Women are not Soldiers, We're Sex Toys

Me the summer of 1989

 I was never given a chance. I was 18-years old and a soldier in the US Army Reserves. My father had died the day I had did my swearing in at the M.E.P.S. Center near Greek Town in Detroit. I had gotten my ears cleaned that day, too, which served for me to hear the howling of my sister, the screeching of my uncle and my exhausted moans of abandonment.  My father, an avid drug abuser and debilitated invalent had been dying for years. The mixture of cocaine and heroine that he snorted had taken it's toll. His stomach was the size of a inflated beach ball. He carried so much water weight from the quinine the drugs were cut with, he was drowning in his own fluids. Some days were better that others, some weeks and some years, but the drug abuse would take him slowly over the next seven years, especially, since he didn't quite stop after his indictment and jail stay.  He had given up after a few years. My aunt, a nurse, tried to get the water to go away, but whenever they drained it, it just came back. For a period of time, he would develop little sacks on his body filled with fluid. As a child, I thought my father to be invincible. By the time he died, he was, in my mind. When God finally took him, it crushed the last fallacy of my childhood, along with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Daddies die and they don't ever come back. The End.

My commitment to him ended when we left him at the cemetery, in the little house with a few benches for us to sit. The shame was all my aunt and uncle could stand and they buried him Tuesday, April 18, 1989. It was so quick, some of his closest friends did not attend. The room in the funeral home was packed, and the tears flowed like a stream of lovingness, that was John Stanley's legacy. I didn't eat for four days, until he was in the ground. Everything is either a blur, between the 14th and 18th, everything, but my father. I sat in my grandmother's kitchen, eating KFC, while two women debated on who I was. I didn't feel the need to introduce myself, I just cleaned my plate, washed it and put it away. It was what grandma would want, and I couldn't upset her at her youngest son's funeral. I sat and thought about going to basic that Friday and if I could make it. I decided I could and I would. I would make my father proud, even if his burial was a relief that gave me the strength to eat, again.

That morning, I woke up, my grandma and aunt had come for a visit from Alabama. It was a coincidence, and they had not come for the funeral. I spoke to my mother briefly and kissed my aunt goodbye and went to wait for my recruiter on the porch. He came right on time, just like a military man. I drove away not knowing how much I would change in the next couple of months, but the challenges would be many and the success would equal each one. I would grow and morph into a person that had no choices. Not even the choices of how fair life would be. I took myself into the M.E,P. Station that day. My recruiter didn't have to tell me where to go. I walked up to the table and stated my fate. 'I'm going to Basic Training, today." Some woman they call "Active-Reserves" told me where to sit and I met others who were going to "Basic", too. We were all going to different places. different branches and different MOS's. But we were all a part of the US Military, and were  "headed out". We had lunch together and some even headed out from the airport, before lunch. I left second to last, about two headed for Jersey. Fort Dix, "Fort Dixie Land" some liked to call it. It would come to live up t that name.

"Blue Jean"! I was so puzzled. They said these men would be mean and aggressive towards me. Every time I walked into a room and they were there, they would lean in to each other, whisper and giggle. I took to my name quickly, because it obviously made them happy and kept me out of trouble. That is, until Faison came in. He taught us how to march early one Saturday morning. He was extra hard on me. "Hey Private. what's your problem?" I would answer quietly, "I don't have a problem Corporal." He would fix his face in a menacing glare and bellowed. "You act like you have a problem!" I thought I was doing good. I had smiled at him the same way I had smiled at the others all week and it had gotten me favor, but with him it had gotten that menacing glare. I took my place in formation. He was good at calling cadence, and zi could tell that he was waiting for me to mess up, but I caught on quick. This was as difficult for a Black woman moving down the "Soul Train Line" at my cousins wedding. "Left....Left...Left...Right...Left! Every time he gave a direction that foot had to strike the ground, and every woman foot had to strike the ground at the same time as you. "Always on your Left!' Boom, down came that left foot. I got it, and it pissed Faison off even more. He had been there twice that week, talking to the men. He had been asking them why we didn't have our BDU's yet. He had to teach us to march, but we couldn't march in our street clothes.

