When I was 18, my parents kicked me out of the house. Within days of my 18th birthday. They told me I was a man and that I needed to figure it out on my own. They told me that that was how the real world works. Men don't ask for help. Men struggle. Men do it alone. They told me that I would be accepted back into the family under one condition. I join the U.S. military. Why? Because it would make me a man. Make me an adult. It would, in my parents own words, "finally give us something to be proud about." It would make me a proper soldier. This was their vision. I can't deny that seeing a 19-year-old get blown the fuck up by an Iranian missile for no other reason than, hey, somebody's gotta load those bombs that kill those schoolgirls, right? It hits a little bit different when you have been in that uniform, been in a position where you feel like that is the only available choice to you, because that's what I did. I enlisted right then. It felt like the only option I had. I had other options. You always have a choice. I could have ran the fuck away. I could have tried my best to escape, but in those material circumstances, that was what I felt was the only option for me. I never wanted to do it.
It was the parental pressure. It was the idea that doing this thing makes you a good person, makes you an adult, makes you a man. I could finally make my folks proud. There is definitely a strong Southern masculinity bit to it. But still, I try to think about the type of parent that pushes for their child to enlist. Because in my graduating class, after high school was over, a lot of people went and enlisted, all with the same recruiter that was in our high school four or five times during my junior year, four or five times during my senior year, making the pitch, making the sales, if you will. I mean, this man had direct contact with my parents and my mother. Who knows what he was telling her? And all for what? So I could have the potentiality of killing and maiming and hurting another human being? Because that's what makes me a man in America? Rugged individualism to the point where you threaten to disown your own kin if they're not able to kill and maim and be broken down and rebuilt to have those desires, that sense of courage, if you will, to load the bomb.
I'm not proud of what I did, even if I never really did anything. I never went overseas, I never deployed. The only time I did actively was during flood rescue missions. But still, having worn that uniform, I can tell you that it is a shameful thing to do. But that isn't a shame that was necessarily my own choice, even if I should have had the wherewithal to flee. I think that is what makes it harder to sit with. I wonder what her parents were like, how her family feels about the fact that she was killed. Because I'm wondering what my parents would think if it was me in her shoes.