Mackenna on the Edge

by Djuna Shellam

  Once delivered to our barracks, we were deposited in what we came to know as the Day Room; or, as we found out soon enough, the-room-where-one-learns-to-smoke-or-die. After waiting on pins and needles for somewhere between fifteen minutes and eternity, in a room that could easily have doubled for a prison common room—sleep deprived, yet horribly awake from mega-doses of caffeine coursing through our veins—we were finally greeted by our first Training Instructor, more commonly known as our TI.

  If we weren’t frightened before then, we had every reason to be after our pre-dawn introduction to Sergeant Gertrude Dettlebach. As we would find out throughout our next six weeks in Basic Training, Sergeant Dettlebach, rather, Ma’am, was not a morning person and despised anyone or anything placed in her path before noon. She particularly despised new recruits, especially new recruits who were scheduled to arrive before nine p.m. but actually showed up closer to reveille the following morning.

  Being keen observers of our new surroundings, I and my fellow recruit quickly deduced beyond any doubt whatsoever that we were in trouble. Perhaps it was the audible swearing we heard from behind closed doors. Or the look of unmistakable hatred on the small woman’s round, reddened face when she plowed into the room and quickly surveyed the array of personal belongings strewn around our feet.

  Summarily dismissing our “Mother,” a member of a Flight ahead of us by one or two weeks and assigned to be our mentors until their own graduation, Ma’am began barking orders at us regarding a collection of forms we held in our trembling hands. How we came to have those forms is now a mystery to me, but I remember very clearly we were to print our names, social security numbers and dates of birth just so:

  No parentheses, dashes or spaces between numbers! Bark, bark, bark! Hurry up! This ain’t kindergarten—do you know what the hell time it is?

  No. Yes. Yes. Sorry… Sorry, what? Huh? Sorry, what? Huh?! Sorry Ma’am. Oh… right—Ma’am. Sorry Ma’am.

  We managed to make it beyond that first nightmare and were eventually led quietly through the darkened bay between two rows of other sleeping recruits to two empty metal beds. Even in the darkness we were both visibly shaking. How could we not be? We had just been chewed up and spit out by a five foot fire breathing dyke. It had been nearly twenty-four hours from our last attempt at sleep, and we were two thousand miles from home and anything remotely familiar to us, so yes, we were rattled.

  I didn’t even bother to undress. I was too tired to do more than lay down on the creaking metal bed. The wire mesh beneath the mattress gave slightly under my weight as I curled into a fetal position with the scratchy loden-green wool blanket pulled up under my chin. The sound of many other girls—women—in deep slumber permeated the air of a room I could not imagine beyond the distorted shadows cast on the two rows of beds.

  Shapes formed by muted light streaming in from narrow horizontal windows lined up across the uppermost part of the outside wall. I remember thinking—just as I laid my head down on the government-issue pillow, and moments before I fell into a deep, dark, lost sleep—I had made a huge mistake.

  ~/~/~/~/~

  The next thing I knew, in what seemed to be moments but was actually two and a half hours later, life as I knew it had changed immeasurably. At seven-thirty we were roused by a loud female voice announcing the time, and some gibberish about getting out of bed. It is now oh-seven-thirty and all airmen will be out of bed and… blah, blah, something or other. Though I heard roughly the same announcement every single morning at oh-five-hundred hours for the next six weeks, in the course of the last nearly twenty years, I have successfully pushed the exact words out of my memory. If I never hear a loud voice barking me out of bed at five a.m. again in my life it will never, ever be too soon.

  FOURTEEN

  Over the Rainbows

  The following six weeks were filled with fear, rushing, followed by waiting and a serious lack of sleep. There was endless marching, resulting in blisters upon blisters on our feet. Training, exhaustion, exercise, more fear and more waiting made up our typical days. Then there were shots, tests, standing, and myriad rules; and, of course, more fear. Being referred to as “people” or “ladies” more times a day than I could count was more than I could stomach, or even bear to remember today without having to suppress a strong urge to let out a paint-peeling shriek. I can honestly say I know what it feels like to be incarcerated. Never allowed outdoors except for meals, and under the watchful eye of our TIs or dorm guards 24/7, for at least that first week, I and my fellow “inmates” were undeniably in a form of prison.

  We didn’t count going to chow as going outside because the chow hall was actually on the ground floor of our barracks. We would access it via a carport-like training pad underneath the building. The building was a self-contained module holding at least four training Flights, a laundry facility, a training pad, classrooms and a chow hall.

  Every day we were literally locked inside our dorm. The door, the only way in or out, was guarded by a Basic trainee from our “Mommy Flight”—a Flight approximately two weeks older than ours—while we awaited the arrival of straggling members who would complete our training group. As I recall, sometime during our first several days, our luggage was surrendered to the TIs, as well as any money or personal belongings we didn’t immediately need.

