since got engaged and had our
wedding at the HMS Drake naval base in Plymouth. The
Navy has supported this a great deal, with it being the
first gay wedding to happen within a military naval base
in the country.
HMS Drake’s command have supported us
throughout our plans, even allowing the press to follow