Combative Run/1984

Morning formation would be soon, and I didn’t even say a prayer. I couldn’t really swallow, my mouth was uncomfortably dry. I hadn’t slept, in what felt like days. I just lay on the bunk, as if in a casket, with eyes that wouldn’t blink the whole night, frozen, I was frozen, as if trapped inside of a block of ice, I wouldn’t thaw in time, I would be late, I wouldn’t thaw in time, I wasn’t really sick, just sick; sick of living. Sick of being, of not being, of being here, of not being here, of being nowhere all the time, and not knowing how to get back, I have to come back, or I will be late, I need to keep a watch at all times, but I hate time, so I can’t be carrying a watch all of the time, plus I have no pockets in these blue shorts.

“Lord, today I’m not here…Jesus I wasn’t here yesterday either.”

Do I owe myself the luxury of not falling into some elaborate hole, of not being swallowed up? Why am I thinking of falling into some giant ditch, if I haven’t already fallen? Jesus, I don’t fall feet, I fall miles, and no amount of labor is going to get me out, once I’ve made my mind to plunge….. I won’t know how to get out. Maybe I won’t want to get out, I wasn’t home. That’s been happening more lately. I wasn’t home.

I thought of home, of momma, and my little sisters. The girls suffering with momma’s drinking, finding her passed out behind the sofa nearly every night. “Please, come back”, they’d say. This is how it was after momma’s divorce from daddy. She became an alcoholic, only beer could mask the fact that she lost so many years with daddy, she felt as if she wasted them, her youth, on a man who dreamed like a teenager of making it big as an artist, on a man who hit her, frustrated with the reality of his life.

I had romanticized the Army. I wanted to wear the camouflage uniform. To accomplish something for myself, to run away from both of my parents, after the divorce daddy rarely saw any of us, my sisters or my brothers. He was too busy driving around in a new Supra with a young girlfriend, only a few years older than me.

This wasn’t the first time I was here I had come last summer for basic training. I agreed to come back I just didn’t know why. There were things that didn’t make sense sitting in these barracks was one of them. If I lied to myself it was that I was surviving. I called home almost every night, holding myself together during the day, then breaking down, trying to be brave and finish. When momma was home she always told me Mama Tana, my grandma was praying for me.

Momma wished me luck last night on the phone, so did my two little sisters. Momma said, “You’ll make it Matita.” Matita was her nickname for me. It meant little plant in Spanish

I wanted to be better than I was for them.

The barracks were huge, all of the bunks abandoned, except for mine and Redmon’s. She was taking a shower. The Walkman I bought at the PX was $129.00. As I listened to it, I knew I shouldn’t have bought it. But it was essential, as music was like a drug to me. I sat inside my locker listening to my walk man the song “Head over heels” by the Go-Go’s played. The Go-Go’s who played on my Walk man wasn’t so enjoyable because life demanded so much.

The girls I shared the barracks with already wished me luck before they left for Bivouwac, Maxwell, Candy, Tarrok, Timmons, Fujii, and my buddy Eulin. Still inside me I could not find any sign of tangible hope, only empty gestures. Jesus, I envied Maxwell. She met post requirements, which was a hell of a lot better than the fourth brigade Vanguards. Why couldn’t I do that? That would have shown Captain Nix. It would have shown them all. But, inside, deep down inside where I lived, where I couldn’t lie to myself, there was the truth that tortured any happy endings in my mind. I just wanted to get out of here. The song “No way out” by Jefferson Starship was playing in my head it had been playing on my Walkman every night for weeks. There was no way out of this test. I was trapped a literal fly on fly paper trying to free itself, the only way out was to rip its own limbs off.

“It’s time,” Redmon said. "Good luck, you’ll make it." She hugged me and smiled.

