Retired Marine Staff Sgt. Eric Alva sat down with the Lake Front for his first and only in-depth interview since he came out publicly and spoke out against the military's "don't ask, don't tell policy."

What prompted your decision to become involved in this cause?
The story goes…ever since I got injured four years ago I actually wanted to do something, maybe like a non-profit group, such as getting alternative prosthesis for people, especially in this community, in the Westside, that don’t have the resources to get high-tech prosthetics like mine. So I wanted to start a non-profit group and I never got off on that.

It was around September last year when I was at home and my partner was mentioning to me that coming home to San Antonio I had a little bit of notoriety and people knew me, the newspapers knew me, the TV stations from KENS, KSAT, WOAI, everybody knew me and I knew quite a bit of the anchor people. So he was just mentioning one night that my notoriety is going to wear out soon, you know ten years from now some people will remember you, but if you ever want to do something you need to do it now, cause you are always talking about how you want to help people.

He went to bed that night and I sat up and I really thought about everything. I thought about some things as far as the elections were already happening and people had started doing the signs with man plus woman equals marriage, things like that, and quite a bit of the other things about how the other rights are taken away from people and so I started to focus on that. That I don’t even have just the basic rights coming home from war, even sacrificing.

So I actually stayed up pretty late that night. I am a member of the Human Rights Campaign and I sent them an email saying you don’t know who I am, my name is Eric Alva I was the first American wounded in Iraq War in September of 01, I have the credentials to back it up, blah blah blah. I told them if there was anything I could ever do, just to volunteer, please let me know.

So they said we would appreciate that and a month later they contacted me again and said Eric we want you to come to Washington D.C. So after school was done in the fall of 06 I actually flew to Washington D.C. and met with the Human Rights Campaign People and they said we would like to use you in the future if you don’t mind probably for some speaking and things like that but this means that you are going to have to come out, like tell people who you are because they asked me do people know who you are and I said no people don’t know I am.

I said family and friends do but not everybody. So Christmas and New Year’s passed and the new year started, the spring semester here at Our Lady of the Lake started and that’s when I get a phone call from the Human Rights Campaign. Congressman Meeham from Massachusetts was introducing the new bill called the Military Readiness Enhancement Act. It’s a bill to repeal the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy that Clinton enacted in 1993, not allowing gay men and gay women to serve openly.

On Feb. 28 on Capitol Hill I sat next to Congressman Meeham and we testified in front of a press conference that I was the first American wounded and this was the reason that I wanted to ask to repeal don’t ask, don’t tell because qualified men and women people just in nature are being discriminated against for who they are and there are men and women who are fighting under the policy of don’t ask, don’t tell some are dying and some are wounded like myself and then we come home and we are not given the same benefits and rights as everyone else and we fought for this country.

So it’s like how backwards is that? How disrespectful and dishonorable is that? It was basically my basic rights that led me to this cause and not just for myself but for millions of others. Some people are now starting to call me a civil rights activist.

I had never thought about that. It’s just me working to make sure that people of oppression are taken care of. My partner was the foundation and the Human Rights Campaign has been the building blocks to get me where I am going.

How did you become involved with the Human Rights Campaign?
My partner was a member way before I was. I didn’t join until June of 2006. I always used to just pass off his pamphlets and magazines. I encourage everyone to go onto the Human Rights Campaign website and look at all the work they’ve done. I just learned last year through their website that in this country it is still legal in 33 states for an employer to fire someone just for being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. It still happens.

There was a story a few months ago where a city manager in Florida actually came out and had press conference and stated that he was having his transgender operation to convert from a man to a woman. Two days later the city fired him. That’s just total, total openly discrimination. I think Cracker Barrel did it back in like 1992.

They fired someone who worked there who was openly gay. They said we don’t want you here because Cracker Barrel is supposed to be like family oriented and things like that. But it’s discrimination . And there are still 46 states where it is legal to fire someone just for being a transgender. So that is another way I got involved, by looking at these statistics through the Human Rights Campaign. At first I was just a member by donating my annual fees but now I am even more involved.

What is on your personal agenda for the cause?
My personal agenda and plans for the cause is to get the word out as much as possible. I am actually going to take a sabbatical in the fall. I am going to take off and I am planning to tour the country on a speaking engagement. Go to colleges and universities and speak to student bodies across the country from California to New York.

Hopefully just express my story to students and the younger generation to help make sure that we don’t keep repeating history, even from the 1960’s that it’s okay to discriminate. It’s not. I am also in the process of writing a book right now. So it’s been pretty busy.

What impact do you hope to have by coming out?
It’s been a positive impact. I hope to really make people think twice about judging someone. I taught this to my mom too because she still denies it. But I said this over and over to people and I didn’t learn this until I was in college in California and I went to the Simon Wiesenthal Museum.

It’s a holocaust museum where when you buy your ticket and you enter the gates there are two tunnels where you go through and the sign over them says do you have prejudice? And one says no and one says yes. Everybody tries go through the no, no matter what. But when they do sirens and horns go off because you really can’t open the door, you really can’t go through it because it wants to teach you we are all prejudice in our own way. We all form a basis of judgment and pre-judgment before really getting to know someone.