  We had mixed emotions to be sure, as we were thrilled to finally receive our uniforms and leave the derogatory tag of “Rainbow Flight” far behind us. In a land where uniformity rules, there was nothing more humiliating than marching around in our civilian attire—our civvies—looking like some ragtag bunch of misfits. Without fail, as we marched here to there and back again, we were serenaded, at least once a day, by some older Flight singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbows.”

  On the other hand, with the issuance of our uniforms and the surrender of our civvies, we knew, at least in a superficial way, we had lost our unique identities and any possibility of easy escape back to the civilian world. At the time, we were in such shock we didn’t even think of escape; but, by the time we figured out we might want that as an option, we had been issued our uniforms. The last shards of our former civilian lives and individuality were confiscated and locked away with our other things.

  Always on edge those first days, we spent our time waiting for the frightening and perennially grouchy TIs to dictate our every move. By the end of the second day, the last of the expected recruits finally arrived and we were, initially at least, forty-eight women ready for training—more or less. There were forty-eight of us in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Our ages ranged from seventeen to twenty-seven with diverse economic and geographical origins. We learned very quickly to live in very close proximity of one another as comrades, and yes, as prisoners.

  My years at boarding school helped me through what were, for others, very trying days of adaptation. It was difficult at times, even for me, to adjust to a nearly complete and total lack of privacy or having control over one’s own body. It’s a lot easier to accept when you’re nine—when you’re eighteen or older, it’s much more difficult.

  Every waking and sleeping move was ordained by authority figures who were absolute strangers to us. Surprisingly, I found the experience overall to be strangely fun and oddly liberating. I knew I should have been more frightened than I was, but I decided there was no turning back—unless, of course, I wanted to be completely humiliated by my parents as a failure, which would then completely humiliate them—so I decided to make the best of it. I was not a model airman as we were called regardless of gender—not by a long shot. But as I had learned dealing with my über strict parents, if there was a rule, there was a way around it—one way or another.

  By the end of the second week of my Basic Training, I had earned the reputation of a “skate” which was a fairly accurate description of me as I could easily avoid work details by skating smoothly away from them. Somehow I managed to never pull the dreaded KP (kitchen patrol), latrine or laundry duties. I only stood as a dorm guard
once, because I wanted to, and rarely cleaned anything unless I found personal enjoyment in the task. I managed to avoid most unpleasant activities and other hideous chores simply by taking advantage of the system, which included successfully wrapping both TIs around my proverbial little finger.

  I don’t know exactly how I was able to navigate Basic Training so smoothly and so successfully without finding myself in detention, but I managed. Interestingly enough, I also managed to do so without alienating my fellow trainees. That wasn’t difficult for me at all, because despite avoiding so many horrendous duties, I was very helpful to my fellow trainees by helping them with their ironing and general uniform maintenance and housekeeping. I wielded a mean can of spray starch and could make a crease in any garment under my control so sharp it was almost dangerous to the touch. I also had a knack for shining shoes to such a high gloss people swore that shoes I shined were made of glass.

  My bed-making skills were legendary. A quarter bounced off any bed made by me would bounce nearly back to its original height—or so the legend goes. The quarter would indeed bounce, but I don’t think it bounced that high. Nonetheless, my bed making was impressive and sought after. I never traded favors, yet always seemed to be helping some poor soul out of a jam to help them avoid getting a “three-forty-one” pulled—what we called a “gig”—the much feared equivalent of a demerit. Gigs were perilously tied to our base and town liberty passes and were to be avoided at all costs. I enjoyed helping out, but felt extremely uncomfortable receiving any reciprocal compensation; thus, my propensity for being a skate was ignored, and in most cases, heartily encouraged by my cohorts.

  Soon, however—and to my own personal horror, I might add—because I was such a pet to my TIs, other Training Instructors came to know my name. I suppose my name became the subject of conversation because my TIs most likely mentioned my “talents” to their coworkers at some point.

  I promptly found out, if there’s one rule you never want to break in Basic Training, it’s the one about never, ever, never, never letting TIs other than your own learn your name. It was even thought desirable to avoid letting your own TIs know of your existence, although that was nearly impossible. It got to the point, whenever I heard the deliberate tap, tap, tap of metal on cement I would cringe, because I knew with a great degree of certainty the next sound I would hear was my very own name being barked by some TI looking to amuse him or herself.

  That telltale tap, tap, tapping sound came from the metal taps worn by all of the Training Instructors on their shoes. They were an economical device designed to save the soles of their shoes, necessary because a TI would easily march literally thousands of miles a year. It was a sound that could turn a room full of high-octane, testosterone-pumped male recruits into a bunch of knee-knocking, teeth-chattering, mommy-calling ’fraidy-cats. Not to mention what sort of affect it had on most of the female recruits I knew, who were often afraid of their own shadows. I never ran or tried to duck out of sight when I heard a TI approaching; but rather, stood and took whatever grilling and humiliation they would lay on me. The look of almost sheer delight on their faces was practically endearing and completely worth enduring the torture to see them so happy.