I only managed a tortured smile as I gingerly walked downstairs, along with the rest of the third floor. As I walked I began to float away from myself, what walked down the stairs was a clumsy corpse, so I bumped my knee hard against the railing. The injury woke me up. After I bumped it, I wish I would have broken it. My bare knee only ached mildly, while we continued to file down three flights of stairs. It was an odd picture a lot of girls in blue t-shirts, and blue shorts heading downstairs as if we were responding to a fire drill. This morning was no different from the last two months, this particular morning I didn’t think I could take it much longer.

I finally found myself outside in formation, only the tested personnel would have their own formation. I was among those to be tested. The other women didn’t appear so nervous. After all they knew they had a second chance. But I knew better. Inside me, there was this fear of failure and a self fulfilling prophecy that I wouldn’t make it. And yet, I remembered Lt. Colonel Gipson’s harsh ultimatum, “Pass the final P.T. test, no second chances”.

Sergeant Ochoa was in front of our formation in blue shorts and the C-11-4 t-shirt, with the emblem “Charlie Cougars Rock Steady!” He was short in stature, yet extremely arrogant. He had a machismo streak that grated on me like nails on a chalkboard.

He called our names off one by one to pick up our score cards.

“Loera, O’Sullivan, Hamlett, Dufresne, Lucas, Suitts, Chatman…until finally he called Duran.”

I could only do as the rest had been programmed to do. Sweat was married to my face, and I hadn’t even started exercising.

“Do you have your I.D cards?” he asked seeming less comical than usual.

“Dammit it, get your asses back upstairs and do 20 when you get down” Ochoa bellowed.

There were always those that didn’t have theirs, no matter what the circumstance was. So they filed back upstairs after pumping twenty push-ups.

I prayed this nightmare would end. Lord, no matter how this day turned out. It’s no longer in my hands. I had practiced my push-ups no matter what it appeared like to the sergeants. I had tried, no matter what they believed. I knew my push-ups had improved a lot since Basic Training.

We stood at a casual parade rest class #209, for better or for worse.

“Attenshun!” “Left face”, Sergeant Ochoa called out, his face red, his cheeks puffy as if he had been blowing a trumpet. “Forward March!” “Left…right…your left.”

My mind wasn’t much on the cadence I only had a lump in my throat that kept growing, so I couldn’t sing anyway.

“Ah you check us out, Sergeant,” they yelled.

“Left, right, oh left, ah…ah…you check us out sergeant!”

“Talk to me Charlie!” Ochoa yelled.

To me the only cadence that played in my mind was the Go-Go’s "Head over Heels, it said everything I’ve been feeling for the past two months all of the trial and error I had been experiencing. No matter what Sergeant Ochoa sang it wouldn’t go away. And I always thought the hand that reached out to was Captain Nix’s. I used to see him with a halo. He used to say to me, “I want to help you? Do you believe me?”

What could I have done but trust him, he seemed so sincere, and he had helped me run in the mornings. Whenever I had shin splints, he walked with me behind the company. I had taken him at his word, Captain’s don’t lie, I naively believed, Captain Kirk didn’t lie. What a childish comparison it all seemed now. Captain Kirk was only William Shatner, an actor, there was no Captain Kirk. I branded Captain Nix an imposter. His tiny black mustache looked silly. He was supposed to be a soldier, not a librarian. More than the other sergeants, his big dark eyes, weren’t of a company commander, but of someone quiet, a gentleman. He wasn’t like the other pigs, vulgar, he wasn’t a misogynist. Still I hated him, he lied to me.

Our formation headed down the hill that set Fort Jackson apart from any other fort. It was full of hills and slopes which made it difficult to march or run, especially if you had shin splints like I did.

Bloody liar I thought as I spied the short-statured Capt. Nix in his white shorts marching along side of us, as if he really cared. He yawned he looked haggard, as if he forced himself out of bed this morning. The captain didn’t want to look at me, before he used to smile at me when I was marching. I sensed his guilt.

We came to the miniature muddy river, in the road and jumped to avoid moisture in our shorts. We stopped. The rest of the floors continued to their usual P.T.

Sergeant Ochoa stood with us, our mentor, and he commanded us to sit.

“They grade tough, you know what I’ve been saying wasn’t because I had nothing better to bitch about,” he said. “They’re going to give you demonstrations, watch them.”

