Gay Marine Receives Romantic Proposal From Boyfriend At Camp Pendleton After Long Deployment (PHOTOS)

In a heartwarming sign of the post-" Don't Ask, Don't Tell" era, one gay marine was greeted with a romantic wedding proposal as he returned to San Diego's Camp Pendleton this week.

As San Diego LGBT Weekly is reporting, Cory Huston -- himself a Navy veteran once assigned to the Marines as a hospital corpsman -- dropped to one knee before asking U.S. Marine Avarice Guerrero, who was returning home from a long deployment, to marry him. It's believed to be the first proposal of marriage and engagement between two gay men, not to mention two war vets, on a U.S. military base, according to the publication.

"I was blown away," Guerrero gushed of his new fiancee. “I was shocked that after all we’d been through, he would honestly want to spend the rest of his life with someone like me.”

A nervous Huston told LGBT Weekly called his decision "a huge step" before Guerrero's arrival.

Read the full story here.

Check out some photos of the proposal, courtesy of LGBT Weekly, below: