When he replied that I knew Monica, that, in fact, I had met her, that Monica was the woman at Wackenhut who had given us our job applications, my heart skipped a beat and my breath spewed out of me. That woman was in her seventies. Grandmothers—never mind great grandmothers—aren’t named Monica.
Fear, uncertainty, and pretense marked the following few weeks. I pretended to believe Miguel’s lies even as I grew less certain of what the future held. I knew that something would have to change in a way that wouldn’t suit Miguel. Either he had to stop seeing Monica or I would have to leave him—I became more afraid of him and more afraid of leaving him. I would check his phone each morning when he was in the shower before work and see that he had talked to Monica for at least half an hour or so the day before. When I returned from a Thanksgiving trip home to New York, the calls were three or more hours long. When I checked the phone the morning after that, it was locked. It was shortly after that when he announced one evening that he had to go into work for a few hours, but when he left he was wearing Timberland cargo sweats and a black t-shirt, not his security guard uniform. While he was gone, I cleaned and disinfected the bathroom, cleaned the floors, picked up the living room, and was washing the dishes when he returned. He walked straight past me and into the shower. I had read enough books and seen enough television programs to know what that meant.
The fighting, which had subsided temporarily, intensified. He was twice my size and was all muscle. He would yell and threaten to damage my belongings or my car or me. He hit things. An angry man, he was an ex-Marine, and there were weapons in the apartment. And so I hid. I would hide from him anywhere I could find. I hid under the dining room table or behind the headboard between the bed and the wall or in the cupboards or behind a rack of clothes in the closet. He’d search the apartment for me, screaming, threatening, and punching walls and doors. So I hid.
(Photo courtesy of Bill Thompson)
25
Seattle
About 154,000 veterans across the country…. are homeless on any given night; and up to twice as many experience homelessness at some point during the course of a year. Veterans represent over 25 percent of the total homeless population; most are male. However, the VA recently reported that the number of women veterans has grown from three percent a decade ago to five percent. The share of younger homeless women veterans is almost double— nine percent of homeless veterans are under age 45. In addition, women veterans are four times more likely than their civilian counterparts to become homeless (in comparison, male veterans are 1.25 times more likely to be homeless than their civilian counterparts).
From: “California’s Women Veterans: Challenges and Needs,” by Lisa Foster, California Research Bureau, March 29, 2010
One night I told Miguel I was taking Grizzly for a walk. I put the puppy on his leash and took him down to the parking lot. Miguel monitored everything I did, including who I talked to, what I wore, where I went—even exactly where I took Grizzly on his walks. I knew I could not leave the parking lot, so walking the dog meant standing with him a few feet from the building. If Miguel checked and saw that I wasn’t nearby, he would grill me about where I had been and accuse me of meeting up with someone or other, and then there’d be another huge argument.
As Grizzly and I stood on the grassy margin that ran along the back edge of the parking lot, I turned my back to the building, removed my phone from my pocket, and, without looking at it, dialed the number of a friend in Seattle. Leslie had served in Iraq with me, was assigned to Camp TQ, and worked with us in Mortuary Affairs whenever our work load became impossible to keep up with. He was just about the only volunteer who stuck it out and who didn’t leave after helping with just a few bodies. If Miguel wasn’t the Marine I had thought he was, Leslie would be. He would have given his life for me in Iraq, and I would have given mine for him. I knew that Leslie, who had left the Marines and was working for a shipping services company, would come to St. Louis to rescue me, would take me back to Seattle, and would provide protection while I got back on my feet and started up a new life.