It was like the pep talk before the Super Bowl. Maybe, he cared if the other soldiers made it. He enjoyed being a bully. So I had to fight back. Ochoa always said, he wasn’t here to win a popularity contest.”

One day, in formation he told me, “Oh poor Duran, she wants everyone to like her.”

“I’m not here to win a popularity contest. Maybe you are.” I could hear the oohs and a few guffaws in the ranks, then he blushed like a little girl, and I was satisfied.

From then on, he really had it in for me, dropping me for push-ups whenever he would see me, whether I had done anything wrong or not. I’d just do what was humanly possible for me, just do my best.

The air was cold especially in our shorts. Then the P.T. Sergeant who was going to grade us walked over.

“Get-up!” Sergeant Ochoa scowled.

And as quickly as we had sat down we were back on our feet again, ready or not to meet the challenge, that befell the class of #209. We came to that awkward bridge in our young lives that would affect us for the rest of our lives.

We were marched over like mules.

“Forward March!”

We marched. “Right flank, march.” We obeyed.

“Left flank.” We listened.

“Right Flank, as zombies in a horde we marched. Until we were where he wanted us we came upon other sergeants who would grade us, they had a severe look on their faces. Their narrowed eyes appeared cruel, they resembled Mafia hit men. I bit my already worn finger nails some more knowing I would soon drown in a sea of my own frustration.

“Females, first,” Sgt. Ochoa growled. As if the reason he did this was to torture me some more.

I was next for the execution, first for the firing squad. The first two squads were told to kneel, I stood. It was demonstration time.

“My demonstrator will show you the correct way to do a sit-up”. Immediately one sergeant got in the sit up position and another held his feet. This is the correct way to do a sit-up. Coming all the way up, and bringing your elbows inside or outside your knees, and then going all the way back down for a count of one." This will not count", he continued, the demonstrator’s fingers coming unlocked from the back of his head, “Nor this”, the demonstrator not going all the way down.

“Most soldiers have trouble with this next exercise, “The Push-up!”

Suddenly a chorus of the push-up, oh, how I love the push-up because it is so good for me," shot through me the exercise I’d feared all through my short military career, came back to haunt me.

I lived here for 3 months, already. Still I could take nothing for granted. I had to make this work. It wasn’t like daddy and momma’s marriage, the ending of that was wreckage I was still trying to extricate myself from. The last years of their marriage were the worst. Daddy wasn’t there most of the time. This was my flight.

The demonstrator had the soldiers in stitches, going down and coming up like a lizard. Going down and coming up like he was making love to the ground. But I didn’t laugh.

I got down on the mat, as he held his stop watch. “Go!”

GO! Heckling me, go, a cruel joke. GO! Like locusts fluttering to the senses. I lifted up a last prayer to Jesus. But what happened next was what I dreaded most since last year’s tough P.T. test in basic. I went down, and came back up, but he counted nothing.

“Zero!” penetrated like a drum. Panic and frustration surged through me. I didn’t know if I could come out of it. So I did another one. ’

“Zero!” sounded like a cymbal crashing, my ears ringing. This time mounds of frustration shot through me, and no matter how many times I went down he counted, “Zero!” like shrapnel exploding inside.

The sergeant finally stopped me. He pointed to the diagram of the push up. On the diagram was the correct way of doing the push-up. Mine obviously was the wrong way. I could only study the diagram and promise to do it right the next time. Every second I was closer to the failure I so dreaded from the very beginning. I tried again, but this try was no better than the first if anything it was worse, my spirit scratched to get out.

“Go see your sergeant”. He said it like a man who was done with a woman, and kicked her out of his bed for the final time. “Go!”

Sergeant Ochoa knew I was coming to him, he had been watching me the whole time.

“Young lady you were ducking your head like a chicken.”

“Sergeant, do I have to finish the test?” I pleaded.

“You started it you’re going to finish it”. His eyes narrowed demanding it. “Now get down and do some.”

