I had the opportunity to catch up with an old friend that I had served with in the Marine Corps, who I hadn't talked to in years. We talked for about 3 hours, laughing and reminiscing about the crazy times that we had, the people we remembered, and the things that we did.
It was nice to hear from him again because, as is so often the case in the military, I moved around so much that I never had a chance to keep up with everyone as they slowly fell off my radar and went their own ways. Because the memories faded so imperceptibly slowly, it became so easy for me to forget the names, and eventually even the faces of people I once considered my brother or sister. When, through some luck, I run into someone that can fill in some of the gaps in my memory, it breathes new life into those memories and restores a sense of what that time in my life meant to me. I can only hope that I was able to return the favor to him.
Although our conversation was mainly one of happy reuniting and sweet nostalgia, one of those long forgotten memories that he dredged out of the bottom of my lake of consciousness might have been better left where it was. It was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life, and one that I had quite completely forgotten before he had mentioned it.
We had gotten on the subject of the parties that used to be an almost nightly occurrence in the open-air patio space that sat between each set of rooms in the barracks building that we lived in when suddenly he started laughing.
"Do you remember the night that you FIRST got promoted to Lance [Corporal]?" he asked.
I couldn't, or at least hadn't, up until that moment. The moment he mentioned it though, it was like a crack in a dam had burst wide open and my mind flooded with memories of the night. I began to remember so vividly that I decided that now would be a great time to get it all down before it begins to fade again, and it's lost to me forever.
We had gotten back to the barracks in the late evening, after our company muster. I had gotten promoted to Lance Corporal earlier that afternoon, along with three or four other guys in our squadron, so once work was over it was agreed upon that all of us would get together in the usual place on the patio and start drinking and celebrating. When we did this on warmer nights, like that night, we would open up all four barracks doors that faced into the patio area, and the eight connecting rooms of each floor would become extensions of the party that was raging in the middle on the patio.
For the first couple of hours, we drank steadily but the party was, for the most part, pretty subdued. But around 11 pm, a group of about 20 Marines showed up, already intoxicated from the bar they had just come from, and it was like gasoline was being poured on a small fire. Before we knew it, there's music blaring from 3 different rooms, and there are forty or so young Marines, mostly underage, getting wasted with a reckless abandon that only the young seem to be able to achieve with that kind of self-assuredness.
I remember at one point, shortly after the large group showed up, a friend had pulled out a three-story beer bong that we kept around the barracks, a party favorite, and I had partaken in at least one round of what we quite aptly called "Blackout", where the person holding the funnel at the top would pour, not just beer, but any and all beer, liquor, wine, backwash, and chasers that were readily available down the spout until the tube was completely filled, and then the person below would have to drink the god-awful concoction and try their best not to vomit, usually unsuccessfully.
It was horrendous tasting and incredibly dangerous to drink this way and we all knew it, but what the hell? We were young and would never die, right?Not surprisingly, by about 1:30, I was completely trashed. It was around this time that the woman who I would eventually date for three years and have a child with showed up to the party. I know this because she had been in my room with me and several other people, when someone, I can't remember exactly who but my friend on the phone swore that it wasn't him, challenged me to a streaking dare. How we got into that conversation I do not recall. I can just remember that the challenge was to run naked down the 3 flights of stairs to our barracks, across the street, and around the duty hut that was located kiddy corner from us on our left. I also remember that same someone telling me that I "had no balls", and I was "too chickenshit" to do it.
Apparently, for some reason unknown to me now, I disagreed.
The duty hut was a long, one story, rectangular building that housed the laundry room on one end, with rows of washers and dryers lining the walls and the inside of the room, and the duty office on the far side. Inside the duty office, there was a guard stationed twenty-four hours a day, whos' job was to make rounds through the barracks every half hour and ensure that good order and discipline were being enforced. That is the same good order and discipline that I was about to blatantly and nakedly (pardon the pun) disregard. Usually, this job was relegated to a Private First Class or a Lance Corporal, but as Fate would have it, on this night, one of the Sergeants in my shop, the one who had been assigned as my mentor when I first joined the unit, was on duty.