The phone rang. I held it against my right ear, the one away from the apartment building and Miguel’s sightline and held my right arm close to my body, keeping it from jutting out and revealing my secret. Leslie picked up. I had all I could do to not bawl. I explained that I was being abused and was trapped, that I needed a friend to help me pack my things, and a place to stay for a short time while I found my way. I said that there was no one else I could turn to. Because I was never sure if Miguel was secretly watching me from behind, I occasionally swiveled my head slightly from one side to another while I talked to Leslie. I tilted it upward as though I were staring at a star, or downward, toward the dog, trying to make it appear like I wasn’t carrying on a conversation. I explained that it had to be Leslie who came for me because Leslie was a Marine and Miguel wouldn’t beat a female in front of another male Marine, what with the Marine code and all. He would not dishonor the Corps so blatantly. But Leslie wanted no part of the mess I was in. Through tears, I told him that I was at my wit’s end, that I couldn’t take this life any longer, and I begged him to fly to St. Louis to escort me out of this terrible existence. He refused.
Two days later, when Miguel and I were leaving for work, suddenly, without warning, he was enraged: he punched a picture of us that I had framed and hung on the wall by the door. I had no idea what brought this on. Maybe my slacks were too tight or my shampoo too scented, or maybe he would have preferred something other than whatever I had made him for lunch that day. The glass shattered into a thousand shards and blood dripped from Miguel’s hand. I called work, said I’d be late because of a car that wouldn’t start, removed the glass from his hand, then washed, disinfected, and bandaged it. All the while I was wondering how I could escape.
A week later, when we were heading off to work again, I made it look as though I were a bit behind schedule, so Miguel left the apartment first. Twenty minutes later my mom and her husband pulled into the parking lot in their Ford 250 pickup, hauling a huge racing car trailer. We packed most of my belongings in the trailer and the rest in the back of my Volkswagen bug. They turned around and headed back to New York and I sped toward Seattle, where I knew Miguel would never find me.
Leslie had refused to come to St. Louis, but he was a squared away Marine, and Marines take care of each other. We are trained to put the other first, at all costs. We are trustworthy and loyal and we protect our own. We don’t lie and we don’t cheat. Miguel had a problem with living according to the Marine code, and Leslie had a momentary lapse when he refused to come to my aid, but I continued to believe completely in that way of life and in my fellow Marines. Plus, Leslie and I had served together. He was, in a way, a member of my platoon. We were closer than brothers, or closer than a brother and sister. Moving to Seattle would bring me back to that world of deep camaraderie and meaning, but this time I’d get to enjoy it in a safe haven, far from Iraq. I was ready to get my old—yet new-and-improved—life underway.
It’s a long drive from St. Louis to Seattle. Somewhere in Montana, when the relief of having escaped unharmed and the euphoria of finally getting my life back began to subside, I became aware of my mind trying to make sense of the chaos that my life had become. It was as though I had suddenly realized that the back window was cracked and the wind was whistling through it. I’d be gazing at an unfamiliar landscape or shutting off my directional signal after coming back into line from the passing lane when I’d catch my brain, on its own, without my conscious help, trying to explain how it was that I was here, on this highway, alone. When and why had my life gone so wrong? Did my parents and teachers set me up to fail by having me believe that I could do anything, be anyone? Maybe I should have listened to the coach of my Little League team who was trying to tell me that the opposite was true when he refused to play me that summer long ago. Maybe he was right, maybe his lesson was the more honest and humane: “Understand this, little girl. It’s really
cute that you’re wearing a uniform like the boys have on, but there are limits. There are limits inside you and there are limits outside of you, built into this team and its coaches, built into this league and its traditions, and built into this society and its history. Play around with all of this if you wish, sweetie, but beware!”
My brain wouldn’t stop.
Or was it the Marines who set me up to fail, who put me on this highway to who knows where? I believed in the Corps and all of the virtues it embodied. I wanted to be honest and true and brave. I wanted to sacrifice for others and for what was right, and if I could earn some respect for having done so, wonderful. But maybe I should have given more thought to the recruiter’s comment when he said, “Females aren’t allowed to be on a tank crew.” That, after all, isn’t just idle chit-chat or a superfluous, throwaway line. It symbolically represents the limits of history and tradition, attitudes and beliefs, a division of labor and a hierarchy that soon enough would have me standing behind my platoon or, bloodied and beaten by a man more than twice my size, standing, bowed, with my hands on my knees, in front of scores of male Marines who sit there being entertained, and feeling satisfied that the Corps is still the Corps, and, no matter what, will always be the Corps.