My arms were already fatigued and they trembled at the front leaning rest position. I tried to push up and down despite my exhaustion but none to his satisfaction.

“You’re doing it again you’ve been doing it all through the cycle.”

How come I did 27 push-ups for Sergeant Belin?

“I don’t know who graded you he said as if he didn’t hear me say Sgt. Belin. “You never did no more than five correct ones for me!”

“I did fourteen, I said defending myself. Defeat had already descended on me, “Please don’t make me go back.” “Captain Nix wants me discharged anyway.”

“You’re going to go back there even if you do just one.” he growled. "Now go!’

“Sergeant, can I talk to you?” “Please”. He seemed reluctant but let me speak.

“Let me speak to Sgt. Hollins, Please”.

Sergeant Hollins was my Senior Field Leader from Basic Training, and I don’t know why I asked for him at that moment he had hated me too. In Basic Training he had made me put gum on my nose for chewing gum. He had harassed me, and I let him because I liked him. I always found myself in trouble, for one thing or another. The echoes of “Duran” still lived in the barracks of Bravo 7-2.

When I came out of the gas chambers, I stood there, almost belligerently and questioned him, “Why?” My eyes were burning and screaming. I trembled, my knees almost buckling. Still I stood there, adamant “Why?” Other soldiers were vomiting as they were heading down the hill. Another soldier attempted to grab me by the arm, “Come on Duran.” She let go of my arm to throw up.

“Go get water”, Sgt. Hollins told me. “Go get water Duran.” He never answered me.

Maybe I grew nostalgic for him, forgetting all of the torment he had caused me. Or maybe, it was because I had seen him last week in his dress greens on the way to the PX. He remembered me spoke to me like a human being for the first time. He remarked how he was proud of me, and that if I needed any help, to call him, although, he left out the details of how to get in touch with him.

“I don’t know any Sergeant Hollins young lady”, as a wicked smirk befell him.

“Yes, you do”, I insisted, “Please!” I begged as the child took over, watering my eyes.

“Sergeant who?” he mocked.

The fire that once burned inside my belly to defeat Sgt. Ochoa was gone and he knew it.

“Go back and do your push-ups”. There was something almost homicidal in his smirk, as if he relished squashing soldiers like bugs underneath his spit shined boots.

My spirit had been murdered, and he knew it. I hadn’t the slightest idea what I had done wrong. The sun was out, and the other soldiers had finished their P.T. test already. This was the end, and I had no choice but to comply. I had to get in line all over again, even after the Battalion commander’s ultimatum. Sgt. Ochoa became distracted with another soldier who had the same problem I did.

“Vega, you’re ducking your head like Duran.” “Look straight ahead and push.”

It was my turn again, and my timid eyes met with the sergeant’s dismissive eyes. Sgt. Ochoa came over and stood over me as I readied myself in the kneeling position.

“Ready, go.” he said as he released the time on his watch.

I tried to push, but remained locked in the front leaning rest. My face turned red and my tired arms trembled. I tried to go down, but something inside me wouldn’t or couldn’t.

“Push!” Sergeant Ochoa growled.

“Push!” the sergeant who tested me said, as if he were softening.

I looked up at Sgt. Ochoa in an attempt to do at least one push up, I bit my lip, it bled, but my body remained erect in the front leaning rest.

“Get up,” the sergeant sighed at last, seeing no improvement.

What remained were the ruins of a teenager who had lost the will to fight. I stood in a naked vulnerability, crushed for everyone to gawk at me.

“Go to the sit-up. Ochoa growled.

I wandered over to where they were testing for the sit-up. I was lost in a world where it was dangerous to do so, defeated where it was a crime to be. My eyes were fixed, glazed as if hypnotized flunking the push up test, left my heart fragile and open to attack.

“Do the sit-up”, the sergeant said in a kinder voice.

I fixed myself to a good position and the sergeant screamed, “Go!”

