Stark Stabbing Shame

I saw them as I parked at the ferry terminal running as fast as they could. They stopped, a brown man and a white man, both stocky, both panting, both beaming. The brown man stuck his chest out talking shit about how much faster he was. The white one made excuses...something about the wind, like he'd win if they ran again. I've seen this before many many times. They both wore thin, crudely designed crew cut tan t-shirts. Both sported hair that dared not touch their ears.

When I saw them, part of me was drawn, part repelled. I had the option of grabbing my I.D. or avoiding the subject. I left my I.D. in the car, suddenly relieved my purple heart license plate was facing the opposite direction. What I felt was somewhere between a fleeting pride in brother/sisterhood and a stabbing shame in the same.

I boarded the ship without a second thought of the gentlemen. It was to be a 4.5 hour trip to Juneau on the slow ferry, but it was beginning to look like it might take closer to 5.5 as I sat in the dining hall waiting for the boat to finally leave the dock. My mind drifted slowly through the happenings of the previous weeks, elation, depression, dancing, inspiration, suicide, river, eagles, alcohol, pain, friendships, life, love, meaning, family, and the trip I was about to take...marriage. I let my eyes scan the room. I took time to meet Max, a Frenchman riding the ferry to Ketchikan and Marita, a girl from Austria who'd contacted me on couchsurfing.org desperate for help the morning prior. I also saw Pat and Erin, two of my four hitchhikers I had picked up on my drive from Whitehorse to Haines.

Erin gave me a bracelet she had just made for me in gratitude of the ride for which they had been waiting since morning. I smiled to myself because traveler karma never ceases to amaze me. I will always grin at the red, yellow, and black pattern against my skin, and fondly remember taking them through the border...watching the astonished look on the border patrol officer's face when he asked how we know each other, and I told him we didn't...that they were hitchhikers.

I sat in the solarium on a lawn chair, reading The Help, a book given to me by Katie Farnam in return for The Sound of Music, which I passed to her in South Dakota after she and her mother took care of Tommy and myself in their camper. Katie is the daughter of the camp host at Wind Cave's campground. A brilliantly aware young mind of 11 years, she's a child that reads, travels, camps, bikes, explores, and plays outdoors. A child that doesn't own a cellphone...doesn't WANT a cellphone. SO rare these days. I bet there's no way they could diagnose her with A.D.D. since she's actually outside playing daily, burning energy and not sitting sedentary in front of a television nightly.

Shame. I digress.

I made my way to the bar and sipped a bloody mary while chatting with an Australian man who piqued my interest when he responded to the bartender with a disbelieving, "Come on now! My country's much more developed than that! We've got refrigerators and such! We HAVE ice!" I shook my head. Another American, another silly question. No wonder the rest of the world laughs at us. Pride and shame. Shame reigns the strongest most times.

I left the bar intending to continue reading in the fresh air of the solarium. What is Minny going to do to Miss Hilly? However, I happened upon the brown man and white man from the parking lot on the way. I stopped, knowing I shouldn't. We chatted. I gleaned their names are Marvell and...well, I forgot the other guy's name. They are part of the active guard reserves in Juneau. MPs. They were bragging about their new HMMWVs that were tan colored and uparmored! How exciting! They talked to me as if I wouldn't understand their acronyms. I almost gave myself up when asking questions that I probably shouldn't have known how to ask. I need to work on that. They asked me if I was an investigating Colonel. Me? A Colonel? I guess I'm the first 28 year old female Colonel with blue and purple crazy hair the army's ever seen!

Somehow it came about that I speak languages. The first response from Marvell?

"You should join the army!"

"Why? Because I speak languages?"

"Yeah, you could be an interpreter!"

"Uh...and do what? And go where? Iraq? Afghanistan?"

"Yeah, you'll go, but you'll own it. It'll be nothing."

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? IT'LL BE FUCKING NOTHING? I ALMOST DIED MULTIPLE TIMES! MY FRIENDS ARE FUCKED, OFFING THEMSELVES! MY PARENTS OWN A WATER BOTTLE AND AN ALICE PACK WITH 3 HOLES BLOWN THROUGH IT THAT ONCE BELONGED TO ME! I BARELY SLEEP, AND THE VA COULDN'T GIVE TWO SHITS! IS THIS HOW YOU'RE RECRUITING CHILDREN? WITH STRAIGHT UP LIES? SHAME ON YOU!

Instead, I respond calmly, "No. I'm pretty sure the army's not for me."

He questions this, like he knows something about me I haven't figured out on my own, claiming the army needs somebody like me.

I respond simply, "Wouldn't I have to change my hair color? I'm simply not willing to do that...and I'd have to take off my jewelry. Not an option."

He asks to see my bracelets. he looks at them, completely missing Dick Winters' band and my Wounded Warrior Project band.

Nice attention to detail, Fuck Face.

"You wouldn't part with...those?" he questions disbelievingly.

"Yeah. I don't think it's for me." Simple. Concise.

"Well, I guess you're right. The Army's not for everyone." I'm guessing he realizes I'm not going to be won over.

I shift the conversation to couchsurfing and hitchhiking. Marvell couldn't seem to wrap his mind around helping someone on the side of the road that wasn't a woman who looked like me. This may have been the 100th point when I realized we could probably never see eye to eye on 99.2% of anything we could ever possibly discuss outside of potential good tasting food...although he also told me he didn't like sushi. To that I screamed, "COMMUNIST!!!!" Not really, but almost.

He, however, failed to see these disconnects, probably because he was concerned with the pretty smile I credit solely to my parents. I'm not sure he even noticed its slow transformation into an impatient, patronizing smirk. I was saved by the bell, literally, as we docked in Auke Bay, where I had previously made plans to meet with three very like minded people. People who wouldn't recommend I join the service under any circumstances.

He asked for my number by stating, "You should call me," as if it's a researched and supported fact. Really? Should I? He tells me he wants to know me, and I can't help it. I am compelled to tell him that we are completely different breeds of person. He's confused, and so I decided to write this as a clarification.

I am NOT an aspiring teen looking to become Demi Moore. I'm not dreaming of becoming G.I. Jane. Not anymore. I am now a wounded vet proud to be free of an oppressive institution, Hellbent on repaying the world the debt I feel I incurred by having served one of the most close minded, wickedly corrupt organizations in the world for 8.5 years...Rather 8 years 5 months and 29 days. I embrace my freedom to be who I want to be, wear what I want to wear, as well as travel and change my hair color on a whim. There is no amount of persuading that could convince me otherwise. That's supposedly the perk of a"free country" like America, right? While I could be arrested and labelled a sex offender for having a naked cup of coffee in my own home, I also have the "right" to consider military solutions problems in themselves.

I don't regret any choices I've made in life, but that certainly doesn't mean I am proud of them all.

David Sirota said it best, "Why is violence and murder designed to incite fear and affect political change never called terrorism when it's committed by white people?" There is a stark stabbing shame that comes with an association with an organization promoting terrorism under the guise of fighting it...calling it COIN. Fuck COIN. It's war. It's wrong, and I want no part in it.