It seems the Sergeants on duty didn't want to give me BDU's. They liked me in my blue jeans. We couldn't go anywhere in a group or anything, because some of us had uniforms and some didn't. He had some women marching in civilians clothes, but it was a Saturday and nobody who cared was there. He had acted like it was all my fault. In a way, it was my fault, but it wasn't something I had done. It was something my Sergeants had done. Besides, I had my uniforms. The women I came in with and I had gotten ours just the day before. His job wasn't my responsibility, but I was getting the brunt of his anger and frustration. Two days later, we were shipped off to our regular barracks to begin training. There I would learn the full force of my nickname. We were forced to pack up all the new uniforms we had gotten, along with all our personal gear we had bought and anything we had brought from home. We all came to the consensus immediately that we should have waited to buy personals. Some women had bought  their full regiment of hygiene and personals. Stuff that they now had to march to our new home. I bought some stuff, butt not much. My recruiter was cool and had mentioned that "too much" wasn't good in the military. I understood, as soon as we had our first long march. We carried everything on our back; literally. We got this big duffle bag and a ruck sack. A ruck sack is a back pack. Unlike the one you had for school, you didn't carry books and pencils and paper. You carried a change of clothes, and stuff I can't remember right now, but it was heavy. Once we got hip, we filled our ruck sack with a sheet, to make it look full. Then we stuffed all our stuff in the duffle bag. It looked like the bag the girl used to unpack her adjectives. If our Drill Sergeants unpack our adjectives, they would find, lazy, cunning, sneaky and deceptive.

"Which one of you is Stanley!" I looked up from where I had been searching for something they asked us to find. I had no idea where I had put mine. I was digging deep in my duffle bag and the midget was a distraction. I looked in his eyes and they were blue and glowing. "Here Drill Sergeant," I spoke in a light yell out of both fear and frustration. "We're going to be friends for the next two months and your not going to like it!" He had a menacing glare and I was confused. He had been huddled with one of the sergeants from the Reception Center. I didn't know what I had done, or why is was angry with me, but I swallowed deep and kept looking for that thing. 

They broke us up into three large platoons. Usually, they would make 240 women four or even five platoons. We had all came in that way. My platoon had 82 women. I was not in Second Platoon, which was where the blue eyed midget was. I got Lopez, Mondragon, Thomas and an Ad-Man I forget. They got all the Spanish women that worked good for them and penis size. I didn't care and took my place. I just wanted to get it over with. We all marched right across the fire lane from where we were, after taking a unnecessary walk to the main building two blocks away. The next day, after getting my weapon, I was trying to put my TA-50 gear on, unsuccessfully, when the midget called out my name, again. "Stanley!"  I had gotten better at answering, "Yes, Drill Sergeant! " He didn't glare this time, he was a little softer, "You wanna come to Second?" I looked up from my twisted gear at the three men huddled together, Thomas, Mondragon and "The Midget" "No Drill Sergeant". I had lowered my voice again, confused, again. I wasn't leaving the group of women I had just spent the first two weeks in hell with. I would lose my comfort zone. I went back to my tangled mess, happy I was smart enough to dodge that bullet.

Second Platoon was made up of two midgets. The first was "ole blue eyes" and "The Loser". I think they were acquainted with the sergeants at the Reception Center. Because, the next morning while in weapons sequence, "The Loser", Drill Sergeant Griffin, grabbed me by the arm and got close enough to my ear to bite it and asked, "WHO IS YOU VERN?" I looked straight ahead and whispered, "Private Stanley, Drill Sergeant." He let go of my arm and said, "Okay then!" I was confused again, until he did that almost every morning in a exhausting display of affection. He would call me out any where we went, but he had gotten another lover in his platoon. Since I was in Third Platoon, he couldn't make me vanish all weekend. He had gotten another woman, and I was glad, but he gave me so much attention that I began to like it. Sort of like the sergeants in the first place I went. I didn't understand any of it, however, I barely knew any of these men. I learned the following year in school, AIT that a day in the military was a week or a month in civilian life, and soldiers hooked up our first weekend pass. I didn't and never hooked up at all. I would sneak to the third floor at night and have phone sex with my boyfriend at home. Military life is fast, because it is run by men and men have hearty libidos. When you think about it, those sergeants weren't even 30, and at their sexual peak. My blue jeans were tight and my butt hefty. It obviously was exciting to them, but "The Loser" was intrusive. He was able to be there all the time and he would drop in all the time. Never on the weekends, however.

