Autumn along the Italian Dolomites in 1945 was more like the spring of one's youth, full of tenderness and promise. The war had ended and at last one could think of living and of home.

In our outfit -- the 88th Infantry Division -- everyone became "Home" or "Homes." I remember one roll call when the platoon sergeant called out, "Private Dominick Homes, Corporal Jonathan Home, Private Marvin Homes. . . ."

We were alive! And we were going Home.

In October I was appointed orderly to General Fry. I took care of Villa Peragallo, along with Maria, the cook, and Rosa, the housecleaner. Villa Peragallo, atop Mount Tofano, reached by a cable car at Cortina d'Ampezzo, was the former home of King Victor Emmanuel III, and the 88th commandeered it from him. The general was seldom there.

I usually had to wait several days for mail because at Villa Perogallo I was so far removed from my company. One day a non-com got off the cable car and gave me several letters. Of course I opened the one from my girlfriend first. When I read that one of our high school classmates had killed himself, I was sure that he had been persecuted for homosexuality. Home, our precious home, home for him must have been Hell. I read no more that day.

A few years after World War II, when the Soviet Union, the United States, and China began to square off against each other, Max Nomad said, "Three dogs are fighting over a bone, and they ask me which side I am on. I am the bone!" But skip several years to the 1960s, and people -- especially Blacks and young people -- did rise up against oppression and war. And, as Jeffrey Escoffier points out in his article, modern homosexual politics dates itself from the Stonewall riots of 1969 when gays too began to fight back.

We are proud that this issue of New Politics features a special section on the Gay Movement and the Left.

Other articles and reviews range widely: education; health care; the Middle East; the struggles of Native Americans, Blacks, workers, and women; social welfare; and more. All of them remind us that La Lutte Continue, that, while, like Martin Luther King, we may not reach the goal in our lifetime, struggle for us is its own journey.

We invite our readers to respond to articles and reviews. New Politics welcomes lively debate.

MARVIN