When he went off to fight in Iraq, the 39-year-old Los Angeles resident did what any airman might do. He took with him a photo of his beloved, a reminder of who waits for him at home.

But the airman is gay. So the photo he carries with him appears to be of his dog. The pet is in the foreground, and the man's partner of five years, a 41-year-old talent agent named Brian, is in the background, as if Brian were a friend who just wandered into the frame.

The United States armed forces deem open homosexuality a risk to morale, good order, discipline and unit readiness. Gay servicemen and women who reveal their sexual orientation or are found to be homosexual are subject to discharge.

As a result, Brian and other partners of American military personnel are the invisible players on the home front. The media are filled with photos of the worried families of straight soldiers, including their tearful, poignant goodbyes or their joyous reunions. But gay and lesbian partners can't share such scenes. They can't access the support services the military offers spouses. They can't be sure they would be the first to find out if their loved ones were wounded, captured or killed.

"We do our goodbyes at home behind closed doors and then drive to the base or the airport ... and, there, we'll just shake hands like we're brothers or friends," Brian said.

Brian's partner has been mobilized several times since they met, said Brian, who asked to be interviewed in a booth at a Beverly Hills restaurant, where other diners would not overhear. He declined to let his surname be printed, lest it reveal his partner's identity to other airmen. The men keep in touch by e-mail, but they never know who might be reading their exchanges. "We have to keep our e-mails very sterile and cryptic," Brian said.

Brian said he hates pretending that they are just pals, but subterfuge has become second nature for his partner after almost 20 years in the Air Force.

Their caution extends to the greeting heard by anyone who calls their Westside home, a house that Brian lived in for years before he met his partner: "Our answering machine at home has to be in his voice only, no mention of me," Brian said.

Brian tolerates these evasions, which he blames on the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. "Americans shouldn't have to do this," he said.

A Department of Defense official pointed out that "don't ask, don't tell" is the law and said: "The department continues to work tirelessly to administer that law in a manner that is both fair and consistent. The Department of Defense remains committed to treating all service members with dignity and respect while fairly enforcing the provisions of the law."

In 1982 the Defense Department formalized World War II-era policies against allowing homosexuals to serve.

As a presidential candidate, Bill Clinton supported repealing the ban, but early in his first term he softened his stance in the face of opposition from the military, Congress and a substantial portion of the U.S. public. The opposition argued that the presence of homosexual soldiers could offend or make other troops uncomfortable, undermining esprit de corps and possibly compromising security.

In 1994 the "don't ask, don't tell" compromise took effect. Recruits could not be asked their sexual orientation, but evidence of homosexual conduct could be turned over to unit commanders for fact-finding investigations.

In recent years, most European countries have begun allowing out-of-the-closet gays to serve in their militaries. In the Middle East, closeted American gays serve alongside openly gay troops from Britain and Australia.

Among the 19 NATO countries, six do not let openly gay men and women serve: Greece, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Turkey and the United States. Ireland and Israel are among the 24 nations that allow openly gay soldiers.

Aaron Belkin, director of the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military at UC Santa Barbara, said his group is keeping watch to see whether other nations open their militaries to gays as a result of a 1999 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that led to Britain's lifting of its ban in 2000.

The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network in Washington has counseled and provided legal services to about 3,000 gay, lesbian and bisexual Americans in the military over the last decade.

The defense network advises gay soldiers filling out military life insurance forms to describe the beneficiary partner only as a "friend."

Similarly, the defense network advises gay soldiers to use "friend" on the form that tells the military whom to notify in case the soldier is wounded, taken prisoner, missing in action or killed. Next of kin must be listed on notification forms as well, and blood relatives are more likely to be called than "friends," say the defense network and other advocates for gay soldiers.

Unlike blood relatives and straight spouses, gay and lesbian partners don't have access to base support groups and services, and they often can't visit hospitalized service personnel, let alone have a voice in their treatment.

Brian is listed as a friend on his partner's notification form, and Brian doubts that he would be treated like a mourning spouse if his airman partner were to fall in battle.

