
Growing up gay in the South in the 70’s, with a strong Christian family who prayed you’d become a preacher doesn’t sound like the ideal start for an ex-Marine turned playwright. But that’s exactly the upbring Jeff Key had, and he wouldn’t trade it for the world. In Showtime’s original movie/documentary about the man, his autobiographical play, and his experiences in the Iraq War, you meet Key (as his Marine buddies call him), take a journey with him as he describes his early life, his coming out and his move to LA after college, and then follow his words and pictures as he joins the marines and less than two years later is sent to Iraq.
Jeff Key most definitely has a poet’s soul, as the words to describe a country torn apart by war flow out of him effortlessly. His descriptions of the children, the beautiful and radiant children, moved me to tears. “Mister Mister!” is a cry I’ve heard in other countries as children starving for nourishment of both the body and the spirit crowd around. For this Marine, it was an experience that altered him to the core. From his first footprints on sandy soil to his airlift out in a medical chopper, Jeff’s story rings of a heartbreak I cannot imagine.
That’s what it was for him, too. Heartbreak. The friends interviewed for the show all saw it, his family saw it, and it radiates in his eyes through the screen. The Iraqi people broke Jeff Keys’ heart. Which is why, upon returning home to discover he and his team had been looking for weapons that did not exist, had been surrounded by people who increasingly wanted them out of their country, Jeff Keys wrote the hardest letter he’d ever written. He came out of the closet, claiming “Don’t ask, don’t tell simply doesn’t work for me anymore.”
Keys went into the Marines knowing he was gay. Most of the men he served with knew he was gay. Jeff chose to closet himself to fight for a country he believed in, but his reasons for fighting and serving as a Marine became his reasons for leaving. And so he came out, and is asking and telling all over the place.
An amazing movie, a must-see. It’s showing several more times, so be sure to catch it next time around. And to Jeff Keys, I say Semper Fi, brother. Semper Fi.
Showtime, Semper Fi, Jeff Key, Marines, don’t ask don’t tell