Going backward for the purpose of moving forward...
I'm closing my eyes, taking a moment to clear my mind for a journey back through time. I need to go back 11 years to remember to the end of my adolesence, the beginning of adulthood. Will you join me? Wonderful. Just give me a moment and we'll be off.
Hello darkness, my old friend,
I've come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.
~ Paul Simon, The Sound of Silence
I'm sitting in a tiny office of a medical doctor, one of the ugliest men I've ever seen. He is in his 70s, obese. Toadish, he has warts and moles and pock-marks strewn across his heavy face. His hair, what little he still has of it, isn't white and dignified, but gray and lifeless.
This doctor is a very powerful man. He has the ability to decide the next four years of my life upon his whim. I'm 18-years-old and I've surrendered this power over to him willingly. I will soon graduate from high school with a putrid academic record, several out-of-school suspensions for drug and alcohol abuse, attitude problems, truancy etc...
But I'm ok. I've decided to forego my college education for a few years and enlist in the United States Navy. Why did I do that? Well, I didn't think I had a better choice. In Columbus, Indiana a young man finishes school and then must decide for himself his destiny. You either enrolled in college, joined the military or you went to work. College really wasn't an option with my grades and my parents' refusal to pay a dime on me. Work, I knew very little about. I'd had a paper route and a job selling tickets and candy at the local movie houses but minimum wage was all I'd ever earned. What kind of job could a person expect with such scant experience and lack of education? I perished even the thought of finding out.
Many of my best pals were in the same boat. For them, the call to serve their country was resounding and most appealling from the recruiters in the Marine Corps office in town. The Sargeants there promised them elite physical prowess, stern discipline, pride, honor, success and respect - all the things we'd sacrificed in our four-year search for the ultimate teenaged party experience. It seemed an enormous waste until these brick-built men in tan shirts, draped in medals and ribbons informed us how we'd quickly earn them all back with the help of their beloved Corps. We couldn't possibly fail, they said. We were smart, strong, virile young men. Just what Uncle Sam needed. And now more than ever. What were we waiting for?
"You look at these boys you hang around with in two years," a Sargeant said. "They'll be in and out of jail, doing dirty, degrading jobs for low pay. Some of them will have a bitchy wife or girlfriends, pregnant and no way to feed them all. Is that what you want? Is that how your parents raised you? Come on, son. You're better than that and you know it. As a Marine you'll have power, honor, respect..."
It sounded pretty good to us. To me. One day I sat in the office with two of my buddies, Ryan and Adam, who had already signed their lives over, passed the physical and psycological examinations, sworn an oath of loyalty to the United States Marine Corps and were destined for bootcamp the moment they finished high school. Only a few months remained and they'd be off toward that greater good, a life of rigor and stamina, of strength, anger, violence. Power in numbers. Paid tuition. To see the world. To serve their country.
It sounded pretty good to all of us. So one night, overcome with the holy spirit being preached by these brick-topped men in tan I made a decision.
"I'll do it!" I yelled. "I'll join up. I want to be a Marine."
Ryan and Adam were ecstatic. They threw their hands up. Adam hugged me and yelled in my ear. He knew my recruitment would serve his purpose quite well. He'd already helped the Sargeants nab Ryan and a few others. He was on his way to early promotion once his basic training was complete. They'd netted my eternal soul, they thought, converted me to the light. God be praised. Semper Fis all around! Hoo Ras for everybody!!!
But the Sargeants quickly curbed their enthusiasm.
"Mr. Peck has some legal issues that need to be resolved," he said. "If he gets that straightened out, we can have a party for him. And we will. Because he'll make one hell of a Marine."
Hoo Rah.
Legal problems, yes, yes. Adam and I had attended a girls' basketball game a month or so previous to that evening. We thought it would be interesting to drink a 40 oz bottle of beer beforehand, to add to our viewing enjoyment. So we did. Our condition upon entering the gym was not the best. We were tickled and exciteable, our moods unpredictable.
