© The Associated Press/Toby TalbotIn this March 21, 2012 photo, Norwich University cadet Joshua Fontanez stands on the parade ground in Northfield, Vt. Fontanez, president of the Norwich University Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Question, and Allies Club, says the club will be hosting its first ever Pride Week at Norwich University.
Cadets in uniform at Norwich University, the nation's oldest private military academy, participated Monday in sessions about handling bullying and harassment as part of the school's first gay pride week. The events are believed to be the first of their kind on a military campus.
Just over six months after the end of the "don't ask, don't tell" rule that prohibited gays and lesbians from serving openly in the armed forces, it's a different - and less secretive - world.
Until last year, only a select few at Norwich knew of the sexual orientation of Joshua Fontanez, 22, of Browns Mills, N.J., a past president of the student government who quietly laid the groundwork for the school's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning and Allies Club, which held its first meeting the day the law ended.
He had always wanted to be a soldier but figured he'd have to keep his sexuality a secret.
"The aspects of my sexual orientation, how that played in the military, that was something I was willing to sacrifice, being open versus serving my nation," Fontanez said. "It's something I feel I was truly called toward and truly loved, so it's great that I don't have necessarily to make that sacrifice."
