The Book That Inspired Boots Ends On A Hopeful Note

Netflix’s new dramedy, Boots — a show about a young gay man who joins the Marines — is inspired by Greg Cope White’s memoir, The Pink Marine. The book chronicles the author’s transformative experience going through boot camp in 1979. At the time, gay service members were banned from the military, forcing White to hide an important part of his identity — at least for a while. As he recently told The New York Times, “The Marines definitely gave me the confidence to come out, which I know is ironic.”

Boots isn’t a beat-for-beat adaptation (for example, it’s set in 1990, not 1979) but Cope White worked as a writer on the series, so it still bears his imprint — especially when it comes to the tenor of the series’ conclusion.

Here’s how The Pink Marine’s hopeful book ending inspired Boots.

An Unexpected Path

In The Pink Marine, best friends Greg and Dale (who inspired Cameron and Ray in Boots) enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps. Dale had a real desire to join the Marines, while Greg, an 18-year-old lacking direction, mostly tagged along.

Boot camp on Parris Island was grueling for the pair, not only physically — Greg had to fake his weight to meet the program’s minimum — but mentally, too, as he faced homophobic slurs and the constant fear that his sexual identity would be discovered.

Ultimately, he was able to keep his secret — and Greg and Dale were able to lean on each other for support. “That allyship is what I wish every little gay kid had,” the author would later tell Military Times.

Greg came to see his entire squad as a family, too, despite their differences. “I hated and loved them and I cared about them,” he wrote.

Beyond Boot Camp

Before graduation, the author was one of six men promoted to private first class, and would go on to achieve the rank of sergeant before pursuing a career in screenwriting. He even collaborated with Norman Lear, who wrote the foreword for The Pink Marine and served as an executive producer on Boots before his passing in 2023.

Looking back on his time in the Marines, Cope White wrote that the experience taught him strength and self-respect, and stripped away his “primal fear.” And just as the Marines taught him perseverance, he hoped that writing The Pink Marine might inspire readers struggling with acceptance. As he put it in his book’s introduction: “I wish everyone could hang on for a moment past any self-doubt. It does get better.”