  If there were other recruits around to witness my getting harangued, however, both the TI and I would immediately play our required parts. The TI would have that stern, mad-as-hell TI mask on as some kind of a psychological device, clearly worn just to scare the hell out of us, and I would quiver in feigned terror. Either way, I took whatever was dished out to me.

  It quickly became apparent to me that I was a toy, as well as a tool, and so I simply played their game. The louder they would yell in my face, the more I would shiver and manage to draw just enough moisture into my eyes for the near ultimate effect—but I would never cry. From my perspective, I was raised by nuns and any TI’s threat paled in comparison. In addition, not only did I have a reputation to uphold with the TIs, but my peers counted on me to take the ire of any given TI and then walk blithely away, completely unscathed. It gave them hope and courage because I was their own personal decoy.

  If there weren’t any other recruits around, the TIs would almost jokingly dress me down, giving me the feeling they almost needed the release—to be able to yell at a recruit who knew they were just playing, or to know they were just doing their job and no hard feelings. It was a bizarre state of affairs, in particular because I have always lacked arrogance of any kind. If I had displayed even the slightest bit of arrogance, in any way, it would more easily explain the TIs’ general interest in me as their special plaything.

  Even more amazing, I thought, was the aspect of time versus activity in Basic Training—how much activity, how much of everything in general was crammed into the space of six short weeks, especially the number of close and fast friendships that were quickly made and faded just as quickly. Amazingly, I had a total of five best friends in Basic—averaging a new one nearly every eight and a half days, though numbers Four and Five could almost be considered one as they were already friends from their hometown in Pennsylvania. We eventually became a threesome. Early on I tried to share my friendship with more than one unfamiliar friend at a time—best friends number One and Two—but the complications that arose from that attempt were too daunting, and even a little frightening.

  Never before and never since have I had two women come to physical blows over their fondness for me as I stood on the sidelines, an innocent bystander. Strangely, I never had amorous feelings toward either of these women, though I can say almost for sure they had for me; yet, there they were, trading blows for my exclusive attention. There were rumors that we would all be tossed out of the Air Force because of such suspicious and possible lesbian behavior, but after just a few days I was forgotten by One and Two and I moved on to best friend number Three.

  I became bored with number Three after only four days because of her obsessions about sex. For four days I had to endure a detailed account of every one of her sexual escapades—a total of fifteen by the age of nineteen—which would often become a free-for-all sex discussion with several of the older recruits who were clearly more experienced than I was.

  While number three was a novice in comparison to them, I was a virgin and either the subject of ridicule or pitied exclusion in their raucous discussions. Number Three and I were only best friends for a few short days. The initial spark and interest between us quickly faded. What we had in common, a fondness for the movie Love Story, couldn’t sustain more than two or three days, which at the end, seemed like an eternity.

  Numbers Four and Five, though not from affluent backgrounds but veterans of Catholic schools, were more like me and the source of a great deal of laughter and myriad shenanigans between us. Our friendship lasted in some form or another for many years, until we gradually lost touch nearly five or six years ago.

  I do remember having small twinges in my stomach and other pertinent areas in my body about one woman in particular, but I was destined to worship her from afar. She was one of our “mothers” and made my guts do flip-flops whenever she graced us with her presence—first for dorm guard duty and then for chaperoned visits to church on the third and fourth Sunday of our training. After that, she finished her training and went on to her next assignment at the Language Institute in Monterey, California. I wouldn’t see her again until well over a year later when she arrived at my duty base in Italy. By then, I was involved in my work and managed to successfully squelch any inappropriate feelings that might have otherwise emerged.

  Not once during my basic training do I recall same-sex activity being specifically mentioned or banned. Nonetheless, whether it was mentioned or not, we received a strong message early in our training, my fellow airmen and I, that even the thought of it was verboten. Within the first week of training, to the shock and horror of the rest of us, three women marched into the lead TI’s office and claimed they were active lesbians and therefore unsuitable to military life. In a matter of hours they were p
acking their bags under close supervision and were subsequently escorted out of the building by the Security Police. We never saw them again. I and a few others thought they were merely sent home; others, however, thought they were sent to prison or to the psycho ward.

  Their fate, naturally, was the source of spirited, though hushed, discussions, which were peppered with the type of stories known for their inflammatory nature but whose origins were either unknown or several generations old. It was always so-and-so’s cousin’s brother who went to prison for life for giving another male recruit a blow job, or whozit’s neighbor’s third cousin’s sister who was court-martialed for kissing another woman in the shower, and so on. I found the whole incident more interesting than fearful, and essentially internalized the information for further consideration. But the initial impression of dire consequences lingered on the surface, and we were all somewhat more cautious about our behavior from then on—except, of course, for best friends number one and two who obviously didn’t understand even the basic concept of subtlety.

  As for myself, whatever raging hormones which may have threatened to surface during my training were summarily sent back to somewhere between an adolescent and prepubescent state—a temporary state lasting, oh, somewhere around five and a half weeks. I had had my share of unpleasant experiences in regard to my sexual orientation at such an early age, that I became an expert at masking my feelings—it was simply second nature to me.