While I served in the military, the Air Force was a social club compared to the Marines.
I’ve known Greg Cope White for some thirty years, and have admired him every minute throughout. That he could write as intriguing and honest a book as The Pink Marine is no surprise.
This is the story of how, through pure gumption, a most unlikely Marine candidate rises to the occasion to show his (rainbow flag of) true colors. This guy has lived a life!
Greg’s hilarious and amazingly insightful re-telling is so much fun to read.
For five years, on the television show Covert Affairs, I had the privilege of pretending to be a member of the US military. For six years, in the United States Marines, Greg pretended to be straight. He wins.
The Pink Marine will inspire you, make you laugh, and remind you of what’s important in this life.
A great story beautifully told—surprising, funny, courageous and inspiring.
Greg ‘s The Pink Marine is funny and relentlessly honest. If we have any reason to celebrate the imposed silence of President Clinton’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, The Pink Marine is it. Had Greg talked back then, we wouldn’t have this book now.
The Marines got a great soldier out of it. And we civilians got a great author.
Marine Corps boot camp was the toughest thing I’ve ever done. I don’t know that I could’ve survived the ordeal if I’d had to carry the secret of being gay along with my pack & rifle. Greg managed to endure more than most Marines, and he came out of it with a rich, enlightening, and affecting tale of endurance.
The Pink Marine is a wonderful book and I’m proud to be a fellow jarhead.
Greg is as inspirational as he is hilarious—I love him and I love this book!
Authentic, inspiring & lots of giggle moments! Greg nails it with this interesting and important memoir.
Hysterical, witty yet serious, Greg shares a very personal look into the life of military service and comes through with flying colors in this honest and funny book!
The Pink Marine is a beautifully detailed passionately written and very necessary book—it’s the fascinating and surprising story of a gay man in the military, told with respect, wit and insight.
THE PINK MARINE
The Pink Marine is the story—full of hilarity and heartbreak—of how a teenage boy who struggles with self-acceptance & doesn’t fit the traditional definition of manliness finds acceptance and self-worth in Marine Corps boot camp.
The Pink Marine is a memoir set in the 1980s U.S. Marine Corps. Greg Cope White, our unlikely hero, is a gay 18-year-old who joins the USMC with his straight best friend Dale. And it’s insanely dangerous for both of them because being gay in the military is illegal – yes, against the law.
Enlisting was his first battle – he has to cheat to pass the physical and then lie on the enlistment papers about his sexuality. This was a time when Out was not In.
Greg had survived his chaotic childhood—he attended 13 schools in 11 years—with just enough sense to pack five suitcases for boot camp.
However, with Dale to guide him, Greg arrives in the bizarre world of USMC boot camp burdened only by his secret of being gay.
Midway through the thirteen weeks of recruit training, the struggle to survive and become a Marine, trumps his fear of being found out. With each major failure and tiny success, his confidence grows. Here in the place he’s not technically welcome, Greg finds his place.
As fate would have it, turns out the Few and the Proud are a bunch of oddballs and eccentrics. Greg discovers that everyone enlists with some feeling of being different – and thus, a brotherhood is born. All enter as ‘other” and most (spoiler alert: not everyone) graduate as Marines.
In a world where the landmines are both literal and metaphorical, The Pink Marine takes a hard—and hilarious—look at masculinity and what it means to belong.
PARRIS ISLAND USMC BOOT CAMP
When my best friend told me he was spending the summer at Marine Corps boot camp, all I heard was ‘Summer’ and ‘Camp’.
PINK MARINE CHATTER
The Pink Marine is ALL BUSINESS as a cover story on Bloomberg News.
Greg takes a cake he made with him to discuss The Pink Marine on The Frank DeCaro Show.
Greg speaks to Queerty Magazine in this candid interview.
Greg gets in bed with Audible producer and sexpert Susie Bright to go between the sheets & explore the steamier side of sex in the military.
Good Men Project finds that The Pink Marine book “applies to any man, any person, gay, straight, military, civilian, poor, rich…”
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