Two Veterans, Two Stories

By Abby Baker

Army Lieutenant Colonel Phyllis Plotnick and Navy Seaman Robert Stanley live a city apart, but they both joined the military at 22, in unconnected parts of the country, both gay, both serving at a time when queerness could result in discharge.

Here are their stories, told half a lifetime later.

Phyllis Plotnick, now and then.

Photo by Amy Baker

Slide to Safe

Once a year, Plotnick steps into the army-green uniform she wore for 21 years – three years active duty and 18 in the Army Reserves – to walk in Gulfport’s Veterans Day Parade.

“I might need to find my Spanx,” Plotnick jokes. This year, pre-parade, she remembered life 50 years ago, when the Vietnam War was in full swing.

After a college softball injury inspired Pennyslania-born Plotnick to pursue a degree in physical therapy, she joined a medical program in the Army in 1969 – against her fathers wishes.

“The important part is that I slid into second and I was safe,” she jokes. “But really, I wanted financial independence. I have a great deal of respect for women in the military, but it was unusual at the time.”

Plotnick, later pictured with her all male unit at a training camp.

At 22, Plotnick began treating Vietnam soldiers alongside a unit of female comrades. Their patients consisted of mainly men younger than Plotnick, often for life-changing injuries. For her, the results of war were beyond what she imagined: amputations, spinal cord complications, burns. Plotnick worked in hospitals in San Francisco, New Jersey and Texas, meeting countless people fading in and out of consciousness.

It’s a blur of nameless faces and the horrors of what happens when steel meets flesh.

“We didn’t have the experience to be around this,” Plotnick says. “We were young and working with people even younger than us, many of which were boys coming into manhood that had no idea the way their lives were about to be changed forever.”

Deep in the ‘80s and deep places like Missouri, where the remote locations almost mimicked Vietnam, Plotnick says, she worked in mainly male training units to obtain her Expert Field Medical Badge. She developed deep relationships with her teammates, but never stepped fully out of the closet.

“I wasn’t out, I couldn’t be, but many of my friends knew,” Plotnick says, flipping through faded photos. “I knew people that had electric shock therapy... and the societal barriers of course.”

It wasn’t until 1993, three years after retiring from the reserves, that Plotnick openly marched on Washington for LGBTQ (then just LGBT) rights in the military. A familiar name around town, the veteran eventually settled in Gulfport and started the Phyllis Plotnick Health Fund, a nonprofit supporting women’s wellness.

“I find there are a lot of matriarchs in Gulfport,” Plotnick says with a laugh.

Out Together

Korean war veteran and Navy man Robert Stanley lives in a turquoise home in St. Petersburg lined with Egyptian art, self portraits and photographs of him and his late husband, Chuck Mitchell.

But that’s now.

At 22, Stanley joined the Navy and worked as deck man on the USS Garcia during the Korean War.

What did a deck seaman out of Rhode Island do in 1959?

“I cleaned the ship and did as I was told,” Stanley said. “There were 213 people on the ship, and we were from everywhere. I broke up more fights than I got into. At times it was funny, but not ‘ha-ha’ funny at all.”

During his seven years of service, Stanley traveled to places like Bermuda and Barcelona, out at sea for three weeks at a time. At an offshore bar, Stanley met a man with two black eyes, accused of “homosexual activity.” His higher ups were threatening to send him to the Marines where they would “beat it out of him.” Eventually, he was discharged. Stanley doesn’t remember the man’s name, but he remembers one disturbing thought:

“If he’s white, and they did that to him, what will they do to me? I’m black.”

The always joking, always blunt Stanley.

Photo by Abby Baker

“Chuck was the most talented person I ever knew,” Stanley said.

Nonetheless, Stanley was “out to himself” but there was a strong, unwavering blanket of “hush” over any type of gay pride. After his service, Stanley didn’t linger. He went home to Michigan to work in healthcare for the next 28 years.

At a Detroit day party, he met Chuck Mitchell.

Stanley is the humorously bristled, life-of-the-party type with the urge to impersonate anyone and everyone in his stories. His one soft spot was Chuck.

“I saw him, but my friend liked him, at the party... but wouldn’t you know, he just walked across the street and went to work without saying goodbye to anyone,” Stanley says, still annoyed. “Six months later and there’s that little man at my door. He asked me, ‘Who painted that horrible picture of you?’” Mitchell was referencing a self-portrait in Stanley’s home.

The multiple paintings and photographs of the two in Stanley’s home were more up to par, apparently.

“Chuck was the most talented person I ever knew,” Stanley said. “He had talent, but he didn’t know how to control money at all.”

Once the two made it to Florida in retirement, they joined the Gulfport American Legion Post #125 and settled in St. Petersburg with a tiny dog and a knack for art.

Mitchell recently passed, but his memory lives on with wild stories and loving anecdotes speckled with a Navy man’s vocabulary.

Stanley and his late husband Chuck Mitchell.