I was here for two months, what had I done wrong? Why did I flunk? I thought as tears assaulted my eyes. My kind Capt. Nix was gone, 1st Sergeant Henri, tall, pale, and red headed, reminded me of a redneck, waiting for me with a shotgun. Sgt. Ochoa finally allowed himself to turn on me, like he had always wanted to. He had sent me to Junior Leadership Class earlier in the cycle for a week, not to be a leader, but to get rid of me. I had thanked him for having confidence in me to lead a squad. “That’s not why I sent you Duran I just wanted to get rid of you.”

“Go”, he finally said.

Only to humor him I did the sit-up at a slow pace, I was an angry young soldier for not having the same opportunity as the others. The Brigade Commander, Lt. Col. Gipson, we called “Darth Vader” called me earlier into his office to tell me, "You will only have one shot to pass the P.T. test.

“But why?” I asked. Something was wrong but with whom? With me or the system? I always thought it was with the system, maybe it was me.

“Join the system,” Captain Nix had told me.

We limbered up for the run in formation. The other soldiers did repetitions of the side straddle hop and the various exercises. I couldn’t move. A bizarre fixation took over me I was possessed with my own fear. It was this raw fear that stared at the drill sergeants around me, warning them to back away. The reality of this moment seemed to shatter inside my head. Although I had never been shot, I began to lose my being, as if a bullet were fragmenting any sense of rational thought. There was no blood to indicate that I had been shot, yet I was truly alone. As if death were herding me off to the next reality.

“She’s crazy”, one sergeant said.

“Duran, exercise,” the soldier next to me said.

We were given numbers, mine was 61,

The other soldiers lined up ready to run. Where would they run? As they ran they seemed to float, running to nowhere then disappearing.

“Pvt. Duran, sit down! I heard someone yell, “Over there!” I looked at him, not understanding.

“Young lady, I know you’re acting, I’ve seen a lot of privates”, he said in contempt.

Not this private, he didn’t know me, and he wouldn’t know me. A deflated water bag hung near my head. I leaned against it for comfort.

The rest of the privates ran, but I couldn’t bring myself to join them. I remembered my final P.T. test in basic, a teenager gasping for breath, on the verge of hyperventilation. I ran ferociously determined to beat Fort Jackson at its own game. Her red hot face huffing was splashed with sweat, and her mouth hung open from gasping so hard. But she almost was to the finish line. Her foot was swelled from shin splints, and her knee throbbing with pain. But she would finish no matter what they said. I bolted, running up a hill determined to beat them at their own game. I would finish the race, no matter what.

“Duran!” Ochoa yelled.

There were the obstacles, the drill sergeants, but neither them nor Nix would stop me. Sgt. Ochoa ran after me, but he wouldn’t catch me, I would finish this race, and no one or nothing would stop me until I fell into the brier that towered four or five feet. And I lay. I just lay, as if in a war. The enemy wouldn’t find me if I was silent. The branches of the brier were wrapped around my legs and any movement to them would scratch them. Worse, I was trapped amidst the jagged pieces of poor decisions. I convinced myself to lie still as if dead, until the danger passed.

“Duran!” a familiar voice called. "Come out of there. It was Captain Nix the traitor, the Benedict Arnold of Fort Jackson. He was crazy if he thought I would trust him and go to him. After he wanted me discharged, well now he just about had his damn wish.

My heart couldn’t contain the rage. I had become a runaway train. The tears were not cleansing, I ran like an animal, afraid to be caught. I knew I would die before either one of them caught me. The only other way out was through the dense thicket. Thorns or not that was my exit. I could feel them rub against my bare legs, as if to massage them. My only thought was to get out of this hell hole along with its demons. Then came the holy sensation of pain, it burned reminding me I was alive, blood streamed down my dirty legs. These brief minutes were a utopia. The impolite dream that cut itself out of me yawned into its own reality. I could have stayed here for years. But the powerful injection wore off, as I cast my eyes up and saw Sgt. Ochoa following me from the outside. I crawled, deeper into the brier, scratching my flesh deeper, scratching my thoughts. Sgt. Ochoa like the Red Queen, followed meticulously outside of the labyrinth. I wanted to burrow deeper into the thicket to tune his boisterous cursing out. And so I low crawled through the thicket, maybe I could low crawl someplace else, to get rid of their regulations, to be free from their mind games. None of those assholes would dare come in here after me. This was my sanctuary, my private rabbit hole, my home, my home. I was apart from them at last, I felt safe. And my mind, body, and soul belonged to me again, because they wouldn’t come in here after it. I became lulled into a sense of security as I low crawled. I finally beat them. I beat them. And sensations of my own reflexes rushed through me. My arms and legs were torn, my mind bruised, and I managed to shut them all out, finally. I turned my senses to the Duran Duran song, “The Reflex.”