In what felt like three seconds flat but must have been longer, I had stripped down to what God gave me and gone streaking down the stairs like a pasty white blur. I zipped through the grass and across the street, which seemed to be deserted. As I neared the back side of the duty hut, I slowed down a clip so that I could take a glance through the window that looked into the duty office from the side opposite the door. As I looked in, I could see that the doors to the office were open, but Sergeant was busy reading a book.
"Good," I thought. "If I run really quickly by, he shouldn't see me at all."
I rounded the corner and picked up speed as I neared the duty office doors. I flew by, probably looking like a star shooting across the night sky from a distance. I was past the doors so fast that I knew there was no way that Sergeant could've seen me. I continued running at the same breakneck speed all the way past the front entrance of the thankfully empty laundry room. I could see my barracks in front of me, getting closer. About forty Marines were gathered on all three levels of the patio, watching me intently, cheering quietly so as not to arouse attention from the duty hut. Everyone was so busy watching me, and I was so focused on getting back to the safety of the barracks unnoticed that no one, including myself, noticed the military police vehicle that had turned down the street and started moving silently toward us.By the time I saw the squad car in my periphery, I was less than a foot from the street and my feet were flying so fast there was no chance of stopping. As the squad car passed by, I slammed into the passenger side of the car, my cash and prizes smushed up against the window right in the face of the officer sitting in the passenger seat. The force of my momentum sent me bouncing off of the car so hard that I went flying backward into the grass, disoriented.
It took me a minute to get my breath back and to realize what had happened. It must have taken the officers a moment to process what had happened as well, because I was on my back for a full beat before they began to react, which was good for me because it gave me just enough time to get back on my feet again and start running. As I got up, I could see commotion across the street at the barracks. The moment that the Marines watching above had realized what was going on, every floor erupted in a frenzy of underage drinkers running for cover. Trash was cleared, ill-gotten booze was hidden, music was turned off, and all signs of underage drinking evaporated like morning dew in the desert in about 2 flat seconds.
I had no idea where to go or what to do, so I took off running in the direction of my barracks. By that time, the officers had gotten their bearing and had begun to give chase. I ran through the courtyard and past the stairs that led up to my room. I had barely enough time to notice that someone, even in the confusion and panic of the situation, had taken the time to throw my pants and shirt down to the main floor at the bottom of the stairs. I thought briefly of stopping for them, but I could sense the officers closing in and I discarded the idea and kept running. I never found out who it was that had thought to do that for me, but whoever it was, you deserve to win the lottery. That was clutch thinking right there. It's not your fault that I wasn't fast enough to capitalize on the opportunity that you tried to provide me.
I made it no more than a dozen paces further before I misjudged my step and tumbled head over heels into the bushes that lined the barracks. The officers quickly caught up with me, hauled me out of the bushes, threw me in cuffs, and walked me down to their car. One officer was asking my name and unit, and going through my pants pockets. The other went to the car to pull out a breathalyzer. He pulled out the machine, turned it on, and told me to blow into the tube until I heard a beep, which I did. The officer took a look at the display, frowned, and then got on the radio.
A few minutes later, a second squad car showed up. The officer in the second car got out and walked over with another breathalyzer kit. The three of them stood around in a circle, looking at the first machine and talking quietly. Then the first officer turned to me and said
"I need you to blow into this one now. I'm pretty sure the first one is broken, cuz it's showing that you have a B.A.C. of .25, and that can't be possible. You wouldn't be able to run like that if you were that drunk."
So I took the second test, and just like the first, a moment after the beep, the display flashed ".25". All three of the officers looked at me, stunned.
There was some debate between them as to whether I needed to go to the hospital to have my stomach pumped. The officer arguing in favor pointed out the fact that I was right on the line of what was considered alcohol poisoning. True enough, the other two argued, but I was alert, surprisingly alert, for my BAC and my size, and that, in fact, I had barely even been slurring. Besides, they said, if they took me in, there's a whole lot more paperwork. Then one of them turned to me and asked where my unit duty hut was. I motioned back to the building that they had seen me running out from.
I am at a loss to describe to you the look on my Sergeant's face when he saw me, naked, in handcuffs, being dragged into the duty hut by two military police.
There it is. That's what he looked like.
