Page 104 of Fight Or Flight

Eric

Join the Army, they said. It’ll make you a man, they said—and by they I mean my recruiter and the people who wrote the Go Army pamphlet. Everyone else told me I was fucking nuts, and you know what? They were onto something.

Let’s call a spade a spade. Things were bad before the wheels hit the tarmac in Georgia. I felt as though my heart was beating outside of my chest, like I had left it in Newark Airport. I was an empty vessel. A lump of matter that served just to exist.

But then the powers that be said—wait, hold my beer.

The Army didn’t take things slow, there was no gradual progression. I became theirs the moment I lifted my hand in salute and reported for duty. Upon my arrival, they ordered me and the hundred and fifty other trainees to line up and place our luggage in alphabetical order. None of us knew each other’s names, and they gave us three minutes to complete the task. But three minutes in military time is like ninety seconds. It was like they were intentionally setting us up to fail.

No failed mission goes without punishment, and so it began. They ordered all one hundred and fifty trainees to drop and give them fifty while singing The Star-Spangled Banner as loud as they could. Now, thanks to my dad and his brothers, I could do fifty push-ups without breaking a sweat or blinking an eye, but the Knights never had me sing while doing it. It was challenging.

After the sing-along, they brought us to our bunks, and I met the members of my platoon. We were all babies; I think the oldest guy in my platoon was twenty-one, and as I shook all their hands, my mind drifted back to the day my mom walked me into kindergarten. She told me to be nice to everyone and to make as many friends as possible. I took her advice at five and I took it again at eighteen because let’s face it, this is a lonely job. Everybody needs a friend and at the end of the day, I’d likely know more than I care to know about each of these guys—like what time they take a shit and all sorts of other useless nonsense. So, with my mom’s voice sounding loudly in my ear, I asked the guys where they were from, if they had anyone back home waiting for them, and what their favorite sports teams were.

Rogers was from North Carolina and had a fiancée, Tompkins was from Oregon and he and his girlfriend had decided to break up before he left. Then there was Crimmons who got married twenty-four hours before leaving, and his new wife was three months pregnant. Barrows was from Ohio and had no one waiting for him, and neither did Harf, who was from South Dakota.

There were others but I couldn’t remember their names much less if they had a significant other and forget about what baseball team they liked. By the time they called lights out, I was drained and on top of trying to recall every fucking thing I encountered, I couldn’t stop thinking about Brooklyn. I wondered if she had pressed the Build-A-Bear’s paw yet, and if my voice brought her any kind of comfort. Lord knows, I wished I had a bear of my own.

The days that followed were horrible, and something became painfully clear. Uncle Jack was right, they were going to try to break me. It didn’t matter how hard I tried to do the right thing or be a good brother to the men in my platoon, they were going to destroy me. Mental toughness was ninety-nine percent of surviving basic training, and I was failing.

I couldn’t call home and the mail was so backed up that I didn’t receive any letters for the entire duration of the red phase. I wasn’t even sure if anyone was writing me because I couldn’t remember if I gave my mom the correct information when I called her upon my arrival. It was a twenty-second phone call. I think I told her I was safe, and that I loved her—that’s it.

In that first two weeks that’s all I got, one twenty second phone call, and that’s mainly because my mom was the only one who taught her son how to play nice with others. Barrows and Harf were constantly picking fights with someone and fucking up left and right, but when one brother falls, every brother falls, and we all got our phone privileges taken away.

We eventually entered phase two—the white phase—and I started it off with a bang. Being away from home with zero communication was really getting to me. I missed my family, my mom’s lasagna, and more than anything, I missed my pretty little hurricane. I yearned to hold her, to hear her voice and get lost in her stormy eyes. I couldn’t go through all the photos on my phone because my drill sergeant had possession of that, and I had no idea when he was going to give it back and grant me permission to call. All I had was a photograph of her I printed out a couple of days before I left and tucked into one of my bags. Surprisingly, it wasn’t confiscated during inspection and still sat safely at the bottom of my bag.

One night, after I received the weapon I would use throughout the duration of my training, I took the photo out of my bag and slipped it through the slats of the bunk on top of me and when I laid my head on the cot, I stared up at her beautiful face. I couldn’t have her next to me, but I made sure her face was the last thing I saw before I fell asleep.

One of my so-called brothers ratted me out to my drill sergeant and the next morning I found him standing at my bunk, holding Brooklyn’s picture. I can’t even describe the anger I felt in that moment or the fucking fear and let me be clear, I couldn’t give a fuck less about me and any punishment he physically tried to inflict. I’d do ten thousand push-ups while reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and whatever the fuck else he wanted me to say, but if he destroyed my photograph or took it like he took my phone—well, that weapon was lying around here somewhere. I’d fucking blow my brains out.

I know how that sounds, but you should know my state of mind at the time. There was no question of me breaking, I broke the second I saw him holding my most prized possession. But my drill sergeant must have surmised that because he handed me back the photograph and told me if I wanted to keep it, I needed to earn it.

I pushed until my arms felt like they were on fire.

I ran until my legs buckled.

I did sit-ups until I threw up.

But I kept my picture—well, at least for the night.

The next morning, I woke up, and the picture was gone. I tore my bunk apart, ripped the top one from the wire frame and tore that apart too. Then I heard the laughter.

Burrows and Harf.

“I bet she looks good with a dick in her mouth,” Burrows taunted.

“Those fucking lips,” Harf chimed in. “Thanks for the material, Montgomery. My dick thanks you too.”

I take it back. The anger I felt while my drill sergeant held that photograph was a fucking walk in the park compared to the fury pulsing through my veins when I overheard that bullshit. I lunged for Burrows and in one swift move, I lifted him off his feet and threw him down on the floor. With my boot pressed to the side of his face, I plucked the photo from his hands.

“Oh, come on, Montgomery,” Harf said. “We were just fucking around. Get off him!”

“Fuck you,” I spat, glaring at him as I pressed my boot harder against Burrows’ face.

“She’s probably taking it every hole,” Harf fired back. “Girl like that ain’t going to sit around and wait for a soldier to get her off.”

My jaw clenched and my vision blurred as those words fermented inside my already failing mind. I stepped over Burrows and went for Harf. Rearing my fist back, I let it collide with his jaw. I would not survive this shit.

No way.

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