"If something were to happen to him, they're not going to knock on my door. They're going to go to the person who is first on that list, and the person who's first on that list is not going to tell me," Brian said.

In wartime, when manpower needs are high, soldiers who are identified as gay are less likely to be ousted than in peacetime, according to a 2001 report by the UC Santa Barbara center. Discharges often all but stop during the actual conflict, only to pick up again as soon as the fighting is over. Discharges for homosexuality tripled after World War II ended in 1945, the report notes. They also surged after the Korean War.

After the Vietnam War, discharges for homosexuality didn't increase significantly until 1977. Sociologist Rhonda Evans, author of the UCSB report, speculates that the end of the draft heightened the need for willing soldiers, whatever their sexual orientation. During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, discharges of gay military members were put on hold, only to be started again when the fighting was over.

But gay service people in the U.S. military are always at risk of exposure, war or no war, advocates say.

Kathi Wescott, a staff attorney with the defense network, said the organization warns gay military members that their secret may not be safe even with their military physician, mental health professional or chaplain. Defense attorneys in a court martial or other legal proceeding in which a gay soldier is the defendant "are really the only safe place in the military where people can talk openly about their sexual orientation," she said.

According to the UCSB report, lesbians in the military are much more likely to be expelled than gay men. In 1999, almost a third of the 1,046 American military members discharged because of their sexual orientation were women, although they made up only 14% of the active armed forces.

A contractor in Southern California, 27-year-old Jen has been the partner for more than a year of a woman now serving on a Navy ship in the gulf.

Jen, who also asked that her surname not be used, knows firsthand what happens to sailors who are identified as gays or lesbians. She graduated from the Naval Academy and served as a naval lieutenant until last year, when she was discharged after deciding, she said for reasons of integrity, to reveal that she is a lesbian.

Now she worries what will happen to her 34-year-old partner, who is coming to the end of a long career as an enlisted woman.

The women talk every day via e-mail. Jen fills her partner in on what's happening at home, including the state of her finances. The active sailor signed two boxes of checks before she shipped out and trusts Jen to pay her bills on time.

Unlike Brian and his airman partner, the women are "pretty open" in their exchanges, though not so explicit as to raise alarm: "There's not a lot we censor," Jen said.

They know that their e-mails are read by the Navy for security reasons, but they feel it is important to nurture their relationship, now more than ever, given the pressures of war and distance: "We work really hard at staying close," Jen said.

But the couple took precautions as well. The women created an e-mail account in the name of the mobilized partner. Both of them use that same sign-on when they correspond, which makes it almost impossible for anyone to identify the recipient of the sailor's e-mails.

The woman at war has an informal support group close at hand. Three of her four roommates are lesbians—a statistical anomaly, according to the defense network's Wescott. (No one knows how many of the U.S.' 1.4 million service members are homosexual, but the UC Santa Barbara report repeats standard estimates of the size of the gay, lesbian and bisexual population in the United States — 1% to 6% of women and 2% to 8% of men report having had at least one sexual experience with someone of the same gender.)

But back home Jen is cut off from the support system established by the military for spouses: "There are resources here on land I'm not allowed to tap into."

The base ombudsman is off limits to her, for one: "If I were a spouse, I could call that person and find out what was happening on the ship," Jen said. Jen has a good relationship with her sailor partner's parents and trusts that they would call her if anything happened to her partner.

Being able to acknowledge their love, Jen said, "would take a weight off our shoulders."

Although Jen said she is not bitter about the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that ended her naval career, she thinks reform is overdue. "The policy needs to change because there are so many gays serving and serving well," she said, sounding like any proud spouse of an American service member. "They're out there, and they're fighting for us."

As the troops return from the war, gay and lesbian military members will have to exercise restraint no one expects of the straight soldiers they fought beside.

"The goodbyes are not the hardest part," Brian said. "It's the hellos. The first time you see your partner in five or six months, it's very emotional. And you have to shake hands."