Source
What I do know is, I must have looked a sight. The police sat me down in the chair by the desk and proceeded to tell my Sergeant what had happened, as I watched his face turn different shades of red with each passing moment. They informed him that they would file a report with the unit command, but that they would take no further action at that time and leave the matter in my Sergeant's hands. They uncuffed me, he thanked them, and they left.
He opened the duty logbook and began writing the report. He did not speak or look up the entire time, and although I was getting a bit cold by that point, I felt that saying something would be a bad idea, so I held my tongue. After several long moments, he finally looked up. His eyes were deadly serious, and they locked with mine for a long time, and still, he didn't say anything. Finally, he sighed, shook his head, and began to chuckle. He told me to get to my room and get some sleep.
"You're gonna need it," he said, winking.
I didn't argue. I went straight to my room and immediately fell into a deep sleep.
I was ripped out of my sleep a mere two hours later by a loud noise like a horn and a blast of cold water across my face. I opened my eyes to see my Sergeant standing above me, empty water glass in one hand and an air horn, the kind you can buy at the dollar store, in his other.
"Get up, you're coming with me. And bring some water," he said.
He drove me down to the flight line, a massive concrete slab that took up the lion's share of the base's total square mileage, with two runways running through the middle, and rows of hangars on the north side. On the south side, well away from the rest of the hangars and the refueling station, was the "CALA," or Combat Aircraft Reloading Area, where the pilots and crew practiced with live missiles and ammunition.
We got out of the car, walked through the turnstiles and past the first three hangars, toward the hangar that we were located in. Rather than making a right-hand turn to go into the shop, he turned to me and handed me the cup that he had used to splash the water on my face. Then he reached into his pocket and produced a plastic spoon and a rag.
"Go out to each one of the pad-eyes and scoop out all the dirt and crud that's built up in them. Fill up the cup, then wipe out each one with the rag and take the cup back here to the hangar and dump it in that trash can there," pointing at the large dumpster at the back of the hanger. He looked at me with a measure of graveness. "Also, I'd do my best to make those pad-eyes shine if I were you."
I said nothing. Instead, I grabbed the cup, spoon, and rag and began to head out to the flight line. The morning sun was just coming up, casting a dim orange glow that cut a slash across the horizon like a jagged cut. My head was beginning to pound with the promise of the wicked hangover to come, and my forehead was already beginning to bead with sweat. It was going to be a hot day.
Over the next sixteen hours, the temperature went from around 75 degrees when the day began, to about 112 degrees at its peak. The concrete radiated heat directly back up from the ground, making it seem to me as though I were being cooked by not one, but two suns, one distant and powerful, the other weaker but much closer. I worked along the rows of pad-eyes, working quickly but trying not to go too fast and overwork myself to the point of heat exhaustion.
By the time the sun had gone down, as though it had at last grown tired of torturing me, I had cleaned almost all the pad-eyes in front of our hangar, going from one end of the hangar to the other, and working all the way to the runways about a quarter of a mile from where I had started that morning.
My Sergeant finally came out to get me at about 9 pm that evening. He informed me that I would not need to take my uniforms to the tailor after all; I would not be keep my Lance Corporal cross rifles. It had all happened so fast that the ink hadn't even dried on the paperwork. There was no need for a formal NJP (non-judicial punishment) after all. I had already suspected that would be the case, so I was not surprised when he told me.
It would take me about 6 months to earn them back. In the meantime, I spent my time trying to convince the girl that I had been talking to at the party that night that I wasn't actually always like I was on the night that she met me. It took almost the whole six months to do so. Looking back on it now, it may be one of the greatest achievements of my romantic life that I ever managed to succeed, if for no other reason than that I only have my daughter in my life now is because I did.
I also had a lot of time to reflect on the how's and why's of allowing peer pressure to affect my judgment like I did. It really came down to a simple fact. It occurred to me that my need to be liked and accepted could possibly become stronger in certain moments and situations than the need to adhere to a strong set of moral standards. In those moments, going along to get along would seem the preferable choice, even if it meant putting up with or participating in activities that I would never have otherwise done. I decided that in order to eliminate this weakness of character, I would need to find a new outlet for gaining that acceptance.
So I took up acting as a hobby.
Also, you can check out some of my other posts below!
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