What was it all about? Could she go into the Army and make a life for herself and her child? Her Uncle Richard told her the Army was “not the place for women,” which intrigued her even more. There had been women soldiers singing with the band that day during the show. Wearing nice sharp uniforms, they all seemed so happy, as though their lives were so together.
Seventeen at the time she walked into the recruiter’s office, Master Sergeant Frank Kelsey told Beverley he couldn’t talk with her about joining the Army without a parent or guardian present. Army regulations, he explained, required her grandmother to come in before he could talk to Beverley.
That was the last thing Beverley wanted—for her grandmother to have any decision-making power over her choice to be in the Army. But she had no choice. So she played nice and took Mama with her to the recruiting office. Mama grudgingly signed the paperwork giving her permission to join the Army once she turned eighteen.
Unfortunately, many things could happen in a couple of months. Beverley started seeing Kenney who had several girlfriends. Beverley knew one of his girlfriends, Teresa, because she lived right around the corner from Aunt Ida Mae’s house.
Teresa didn’t take too kindly to the idea that her man (he was twenty-one and she was fifteen) was seeing Beverley. They got into a fight, a good old fisticuff fight. When Beverley got the better of Teresa, Teresa’s mother joined the catfight and slapped Beverley’s glasses right off her face.
Nothing like fighting blind, Beverley struck out and pummeled the woman to the ground, forgetting to respect her age. She battered Teresa’s mother so badly, it took three people to pull Beverley off the woman. On the run for three days following the altercation, Beverley was finally caught by the cops two days before Thanksgiving.
Because Teresa’s mother had sworn out a warrant for her arrest, the police had to take Beverley to county lockup before a judge would see her. Locked up for six hours before her turn came to appear before the judge, Beverley thought her life was over and that she would become a statistic, joining her friends who were already in jail or prison.
Fortunately for Beverley, she had already signed up for the Army. The judge honored that with only one stipulation—if she decided to not go into the Army, she would have to serve time for the assault.
Beverley thought back to that as she and Janie finished packing her clothes. She couldn’t wait to leave Aiken. Aiken was no longer a home or a refuge for her. She needed something different in her life and knew the Army could give her what she was seeking. When she went to Columbia for her physical and swearing-in in October, she met a totally different kind of people and freedom.
Beverley met people from places she had never been before—Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Washington, DC, Connecticut, and other states. She enjoyed talking to these people and hearing about places other than boring South Carolina. She knew she would enjoy the experience of being in the military and being allowed to travel to places like Europe, Asia, Alaska, and Hawaii. When she returned to Aiken after swearing in to await her birthday and her boot camp, which started in March, she sullenly lived life, ready to leave for the last time.
Looking around the room she rented from her Aunt Ida Mae for the last time, Beverley closed the door on the life she had lived. She wanted to forget. She wanted something poles apart from what she was accustomed to. She wanted a new day and the Army was going to give her that.
As Beverley hugged her aunt and went out the front door of the modest house, she assured the feisty, old, gray-haired woman she would take care and call and write often. She loved this petite woman, her beloved Daddy’s younger sister. She had taken Beverley in when she couldn’t spend another day in the house with her grandmother.
Running down the steps to Janie’s car waiting to take her to the bus station, she glanced over her shoulder at the house where she had spent her last six months in Aiken. Quickly waving her hand before ducking into the car, Beverley realized how much she would miss her aunt and most of the rest of her family.
But now was the time to look forward. Today was the first day of the rest of her life.
The Baby Chronicles
FIFTY-TWO
This was it! This was the day in each eternal stream that each of the four young women—Beverley Scott, Margarette Ann Wells, Emmaline Ruth Johnson, and Joyce Renee Jones—would enter the United States Army and train to become United States Army soldiers.
Time stood still as each of the young women repeated the oath of enlistment that had been repeated by thousands, hundreds of thousands, of other soldiers before them.
“Attention!” commanded the various Enlistment Officers. Please repeat after me … I, state your name …
I, Beverley Scott … , October 14, 1976
I, Margarette Ann Wells … , April 21, 1977
I, Emmaline Ruth Johnson … , June 19, 1977
I, Joyce Renee Jones … , June 20, 1978
… do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.
