by Jason Inman
I began to take in the sky, and—I’m not kidding you—time froze. For what seemed like forever, I was stuck in this bubble inside my head, enraptured by this beautiful sky and confronted with the thought: “This is it.” Life has passed you by. Family has passed you by. You will never leave here. Take in the sky. Breathe in the sky. The sky is all there is.
I don’t know why that specific memory haunts me to this day. Maybe it was the first time I realized that, during my deployment, it seemed like I could never leave the war-torn country of Iraq. There was no escape from it, and I needed to accept that. Perhaps that was the first time I realized that no one, ever, will understand this experience except for me. Fellow service members might, but everyone back home, my friends and family, no matter how I try, can never fathom the experience. I feel that Captain Atom understands that feeling perfectly.
Before he even got a chance to try to come to grips with living in a completely new time period, Nate was betrayed by his government. The troops of the base knocked him out using sleep gas before locking him inside a titanium rocket. Nate only woke up once the rocket was several miles above the Earth’s surface. With his new powers, he peeled back the titanium skin like butter and discovered one of the small joys of his new situation: superpowers! Nate smiled as he soared back down to terra firma in what would become his first time flying.
In the wake of his transformation, Nate wanted very little to do with the government. They have stolen time from him he’ll never get back, they stole his family, and they just tried to steal his life. However, the US government portrayed in this story is not a paragon of morally correct behavior. General Eiling and a group of other military leaders quickly blackmailed Nate. They claimed he had never been pardoned for the original murder charges, the very same ones that were supposed to disappear if Nate survived the experiment. This made Nate furious. They promised him he would be released if he agreed and survived; now that it was revealed he had, they were going back on their word! The government gave Nate a codename—Captain Atom—and set him up as a government-controlled superhero, releasing a false origin to the public and trotting him out to all the talk shows. Soon, Nate was assigned the alias of Cameron Scott, an Air Force intelligence operative.
This creates a real conundrum of feelings for Nate. Not only does he have no one capable of understanding or relating to any of his problems, but the government literally betrayed him—which is a feeling I think many service members eventually experience. Some mission or worthless duty is going to make you question your decision to join. It’s inevitable. Somewhere in your military career, you will feel like this is not what you signed on for.
Is it wrong for service members to think the government has done them wrong? Heck no, we’re all human beings, and Captain Atom has every right to be upset with the government for all the terrible actions they have meted out against him.
I’ve heard of many soldiers becoming cross with the higher-ups in charge, some for not receiving the sign-up bonuses they were promised and some for not getting posted to the location they desperately wanted to be stationed at. This has led to many of them declining to re-enlist when their term ended, or for some to simply go through the motions of a military career in order to secure their twenty years of service and gain retirement benefits.
A mission involving a simple highway made me question the actions of my government. Within all service members, there is patriotism. Without it, none of us would have signed on the dotted line to the red, white, and blue. So rattling around somewhere in our brains is this basic notion that the mission of the armed forces is to do good and protect America. On a bridge near the Euphrates River, I once had to guard a unit that was paving a new stretch of highway from Kuwait to Baghdad. The road was called MSR Tampa (MSR stands for main supply route). With the help of some Iraqi construction workers, this unit was helping to widen and extend the blacktop. A noble cause, as who doesn’t want a smooth and easy ride while driving? However, I soon noticed that the only vehicles using this road were US military vehicles. Every once in a while, a small white Toyota driven by a civilian would shuffle by, but they were few and far between. This awareness soon led me to a question. What was the purpose of me being in this combat zone? Here I was, risking life and limb to protect a road that would only serve the interests of the United States government, not the Iraqi people. I’m certain they would be able to use this road once we left the country, but, in the meantime, it was our road only. That didn’t seem right to me. That didn’t seem fair to me, and it actually made me angry. I felt betrayed, and I never told this story to anyone once I arrived home. Why would I? How would they understand it? They wouldn’t have the context for my feelings or the situation.
However, Captain Atom would understand. Through the fictional constructs of his comic book, he was literally betrayed. Later, during a mission to save a submarine, Captain Atom refused to help. He wouldn’t take another step to help out the organization that put him in the position to make the choice. (Luckily for those sailors, they were able to escape through another method, and Captain Atom’s decision didn’t send them to a watery grave.)
Captain Atom bided his time. He worked within the system until he was able to find and obtain the evidence to release himself from his unjust bonds of servitude to General Eiling and his ilk. He rebelled against Eiling, resigned from the Air Force (although he still kept the codename of Captain Atom), and found some enjoyment and fulfillment as an actual superhero. Captain Atom joined the Justice League at the request of the US government and eventually moved up the ranks to become the leader of Justice League: Europe.
I suspect that, for Captain Atom, leaving the service was as comforting and freeing as it was to me. It’s refreshing to see an airman like Nate used as a positive example outside the service—that we, the readers, get to see him succeed and actually thrive in his new superhero life. With all the betrayal that Captain Atom faced in his origin, especially all the tragedies directly related to his service, he could have conveniently become a villain or extremely depressed. Instead, the writers use him positively, giving him the happy ending he deserves and showing him as a natural leader of superheroes.