My plans for the cause is to teach people that it is okay to have prejudices and we all do it, it’s natural. But it’s if we continue to act out those prejudices into discrimination by firing someone for who they are or telling someone they can’t have a job because they are African-American or telling someone they can’t take this teaching job because they’re Asian and they have a strong accent or they’re Latin or something like that. It’s just plain out discrimination. My plans for the cause are to educate people on tolerance and just show people what the diverse beauty of this country is about. By me coming out I also know that I have helped people of the young, elderly, middle aged, all groups to be true to yourself. I know that it is not easy.

I’ve gotten emails from young kids, 18, 19. I’ve gotten emails from 62 year old men saying that they have never come out and they have lived their whole life just too afraid of what their family would think. I think that by me coming out it shows people that they can be courageous and brave, to be who they are and to stand up to people, to take a stance that if people are going to love them they are going to love them for who they are. If not then it’s kinda hurtful to know that someone is judging you because you’re not what they want you to be. I hope that my coming out it will give people hope and the courage to be brave and think about what kind of life they want to live in this world and not just someone else’s happiness.

What are your personal goals for the cause?
Rights for myself, stuff that I know I have rightfully earned especially in this country. Rights for myself and millions of others. I plan to advocate and lobby continuously for rights and what our fore fathers have preached for for so long, the pursuit of happiness and that all men are created equal. We haven’t done that in 200 plus years. We keep denying that from its original creation.

What message do you hope your decision is sending out?
I hope that it is sending out a positive one. To tell people to be who they are. It’s not something to say gays rule or transgenders rule or stuff like that. I hope it is just to send out a positive message and also educate people on the stigmas people will apply to certain diverse groups like mentally and physically disabled people. People automatically apply a stigma that well they can’t do this because they’re like that or like all gay people carry AIDS or things like that. Those are stigmas and we continue to do it to each other because it’s been like that for years and years.

Like because statistics show that the majority of men and women in prison are minorities, black and Hispanic, and so people continue to stigmatize that if a kid goes into a store he is automatically there to shoplift. We need to stop doing that. We need to educate each other and progress in the future. We need to work together to keep this country safe. I hope that message is sending out a positive on that we need to treat each other with respect and dignity from whoever we are.

What are future plans for the degree you are pursuing?
Help people of diverse groups, work with disabilities, and lend a helping hand wherever I can. Even if it is just to lend an ear, support, just to listen to someone. Just get to know people and really help people of oppression.

Like the elderly, that’s a crowd that’s forgotten sometimes. People figure well they are like old already, they have lived enough. Well they still need a kind, good, warm words and conversations in their days. I just plan to help wherever I can.

Last semester, there was talk of a Gay/Straight Alliance being formed on camps. Were you involved in this? We did get signatures and people to join the organization. After awhile on the old WebCT discussion board when this was first starting to get up and running there was a discussion where people were logging on and there were just some really just terrible things people were saying.

I stopped reading like after the first day because there was some pretty much bigotry and ignorant comments people were saying about just people in nature. About the university that this is a Catholic school. Let them keep their secrets to themselves or keep their sins to themselves. It was just awful. The organization is still in the works to get off the ground.

Because you do attend a Catholic university have you hit any brick walls or have you felt like you lack support from the university?
I’ve gotten support from the university not personally from the President. I haven’t seen her since my mom’s graduation in 2003. I have gotten support from all my professors. Of course all my professors being social workers all naturally give me their support. All my professors have been very supportive. Other than that people on campus have come up and told me what a good job I am doing.

No one has even brought religion into the factor. I think it’s kind of a hypocrisy sometimes when one religion is badgering someone else for what is deemed not right in their eyes when they have their own little situations they need to fix as well. The Catholic religion’s reputation speaks for itself. So it’s kinda ironic that they would be quick to judge me. I have gotten very good, very positive back from the school including my fellow students and students that I have never even talked to. They just come up to me and say you’re the guy on TV well I think what you are doing is great. So it’s been great.

Did you ever see yourself here?
No, not like this. Not this global because actually I have been getting emails from the United Kingdom, Norway, Italy, France, Canada, it’s gone all around the world. One of my former coworkers, Sgt Petereson was in Iraq, he’s still in Iraq.

He was watching the TV in the mess hall, near Baghad, he was just eating the next thing he knows he looks up and I am on TV on Cnn. So he emailed and asked how come you never told me and thigs like that. So I think even there people are seeing it even in Iraq. I think it’s a little hard for some people people who worked with me for so long and didn’t know.

They ask me why I didn’t tell them and I say I didn’t want to take that chance or put you in that kinda role where okay I have to turn him because he has broken the policy, he’s told someone. So I said it’s my secret and I kept it. All I ever wanted to do which I did was do a good job. I never did think it was going to get this big or really didn’t have a chance to see it get that big or something. It’s been good, really good. It’s just going to get bigger and stuff. I think a lot of people will reap from my outing myself or just being true to myself.

So I think that will be good to help people of all walks of life too, not just for people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender. I think other people from all walks of life that have ever felt that they’ve been oppressed for just being who they are. So people are going to gain the courage and the bravery to stand up for their own rights. I mean we have to. That’s what this country’s about. We are an example of to the rest of the world that we are a nation, a country free of different states of freedom and equality and it’s total ludicrous that we’re not.