Maybe I was conned too by television stations with their reruns of happy wives in loving relationships in stable families. Since leaving Iraq, I tried to be that woman. I was feminine and made-up and had my nails done. I spent my free time cooking and baking and cleaning. I even bought the most feminine car I could find on eBay, a blue Volkswagen beetle. I was accommodating and deferential and downright sweet and … for what? To be lied to and humiliated and pushed around? Maybe, instead of just being hurt and angry when my parents divorced, I should have seen in the dissolution the wide gap between the ideal and the real. I should have somehow come to the realization that the latter—the “real”—has limitations built into it that are largely beyond my control. Maybe you’re the nicest person in the world and are married to or living with the second nicest person in the world, but that relationship is made up of understandings and expectations and beliefs and values that you must abide by, and maybe they’re not fair or they’re not suited to your temperament or we’ve become too self-interested to bother abiding by them. Or maybe the other doesn’t abide by them, in which case you’re also pretty much fucked, and alone, on US-212, in Montana.
I listened in as it occurred to my brain that every established way of interacting with one another is based upon a hidden lie that makes you believe one thing when, in fact, beneath the surface, there’s something very different going on. Do this and you’ll find meaning or happiness or glory or lasting love! That’s what we’re told. In fact, we’re sort of told that we must do it if we are to reach our goal. And so we do it. All of our social groupings, from the Little League to our families, are built on this major deception. All of them … except for a deployed platoon in a war zone. That is real. You depend upon each other, need each other, sacrifice for each other, and love each other. For real. There’s nothing phony about it. It may be because you must if you are to survive, and it may be that you tell yourself that you do all of this not for yourself, but only for the other, but it is still real.
I really didn’t want to think about any of this, and, besides, it’s not at all my habit to blame anyone or anything for the choices I make. No way was it my parents’ or the Corps’ fault. Nor was it some hidden deceit undergirding arrangements like marriage or a cohabiting boyfriend-girlfriend relationship that’s at fault here. I messed up my own life. And now I would straighten it out.
I really did not want to process any of this, but the road was long and I was alone and, sometimes, and increasingly, my brain had a mind of its own. It tried to make sense of what was missing, like it did when we were in the convoy driving through Iraqi villages that were decimated and abandoned. Where are the people? Where is the movement? Where are the doors from those houses? My brain was doing the same now. Where are my friends? My Marines? My family? Why isn’t there someone here with me, now? Or waiting for me?
Once in Seattle, I was offered a tiny, windowless, basement storage room in Leslie’s mom’s house. It was filled with clothes, books, videos, knickknacks, exercise equipment, and a hundred other artifacts of family life from a decade earlier. A narrow three-foot walkway was carved through the clutter, from the door to the bed. The morning after arriving, I applied for jobs at every sandwich shop, coffee house, and retail store I could find. I posted my resume listing my service as my only qualification on monster.com. I was offered nothing.
Three days into my stay I felt shaky when I discovered my brain thinking again without my permission. What if the bonds that the Corps creates can be sustained only in the Corps? What if Miguel’s un-Marine-like behavior was not an aberration? What if the dishonesty, disloyalty, and selfishness of the civilian world return once we leave the Corps? What if Leslie’s refusal to come to St. Louis to help me was not a lapse in judgment but was the typical behavior of an ex-Marine?