(Fun fact, in certain stories and different versions of DC continuity, Nate does become a supervillain. Countdown to Final Crisis in 2007 and WorldStorm in 2006 are two examples.)
When my time was up in the Army, I was called in to the office of my first sergeant. While looking at a file of all my awards and unit accomplishments, he gushed about the good I had helped to create while being a part of the battalion. I don’t remember every detail he said, but I can tell you that it was quite flowery and exaggerated, to the point where it was quite difficult for me not to laugh. When his soliloquy of service finally ended, he looked me straight in the eye and said, “How many more years can I sign you up for?” I replied with “None.” This answer seemed to stymie him. Suddenly, the first sergeant began to offer me bonuses and more! Anything to get me to sign on the dotted line. I refused them all. I had always seen my time in the military as an adventure. Six years of experiences that I could not have had anywhere else, but it was time to move on. Nothing he said could have made me sign up for more, and it was refreshing when I walked out of that office. A world of stress left my body. Never again could anyone force me to go where I didn’t want to go. I was ready for a new adventure, something different. Good thing I didn’t sign on that line, as my unit was later called up to be deployed to Afghanistan six months after that meeting.
My feelings about leaving the service are probably nothing compared to the immense emotion that Captain Atom likely felt once he got free. No one could understand his pain, his fear, and his sadness. Just the same way we could never understand his joy on the other side of it.
When you are a silver cosmic being of unlimited power, it’s hard for anyone to understand anything you go through. No one can know what it’s like to melt automobiles with energy
from your fingertips, and no words you tried to muster could accurately do the job. With his jump through time, Captain Atom has weirdly become the perfect story representation for what combat deployment means for a service member—an experience where you will be asked to do things beyond your ability, where you will see horrors and triumphs that no civilian can imagine and all these events that were normal to you will be impossible to outline to anyone.
The positive side of Captain Atom is that he represents a way out. Through the adversity, there is a better life waiting for you. (He persevered through fake murder charges; can you complain about anything in your life that’s even similar? I think not!) At every moment, Nate could have quit. With every manipulation by General Eiling, he could have surrendered. He didn’t. Nate pushed through. It’s a trait that I think many people would ascribe to service members. When the going gets tough, they push through. It’s one of our strengths, and it’s one of the best character arcs for Captain Atom.
I had a low opinion of Captain Atom before completing the research for this book, and now I admire him. More veterans should read his initial run to give them hope and an ally. There is a hero like you out there who understands, and he made it through to the other side as a better person. That truly is Captain Atom’s greatest superpower.
Chapter 7
Green Lantern
(Hal Jordan)
In the Shadow of His Father
Hal “Highball” Jordan is a mix of pure willpower and cockiness. Some would say that the two go hand in hand, but I think there is a difference between them. Will is the ability to focus on the task, no matter the difficulty, and succeed. No obstacle can force you off your path. Cockiness comes from pure attitude, like when you’re standing on a cliff and your best friend dares you to jump over the edge. Your cold logical brain tells you not to do it, but your cocky side eggs you on. It tells your brain, “If we jump, we can show off. If we jump, we’ll be better than him/her.” Sometimes cockiness can lead you to make decisions that can get you hurt or, worse, get you killed.
Perhaps that is why Hal Jordan makes such an effective Green Lantern. He has the perfect combination of will to make his ring, the most powerful weapon in the universe, useful; this is combined with the conviction that he can beat anyone. “The fish people of Antares 7 are attacking in their ships made entirely of water molecules? No problem!” Hal would say, before even thinking about whether he’d need a breathing apparatus on the mission. These traits also brand him as a perfect airman, a sometimes-forgotten aspect of his origin.
Green Lantern Hal Jordan was born in the fictional place named Coast City.
(Fun fact: The DC Comics Universe features many fictional cities instead of the real cities we have plastered across our great country. Why the need for fictional towns? The exact reason is not known; however, it’s generally thought that creating stand-ins for real places allows the reader to fully escape into the story. Young comic fans will not be bothered if Mongul destroys Coast City, but they could be concerned if they read a comic where he destroys its real-world counterpart, San Diego.)
Hal’s father Martin Jordan was a test pilot for Ferris Aircraft. Hal and his brothers would often visit this place of mechanical wonder and see the many planes their father would buzz through the sky in. Hal loved his father. Hal idolized his father and wanted to be him. All too soon, tragedy would strike the Jordan family. Martin Jordan died in a plane crash right before Hal’s eyes. Hal’s love of flying and his fear of death would irrevocably be tied together from that day forward. Both his brothers and his mother would develop a huge fear—to the point of hatred—of flying and anything to do with planes. Not Hal, however. All he wanted was to touch the sky. He yearned to be behind the yoke of a plane.
Against his mother’s wishes, on the morning of his eighteenth birthday, Hal turned up at the Armed Forces Career Center so early he beat the recruiter to his office and fell asleep outside the door. Clad in his father’s jacket, Hal signed up to join the Air Force. His mother considered this move to be a betrayal. She lost her husband to a plane, and she refused to talk to a son who would willingly put himself in the exact vehicle responsible for his father’s death. Hal, with his self-importance and belief in his dream, put his wishes ahead of the feelings of his family.
