by Tanya Biank
Rita worked at making sure she and Brian were in the first category. Gradually she shared with him some experiences of her own. In bits and pieces, over several months, she told Brian about her girls’ night out the previous winter, occasionally adding tidbits she had earlier omitted. When Brian raised a concern, Rita said, “What? I told you about that, sweet pea. You weren’t mad about it then.”
She finally made Brian realize that she couldn’t be what he wanted her to be, a full-time mom and housewife.
“I don’t know what I want to do, but this ain’t it,” she told him during one argument.
Brian had resisted, but Mandy, who was taking classes, kept encouraging her to go back to school. Rita researched scholarships and marketable degrees. Finally she told her husband, “I’m sorry. I’ve tried. I’ve tried, and I can’t. I have to be stimulated up here,” she said pointing to her head.
At last he gave in. Before long he was quizzing his wife with her generic and brand-name drug flash cards and taking care of the boys when she was studying. Still, Rita knew Brian didn’t really get it. He’d support Rita’s returning to school if that’s what she wanted to do, but he didn’t understand why she wanted to work so badly.
Rita looked at the cars stopped in all directions. Now they’d both have to adjust again, she thought, as the government decided what its response to the terror attacks would be. Rita gripped the steering wheel tightly. She thought back on the last twenty-four hours. Oh, God, this isn’t happening. Well, Rita guessed, she’d just have to roll with it.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The phone rang in the middle of a chilly November night, and Rita sleepily groped to answer it. The voice on the other end asked for “Specialist Odom,” and almost without thinking she handed the receiver to Brian.
“Red Corvette,” she heard him repeat. She knew what was coming next. After he hung up, he’d kiss her, pull on his jump boots, and head to Bragg. She tried not to worry. It was a code for a recall; other nights there were green Corvette or blue Pinto exchanges.
The cryptic phrases are actually a more efficient way of doing business than saying, “Hey, we’re jumping into Haiti tomorrow. Don’t tell anyone because this is double top secret.” And much more secure, too, if the enemy is listening.
I’ve crossed paths with some soldiers who thought “the enemy” could be the woman in bed next to them. To this day some veterans in Fayetteville blame wives for blabbing about the parachute assault into Panama in December 1989, which was one of the Army’s worst-kept secrets. I’ve been told it was the State Department that did most of the damage, though, when Washington staffers warned colleagues in Panama of the upcoming invasion.
Most of the middle-of-the-night calls to the Odom home were to check the alert rosters, which were a calling chain with everyone’s name and phone number; others were emergency deployment readiness exercises (EDREs). On those nights most of the soldiers didn’t know until they arrived in formation if the recall was an exercise or a “real world mission.”
Phone calls in the dead of the night are never good signs, but in the Army they take on new meaning, partly because of their frequency. If you are in a position of authority with a troop unit, the more calls you’ll get, about everything from car accidents and fistfights requiring medical treatment to domestic violence and drunk driving. Whatever the problem, leaders up and down the chain of command will know about it before sunrise—and so will their wives.
The Odoms didn’t receive those kinds of calls, but they did answer plenty of red Corvette alerts.
Rita had gotten to the point of being able to roll over and go back to sleep after the phone rang, just as she had learned to remain flexible with dinnertimes and weekend outings. It was all part of incorporating the Army into her life without allowing it to run her over. But she never got used to the idea she could lose Brian. It first hit her that something could go wrong when Brian called home one afternoon to tell her a soldier had been beheaded on a parachute jump.
“Ya know,” she said, “I think I could have lived my whole life without you telling me that story.”
Paratroopers jump out of planes moving at 130 knots, eight hundred feet off the ground. If all goes well the parachute opens in four seconds, and the soldier thumps on the ground in twenty to forty seconds. Occasionally a soldier breaks a leg or chips his tailbone, and there have been times when parachutes malfunction and a soldier plunges to his death.