I continued to low crawl to see if I could find justice in this thicket, if it existed, maybe not, Sgt. Ochoa kept following me, looking at me, yelling at me again, but I couldn’t hear him, that’s why I came in here, like being under water, to drown all of you out, to get out of your world, and create a world of my own…

To say I’ll die on my own terms, not yours!

You with your puny little medals, I came in here to say your medals don’t matter. To say you don’t matter!

To tell you Capt. Nix I don’t care if you stopped seeing me, you couldn’t even keep your word, you are a coward, it doesn’t matter if you betrayed me, cuz I don’t care, I don’t need you, I am perfectly fine, and I can live in here, I’ve been living in here….

There was a peaceful world in here, with the insects, with the things crawling in here, with the bizarre, with the wonderful, without them, without people, with thorns, and prickly things, it was better, than their ultimatums, their mouths stabbing me with their demands, daily demands, and their push-ups, those f——king push-ups, so I did them wrong, who cares, who did it hurt, that I wasn’t level to the ground, are they level to the world, is the world leveled? Hell no, I wanted to punch the sergeant that kept saying zero, zero, zero, that’s why I left to say f—-k you, that’s why I came in here to sleep with the bugs, to say f—-k you!

I could still see them circling me like vultures, just waiting like assassins to ambush me. The smug Sgt. Ochoa, he had no real power, 1st Sgt. Henri, he looked like a giant praying mantis, Captain Nix, barely taller than me, they were there hovering over me like helicopters. The thorns were clinging violently to my legs. I didn’t have my razors, so this was just as good. I could stay in here a lifetime, not having to go home a failure, not having to be pitied by the girls. Wounds were appearing on my arms and legs, I’m bleeding now. Jesus, I’ve been bleeding for weeks.

I exited through a door in the thicket.

I spied the ugly Sgt. Ochoa coming to devour me. 1st Sgt. Henri was on my heels in quick pursuit. Sgt. Ochoa came after me, but he couldn’t even begin to catch me. Now he was running, and the thought tickled me pink. 1st Sgt. Henri got in front of me, and cut me off. I turned back, and was face to face with “Cujo,” as I called him.

But, before I turned to make another run 1st Sgt. Henri yelled, “Trip her, do anything to stop her!”

Sgt. Ochoa took no greater pleasure in doing just that. He grabbed me by the ankles and dropped me to the ground. I felt like momma, my nose wet with blood. He prevented me from getting up every time I did he continued to trip me again and again. I was crawling on my belly, trying to get away from “Cujo”, as if I had been shot, and he was the aggressor. Smelling the earth, my face plastered to the dirt. I crawled a few feet, moving away from him, like a worm preserving its life from a bird. Since I got here, they had me crawling on all fours. They were the vultures who picked the flesh away, the skin, sinew, until it was nothing but bone. They would gorge until there was nothing left. Daddy did this to momma, beat her like she was a dog who just shitted on the carpet.

I remember one night when I was a kid I woke up, I don’t remember why I woke up, something didn’t feel right, the house was too quiet. I was drawn to the living room for what reason I didn’t know. Even with all the lights off, I saw daddy with his hands around momma’s skinny throat, she was on her knees.

“I’ll see you to your grave first”, he said to her.

