Brody's Notes... U. S. Naval Academy Interment Of Gay Alumni & Treatment Of Spouse "Dignified & With Honour"

Mark Ketterson   Photo By John White Chicago Sun-Times

By Brody Levesque (Bethesda, Maryland) JAN 30 | Last October in the Chapel of the U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, a quiet funeral service with full military honours was held for John Fliszar, a veteran U. S. Marine Corps aviator and academy alumni. Fliszar, 61, had suffered a fatal heart attack last July.

Fliszar, Class of 1971, who had served two tours in Vietnam as an aviator and who was gay, had told his husband that he wanted his ashes interred at the academy's Columbarium,  a peaceful waterside white marble mausoleum located by the academy's cemetery.

Fliszar's husband Mark Ketterson, in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper, said that he had contacted the U.S. Naval Academy and at the point that the memorial coordinator asked about his relationship to the deceased:

Ketterson said that John Fliszar was his husband. “They were always polite, but there was this moment of hesitation,” Ketterson recalled. “They said they’re going to need something in writing from a blood relative. They asked, ‘Are you listed on the death certificate?’ ‘Do you have a marriage license?’ ” He was and they did, the couple having been married in Des Moines when gay marriage became legal in Iowa two years ago. Ketterson sent a copy of the marriage license. That changed everything.

“I was respected,” he said. “From that moment on, I was next of kin. They were amazing.” The USNA alumni association sent Ketterson a letter expressing condolence for the loss of his husband. The USNA says Fliszar’s interment followed standard operating procedure. “His next of kin was treated with the same dignity and respect afforded to the next of kin of all USNA grads who desire interment at the Columbarium,” said Jennifer Erickson, a spokesperson for the academy. “We didn’t do anything differently.”

The official magazine of the academy' alumni association, 'Shipmate,' published Fliszar’s obituary taking note that he had been awarded two Purple Hearts for “having been shot down from the sky twice in military missions.”  The obit also quoted Ketterson saying that “for the rest of his life he would joke about his ‘government issued ankle.’ ” Ketterson also told the Sun-Times that the obituary recalled, “his burly but warmly gentle manner," and noted he was “survived by his husband, Mark Thomas Ketterson.

The USNA’s alumni association also sent him a letter expressing condolence for the loss of his husband. 

“The word ‘husband’ in the obituary has created a bit of a stir,” said Ketterson, a Chicago social worker. “I’ve heard from a number of officers. It’s been amazing. This has not been absolutely confirmed, but I think I’m the first legal same-sex spouse who planned a memorial.”