Paratroopers take the danger seriously, but they also make light of it in an old song called “Blood Upon the Risers,” sung to the melody of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” The 82nd Airborne Division Chorus would boom out the verses at post events. The last time I heard it I was at a ball, as couples dressed in their finest thumped along with the rhythm:
There was blood upon the risers,
There were brains upon his ‘chute.
Intestines were a’dangling from his paratrooper’s boots.
They picked him up, still in his chute and poured him from his boots.
HE AIN’T GONNA JUMP NO MORE!
Then there’s the rousing chorus:
GORY, GORY WHAT A HELLUVA WAY TO DIE!
GORY, GORY WHAT A HELLUVA WAY TO DIE!
GORY, GORY WHAT A HELLUVA WAY TO DIE!
HE AIN’T GONNA JUMP NO MORE!
When soldiers in the 82nd Airborne Division go eighty-two days without anyone getting killed, they are rewarded with a day off. A SAFETY-GRAM billboard on Gruber Road, leading into the division area, keeps track of the fatality-free days as an incentive to stay safe. Inevitably soldiers grumble when a paratrooper manages to die after the seventy-five-day mark and the billboard drops back to zero.
I’ve been around enough paratroopers to know that they, like ballplayers, are a superstitious lot. If you were wearing a certain pair of underwear the night you had a soft landing while your buddies all bounced like tumbleweeds, the same pair might just do the same the following month. Disrupt that routine, and you might get jinxed.
Before each parachute jump Rita would remind Brian, “Do your little mojo ritual.”
“I know, I know,” he’d tell her. Brian kept a picture from their wedding day tucked in the dome of his helmet. Before the plane’s doors opened, Brian looked at the picture and kissed his wedding band. He wasn’t religious, but he prayed anyway: “God, please keep everyone on the plane safe. I’ve got a wife and kids. They love and need me. I serve my country willingly. If it’s your will, please get me home to my wife and kids.”
On this autumn night she said, “Take care, sweet pea,” as Brian tiptoed out. “Don’t worry about us, we’ll be fine.” She knew he had worries of his own.
Brian Odom was serious about being a good paratrooper, and he wanted to rise in the Army ranks, but he was beginning to wonder if he would ever wear sergeant’s stripes. Someone in Brian’s unit had accused him of being a racist, and Fort Bragg didn’t take such accusations lightly.
In 1997 two white supremacists, Sergeants James Burmeister and Malcolm Wright, received life sentences for murdering two black people for sport in downtown Fayetteville two years earlier. Since then, the Army has been diligent in screening soldiers for racist tattoos and scouring the barracks for white supremacist literature.
Although several years had passed, Brian served in the same battalion as Burmeister and Wright, and racism was an especially sensitive subject there. Brian thought he had a great relationship with his squad leader, who was black. As far as Brian was concerned, everyone in the Army was green. Some soldiers saw Brian differently, however. The Confederate stickers on his truck, his Alabama roots, and his shaved head didn’t go over well in an Army that was a blend of ethnicities, races, and religions. In response to the charges, Brian’s commander had opened a six-month investigation, which closed in October. The findings indicated there was no impropriety All during that time Brian had been “flagged,” meaning he was unable to rise in rank, go to Army schools, receive awards, or reenlist. Now, more than
anything, Brian wanted to go before the board and get promoted.
Rita sometimes thought he cared more about the Army than their marriage. She felt the Army was another woman; heck, sometimes she felt as if she were the mistress. It drove her crazy. Why was everything so hard?
Again and again Brian told her that she didn’t understand serving in a combat unit wasn’t like a pogue Army desk job. (“Pogue” is a military slang term used to describe a useless air breather who does nothing but sit on his ass all day. The derisive term is also used to describe rear-echelon units, fat people, lazy staff officers, and slouches in general. It’s a far cry from the adrenaline-rush atmosphere that reigns over most of Bragg, and which can take its own toll.) I’ve witnessed even the best soldiers in the fiercely proud 82nd succumb sometimes to the anxiety of being in a constant state of readiness for war. Since soldiers always have to have their “A” game on at work, the pressure-cooker environment can affect their health and relationships.
