Shielding my face from the cold wind and drawing hard on the cigarette I’d managed to light, I relaxed and watched the sea of students. In and out doors they rushed. Students half my age, at best.
Not much had changed since I was their age. The girls sported hip-hugger bell-bottoms or bleached-out, faded jeans. Hair was different, but make-up, eyewear, shoes and jeans were the same as I remembered. Back then, I’d knotted the legs of new jeans with long shoestrings, bleached them in water for a snowflake pattern. No two pair alike. Faddish once more.
But some things were original by way of a common embellishment. Cell phones extended from fingers and fastened to ears. In with the same friends, block out the new, or can’t you see I’m on the phone?
Our first obstacle of each new day: Any overlooked parking? Not on your life. No shared rides. No hitchhiking. Just a new way of doing old things.
Okay, enough daydreaming. Running late for my last class of the day. Get it over with. Two hours home and back to the other half of my life. The traditional half.
The non-traditional student. This term didn’t offend me. I’d fit its status most of my forty-seven years. My last boss had asked, “So let’s see, you’re quitting your job to go to school full-time, at age, what is it, forty-six?” He grinned when he read my resignation. “And how old were you when you joined the Army?”
“Thirty-three.” I grinned back.
“So, you’re just kind of a late bloomer, huh? You seem to run about fifteen years behind everyone else.” He had a sense of humor. I’d miss him.
Short on memory, sight and money, it proved a constant challenge, this pursuit of my degree. Push and hold, push and hold. My G.I. Bill would end soon. I’d make it that long at any rate. After that, I didn’t know. No stashed cash at my house.
Class ended. Crossing the commune of campus life, I noticed an advertisement. Be bold enough to question even the existence of God.
No, not much really ever changes.
I humped my backpack and wished for a chiropractor. Too much reflection. Get home and study. I had a paper due soon, and it presented its own problems. What to write about that hadn’t been written already? What unasked questions?
Questions sometimes bother me, other times I find comfort in their company. War, God, life and wisdom.
News.
At this point, any news was good news. I waited on his phone calls constantly, my Marine just past initiation. My nineteen-year-old son was training with machineguns. I’d encouraged his enlistment. I had my own combat patch.
Heading home. Hitting the long highway, slipping the gearshift into fifth, my mind into memory lane.
It wasn’t like a sudden thing. Few things in life are really sudden. The world sees a beginning, a rather large middle, an ending. Then you start other stuff. Joining the military had been that way for me. Tit for tat, this for that.
Except for work, I’d locked myself into a lonely apartment back in 1987. Buddies had pushed for my presence at the pool, but I’d resisted. Determined I was. I’d talked to a recruiter. Bless his heart, I’d chased him. My G.E.D. wasn’t enough for admission into the United States Army, the only branch I was eligible for. I was too old for the others. The military required fifteen college hours in lieu of a high school diploma, I had only four.
Next up was enrolling in the nearest junior college, spending every waking and non-working hour studying—problem solving, accomplishing goals. Single parents couldn’t join, so my family status was good to go too, at least as far as military matters. On paper, I was still married.
Aaron had traded me for his dad two years prior. Even at age three, my son was convincing. California was their home, shortly after Doug’s and my separation. Halfway across the world. It was the first time since I’d given up my son that there was something positive for me in this decision. Yes, a lot was missing. Aaron and life. I needed to retrieve one of them.
Tears of pride streamed down my face as I raised my right hand with other recruits. I swore a new oath in Amarillo , Texas
My first duty station was in Washington, D.C. With one promotion under my pistol belt, I arrived as Private Second Class Austin, mosquito wings attached to my collar. Museums, concerts and the Beltway. Didn’t drive while stationed there, but nearly missed bus stops at interesting intervals. Couldn’t take my eyes off the color of the leaves and the old gray stone buildings. Reveled in walks along the grassy mall area, that place peppered with the heads of lovers. They watched as their small children snatched Frisbees from the sky.
The Bicentennial Inauguration paraded into history. I watched and listened as President Ronald Reagan passed the baton to President George Bush, the forty-first United States
Horses pranced pretty. They and the riders they carried visited from the very armory I’d taken my ASVAB test at in Lubbock. Old history chronicled anew for me.
Apple blossoms and subways. Like a kid on a new adventure each time I stepped outside Abrams Hall.
