At Greg Cope White’s interview for the Marine Corps, a handsome recruiter asked him if he’d ever had a homosexual thought or experience. It was 1979, years before “don’t ask, don’t tell.” White lied and answered that he had not—“even though I was having one right there,” he said the other day, standing outside a military-recruitment center in Times Square.

Cope White is the author of “The Pink Marine,” a spirited memoir, published in 2015, about his time in basic training, which forms the premise of the new Netflix series “Boots.” He was in town from L.A., and he’d stopped to look at the recruiting station, which sports a wall-size L.E.D. American flag. He rang a buzzer, and an unkempt man in Army fatigues (known as utilities) opened the door.

“Hi, I’m a marine, and I wanted to say hello,” Cope White, looking chic in all black and small tortoise-shell spectacles, said. The door closed as if the place were a speakeasy. “I could see he had two potential recruits in there,” he said, figuring that the guy didn’t want to be interrupted. “Marines would never recruit in that outfit. We always put out a crisp image, with royal-blue trousers and red stripes.” He mentioned a stiffener in the jacket collar, then added, “We also wear impossibly shined black shoes. It’s all very gay.”

Cope White, a cheerful Texan raised by a peripatetic single mother, joined the Marines with his straight best friend. They arrived at Parris Island, in South Carolina, to find trainers calling them “faggots” and “retards.” After serving his six years and leaving the Corps as a sergeant, Cope White moved to Manhattan and then to Hollywood, to write for TV. Norman Lear, a decorated Air Force veteran, took him under his wing. One of his first jobs was revising a script for Arnold Schwarzenegger about a Marine drill instructor who moonlights as the tooth fairy.

“Norman was a mensch,” Cope White said. Lear wrote a foreword for “The Pink Marine” and helped sell “Boots” to Netflix before his death, in 2023. He also insisted on casting a gay actor to portray Cope White. (Miles Heizer plays the role.) The series takes place in the nineteen-nineties, though at one point Lear wondered whether they should set it in the present day.

“But it’s legal today,” Cope White said.

“Yeah, but is it cool?” Lear replied.

“I don’t want to improve so much that I feel like I have to participate in a triathlon.”

Cartoon by Frank Cotham

Maybe not. Pete Hegseth, in his diversity-purging rampage, has removed the name of the assassinated Navy veteran Harvey Milk from a battleship. Military bases have had to remove Pride flags. And President Trump has banned transgender people from the military.

“It’s scandalous,” Cope White said. “They’ve served their country for twenty years and suddenly they’re worthless and denied pensions.” Not that the “don’t ask, don’t tell” years were so great. “It was a witch hunt if someone wanted to get you in trouble,” he said.

Still, he remains an almost evangelical enthusiast of the armed forces. In Los Angeles, he mentors veterans in a screenwriting program run by the Writers Guild Foundation. And, wherever he goes, he looks for fellow-marines. Later, outside the Intrepid, an aircraft carrier turned museum, he introduced himself to a volunteer guide who had served in Vietnam. “Semper fi!” Cope White called out. The older man wore a badge with a photo of himself as a new recruit. Cope White showed the boot-camp photo he had on his phone. “The difference between that photo and Hollywood is that in boot camp you only get one take,” he said. The guide, heading home to New Jersey, where his local V.A. hospital takes care of him despite budget cuts, pulled a Marine Corps Challenge Coin from his pocket.

“Here, take one,” he said, pressing it into the younger man’s hand.

“Wow,” Cope White said, locking eyes with him. “Thank you, what an honor.”

While two helicopters buzzed over the Hudson (“They’re in formation, so I assume they’re military and not taking people to the Hamptons,” Cope White said), he chatted with a young female security guard who wanted to join the Air Force. He leaned in. “Now, don’t be insulted, but it’s just a vibe I’m picking up,” he said. “I’m wondering if by any chance you are L.G.B.T.?” She said that she was. “O.K.,” he said in an affirming tone. “Are you concerned about what’s happening today?” She was. “Don’t let that stop you, because the people you’re going to serve with will love you,” he said. “It’s the people on the outside who are hating.” He congratulated her for wanting to serve her country and for not hiding her rainbow under a bushel. Then he showed her a proper salute: arranging his feet at a forty-five-degree angle, he brought his hand up to his smiling face with stiff intention, and it vibrated there like a tuning fork.

“That’s a snap and pop,” he said. “Not like Trump. When he salutes, it drives me crazy.” ♦