Missed the beginning of my sometimes story, sometimes soap opera? Start here.
Senior Year. Oh the anticipation that led up to my final year of ROTC. I sweated, stumbled, and pushed the first three years of ROTC feeling like I didn’t know what I was talking about. Sure, I was an Army brat, but the Gonzaga program was pretty intense and known for producing the best of the best. I didn’t feel like the best of the best struggling through tactics and military operations. I’ll never forget during a Spring tactical exercise the end of my Junior year taking my entire squad the wrong way and exposing everyone to enemy fire.
I learned from my mistakes, however, and proved at Advanced Camp against other ROTC cadets across the nation that I actually knew more than I thought. I was commended. I came back to school feeling, well, confident. O.K., I’ll be honest. I was cocky. Ever heard the saying, pride comes before the… you know what. It seemed my fellow senior ROTC classmates didn’t enjoy my new-found attitude. They started to rib me, joke, at every turn there were two cadets in particular that thought I needed a good razzing every time they saw me. They wanted me to fall.
At first this was no big deal. I wore headgear orthodontics all through Junior High and was attuned to good old fashioned teasing. Then it started to grate on me. There were remarks about my uniform, put-downs for attending Whitworth College full time unlike the majority of the Gonzaga ROTC cadets, and more. Feeling a little emotional one fall evening, I told my roommates about some of the stuff these two particular cadets were saying to me. ”Uncalled for!” they said. ”You have got to report it. You shouldn’t have to put up with them.” So I did.
The reprimand was a slap in the face to these two guys and I came to realize that for one it was joking but for the other it was something far worse and he made sure that I knew it. After P.T. (physical training) one morning only a few days after they were told by the Professor of Military Science (Head of the ROTC Department) to knock it off, they pulled me aside.
“Hey, I didn’t realize you were offended,” said the first with true concern. ”We were just giving you a hard time.” He tried to continue but his buddy took over, “Next time you have an issue, why don’t you have the guts to come to me.” He sneered as he got into my face, “You think you’re on top of things now that you’re back from camp but you have to know that we carried you through exercises last year. I practically spoon fed you tactics.” Standing a little taller, I interrupted, “You didn’t do the work I did. Sure, I had questions when we had to work together, but that doesn’t mean…” Before I could finish he continued to berate me. I was worthless, he said. I didn’t know a thing, he said. Further and further he pushed into my face until I had enough. ”I’m done with this,” I yelled back at him before turning to go back to my car.
It was a full minute of driving before it hit me, all the insecurity I had before crashed, and I started to cry. Blubber cry, probably should have pulled the car over kind of cry. Puffy faced I sobbed my way home. Looking back now, I’m glad I turned in those two guys, but I learned a valuable lesson. First, confidence has to be paired with humility (a lesson I’m still learning). I’m not going to say I asked for their treatment, but I wasn’t making thing any easier on myself with my attitude.
Secondly, I should have come to them first and told them their harassment was inappropriate prior to formally reporting them. I think, had I given him a heads up, the nicer of the two would have stopped immediately. I later found out he followed me home that morning just to make sure I would make it back to Whitworth alright as he could see how upset I was. The other guy was just a straight up jerk, but the right thing would have been to tell him that before I whined to the chain of command.
Things settled into a rhythm after the shouting match that morning and the jerk and I did our best to avoid each other. We both had bigger things to concentrate on anyway. It was time for all the ROTC seniors to fill out their commissioning packets. We had to complete a priority list of branches (job positions) and posts (Army unit locations). I had two lists in my head and there was only one person who could confirm them. Would I be prioritizing my future in the Army with my boyfriend of two years or without him?
To be continued…
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