Oh, Lord, I was the dog who had just shitted on the carpet though I didn’t want to be. He beat her whenever he was mad. A merry go round of beatings, not knowing what day, yet knowing they would come the punches, the slaps, the hair pulling, I wanted to get off of that merry go round, to jump off, not having to run out of breath, with cheeks stained by tears, banging on the neighbors’ doors, dragging them by the sleeves to our house, seeing the reluctance in their eyes, bereft of hope, all the times I wanted to run out of the house and keep running, daddy only wrote me once while I was in here, he send me a box of snickers candies last year while I was in Basic. Sgt. Hollins intercepted my package and thought I was a rich brat, because daddy had his company logo on the package, Empresa Duran. I wanted to say “I’m really a poor kid.” Sgt. Hollins said, he felt sorry for me, “I actually felt sorry for you I thought you were a poor kid. But you’re only a rich spoiled brat.”

I wish I had a knife to cut myself out of this lie, this pretension, this elaborate pretension you created, daddy, this merry go round you made us ride on for years until you stepped off, how can the rest of us get off, momma’s a drunk now, the girls are home, without parents, 12 and 14 years old. “Jesus, daddy you betrayed us all.”

Now a cadre was chasing me through the fort. I found myself running backwards, and not forwards, I’ve always run backwards. But I always found myself running, running towards nothing.

Three years ago, my catechism class had been confessing on a Wednesday night. We had been doing open air confessions inside the cathedral. Instead of kneel in the dark, I would stand before the priest, and then receive the Holy Eucharist. I walked down the long aisle first to give my confession, with such urgency as if to urinate. The priest stood at the altar like the groom. I stared at him for a long time without saying anything.

“I’m a puppeteer.” I begin to weep hysterically.

At 16, I couldn’t stand to live my life anymore. Everything up until then had been a charade I needed to destroy as rotted skin. I couldn’t stand the strings attached to my body anymore, like thick hooks. But it was I who was the puppet, and I rebelled against the sheer hell of having my strings pulled. Momma and daddy had been pulling them for years, making me dance, since I was the obedient child. I had been their personal Pinocchio, as unreal. I ripped off my strings, in Church, cutting the strings, with every lament. So the priest had taken me outside into the cool night. I expected him to be a certain way, like Jesus, I guess, and when he lit up a cigarette, disdain came over me, as if nothing was right with the world, I wanted to tear the world and start over, so I ran into the night to recreate myself in it.

That’s when I started seeing Larry Cormier, my therapist. He was a gentle tall black man, so understanding more than I deserved. Larry had pleaded with me not to join the army.

“You don’t think I can do anything” I fired back. I wished I would have listened.

I limped badly now. Still 1st Sgt. Henri couldn’t catch up to my swift gait. He was still in his P.T. uniform he held a clip board with which he held hard against my chest to slow me down.

“Private Duran, why didn’t you ever talk to anybody”, was all he said.

I did, I tried to talk to Captain Nix. But he betrayed me. He said he wanted me to be successful. The times I wandered into his office, he talked to me, even though I didn’t have an appointment. He hadn’t enforced the Chain of Command, when everything in me was about to burst, his door had been open to me. Until the evening he said he agreed with the others, and wanted my discharge. After all of the positive conversations we had in his office, it came to this. He was with the others, there was no “us,” or “we” barely, even a “me”.

By this time they had called two other soldiers to push me down and stop me. I was stopped and my plans for freedom were halted, but only slightly.

I attempted to get up, but 1st Sgt. Henri yelled at me, “Stay where you are!”

My class was already gone. There was chaos all around, soldiers I had never seen. I covered my eyes with my hands then covered my entire head tight under my arms.

“Why aren’t the M.P.’s here?” was all I heard.

I only lifted my head to take a glance. I noticed they weren’t looking. The sergeants were involved in conversation, I could only guess to decide what to do with me. In between their discussion, I had a chance to get away again. Would I take it? I would have to. I lifted myself up and ran as if my very life depended on it.

“She’s gone again!”

