First same-sex active-duty wedding in the US

by Tim GIbson

Two US Army Captains wed over the weekend, becoming the first active duty same-sex couple to do so. The pair, Capt. Danial Hall and Capt. Vinny Franchino, met and fell in love covertly during the controversial ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ years. The policy allowed gay men and women to serve in the military as long as they did not disclose their sexual orientation.

“We couldn’t tell the truth for fear of what would happen to us,” Franchino said, “So we put in our minds that we were never going to say we were gay. We were never going to get made fun of, and we were certainly never going to get kicked out of the Army.”

The couple, both helicopter pilots, were deployed to opposite sides of the world shortly after “don’t ask, don’t tell” was repealed. Nonetheless they found their way back to each other. Franchino still describes having to hide their relationship as the worst part of his life, “We’ve experience everything from people feeling awkward around us to being called faggots while holding hands and walking down the street, stuff like that. But despite what we’ve been through nothing was worse than having served during the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ years.”

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