Tom Dooley’s Honorable Discharge
JANUARY 20, 1961
ST. PATRICK’S CATHEDRAL, NEW YORK
It was a bitter cold day in New York, but hundreds had come for the funeral. President Eisenhower had sent a message of condolence. The Pope had authorized a special pontifical requiem mass.
It seemed that all of America attended Dr. Tom Dooley in the weeks before he died. Newspapers published near-daily reports on the status of his health. Dooley himself issued optimistic statements that he was feeling fine, but in the last week he deteriorated rapidly. Cardinal Spellman was a frequent visitor in spite of his aides’ discouraging the visits, warning of rumors that Dooley was a homosexual. There were rumors about the Cardinal as well.
Nevertheless, the two remained close friends. It was Spellman who had introduced Tom Dooley to John Kennedy, and Kennedy, citing inspiration from Dooley’s work, would found the Peace Corps on March 1.
The Surgeon General of the Navy made an official visit to Dooley’s bedside two days before he died to present him with what he had sought since he had been separated from the Navy years before—his honorable discharge. But most of his friends believed Dooley was too sedated to be aware of the largely symbolic gesture.
Dooley died on the day before John Kennedy’s swearing-in as President of the United States. It is unclear whether he knew that his country had forgiven him at last.
Years later, Retired Lieutenant Commander Ted Werner recalled the last moments he spent with Dooley, saying good-bye at the airport in Vientiane, Laos. Werner knew that Dooley was returning to America to die; if his work had not required that he remain in Laos to fly for Dooley’s group, he would have accompanied him.
It was a strange afternoon, Werner remembered, because Dooley, who rarely discussed his sexuality with anyone, confided in him about the disgrace he had felt when he was discharged from the Navy. It was a disgrace that had followed him ever since, he said, and he knew that if, after his death, it became known what he had been discharged for, then all the good that he had accomplished in his lifetime would be forgotten. “All they’ll remember is that I was queer,” he told Werner.
This was, after all, the message Dooley and millions of other homosexual Americans had heard for generations. No matter what good deeds he did, his God would damn him; no matter how well he championed patriotism, his country would disgrace him. This ultimately was the point of the armed forces’ regulations—they had little to do with military goals and everything to do with a culture enforcing millennia- old taboos. No matter what the content of his character, Dooley, like millions of others, would always be identified as queer; they were unworthy.
As Dooley prepared to board the Pan Am flight that had been outfitted to receive him on a gurney, he said good-bye to Werner, and recited a part of his favorite poem to his friend:
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep,” he said,
“But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”