I don’t know how this story starts or ends.
But it has to start somewhere.
When I was a kid I liked fantasy books.
They invariably had a lot of battles.
The heroes were good – the villains bad.
Things were always clean.
I remember being as young as maybe seventh grade and wanting to go to West Point.
Women were being allowed in combat roles – it hadn’t been many years since they were but they were I think then. This was more than 25 years ago – before 9/11.
I came from a family where women did impossible things.
I wanted to do impossible things.
In high school I wrote both my term papers on military history.
Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, and Alexander the Great.
I thought things were clean.
The wars were starting but it didn’t hit so close to home.
No one I know went to war – it was a funny thing to do where I lived. We were the Fortunate Sons.
I didn’t go to West Point.
I went to Penn.
The city streets slowly to fill with more and more veterans as the wars waged on.
The recession hit in 2008. I was in college. No internships that paid and no jobs when I graduated. Those that got jobs and internships – they paid to fly around the country for interviews. They took summer roles in other cities. They paid for housing in those cities. They relocated.
We didn’t do remote back then. Interviews were in person.
Or they took the few unpaid ones in Philadelphia. I took one – I left it to work retail after a few months.
Around graduation I made my way to the 69th Street Army Recruiter. We were in Afghanistan then. I had my degree so I could enter as a second lieutenant – infantry, boots on the ground.
I met with the recruiter.
I was slim, in shape, horribly miserable but nothing on my record. Just wanting out. A way out of where I was.
I took the quick test – I forget the name now, I’m sure I could look it up. They needed bodies and there weren’t jobs so when you showed up they’d give you the 10 minute screen. I got 90/100 on that one. Might’ve been paper back then. It was 2010.
The recruiter said he could have me processed, through basic and officer training, and overseas by October. I remember October. I could’ve been in Afghanistan by October as an officer.
I was 22.
I remember going home to think about it. I remember arguing with my father. I remember him talking me out of it.
In October I was hospitalized for the first time.
The depression, disordered eating I hid, and massive amounts of Benadryl I was taking to try to sleep caught up after an incident at work. I didn’t tell the doctors about the Benadryl, or how long or bad it was. Disordered eating back then, and maybe now, wasn’t really caught until it was end-stage. Any nutrient deficiencies would have been missed. They didn’t know about the abnormal EKGs, the low heartrate readings, my roommates prior intervention for my eating, the assault I didn’t admit to myself until my 30s. Shame can make you hide a lot of things.
But that October, when I was hospitalized, I had 2 roommates.
One was Army, who had tried to end her life.
She was 18.
She had this beautiful smile and laugh and big round glasses.
I asked her what her role was.
She said she was a medic.
I said “Oh, so you’re the one who saves people!” Or something equally naive. I didn’t understand the horrors of that conflict back then. The roadside explosions that would’ve torn people limb from limb. God only knows what else.
But she just smiled, with eyes far older and sadder than her age should’ve allowed her to have and said “yes, that’s what I do”. To protect me, someone four years older, from knowing what she must have seen.
She was discharged before me. She told me she was shipping back out in a few days.
That was the last I saw of her.
Laughs and Lobotomies 