As the last words were repeated by the newly enlisted United States Army soldiers, each young woman considered the path she had taken on this very day in her life.
Beverley
I can’t believe I’ve done this,” Beverley Scott thought to herself.
Here she was … seventeen years old and away from home almost for the first time! She debated on whether she should call anyone to let them know what she had finally accomplished. Then she thought better of it. After all, the only people who cared about her enlisting in the Army already knew what she was doing. The only one who she really wanted to talk to about her decision, her Daddy, Otis Scott, was dead.
Beverley left the room with the others she had recently become acquainted with at Fort Jackson, South Carolina Military Entrance Processing Station. They all congratulated each other on enlisting and made plans to enjoy their last bit of freedom before entering boot camp. Because of her age, Beverley would be forced to return to Aiken until March 9, 1977 when she could officially enter boot camp. She hated the thought of returning to her place of torment.
Beverley walked into the room she shared with seven other young women from various states on the East Coast. She enjoyed the camaraderie they shared during the few days they had come to know each other. She looked forward to maybe sharing basic training with at least two of them since the others would be sent to basic during the next cycle of training as part of the delayed entry program. Today was a day of firsts and Beverley looked forward to a new life that would take her to where she wanted to be—away from South Carolina, perhaps to a place where she and Roxy could build a life together.
Margarette Ann
Margarette Ann Wells smiled to herself as she looked at the enlistment papers in her hands.
“This is something he will never be able to take away from me,” she scoffed, looking at the paperwork again for about the hundredth time. She had just repeated the oath of enlistment with fifty-five other new soldiers and was about as happy as she could be considering the journey she had taken to get to where she was today.
Margarette Ann thought back several days to the day she left home for the first and also the last time. She bitterly considered whether she should call home or not and thought better of it. She really didn’t want to hear Albert’s voice no matter how much distance there was between the two of them. She’d had enough of him in her life. She refused to allow him to ruin the moment of her greatest triumph since leaving home.
Instead, she called her cousin Jerry who had taken her to the airport. She hadn’t spoken with him since their drive to the airport. Margarette Ann wondered what changes had been made in her family since he went back and revealed the revolting s
ecrets she had shared with him, with anyone, for the first time.
“Jerry, it’s me. I did it,” Margarette Ann stated in her somber voice. In all their years of growing up together, Jerry could never remember her being excited about anything. Today was no different.
“Hey, cuz! Congratulations!” Jerry shouted into the phone, hoping to help her become a little more excited about her accomplishment. Out of all his girl cousins, Jerry admired and loved Margarette Ann just a little more than the others. From the time they were all cutting teeth, they had played and become close. Not just because of the blood ties, but because they all shared a real closeness.
“Thanks, Jerry! I appreciate you being there for me,” Margarette Ann returned, trying to lighten her voice just a little but unable to since she didn’t know the status of her siblings and parents back in Ohio.
“Margarette Ann, a lot has already changed in your house,” Jerry shared. Social Services had stepped in and removed her siblings. They were temporarily with her mother’s parents. The judge would decide in about a month or so whether the courts would leave them there or not.
Tears of joy and sadness rolled down Margarette Ann’s face as Jerry shared everything. Now, she was sure her brother and sisters would not have to endure what she endured for much of her still young life. Maybe there was a God.
Margarette Ann thought back to how Jerry had cried as he drove while she shared with him the things her father had done. At one point, Jerry pulled over on the side of the road to vomit. He was so disgusted with what Margarette Ann told him. She shook her head in disgust as she walked to the room she shared with other young women who were entering Army basic training.
Margarette Ann knew this was going to be a difficult time in her life, this basic training she had to endure. She didn’t care. She wanted this. She needed this to happen in her life. Maybe, just maybe, she thought to herself, she would be able to forget about all she had gone through as she forged a new life for herself in the world. She was determined to move forward. Nothing would stop her.
Emmaline
Emmaline Ruth Johnson grinned into the telephone receiver as she spoke to her mother.
“Mama, I did it! I’m in the Army!” she shouted into the receiver.