I found a seat near a pretty girl I knew and she immediately remarked that I seemed a bit drunk. She looked concerned. I liked that she cared. I assured her I was fine. I had only had one beer. I sat and discussed the game with her while our team went up by a good 40 points in the first half. But with only a few minutes left in the game, I noticed a commotion in our opponents cheering section, one of our letter jackets surrounded by enemy colors. The person wearing our orange and brown was none other than my partner in crime, Adam.
I walked along the baseline under the basket while the action took place on the other end of the court. When I arrived in the other section, Adam and a friend of ours were caught up in a heated discussion with some hefty-looking female alumni of the opposing school. They didn't take well to our presence in their rooting section and began to curse us loudly. I told them we were leaving if they'd just calm down. But they wouldn't. And Adam refused to leave. I tugged his arm and implored him to do so. The principal of the host school then emerged from behind me and ordered us out of the opponents' cheering section, noting that the tickets we'd bought allowed us only to sit in our team's ample seating space. I obeyed his order, turned and headed for my seat.
I was booed loudly as I walked along the baseline under the basket. There was a timeout on the floor and I saw the players and coaches from both teams turn in my direction to see what the commotion was about. The booing got louder so I turned to my hecklers, smiled and pointed to the scoreboard displaying our schools insurmountable scoring advantage. To this, our side of the floor erupted in cheering. I smiled even bigger, satisfied that I'd created a scene that people would remember at school the next day and discuss as a bold, rebellious stroke of genius.
But Adam wasn't satisfied. The principal hadn't seen the significance of my inciting of a visiting mob and decided to grab Adam by his arm to escort him either to our side or off the premisis. This angered the mercurial and powerfully-built 18-year-old who jerked his arm away from the principle, removed his hat and threw it onto the playing floor. The policemen at the far end of the court then sprung to life and headed toward us quickly. I sprinted to the stands, grabbed my jacket and hat, then darted out the back door of the gymnasium. I ran into the parking lot to search for my car, intending to hide there until after the game when I could creep out with all the other cars and head home. It seemed like a reasonable plan so I kept on running.
But I was stunned by the next development.
Five-O said, 'FREEZE'
And I got numb.
~ Chuck D of Public Enemy, Bring the Noise
After years of out-patient therapy to overcome a well-cultivated drug habit, years of poor grades finally blamed on laziness and aggravated by substance abuse, countless run-ins with the deans at the high school who had kicked me out of school a half-dozen times for brazenly disobeying any and all rules, after being kicked off of the baseball team three years in a row for attitude, poor grades and drug use respectively, I was under arrest on school grounds for illegal consumption of alcohol.
My parents now abandoned all hope of my pursuing a college education in the near future. I was to graduate high school, get a some kind of job and get the hell out of their house. Worse yet, for me, it was the final nail in the coffin for my hugely disappointing baseball career. The head baseball coach was on hand to witness all this activity, including my being led away in handcuffs and he wanted nothing more to do with me. I may never get over that failure. I may haunt me to my grave.
So, yes, I had some legal issues to sort out. And the agreement I made with the judge was to perform some community service and a year of probation or join the military to avoid any jail time for the alcohol consumption charge. This would also cause the charge to be expunged from my permanent record. My friends, who had gone down with me that night, accepted six months probation and no community service but would have to bear the cost of the charge and conviction of the misdeanor on their permanent record.
This satisfied the Marine recruiters who had sought to get my promise down on paper. But they didn't contact me before a teacher at my school learned of my plans to join the Corps. The old and trusted drama and speech coach who had known my brilliant sister before me asked me to meet with him alone in the school auditorium.
"Not the Marines," he said. "Not you. You're too smart. You need to use your mind. Do anything, join the Army, the Navy, the Peace Corps. Not the Marines."
I tried to argue with him but he just shook his head and said, "No."
The next day, a Navy recruiter was at the school. I took his business card and arranged a meeting. I don't even know what this man's rank was. He was a diminutive fellow who spoke softly and inarticulately. His uniform was dark blue and a bit unkempt for an officer. He told me to refer to him simply as, "Ed," his first name.
The Marine Sargeants didn't think much of Ed. Of course, any branch of the service is beneath the lofty standards of a U.S. Marine, but Ed, in particular, was offensive to them for his lack of professionalism and preparedness. They remarked about his low recruiting numbers, his messy office and attire and most derisively about his decision to go by his first name, rather than rank and last name as is expected.
