In fact, what happened to Schindler last October is still a mystery. Officials in Japan have denied all requests for interviews in order to avoid “jeopardizing the investigation and the military justice process,” said a spokesman at Yokosuka naval base. The details that have emerged are horrifying. Schindler’s mother, Dorothy Hajdys, says he was so badly beaten that she had to identify him by his tattoos. Eight of his ribs were broken, his skull was battered and his penis was lacerated. “Just about everything was damaged except his heart,” says Hajdys.
Late last week, the navy held the military equivalent of a grand-jury hearing in Japan to determine if Airman Apprentice Terry M. Helvey should stand trial for his shipmate’s murder. According to Lt. Cmdr. Betsy Bird, a navy spokeswoman in Honolulu, another Belleau Wood seaman, Navy Airman Charles E. Vins, has pleaded guilty on lesser charges in exchange for testifying against Helvey. Bird also said “one would think” a court-martial for murder “would be recommended,” and acknowledged that investigators were looking into gay-bashing as a possible motive. Schindler’s mother believes her son may have been killed by gay sailors. In any event, the navy is treating this as a murder case, not a hate crime. “The act of murder itself will not be condoned by the navy, whether it is committed against a homosexual or anyone else,” Bird said.
Friends and family back home have portrayed Schindler as an easygoing guy who loved the navy-at first. A sailor since 1988, Schindler was especially happy aboard his beloved USS Midway. His mother and uncle, David Jezler, have questioned whether he was in fact gay. But his diaries (box) and affidavits from those who knew him suggest otherwise. “His friends say it is indisputable he was gay,” says Bridget Wilson, an advocate with the National Lawyers Guild’s Military Law Task Force.
Schindler’s troubles began aboard the Belleau Wood-a smaller and more rigid place than the Midway. He had disciplinary run-ins for the first time in his career and, says former sailor Steve Krug, “trouble with authority.” Shipmates say he was tactless and short-fused. And some sailors didn’t like the cut of his jib: he often returned from shore leave flamboyantly dressed, earrings dangling. Before long, the hazing became severe. In an anonymous affidavit, a friend says Schindler told him about remarks like, “There’s a faggot on this ship and he should die.” Jim Woodward of the San Diego Veterans Association, a gay support group, says Schindler complained about the alleged harassment at a preliminary judicial proceeding last spring. The navy denies he lodged a complaint.
On Oct. 25, Schindler phoned friend Rick Gonzalez in San Diego. “He indicated-very happily so-that he had met an airman on the Belleau Wood whom he believed was gay and with whom he planned to go to the movies two days later, which was when he was murdered,” says Woodward. The unfolding judicial proceedings may ultimately explain how one young sailor came to such an awful end. For now, his death has become a mighty weapon in the hands of activists seeking to change the lives of thousands of gays in the military.
The envelope that arrived at Dorothy Hajdys’s home from the navy last week was marked EYES ONLY. lt contained a photocopy of her son Allen Schindler’s journal: 64 pages of tightly scrawled, often illegible entries about the difficulties of being a gay sailor and his gradual coming out. Excerpts:
I feel like a part of me is torn apart. One [indecipherable] of my life under deception.
Here I am again an a ship I don’t want to be on going to a place I don’t want to go … For now I don’t know what my destiny is If I have one.
Today we had a GQ [General Quarters] and l just let out my true colors during that time. Oh well, I was happy.
Right now I’m in a confrontation on what I’m going to do … I really don’t care at this time what happens. I don’t know when I’ll go to XO [executive officer] and I’m not sure which path I’ll follow.
Well, I went to XO. At that time I admitted my true self and told him, “if you can’t be yourself, then who are you?”
More people are finding out about me. lt scares me a little. You never know who would want to injure me or cease my existence.
One of the restricted persons wants to get some [gay] pride rings. I don’t know if he is or not or even if he knows what they mean. Maybe I should tell him. Who knows, looks can be deceiving.
He [an unidentified shipmate] made me an offer that I turned down. lt had to do with our similarity.
Dinner was very festive today. I mean it was like a family reunion … It would be a great idea for people of our type to stay together, especially when times are rough. I don’t want anybody else to go through the torture I did.
Went to lunch it seems things are sort of corrupt among the family members and I don’t like that one bit.