Brian once told me he was beginning to feel that his marriage was both blessed and cursed. He and Rita were still learning about each other. When things were good, they were really good, and when they were bad, the fights were horrible. He admitted he had an anger problem. The Army sent him to its anger-management classes when he punched a sergeant who Brian thought was treating him unfairly. Brian had received punishment called an Article 15, forfeited two weeks’ pay, and spent two weeks after duty hours buffing floors and cleaning latrines. The Army liked aggression, but only on its own terms.
Brian tended to look at things in extremes. He was either depressed or elated, pissed off or happy. And he could get jealous. He wanted to be the one to answer the phone, which Rita interpreted as his not wanting her to be with or even have friends. Wasn’t he enough? he’d ask her. All of Rita’s friends, whether they were back in Alabama or here, seemed to be of questionable character to him. He disapproved of Rita’s writing to a male friend who was in an Alabama prison. He felt that her friends in Fayetteville were hoochies, and he had never trusted Sherry from the moment he met her. Rita thought Sherry was friendly and bubbly. Brian considered her a flirt. He sure didn’t need his wife hanging out with a friend who would attract men to both of them. His reactions made him seem territorial and possessive.
“You’d run me over if I let you,” Rita told him during one argument, as she tried to explain her frustrations. “But I have enough strength to say uh-huh when I’ve had enough, and I’ve reached my limit.” Still, something told her maybe she shouldn’t have mentioned those escapades with the other wives or that a soldier in her class had asked her out.
One day that fall, during a cigarette break between classes, Rita sat at a picnic table with her classmate, Patti. Tall, thin, and tattooed, Patti was a retired Army master sergeant. She kept her hair clipped short and dyed red. She wore gobs of jewelry—expensive jewelry, Rita thought.
As the women smoked, Rita complained that Brian never took her advice about the promotion board. “Why won’t he listen to me?” she said.
“Rita, shut the fuck up,” Patti said, emphasizing each word by flicking her cigarette ashes and tapping her fake nails on the picnic table. “You need to understand you don’t know shit about the Army. You’re belittling him. He knows what he needs to do, and you don’t. So you just shut your mouth.”
Rita sat stunned as her fifty-year-old classmate put her cigarette to her lips and inhaled deeply, crinkling her eyes.
“What if Brian said, ‘If you just do this on your chemistry test, you’ll get an A’? What would you tell him?” Patti asked.
“I’d tell him he didn’t know what he was talking about.”
“Well, there you go. Don’t tell him how to do his job.”
Rita was still shell-shocked when she drove home after class. The “gospel According to Patti” woke her up. I’m not helping, she thought. Brian’s dealing with crap at work, and I’m nagging the shit out of him at home. She knew she couldn’t be selfish. A marriage can’t all be about the soldier, but some aspects of it had to be. A soldier can’t stop, Rita thought. He’s gotta keep going. If the wife says stop, it will create distance between them. I don’t know, she thought. I set out to be the best Army wife, and I’m failing miserably at it.
When Brian got home that night, she told him, “I’m going to be strong enough to stand up and say we have a problem.”
“I don’t have a problem, you have a problem,” Brian shot back.
“No, we have a problem together, and we’re gonna figure it out.”
She suggested marriage counseling, and when Brian shot that idea down, she suggested he go to counseling alone.
“Rita, you can’t go to counseling unless you want everybody to know about it. Why would I take the chance of things getting leaked around the company? I would be looked at as weak if the commander or the command sergeant major found out. It could stunt my career.” He would never get promoted to sergeant.
“Counseling is kept confidential,” Rita said.
“It’s only confidential as long as the counselor deems it confidential,” Brian answered back.