But I remembered what the teacher had told me and I thought twice about the Marine Corps. I decided to give this man, "Ed" and his Navy a chance. He told me I could sail on great vessels around the world, writing for the Navy's propaganda publications, telling tales of foreign land and sea like the great Joseph Conrad.
It sounded good to me. So I shook Ed's hand and promised to join the U.S. Navy. The response in the Marine Corps office was ugly. My friends were berated for allowing me to slip away and I was dubbed a coward and a liar by the Sargeants who called me personally to tell me how offended they were about my change of heart. They said the Navy was a disgusting outfit and that I'd get what I deserved.
I knew this was sour grapes on their part. I was nothing but a number to them, another soul to convert in their search for promotion and accolade. I quickly forgave them for their abuse and they soon lightened up and wished me well in person.
And yesterday I boarded a van headed for Indianapolis, and the Military Enterance Processing Station. Here, I passed a physical examination quite easily. I scored high on the intelligence exam to the delight of the Navy personnel here who spoke with me briefly. I let a doctor see me with my pants down so that he may inspect my private areas including the inside of my rectum. Having approved of his findings he gave me the go-ahead to swear my oath and give my life over to the United States government.
But before I could do that, I was pulled aside by an African-American soldier who led me to this tiny office where I was to wait for this toadish figure who had some questions for me about the personal information I had provided on the enterance forms.
He's looking sullenly at the paperwork I filled out this morning, his tiny gray eyes hiding behind thick wire-rimmed spectacles. He doesn't look at me.
"Mr. Peck," he says. "It says here that you received psycological treatment or therapy of some kind."
"Yes, I was in counselling for a while."
"I need to see those records."
That's the end of our meeting.
I know what records he wants to see. They're the notes the counsellors at the in-patient and out-patient centers took when I was being treated. The records were suposed to be kept secret. Well apparently not if I wanted to sign up for the military. The notes from those sessions will make me sound disturbed, depressed, unstable - even at times suicidal. That toad will take one look at those notes and that will be it. My days in the Navy will be over for good, before they ever begin. It doesn't seem fair. I talked to those therapists so that I could get help for my depression and it seemed to work for me. Somehow that disqualifies me for serving in the Navy however. Yet, if I'd never gotten help, if I'd never decided to change my habits, I'd be perfectly acceptable just as my friends were, those who were right beside me on the wildest nights I've ever spent. It just doesn't seem fair.
No college. No military. No home. So what? What next? I don't have any idea what I'm going to do now. Will I be a bum like those derelicts the Sargeant spoke about? Will I start using again and end up in and out of jail and institutions? Where will I live when I've graduated and my parents throw me out? Will my girlfriend still want me when she's heading off for college to study pre-med and I'm still stuck in this shithole town? God, you wonder what hell is like sometimes, if there is a hell. But I don't believe in God or heaven or hell. There is only this life we live and this uncertainty, this fear, this self-loathing. This is hell on Earth. God, what am I going to do?
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning,
In the words that it was forming.
And the sign said, "The words of the prophets
are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls."
And whisper'd in the sounds of silence.
I'm opening my eyes again. I'm tired now. Tired of being the person I used to be. Thank goodness I found a path that led me here, to this office, this computer, this crossroads. It's a better place than that which I just described. Thank you for coming with me. I don't know if I'd have been able to stay in that place without you. You kept me there and helped me to see myself clearly the way I was back then.
I did get permanently disqualified from the military because of what was in those records we provided to the doctor at MEPS. I did attend college and graduate with a degree in journalism eight years later. My girlfriend did break up with me for various reasons just before she left for college. Adam and Ryan both served four years in the Marines and were outstanding in every way. They are now working in fields that satisfy them personally and financially. Ed was relieved of his duties as a recruiter in Columbus a few weeks later. He was reprimanded by his superiors for failing to prepare me for the questioning about my psycological history. (The Sargeants told my friends in the Marine Corps to LIE about everything related to their own sordid history.)
