Allen R. Schindler, Jr.

Allen R. Schindler, Jr. (December 13, 1969—October 27, 1992) was an American Radioman Petty Officer Third Class in the United States Navy who was murdered for being gay. He was killed in a public toilet in Sasebo, Nagasaki, Japan by shipmate Terry M. Helvey, who acted with the aid of an accomplice, Charles Vins, in what Esquire called a "brutal murder". The case became synonymous with the gays in the military debate that had been brewing in the United States culminating in the "Don't ask, don't tell" bill. Schindler was from a Navy family in Chicago Heights, Illinois and was serving as a radioman on the amphibious assault ship USS Belleau Wood in Sasebo, Nagasaki. According to several of his friends, Schindler had complained repeatedly...