When "China Doll" woke me one early morning to tell me I had a phone call, I jumped up. We called her that, because not only was she Chinese, but she was beautiful and looked like one of the dolls that were big and had smaller dolls in them as you opened them up. She had cut her hair into a pixie bob, and it didn't touch her neck or her ears. She was so sweet and lovable, just like a doll. When I heard what she had to say,  I jumped up. Remembering my older sister had taken my father's death really hard. I thought maybe she had done something desperate. I didn't even bother to put on my uniform, but ran down the hall and was taking the stairs two at a time. Suddenly, Griffin appeared at the bottom of the second landing and put his finger to his lips to keep me quiet. Then he used his hand to motion me against the wall out of sight. Once I was silenced and out of sight, he went through the door. I over hear him talking to "China Doll", and give her the cup he had been holding and direct her to clean it and fill it with water. Guard - duty is vital, and he told her he would watch her post. Once she was safely in the bathroom, he ushered me in his office. I went in and looked around, and there was no phone off the hook, waiting for me to pick-up and he wasn't taking me to the Senior Drill Sergeant's office.

"What's up? "China said I had a phone call." He looked at me with a glare of dissatisfaction. "You don't want to be here with me?" I didn't answer him, I lifted my hands in the "What?" position, I was sure this man was insane. It was 2:20 am and I had to be up in 2 hours and 25 minutes, dressed and on the fire lane. This motherfucker wanted to know if I wanted to be with him. "Nah, you dumb fuck, I want to be sleep!" I couldn't say what I was thinking, and when he took me by the waist, and pulled me into him I was flattered. Then there was a knock on the door. He ushered me into an open closet. She handed him the cup, he sat it on the desk and came to me in the closet. We began to kiss and I stopped him, when he put his hand up my gown.

"No!" I pushed him away and he stopped. I went and sat at the chair in front of the desk. We talked and I got up to leave and he crossed the desk to stop me. I knew that "China Doll" was there and didn't care. He pushed me back in the closet. and forced his lips on mine. He seemed angry and impatient. I took myself to the back of the closet to escape his gnarly claws on my body, holding me and pulling me to him. I kissed him back and after a short while, he pulled back and placed his claws on my neck. It was almost a threat, then he stated, "So, are you going to do this or what?" I said lowly enough that "China Doll" didn't hear. "Okay:" He then grabbed my waist again and spun me around so my back was to him and lifted my gown, pulled down my panties and with his super small penis, entered me. His penis was like sandpaper, too, and he was rough. I was disgusted by his handling of me and the situation, but I did agree. He went on to tell all the drill sergeants and it began.

Either the other drill sergeants and staff thought I wanted them, and "hit on me" at every possible occasion or acted like I was the most disgusting thing in the barracks. I had the Ad-Man cuss me out. He used all kinds of profanities that caused me to shrill and think twice about how I spoke to him. I was woken out of my sleep, snuck into an office man handled and practically choked for lust. He needed to have me out of "saving face" with the other drill sergeants. I was "Blue Jeans" the girl with the tight jeans and ass. If that wasn't true he wouldn't have told everyone. What he didn't know, I was a rape survivor and no less than three years before, a man hade jumped out of bushes and raped me by choking me into submission. I said, "Okay", but I was in distress and fear. What I didn't know is his record. He wasn't 25-years old like the other sergeants. He was closer to 35, because he had lost his strips twice and worked his way back up to a sergeant, and drill sergeant. He was a Loser. He was the best example of everything wrong with the US Army and he was going to take me down with him. Sergeant Thomas let me know all about him the way he could; talking out loud. I don't know if it was my father's death or the rape, but I wasn't being me. Some how Drill Sergeant Thomas knew that. It still followed me to. AIT, military school. Even if I did go the following summer. It wasn't enough time. Drill Sergeant Gabrielle was waiting for me. I made it, though. I made it through Basic Training and AIT. I was even a squad leader in school. Even if it was to keep me out of trouble.