But the next step in my life was important too, in deciding who I am today. I'll take a trip back tomorrow. Will you join me?
Hello darkness, my old friend,
I've come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.
~ Paul Simon, The Sound of Silence
I'm sitting in a tiny office of a medical doctor, one of the ugliest men I've ever seen. He is in his 70s, obese. Toadish, he has warts and moles and pock-marks strewn across his heavy face. His hair, what little he still has of it, isn't white and dignified, but gray and lifeless.
This doctor is a very powerful man. He has the ability to decide the next four years of my life upon his whim. I'm 18-years-old and I've surrendered this power over to him willingly. I will soon graduate from high school with a putrid academic record, several out-of-school suspensions for drug and alcohol abuse, attitude problems, truancy etc...
But I'm ok. I've decided to forego my college education for a few years and enlist in the United States Navy. Why did I do that? Well, I didn't think I had a better choice. In Columbus, Indiana a young man finishes school and then must decide for himself his destiny. You either enrolled in college, joined the military or you went to work. College really wasn't an option with my grades and my parents' refusal to pay a dime on me. Work, I knew very little about. I'd had a paper route and a job selling tickets and candy at the local movie houses but minimum wage was all I'd ever earned. What kind of job could a person expect with such scant experience and lack of education? I perished even the thought of finding out.
Many of my best pals were in the same boat. For them, the call to serve their country was resounding and most appealling from the recruiters in the Marine Corps office in town. The Sargeants there promised them elite physical prowess, stern discipline, pride, honor, success and respect - all the things we'd sacrificed in our four-year search for the ultimate teenaged party experience. It seemed an enormous waste until these brick-built men in tan shirts, draped in medals and ribbons informed us how we'd quickly earn them all back with the help of their beloved Corps. We couldn't possibly fail, they said. We were smart, strong, virile young men. Just what Uncle Sam needed. And now more than ever. What were we waiting for?
"You look at these boys you hang around with in two years," a Sargeant said. "They'll be in and out of jail, doing dirty, degrading jobs for low pay. Some of them will have a bitchy wife or girlfriends, pregnant and no way to feed them all. Is that what you want? Is that how your parents raised you? Come on, son. You're better than that and you know it. As a Marine you'll have power, honor, respect..."
It sounded pretty good to us. To me. One day I sat in the office with two of my buddies, Ryan and Adam, who had already signed their lives over, passed the physical and psycological examinations, sworn an oath of loyalty to the United States Marine Corps and were destined for bootcamp the moment they finished high school. Only a few months remained and they'd be off toward that greater good, a life of rigor and stamina, of strength, anger, violence. Power in numbers. Paid tuition. To see the world. To serve their country.
It sounded pretty good to all of us. So one night, overcome with the holy spirit being preached by these brick-topped men in tan I made a decision.
"I'll do it!" I yelled. "I'll join up. I want to be a Marine."
Ryan and Adam were ecstatic. They threw their hands up. Adam hugged me and yelled in my ear. He knew my recruitment would serve his purpose quite well. He'd already helped the Sargeants nab Ryan and a few others. He was on his way to early promotion once his basic training was complete. They'd netted my eternal soul, they thought, converted me to the light. God be praised. Semper Fis all around! Hoo Ras for everybody!!!
But the Sargeants quickly curbed their enthusiasm.
"Mr. Peck has some legal issues that need to be resolved," he said. "If he gets that straightened out, we can have a party for him. And we will. Because he'll make one hell of a Marine."
Hoo Rah.
Legal problems, yes, yes. Adam and I had attended a girls' basketball game a month or so previous to that evening. We thought it would be interesting to drink a 40 oz bottle of beer beforehand, to add to our viewing enjoyment. So we did. Our condition upon entering the gym was not the best. We were tickled and exciteable, our moods unpredictable.
I found a seat near a pretty girl I knew and she immediately remarked that I seemed a bit drunk. She looked concerned. I liked that she cared. I assured her I was fine. I had only had one beer. I sat and discussed the game with her while our team went up by a good 40 points in the first half. But with only a few minutes left in the game, I noticed a commotion in our opponents cheering section, one of our letter jackets surrounded by enemy colors. The person wearing our orange and brown was none other than my partner in crime, Adam.