Weekends at the Smithsonian. Long walks along the war memorials inaugurated with the Vietnam War Memorial. Don’t know why I visited there first, but it was primary each Saturday. People mourning their losses, crying while standing next to a beloved soldier’s name. Mothers, as broken as the land Maya Ying Lin had cut into grieved as they garnished the hard ground with a red rose or merely stood and wept near their son’s name carved in black granite.
I searched for the names of two of Doug’s friends, then asked a nice man to rub their impressions onto waxy paper. Reached my hand up their wall, re-wrote their names with my finger. Cold marble stole the warmth of my finger.
Then I’d sit for a half-hour or so before further exploration. It wasn’t always easy to swing from death into life. Had to do it in short stages, long pauses.
Dog tags bounced against my chest, I uttered a quiet prayer for those veterans left behind. I knew they still hurt along the way. They sold souvenirs, their long hair pulled in ponytails, maybe their memories caught just as tight. Once I bought a POW bracelet and a T-shirt. It seemed the least I could do.
Too soon, consideration of war called my name.
I came up on levy during the Panamanian May 1989 presidential elections. I didn’t want to go. I wasn’t leaving until December, giving me months at hating the fact I’d be leaving D.C. and one of the freshest years of my life. The best job of my life. As a 76 Victor for the Overseas Support Branch at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, I possessed a civilian job in a military uniform with plenty of perks. Regular hours, no formations, “P.T. on your own,” flag detail in the midst of cherry blossoms rather than weapons qualifications on a blank dusty range.
It was a fellow soldier, Kovita, a co-worker with a boyfriend in admin (it’s good to know people in admin) who enlightened me of my pending orders as she passed me in a run near the hospital one day. I shouted at her as she ran further out of sight. It didn’t take long for me to do a quick halt, a smooth about face, and sprint to the admin building.
I spent the next six months buried in paperwork. Per orders of the First Sergeant, mission essential paperwork was to be initiated by the E-5 in charge of me. Triplicate copies. Proof of my essential missions at hand.
My roommate barraged me with newspaper photos of concertina wire strung by soldiers on alert. Each político tried to make their votes count, still, more tallies than citizens, more fear than freedom.
Runs in Rock Creek Park stood in stark contrast to forced observations of duty in Panama. Research labs in Kenya, Bangkok and Malaysia depended on me for medical supplies and equipment. I supervised myself in Overseas at that time, would’ve preferred the two oceans saved for something like leave.
My extension wasn’t critical to my NCOIC. “Austin, you worry too much,” she said after I asked. She never expedited the paperwork. I can’t remember her name, but I’ll never forget her face.
I must’ve been self-possessed the day I noticed the Sergeant Major and the First Sergeant as they talked in the hallway near the vending machines. I approached the Sergeant Major and asked if he’d heard anything on my extension.
Some might call it skipping chain of command.
Nothing had reached his desk, he’d said, then stared over at the First Sergeant as the three of us stood there at the vending machines. We made candy and coffee choices and then I left and headed downstairs to my office. I didn’t have a good feeling about this. But then, I hadn’t since the day Kovita ran past me near the hospital, her world still familiar. Mine, a pillar of salt.
I didn’t personally hear all that transpired between the First Sergeant and my NCOIC, but the triplicate forms were suddenly labeled Hand Carry, and as such were delivered to our command. Fort Detrick
My orders came. So I went.
No more strolls through the Smithsonian or shed tears at the Vietnam visual poem. The awe and hush as the guard changed in front of the Tomb of those “Known But to God” grew silent.
The door wasn’t just closing. It slammed shut.
I flew on December 11, 1989, nine days before the invasion kicked off.
December in Panama.
Panama was hot, and not just the politics. I landed on the pacific side of Panama at Howard Air Force Base, which joined Fort Kobbe—my new home. Dense jungle, no more than a few hundred feet away surrounded the small base. Mountains appeared as a jagged haze in the woody distance. Dressed in my green and government issued woolen suit, I suddenly felt as if I were enveloped in a sultry fog in the middle of some surreal paradise. Choppers climbed the earth’s atmosphere. I descended the steps of a C-130. Perspiration poured off me even before I tugged at my two duffels. Some pimply boy with a pointed head chose to ignore me.
