It was a Friday. My fifth-grade students had left my classroom like a chattering flock of chickens as they squeezed out the door. I spent a few minutes correcting papers and returning emails, got in my car, drove to the National Guard recruiter, raised my right hand and joined the military. It might sound like a compulsive decision, but it wasn’t. It was a culminating decision and there was no doubt in my mind that it was the right one. I was 33. I had to get a special waiver to enlist because I was too old.
I grew up in a home and a culture where Memorial Day and Veterans Day were special days, not for grilling out but for remembering the people who sacrificed. We attended Memorial Day services. We placed our hands on our hearts when we sang the national anthem. We stood and said the Pledge of Allegiance in our classrooms. We shook the hands of veterans when we found out about their service. The few times I saw my dad cry were always connected with something patriotic.
One childhood scene stands out. We were visiting Uncle Bob and Aunt Milly in Iowa, in their home they built with their own hands. Uncle Bob was a World War II veteran who, unlike most of his comrades, returned home after the Battle of the Bulge. And, like many vets who have endured hardships no human should, he never talked. But one day, Dad, a seasoned listener, found a way in. I sat on an oval braided rug on the floor and listened, acutely aware that what I was witnessing was something that had never happened before and probably would never happen again: Uncle Bob talked about the war.
There are certain things that unequivocally move people. For me, it’s acts of bravery on the battlefield. A single scene in a movie, a single paragraph in a book, a single mention of an instance of someone’s unhesitating sacrifice for somebody else’s survival will often illicit an immediate, unmanageable lump in my throat that invariably culminates in tears. That so many people in my past have given their last breath for the freedom I enjoy and often take for granted is a fact of life that has always given me pause, and I hope always will.
My joining the military at age 33 was my way to give back, beyond holding my hand over my heart during the Pledge or experiencing shivers while singing the National Anthem. I was single, healthy and acutely aware of the impressionable minds of the young citizens I was teaching. If I stressed anything in my classroom beyond Jesus’ blood and the spiritual freedom it granted us, it was a frequent reminder to remember our soldiers. They too had given their blood, earning for us an earthly freedom, less necessary, but monumental, nonetheless.
The recruiter shared later that he had never had a ‘librarian’ (as he later dubbed me) walk into his office and leave as a recruit. I’m mindful of the impression folks have when they learn about this stage of my life. People express admiration, tell me they could never have done something similar and proceed to ask many questions about what basic training is really like–all things leaving me a bit uncomfortable since it foists me into an unpursued spotlight. All I ever wanted to achieve with my enlistment was to honor the many in uniform whose opportunities for a spotlight never materialized. Any circumstance I went through during my stint didn’t even register on the ‘hardship’ scale, when compared with stories of real men and women having given their all after a prelude of appalling circumstances.
Having said that, boot camp was not a Sunday picnic. Not even at ‘Relaxin’ Jackson’, the affectionate nickname given to Fort Jackson in South Carolina where heat and humidity are the state birds. As boot camps go, Fort Jackson was a walk in the park compared to, say, Fort Leonard Wood, MO, not affectionately referred to as ‘The Sandbox.’ If you’ve ever wondered if all the stories that recount deplorable conditions, daunting oppression and projectile spittle from screaming drill sergeants are true–they are. On some level, anyway. There were a few evenings during the disrupted-sleep-stage where I considered the possibility of not making it through. I was immediately dubbed ‘Gramma’ by Drill SGT Winstead and his beady eyes and shrill voice seemed determined to cement the fact that my age and gender would buy me no compassion. I would come to find out that a drill sergeant’s first duty is to make sure all the troops make it through. The second duty was to ensure that misery prevailed. It may seem like an odd comparison, but I have yet to meet a more Christ-like, earthly figure than a drill sergeant They were up an hour before all of us, went to bed later than any of us, performed nearly every exercise along with us without fatigue, always ate after we did–if they ate at all–and without question would have laid on any grenade that would have landed in our area of operation to save us. Underneath the ‘act,’ they really did care for us.
It was fascinating to observe the beautiful things that emerge from group misery. In a span of ten weeks I witnessed 64 selfish, entitled, undisciplined prima Dons and Donnas morph into selfless, grateful, disciplined soldiers. Week one was filled with complaints about all manner of things. By week ten, there was grateful swooning over discovering M&Ms in an MRE or bar soap in the showers. Basic Training has a way of deleting everything in one’s mind that doesn’t matter and highlighting everything that does: Faith, family and, in my case, hymns. I realize this made me an oddball on top of already being an oddball in my platoon, due to my age. I don’t know too many people who would say that hymns carried them through boot camp. But, as they have done many times before this chapter and would prove to do after this chapter, the words of hymns carried me through. Hymns have been stuck in my heart and thought process since I can remember, and when you are stripped of everything, physically and emotionally, the words of hymns intensify and become more beautiful and meaningful than ever.
The hymns I sang during those 10 weeks were all under my breath or in my mind, and to this day a few of them can’t be sung without producing some fond memory of those oppressive hours. “Built On the Rock” was my exercise hymn. Its rhythm fit very well with the cadence of the verbally-controlled push-ups we executed in mass numbers. DOWN on ‘Built. UP on ‘rock.’ DOWN on ‘church.’ UP on ‘stand.’ The last two lines of verse one ironically and suitably summed up how I felt all day, every day–“Calling the young and old to rest, But above all the soul distressed, Longing for rest everlasting.” How well I related with the ‘distressed soul’ remark. “On My Heart Imprint Thine Image” was my marching hymn. I was pretty pleased to discover that it sounded beautiful as a chorale melody sung alongside my favorite cadence: ‘Everywhere I go. . .there’s a drill sergeant there.’ I just had to hum the verse in a minor key.
But, hands down, my favorite hymn during boot camp–the hymn that ‘got me through’– was ‘Lord Jesus, Who Dost Love Me.’ (I designed this card a couple of nights ago which spurred this reminiscing.) I had sung that hymn hundreds of times before the age of 33, but never had the words meant so much as they did during those humid months in SC. I’ll readily confess that my evening prayer life at boot camp was abysmal. After we were put to bed, lying on our backs at attention until we heard the crisp shout, “Ready! Sleep!”, the eyelids near my forehead raced each other to shut. But on those evenings when I managed to stay awake for a little minute, this one verse routinely served as my evening prayer and it calmed my heart and soothed my soul and reminded me that–even though it certainly didn’t seem like it–all was well.
“Lord Jesus, who dost love me,
O spread Thy wings above me,
And shield me from alarm!
Though Satan would devour me,
Let angel guards sing o’er me;
This child of God shall meet no harm.”
About halfway through the ten weeks DS Winstead approached me. For a second I thought he was preparing for a reprimand that would end up in some physical exertion on my part. But, he stood alongside me and it became immediately clear that he chose a moment when no one else was paying attention. In a normal voice, one I had not heard during the 50 days prior, he said, with a faint hint of tenderness, ” Is this ‘Gramma’ thing gettin’ to ya?’ It was a shocking moment of human concern, because my comrades and I felt certain that only people devoid of a heart could become a drill sergeant. However, I could tell by his demeanor and tone that he wondered if he had been too hard on me. I did some quick calculating, turned my head to look directly at him, something we normally were punished for doing, and with a tinge of a smile quietly and resolutely replied, “Bring it on, Drill Sergeant.” He gave me a tinge of a smile back and abruptly departed, never again allowing his human side to emerge.
Since we never had the chance to talk with our drill sergeants in a meaningful way, I never had the chance to let DS Winstead know that each time I sang “Though Satan would devour me’ I thought of him. I think he would have gotten a real kick out of that.
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