I walked along the baseline under the basket while the action took place on the other end of the court. When I arrived in the other section, Adam and a friend of ours were caught up in a heated discussion with some hefty-looking female alumni of the opposing school. They didn't take well to our presence in their rooting section and began to curse us loudly. I told them we were leaving if they'd just calm down. But they wouldn't. And Adam refused to leave. I tugged his arm and implored him to do so. The principal of the host school then emerged from behind me and ordered us out of the opponents' cheering section, noting that the tickets we'd bought allowed us only to sit in our team's ample seating space. I obeyed his order, turned and headed for my seat.
I was booed loudly as I walked along the baseline under the basket. There was a timeout on the floor and I saw the players and coaches from both teams turn in my direction to see what the commotion was about. The booing got louder so I turned to my hecklers, smiled and pointed to the scoreboard displaying our schools insurmountable scoring advantage. To this, our side of the floor erupted in cheering. I smiled even bigger, satisfied that I'd created a scene that people would remember at school the next day and discuss as a bold, rebellious stroke of genius.
But Adam wasn't satisfied. The principal hadn't seen the significance of my inciting of a visiting mob and decided to grab Adam by his arm to escort him either to our side or off the premisis. This angered the mercurial and powerfully-built 18-year-old who jerked his arm away from the principle, removed his hat and threw it onto the playing floor. The policemen at the far end of the court then sprung to life and headed toward us quickly. I sprinted to the stands, grabbed my jacket and hat, then darted out the back door of the gymnasium. I ran into the parking lot to search for my car, intending to hide there until after the game when I could creep out with all the other cars and head home. It seemed like a reasonable plan so I kept on running.
But I was stunned by the next development.
Five-O said, 'FREEZE'
And I got numb.
~ Chuck D of Public Enemy, Bring the Noise
After years of out-patient therapy to overcome a well-cultivated drug habit, years of poor grades finally blamed on laziness and aggravated by substance abuse, countless run-ins with the deans at the high school who had kicked me out of school a half-dozen times for brazenly disobeying any and all rules, after being kicked off of the baseball team three years in a row for attitude, poor grades and drug use respectively, I was under arrest on school grounds for illegal consumption of alcohol.
My parents now abandoned all hope of my pursuing a college education in the near future. I was to graduate high school, get a some kind of job and get the hell out of their house. Worse yet, for me, it was the final nail in the coffin for my hugely disappointing baseball career. The head baseball coach was on hand to witness all this activity, including my being led away in handcuffs and he wanted nothing more to do with me. I may never get over that failure. I may haunt me to my grave.
So, yes, I had some legal issues to sort out. And the agreement I made with the judge was to perform some community service and a year of probation or join the military to avoid any jail time for the alcohol consumption charge. This would also cause the charge to be expunged from my permanent record. My friends, who had gone down with me that night, accepted six months probation and no community service but would have to bear the cost of the charge and conviction of the misdeanor on their permanent record.
This satisfied the Marine recruiters who had sought to get my promise down on paper. But they didn't contact me before a teacher at my school learned of my plans to join the Corps. The old and trusted drama and speech coach who had known my brilliant sister before me asked me to meet with him alone in the school auditorium.
"Not the Marines," he said. "Not you. You're too smart. You need to use your mind. Do anything, join the Army, the Navy, the Peace Corps. Not the Marines."
I tried to argue with him but he just shook his head and said, "No."
The next day, a Navy recruiter was at the school. I took his business card and arranged a meeting. I don't even know what this man's rank was. He was a diminutive fellow who spoke softly and inarticulately. His uniform was dark blue and a bit unkempt for an officer. He told me to refer to him simply as, "Ed," his first name.
The Marine Sargeants didn't think much of Ed. Of course, any branch of the service is beneath the lofty standards of a U.S. Marine, but Ed, in particular, was offensive to them for his lack of professionalism and preparedness. They remarked about his low recruiting numbers, his messy office and attire and most derisively about his decision to go by his first name, rather than rank and last name as is expected.