Brian was right. Though there is no shortage of counseling programs in the Army, few trust the system enough to take a chance on ruining their reputations. Soldiers are kept on such a tight leash during the duty day that it is impossible to see a counselor and expect to keep it private. And seeking help is considered a career ender, so most soldiers with troubles simply keep them to themselves. Officers and senior NCOs who want help, and can afford it, discreetly seek therapy off post. Psychiatrists and counselors in Fayetteville keep evening hours to accommodate their military clients.
For those seeking top-secret security clearances, the Department of Defense Personnel Security Investigations Medical Record asks on its questionnaire: “In the last seven years have you consulted a mental health professional (psychiatrist, psychologist, counselor etc.) or have you consulted with another health care provider about a mental health related condition?” If the answer is yes, the applicant has to explain the circumstances in writing. So much for confidentiality. From the Army’s point of view, the question has to be asked. After all, who really wants someone with suicidal tendencies, anger problems, or self-esteem issues handling information that could put the nation at risk?
Rita wasn’t about to let anything rock their marriage, even something as pervasive as the Army. You can’t get married and then stop trying, she thought. That was why she’d stuck with her first husband so long. She didn’t want Brian ever to stop looking at her the way he did when they were first married.
“Fuck the stripes!” Rita shouted. “I care about me and you and my emotional stability. So we’re gonna keep talking about it and talking about it until we get through this. I’m gonna hurt your feelings, and you’re gonna sit there, smile, and like it,” she told her husband. They waited until the kids went to bed, then Brian and Rita would have their discussions.
“I’m stubborn,” she said. “You’re not getting away from me.”
I’ve seen some couples deal with their marital problems in other ways—drinking, seeking companionship outside the marriage, or focusing on work or children. I’ve always been taken aback when I’d hear a deployed soldier say he missed his kids more than his wife. Not that he said it, exactly. He didn’t have to; I could see and hear love when he talked about his kids. I usually had to ask about his wife.
One Army wife I know took drastic measures early in her marriage. When her husband constantly acted like a jerk, she’d pack up her things and leave when he was out in the field. He’d come home a few weeks later to an empty house and a note, no dinner, no sex. After a few notes he got the picture and changed his ways. They are now happily married with three children.
Other women leave and never come back. Still others, who believe they have already given their best years to their husbands and the Army, stay in the marriage. Though they may put up a united front with their spouses at official functions, some
will complain in private about their husbands.
While she fought for her marriage, Rita wondered about herself. What kind of an Army wife she was anyway? She had been thinking about that since May, when she had attended Fort Bragg’s Military Spouse Day. Rita had read about a car clinic there, and she showed up ready to get dirty and learn about car maintenance. She crossed her arms across her blue New Orleans souvenir T-shirt that spelled out “Bourbon Street” in now-half-gone glitter. It hung just above her jean cutoffs, which exposed her pale legs, the kind that never tanned. She didn’t bother with makeup. Brian always told her she didn’t need any.
As she waited for Mandy, Rita noticed a group of women off to the side, chatting. They were about thirty, wore coordinated tops and slacks with matching shoes, and their hair and makeup seemed a bit much for a parking lot on a Saturday morning.
Those women are immaculate, Rita thought, as she stared at one in pink pleated shorts, a matching sweater, and light pink flats with matching bows. The woman reminded Rita of a walking fluff of carnival cotton candy. Another woman was dressed like a Fourth of July picnic table. She had on a summer sweater with flags, red Keds and socks with flags, earrings, hair bow—all flags. Her white shorts were the only banner-free zone on her body.
Rita gave her ponytail a cinch and crossed her arms even tighter. “What’s up with that?” she asked when Mandy walked over.
“Don’t ya know? They’re officers’ wives. Your husband works for a living.”
Until that moment Rita never had had any contact with officers’ wives. She didn’t realize they were any different. But now it was all making sense. She remembered driving past the Normandy housing area on Reilly Street and asking Brian, “Who lives there?” These were the senior officers’ families quarters. Most of the women Rita knew lived across post or in boxlike apartments or trailers off Bragg.