At last, two non-commissioned officers drove up in a hummer. One of the two shouted, it resembled the beginning of a verbal attack. “AUSTIN?” and then waved me over. I hoisted the straps of one duffel bag over my back, slung my purse over one shoulder, pulled the second duffel up to my free shoulder. Bogged down with baggage nearly twice my weight, I strove toward the men and my ride with as much confidence as possible. Sweat pellets, sticky-hot, trapped themselves within my blouse and wool jacket, huge beads drizzled down my chest, tickled my back. The underarms of my polyester blouse sported two small bodies of water.
With a grudge, the NCO who rode gunshot helped me throw my duffels into the open hummer before I lifted myself over the back and climbed in. The driver, another non-com, a non-talker it seemed, shifted, leaned, and turned wide into the road’s traffic. I hollered out a couple of questions to the NCOs from the hard bench I shifted and bumped upon. Answers from the front of the hummer shot back at me in short sentences only. It was only a few blocks to the barracks. Glory.
After we drug all the baggage up three flights of stairs and into my room, I tried conversation again as I glanced around the room of two twin beds, two wooden dressers, two wooden lockers, one small desk, one small fridge, and (oh, joy!) one bathroom complete with what? Only a shower? I’m a bath person.
“Oh, good,” I said. “A private bathroom.” No latrine duty. It was clear to me that I had a roommate, but one roommate isn’t too bad in an army barracks. In my military career, I’d had up to fifty-nine.
“You got our room,” gunshot NCO said. “We had to move because of the females coming in.”
I might’ve said I was sorry or some sympathetic verbiage, but I wasn’t sorry at all. Then right before he slammed the wooden door behind him, gunshot turned and pointed toward the Army Commendation ribbon on my jacket flung upon the bed and said, “They don’t just give away ARCOMs at this unit. You earn them.”
“I did earn it.” I’m a bit ruffled now. But I’m talking to the door.
After securing my baggage in the one available locker, I went downstairs to in-process at my new unit. That’s when I learned I was one of five females in a battalion of five hundred soldiers, a mere skinny of the 536th Engineer Battalion (Combat) (Heavy).
Heavy as opposed to light meant we built things. Well, that was something at least. We didn’t have to blow them up.
Locked down within days, on full alert, I watched as my own face zitted-out like I was sixteen again. The sand fleas were deadly enemies until somebody tipped me off on the weapon of choice. Baby oil. Perfect. The fleas must’ve cut their baby teeth on razor blades. Drown you little suckers! Oh, the beauty of an oil bath, but keep it off your facial pores.
Cussed at, hollered at and stuck on KP. During some bit of organized fun (for someone else who didn’t have to peel potatoes), I’d looked down at the potato starch that powdered my newly starched Battle Dress Uniform. I felt like crying, but didn’t. I copped the Army’s biggest attitude and was determined to hate the unit.
Supporting the mission of ousting Noriega, feeling far from essential, checking ID’s and waving crazy traffic through. Chopper pilots readied themselves on a nearby field. Blades from their Black Hawks fanning the tall grass, spinning a hum, reminding me of the noisy cotton gins of my youth. A religious whirl of colossal fans that had once lulled me to sleep at night then roused me at daybreak during the cold winter months at home. Peaceful noise. Now a true oxymoron.
Twenty million alerts later, we received our war briefing. It took the invasion itself to get me out of the way of potato starch and other by-products.
With tears in his eyes, my company commander said, “This is not an exercise. This is the real thing. You’re going out and earning your paychecks. I hope you all come back. Some of you may not. I pray to God, you all come back.”
Relieved there was an instructional icon on the thirty-round magazine, I eventually got seven magazines loaded. I hadn’t held an M-16 in nearly a year.
That first night, the U.S.
I remember, and not vaguely, wondering what in the world I could’ve possibly done to deserve this. Images of Walter Reed danced and performed jumping jacks within my shocked brain. I began to determine and plan my way out of combat heavy. Back into the land of civility.
I dreamed. I prayed. I sent a written request to a Captain, the former boss who’d appreciated me in Overseas. She’d given me the ARCOM. Then finally, reality set in. No one is indispensable in the Army. Orders I’d hoped would buy my way out of Panama
My head, still in Panama, my heart, still on that phone call I wanted from Aaron. I made the curve to the left of the “Y” in the highway.
It’s scary to contemplate the oh-so-little one really does have control over.
Go hug a tree.
Plains the sign said. Texas border town, thirty-six miles from my New Mexico home.
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