Only this time I wouldn’t let them catch me. I would have to keep going. They didn’t seem to come. Was the chase over? I held my head up and limped to the brilliant sunlight, a victory. It was a silent victory, even though I was bloodied and dirty faced. I didn’t surrender my dignity. I did not have to subject myself to the inhumanity of finding a face. I didn’t have to sit there dying while everyone else finished their test. My flesh was torn but I was alive again. My clothes were stained with mud, my shirt ripped from the countless times, the soldiers and plants grabbed at me. It didn’t matter that I limped, that I lost my shoe. The new socks I bought yesterday from the PX were filthy. Still, I could breathe. I had been suffocating. None of it mattered. I had ripped Capt. Nix’s wings to shreds.

An ambulance followed me, cutting through the fields behind me as a tractor with blades. A final gush of adrenaline shot through me, exhausted, I released myself like a cork. But they released the soldiers, as hounds, once again. . They couldn’t catch me. Whenever they tried to grab me by the t-shirt, I turned sharply away from their grasps, until an ambitious soldier jumped me.

However his strength couldn’t keep me down. I pulled myself violently away from his grasp. There was a bird lost inside of me, taking me in flight like Icarus. I reached higher and higher into the clouds, celebrating my escape. I shouldn’t have looked down. I noticed the Lt. Col. He didn’t follow me, he only shook his head.

Still I was determined not to be caught. I walked from side to side, to avert them, as if I were navigating through a fun house. They stopped chasing me, they were clearly exhausted. I could see them standing still, panting. The obedient soldiers re-grouped, and came around for one last final battle. They attempted to out flank me. Still, I continued on I had come too far. I could see the barbwire fence in the distance. This was the final obstacle. The ambulance, the paramedics, the Colonel, Capt. Nix, 1st Sgt Henri, and the soldiers came after me like an angry mob. I was cornered. There was no place to retreat to. They would capture me after all. I wouldn’t succeed. I had one strategy left. Climbing over the barbwire was my only chance, my only hope. I’d have to take it.

“She’s climbing the barbwire!” someone yelled.

I was almost over. I smelled sweet freedom away from the madness of C-11-4, away from Sgt. Ochoa. I couldn’t stand him another second. Lt. Colonel Gipson had spun his web with precision. Both he and Captain Nix won. But I didn’t care I was practically over the fence, until a paramedic grabbed me hard around the waist. There was no going back. I embraced the razors of the barbwire. I had worked so hard to get away from them. I wouldn’t give up so easily. He’d have to tear my body off, so my hands gripped the pointed tips of the barbwire even tighter.

“Let go.” Capt. Nix called out to me.

The palms of my hands bled like a stigmata. But my mind hadn’t processed any of it. My arms and legs were all scratched, but there was no more pain.

“I accept my fate, Lord,” I whispered silently.

When the paramedic grabbed me by the waist, I fell back into myself. This morning had been calling out to me for weeks. These soldiers were enemy combatants. He pulled me roughly to the ground. My teeth tasted earth. The two soldiers who had been chasing me finally pinned me down and restrained me. Like any good soldier I fought until I was captured. I attempted to struggle in their grip, but they had their orders and wouldn’t let go. One of the soldiers standing over me held my shoulder with his hand. The paramedics took out the leather straps, and bound me around my waist, wrists and ankles.

The war was over, so I smiled. It was over.

“Now she’s smiling”, someone said.

“I told you”, I prophesied. “I told you Captain, I was an animal.” The utterance of those words delivered me.

It didn’t matter that they didn’t care. I was freed. They laid me on a stretcher. Strapped like a dumb animal. It was then, I surrendered. My body in funeral repose, there was silence. I could see Sgt. Ochoa had an expression of incredulity. 1st Sgt. Henri was nonplused. And I saw Capt. Nix, he sort of mourned for me. Even though I didn’t make it over the barbed wire, I had escaped.

Finally an exhausted paramedic broke the silence.

“The game is over!”

It didn’t matter I was serene, knowing I had found my way home.

_______________________________________

“And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes;

There shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying.

There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

(Revelation 21:4)