Emmaline was ecstatic! Finally, she had done the one thing everyone in her family in Charlotte had told her she couldn’t and shouldn’t do—join the Army. She was on her way to doing something none of her other family members, male or female, had done. She would have bragging rights on this.
“Honey,” Maybelle replied through the shared laughter, “I am so proud of you!” Tears welling in her soft brown eyes, Maybelle wished her beloved Alton could be there at that particular moment to share in the joy of their daughter. Oh, how she missed him!
“Mama, we start training tomorrow,” Emmaline continued excitedly. “We have our uniforms and everything! Mama, some of this stuff is sooo ugly,” Emmaline dramatized, laughing as she shared with her mom how some of her new friends looked as they paraded in the barracks halls wearing different items of the uniforms.
Maybelle laughed with her daughter as she described the uniforms in detail. Looking around herself in her kitchen, she knew that life would not be the same without their Emmaline around the house. However, she was willing to forego her daughter being at home so she could find her place in the world, and prayerfully, in God.
Maybelle acknowledged that life had not been the best for Emmaline Ruth Johnson. She had been rejected, put down, and all together pushed out of Charlotte because of the way friends and family had treated her. Although Maybelle felt sadness in her heart, she knew that her daughter had made the right and only decision in this season of her life.
“Honey, enjoy the journey,” Maybelle advised her daughter as they prepared to hang up.
Maybelle had much to think about now. Emmaline had asked permission for her younger sister to come and live with her once she received her permanent assignment. Maybelle thought it would probably be a good idea, but she would think on it. She pondered on the request to see what Alton would have decided had he been there. Maybelle wanted the best for her children. If that meant they needed to leave Charlotte, then so be it.
Joyce
Joyce Renee Jones grinned as she completed the oath of enlistment. She was more excited than she had ever been in her entire life. She was finally going to fulfill her dream of getting away from home, family, and friends so she could go and do what she wanted to do. The Army would allow her the opportunity to travel to many places in the world she would otherwise not have been able to visit.
Joyce looked down at the uniform she wore. Goodness! This had to be the drabbest shade of green the Army could have come up with! Olive green with only the black of the nametag and the army tag to give it any contrast. And these boots! What could the designers possibly have been thinking when they came up with these uniforms?
It’s a good thing I’m female, JoJo thought to herself. At least the female uniforms were more contoured to the female body. They even allowed them to show a little leg every once in a while if they wore the skirt. And then there was the ugly mint-green skirt set. Boy, was that ever ugly!
But she didn’t care. She was here, exactly where she wanted to be at this time in her life. She knew her entire family was behind her. Her parents had to be the proudest people on the face of the Earth. She was cool with that. Joyce knew she had given them a lot of heartache over the past five to seven years. She was determined to make it up to them.
Kingdom of Darkness …
“I will wreak havoc on these four,” satan threatened, observing each young woman in her time continuum. He went from one to the other as he hissed and cursed in the atmosphere above each of the four young women he had watched from the moment of their creation. He knew that Almighty God had plans for each of these women. He was determined to cause them to walk on the side of darkness before it was all over.
Kingdom of Light …
Almighty God observed Lucifer stalking from one time period to the next, threatening those who would be called by the name of the Most High God. He knew the plans of the devil and would allow certain things to happen. But there was no stopping the plans of God for these four young women. He had determined that these four would serve not only in the Army of the world but the Lord’s Army. He had orchestrated it and it would happen.
These are His babies. And these are their chronicles.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Beatrice Bruno is the author of several motivational/inspirational titles that include How to Get Over Yourself, Get Out of Your Own Way, and Get What YOU Want Out of Life! Beatrice is an Army veteran and former (but always and forever) drill sergeant.
Beatrice is an ordained gospel minister and life and writing coach who loves showing folks how to get over themselves and let go of the PAST.
Now, having written her first novel, Beatrice is spreading her wings as a novelist and creating the series, The Baby Chronicles, Volume 1, which includes the GI Josephines (Volume 2) and the Soldiers of the Lord (Volume 3).
Hang on to your hats as you follow the escapades of Beverley, Joyce, Margarette Ann, and Emmaline from before birth until … well, you’ll just have to read the series to see where it all ends!
The Baby Chronicles Page 25