I reluctantly allowed myself to think this possibility through. It did seem to me that the MA Marines who reenlisted were doing better than those who had left. I occasionally heard reports about one or another of us getting seriously messed up, but it was always after we EASed. Then there were those who left, found civilian life unbearable, then reenlisted. Maybe my brain was right. If it were, what would this mean for me? Should I re-enlist? I couldn’t bear the thought of again participating in the kinds of things I once did. Could I become a civilian contractor in Iraq? Would that give me the social grounding I sought but with a way out if I were told to do something I thought was wrong? Or should I have just stayed with Miguel? If he’s the closest I can get to the meaningful ties I experienced in Iraq, maybe that will have to do, even if it was only meaning’s memory he now embodied. Besides, in several ways he treated me like the Corps did when he controlled and belittled and intimidated me, while receiving my love and admiration. Five days after arriving in Seattle, I was back in the beetle, headed to Tucson, where Miguel had gone when I left St. Louis.
(Photo courtesy of Bill Thompson)
26
A Break
Anger is usually a central feature of a survivor’s response to trauma because it is a core component of the survival response in humans. Anger helps people cope with life’s adversities by providing us with increased energy to persist in the face of obstacles. However, uncontrolled anger can lead to a continued sense of being out of control of oneself and can create multiple problems in the personal lives of those who suffer from PTSD.
From: “Why is Anger a Common Response to Trauma?”
—National Center for PTSD, Updated October 2003
Somewhere close to Elko, Nevada, I pulled into a McDonalds for a cup of hot chocolate and a break from driving. Close by sat an obese woman and two overweight children who appeared to be hers. The mother was still eating when her kids got up from the table and began playing a variation of the game “tag.” They were unable to actually run, but they tried their best, waddling excitedly, swaying a bit as they followed each other around the dining room, eventually administering a tap, then heading off in the opposite direction. Within a couple of minutes, they began squealing when a tag was forthcoming, and emitting a yelp when one was made. One would try to elude the chaser by squeezing into the empty seat of an otherwise occupied booth, only to be cornered and, by then, poked. This continued for ten minutes while the mother maintained a studied focus on the food before her. The rest of us were unable to concentrate on or think about anything except for the commotion that was unfolding. Or the possibility of locking the woman in a choke hold and putting her to sleep. But her neck was so thick and her mouth and esophagus so blocked with that steady stream of slightly masticated food, that I was afraid I’d kill her. Finally, an elderly woman pushed herself up from a table some ten or so feet away, walked over to the mother, and wagged a finger in her face, saying, “You should be ash
amed of yourself. You are a horrible mother.”
Instead of asking for an explanation or apologizing, the woman, with her mouth still full, extended her arms outward while clinging to what looked like the last bite of a Big Mac, bounced in her seat slightly, and shouted, “You don’t know me! Who the fuck are you to tell me I’m a horrible mother? You don’t know how I raise my kids, you old bag!”
The mother decided she could do—or refrain from doing— whatever she wanted, believing that her behavior had no effect on anyone else. Typical. Consume everything in sight while your kids run amok, disrupting other people’s lives. Then go ballistic when someone complains, as if it’s you who should be angry. I thought it’d be cool to instantly transport her to Iraq, insert her into a platoon and, after five minutes or so, ask her what she thought then about her interconnectedness with others. Her self-centeredness would be such a huge life and death concern to everyone else that they’d knock it out of her immediately. She was still shouting as I left. By the time I pulled back onto the highway, my brain was in overdrive.
So that’s what happens. The solidarity that makes life bearable and the sacrifice that makes love true no longer find fertile soil in American culture—except within the Marine Corps and then maybe only during a deployment in time of war. And once one has experienced that love, they know what they are missing when it’s gone. If they reenlist and fight again, they’re fine. If they reenlist but do not see combat, they may still experience that bonding at a sufficient enough depth to be okay. If they instead cling desperately to other ex-Marines in the belief that they can, on their own, each give more than they take, they are in trouble. The structural supports a society needs to sustain friendships over individual interests, or the institutions of marriage and family over individual interests, or the neighborhood or the future generation over individual interests, simply do not exist.
Jessica Goodell & John Hearn Page 12