Dave Lara

I am a 67-year-old Hispanic Gay male who served in the US Navy, joining at 17 years old, from 1965 to 1970. My specialty was Hospital Corpsman however for a few weeks I did serve in combat in Vietnam, I was eventually assigned to the USS Repose, a hospital ship that operated off the coast of Vietnam. I then trained to be a laboratory technician on my return to the US after Nam.

In my day, it was a federal offense to be gay in the military. That had a major impact on my life and the lives of other men I knew in the service with the same issue.

My life has been long and varied. So briefly; I came out of the service under a bad discharge because of my orientation. I started work at Pacific Bell as a janitor cleaning toilets in 1970. Someone noticed me and suggest I test for a job in the office as a Service Representative. My career in telecommunications spanned from there until 2003, when I lost my job as a telecommunication manager at Franklin Templeton Investments, an executive level position. The 9-11 tragedy took 36 lives from our company and so layoffs happened, and I was caught up in that.

Once the Iraq war began I became clinically diagnosed with PTSD, for some reason that war triggered the syndrome in me because of events that happened in Vietnam.

With the help of the VA my condition has been corrected and I have now gone onto what I call the fourth chapter of my life, the last chapter.

I now consider myself an author. My first fiction novel Butterfly Dream is available from Amazon and I’m presently working on my second novel, I Killed Judy Garland, which covers my personal experience in the military. Not a biography, but more of a true fiction novel.

I also do background acting and reality shows, plus am attempting to gain acting expense.