But I remembered what the teacher had told me and I thought twice about the Marine Corps. I decided to give this man, "Ed" and his Navy a chance. He told me I could sail on great vessels around the world, writing for the Navy's propaganda publications, telling tales of foreign land and sea like the great Joseph Conrad.
It sounded good to me. So I shook Ed's hand and promised to join the U.S. Navy. The response in the Marine Corps office was ugly. My friends were berated for allowing me to slip away and I was dubbed a coward and a liar by the Sargeants who called me personally to tell me how offended they were about my change of heart. They said the Navy was a disgusting outfit and that I'd get what I deserved.
I knew this was sour grapes on their part. I was nothing but a number to them, another soul to convert in their search for promotion and accolade. I quickly forgave them for their abuse and they soon lightened up and wished me well in person.
And yesterday I boarded a van headed for Indianapolis, and the Military Enterance Processing Station. Here, I passed a physical examination quite easily. I scored high on the intelligence exam to the delight of the Navy personnel here who spoke with me briefly. I let a doctor see me with my pants down so that he may inspect my private areas including the inside of my rectum. Having approved of his findings he gave me the go-ahead to swear my oath and give my life over to the United States government.
But before I could do that, I was pulled aside by an African-American soldier who led me to this tiny office where I was to wait for this toadish figure who had some questions for me about the personal information I had provided on the enterance forms.
He's looking sullenly at the paperwork I filled out this morning, his tiny gray eyes hiding behind thick wire-rimmed spectacles. He doesn't look at me.
"Mr. Peck," he says. "It says here that you received psycological treatment or therapy of some kind."
"Yes, I was in counselling for a while."
"I need to see those records."
That's the end of our meeting.
I know what records he wants to see. They're the notes the counsellors at the in-patient and out-patient centers took when I was being treated. The records were suposed to be kept secret. Well apparently not if I wanted to sign up for the military. The notes from those sessions will make me sound disturbed, depressed, unstable - even at times suicidal. That toad will take one look at those notes and that will be it. My days in the Navy will be over for good, before they ever begin. It doesn't seem fair. I talked to those therapists so that I could get help for my depression and it seemed to work for me. Somehow that disqualifies me for serving in the Navy however. Yet, if I'd never gotten help, if I'd never decided to change my habits, I'd be perfectly acceptable just as my friends were, those who were right beside me on the wildest nights I've ever spent. It just doesn't seem fair.
No college. No military. No home. So what? What next? I don't have any idea what I'm going to do now. Will I be a bum like those derelicts the Sargeant spoke about? Will I start using again and end up in and out of jail and institutions? Where will I live when I've graduated and my parents throw me out? Will my girlfriend still want me when she's heading off for college to study pre-med and I'm still stuck in this shithole town? God, you wonder what hell is like sometimes, if there is a hell. But I don't believe in God or heaven or hell. There is only this life we live and this uncertainty, this fear, this self-loathing. This is hell on Earth. God, what am I going to do?
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning,
In the words that it was forming.
And the sign said, "The words of the prophets
are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls."
And whisper'd in the sounds of silence.
I'm opening my eyes again. I'm tired now. Tired of being the person I used to be. Thank goodness I found a path that led me here, to this office, this computer, this crossroads. It's a better place than that which I just described. Thank you for coming with me. I don't know if I'd have been able to stay in that place without you. You kept me there and helped me to see myself clearly the way I was back then.
I did get permanently disqualified from the military because of what was in those records we provided to the doctor at MEPS. I did attend college and graduate with a degree in journalism eight years later. My girlfriend did break up with me for various reasons just before she left for college. Adam and Ryan both served four years in the Marines and were outstanding in every way. They are now working in fields that satisfy them personally and financially. Ed was relieved of his duties as a recruiter in Columbus a few weeks later. He was reprimanded by his superiors for failing to prepare me for the questioning about my psycological history. (The Sargeants told my friends in the Marine Corps to LIE about everything related to their own sordid history.)
But the next step in my life was important too, in deciding who I am today. I'll take a trip back tomorrow. Will you join me?
posted by Apex at 10:09 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home