My entry into the armed forces was nowhere near as dramatic. It began in a run-down school gymnasium. During a school assembly that also doubled as a career fair, my friend and I stumbled upon the Kansas Army National Guard recruiter. I’m certain he could see the boredom in our eyes: the lethargy of two farm boys itching to get anywhere other than farm-country Kansas. He spun a tale of jobs and glory then proceeded to recite all the far-off places a career in the Army could take us: Germany, Japan, and Korea were the main examples. For a boy of seventeen, who barely had a concept of what Korea was, to be offered the golden ticket to visit was extremely enticing.
I was soon inviting the National Guard recruiter to my house. Since I was seventeen, my parents’ signature would be required for me to join. My mother was skeptical. Besides an uncle who had been drafted into the Vietnam War, no other member of my family had ever served. My childhood was full of comic books and science fiction novels, so I’m sure my desire to join the Army hit my parents like a ton of bricks. Where did this come from? they probably wondered. My father initially refused to sign my enlistment papers; he even refused to talk to the recruiter. Looking back on it now, I can understand his viewpoint. He had been a small independent farmer his entire life. He was his own boss and employer. Why would he sign over his son’s choices to the will of the federal government? Eventually, both of them acquiesced, and my enlistment began while I was still in high school.
While it blindsided my parents, my desire to join our military was based around a viewpoint crafted by the comics and novels I loved so much. These modern myths featured heroes who accomplished things no other person ever had. I believed I could do the same thing in the Army—see those foreign lands and pass basic training—two achievements no one I knew had ever done. It was a way for me to be like those champions.
Hal Jordan, as a character, seems like a perfect example of a person primed to join the Air Force. He’s a dreamer, like Carol Danvers, but has the strength to push through anything the military could throw at him. However, the military and Hal Jordan would not be united for long.
Hal Jordan went for years without talking to his mother. Eventually, learning she was sick, he wanted to see her. However, she refused, because he was still in the Air Force, flying planes and performing missions similar to the tragic event that had taken her husband. Hal came up with a quick, cocky plan: since the Air Force has no quick exit plans, Hal decided the best course of action was to punch his commanding officer in the face. By the time Hal was dishonorably discharged from the Air Force and made it to his mother’s bedside, she had already passed.
(This would not be a typical exit plan from any of the armed forces. Your branch’s basic training should generally teach you to work together as a team and to put aside such cocksure feelings toward yourself.)
Before we tackle the emotional tragedy of Hal’s situation, I want to point out that this story has a huge plot hole. Slugging a superior officer would get you in a lot of trouble, but I doubt it would lead to immediate discharge. Dishonorable discharges go on your permanent record. Every background check you ever consent to will show that, for whatever reason, the military decided you were so bad, you had to get the hell out. To provide some perspective: the US armed forces accept people who are about to be sent to prison in lieu of serving a sentence in jail or prison. I think a simple punch would not do the job here.
Moving on, it’s time to talk about Hal’s familial situation. I did join the US Army against the original wishes of my parents. They eventually came around and let me join when I was seventeen, so their reservations were probably small. Hal’s mother refused to talk to him for several years. Let me s
ay that again for dramatic effect: several years! Also, Hal still signed on the dotted line with the Air Force, knowing that his mother never speaking to him was a very real possibility. Think about what acting this way says about Hal as a character. He was so determined to be like his dad, he did not even worry about the effects that would have on the rest of his family. He never even considered being like his mother. He had to be in a plane. He had to be in the sky. The conviction—the will—behind such a decision is massive. Many people would not make the same choice. Many people wouldn’t have the singular focus of Hal Jordan to knuckle down and keep moving forward.
This is one of the key traits of many service members. Time after time, they have to confront situations that are less than ideal—that are not kind to their emotional or physical well-being. However, they muster through it. They push through. It’s the only thing you can do, and, sometimes, it is the only thing you have any control over.
An example of that is how you cope with your initial entry training. Every branch has a different gauntlet, even the Green Lantern Corps. Once Hal Jordan was chosen as a replacement by Abin Sur, Green Lantern of Sector 2814, he was quickly spirited off to Oa, home planet of the Green Lantern Corps. (For those of you who do not speak nerd, Sector 2814 is the sector of the universe containing Earth.) On Oa, Hal went through several days of training to use his new weapon, the power ring. He had to work with aliens he had never seen before and think through concepts no human being could comprehend. His main training officer was Kilowog, a colossal alien who looked like a mix of a bulldog and a pig. Kilowog loved to call his trainees “poozers,” and put them through all their paces until they learned to make their constructs from the ring as solid as steel. Hal came to Oa as a greenhorn rookie, and he left a powerful Green Lantern.
The training of this fictional military force is very similar to real military forces. The first step is to put you through hardship by creating the toughest and roughest situation anyone could ever imagine. The second step—train you on weapons and techniques in high-pressure situations. The final step is to force your unit to team up to complete objectives, with the attitude that if one of the teammates fails, you all fail.