I had acquired the name "Trouble", all about my favorite pair of jeans. I even got a new Drill Sergeant just for me in Basic. She called me her "Special Child", but even she couldn't be too hard on me. I was not a bad person. I wasn't a bad soldier. I was just pretty and dumb. That could be a poor combination in a male driven Army. To fall for the worse person in the company, because you're young and inexperienced with men. The way he grabbed me every morning in line and ask who I was, showed no candor at all. Even asking me to join his platoon in front of my entire squad was iffy. I had started not respecting him as a drill sergeant. Not calling out, "At ease make way!" If he walked passed. I would keep on my way. The other women had taken notice, too. I didn't care, he had crossed the line with me and I was being treated horribly by all my superiors and I didn't even like him anymore.  It was getting close to time to graduate. We were doing everything now. Every weekend we had a base pass. We got one our second week there. The men soldiers had remedial P.T. We were eating Twizzlers and Burger King. Senior Drill Sergeant punished them for allowing certain privates to chase them around the base with pogo sticks. When training ended, The Loser, called and asked me to stay on with him in New Jersey for the summer. Homesick, I replied with a solid and definitive, "No!" He tried to pull the, "You don't want to be with me line, but I did not relent. He kept me on the phone past nine when we were supposed to be off. The Drill Sergeant on duty had to get me off the phone.

The next morning, I was awoken to two drill sergeants yelling at me. "Who do you think you are private? You can't be on that phone as long as you want!" It was graduation day. I stood at parade rest while they yelled and screamed at me to pick up my room. My roommate had moved out and I was there alone. So they scared me lifeless. I was shaking uncontrollably. They took all my things and threw them in my locker. "Get dressed," One of them yelled. I put on my dirty BDU's that were in my laundry bag and went to the Senior Drill Sergeants office and stood at parade rest for the rest of the day. When the lieutenant came before graduation, the Senior Drill Sergeant had lied, and said I had been in trouble. I was a few minutes on the phone. It wasn't worth missing my graduation. I had worked hard. I had faced every challenge put before me and survive, to come out on the other side. I didn't want Drill Sergeant Griffin and all his loser ways. I still wasn't going to tell anyone what he had done to me I just wanted him to stay away from me. I went alone to the discharge place. Sat alone and waited for my ride. I have never told this story before today, not all of it. 

The reason I'm telling my story now, is young women are either being murdered in the US Military or killing themselves, and I believe one young woman killed herself recently. I could have died. If I wasn't such a survivor. It didn't matter if I was a good soldier. They don't see us as competent or worthy. It was obvious to me that men couldn't see past our good looks to take us seriously. We were objects to be fondled and sexually harassed. I was so young, I didn't even know what that was. Where I came from, men just touched you. Said what they wanted. Did what they wanted and never cared about consequences. I never thought of them either. I know my phone sex boyfriend wouldn't go to my friends house, because she had a father and a brother. Years later, when my brother was 27-years old and not 17, he came to visit me. He sat outside, like we did when I was 19. My brother walked out the house and gave him a mean mug. I told him that he had questioned me. He wanted to know if he had a house to go to, because he had that nice car. When I told him what my brother had said, he wanted me to move into my own apartment. My brother told me, "No!" Unless he was paying all or part of the rent.

In the Army, there is no little brothers that turn into men. Only men that look out for one another and who are against you. If you can't keep yourself, they won't be able to keep you. Even in all his religious beliefs Drill Sergeant Thomas could only talk out loud. Even after I survived all the madness of Bravo Company, I had to face Senior Drill Sergeant Gabrielle at Charlie Company some 11 months later. He would come out his hole to tell me how worthless I was. Even when I hadn't done a thing. He was so savage, he made my fellow soldiers believe it without proof I was worthless. I never went to my Reserve Unit, because I had enough of the harassment. My tenure as a squad leader was tarnished by the harassment, and the idea I couldn't complete the run in time. I think a drill sergeant had to give me a few minutes on my time. I still got honorably discharged. That's what they had me afraid of being. I just sucked it up. I feel sorry for those two women, one who couldn't get justice and one who couldn't take it all. I was both of them.