My Mind's Ink

Soldiering, as it turns out, is not my calling. I don’t want to say, “a square peg in a round hole.” Not just because it’s tired, but also, it’s not quite right. It’s more that, my inclination, when asked to put a peg in a hole, is to say, “Right. Um, and, why are we doing that, exactly?”

I applied for the military college program on the advise of my high school career counselor, who was the last person I should have taken advise from, career or otherwise. A kind woman, just not the person to tell me what I should dedicate my life to. Anyway, the military invited me in for testing and an interview, offered me a position at the Royal Military College, and I thought, “Why not?”

My plans following graduation were vague, at best. When I graduate high school I am considering a Fine Arts degree or a Business Admin degree, I’d been accepted for the BA at the school I applied to so I guess that was the existing plan. Clearly my goals were not well defined. I figured a stint taking Engineering at military college was as good as anything I had come up with, so I signed on the line.

I was not a good soldier. One of the first things I learned was how to march in a formation but I am often out of step. Most of the time I spend in the military would come to feel like that. I was trying to go one way, and it never seemed to be where everyone else was headed. I really should have known it was not for me when I shot that guy in the chest and they made such a big deal about it.

To get into military college I must pass a six week training program. Basically, I play army for the summer, and I am judged on how well I do. The failure rate is fifty percent, and I ride the edge of that knife the whole time.

My platoon of 36 teenagers is immersed in a make believe military scenario, which acts as the background for all of our activities. There are “enemy forces” in the area, we go on “recon” missions and gather intelligence, we have restrictions on the use of lights, a command structure is in place, and we carry rifles at all times. We are totally committed to playing soldier, and I’m not the only one who doesn’t take the game that seriously. We are high school students who want to become university students. There are a few kids with genuine zeal for becoming finely tuned military machines, but they are the exceptions. Most of us are here for a good, cheap education, and all we are trying to do is get through the next six weeks.

The field portion of the program is the army version of a camping trip. I hike a lot, sleep little, endure mosquitoes, and crap in the woods, but it’s not all bad, I like the outdoors. We get a tube of camouflage paint and are taught how to become invisible in the forest. We learn how to navigate through the wilderness with a map and compass, build rope bridges over fast moving water, and repel down 200 ft cliffs. It was cooler than anything my friends did that summer.

Our instructors teach us to set up a base camp for our field exercises. Sentries surround the camp twenty four hours a day, and we all take a turn. My first shift is in the middle of the night on the outskirts of our small encampment.

Our instructors are rumored to perform mock attacks, so I find a dry spot behind some bushes and settle in to a vigilant watch of the shadows. It is a creepy, being alone, at night, in the middle of a groaning rain forest. Moonlight poking through the heavy canopy casts mottled shadows on the undulating brush, a misty rain is dripping intermittently all around me, drumming strange sounds on puddles and logs, and a light breeze rustles the giant trees. Evil minions are gathering. As I fight sleep I feel them moving out there in the darkness, and I can see them creeping at the edges of my vision. With each passing minute I become more certain that they are sneaking up on us.

“Stand To! Stand To!” I yell to wake the sleeping platoon. “Stand To! Stand To!”

I am on my feet, staring out into the dark, ready to… well, I’m not sure. The platoon is rousing themselves, confused faces stare out at me from the flaps of tents and ask what is happening. My movement and the cool night air has shaken the cobwebs out of my head, I am alert now.

The only thing to be seen in the forest are the trees, and I am forced to give the only report I can, “Right there, I saw… Well, I thought… the instructors, they were… It might be nothing… Never mind. Go back to sleep.” Sleepy children retreat back into their tents muttering, “Fucking Britton.”

It makes no sense for middle aged career soldiers to sneak through the dense underbrush, at 3:30 a.m., so they could get the drop on a bunch of doe eyed teenagers. That’s easy to say now, but when a cadre of shadow ninja soldiers are coming at you in the dark, it’s hard to think straight, and in my defense, I am always exhausted in the military. I am delirious, and sorely in need of a nap.

My next guard duty is also in the middle of the night, but I have learned my lesson, so I curl up against a tree and immediately fall into a pleasant and dreamless sleep. I figure I will deal with the consequences of that decision after a good night’s rest. Turns out, nothing comes of it. I think perhaps I have found my stride in the army.

Eventually, I get to guard in the day time. I must challenge anyone entering the camp. That’s it. An easy job in the sunshine, until an instructor decides to get creative.

As the Sergeant approaches camp, I recite my line, “Stop! Who goes there?” and lean back on my heals, confident in a job well done. Except, he doesn’t stop, which he feels inclined to emphasize by saying, “I’m not stopping.”

Did we get a new script? Because that’s not what mine says. You are supposed to stop and state your name, and then I permit you to enter. I hate to be a stickler for the rules, but you’re the one that demonstrated this dance.

“I’m not stopping. What are you going to do about it?”

I’ll admit, this never occurred to me. What am I going to do? I’m supposed to pretend I’m guarding the camp from “the enemy”. My options seem limited. He stands four inches taller, and has at least 50 pounds on me, not to mention that he’s my Dad’s age, so a flying tackle is ridiculous. I could let him walk in and pretend I wasn’t talking to him, but I don’t think I can sell that. My answer is to swing my rifle in his direction, aiming from the hip, I pull the trigger, and with a disappointing little, “pop”, shoot him in the chest. Then I shrug my shoulders, silently asking, “Was that the right answer?”

I didn’t really shoot him in the chest, of course, our rifles have blank rounds in them, but I still got myself into a heap of trouble. Blank rounds contain an explosive, but no bullet, nothing to shoot out the barrel. But, if something is stuck in there, like a pebble or a bit of dirt, it can become a projectile. The remedy is a yellow contraption which plugs the end of the barrel, but this creates another problem. If it comes loose, a blank round will propel it forward, just like a bullet. The plug attaches with a janky clip that can come undone, so we back that up by wiring it shut. The likelihood this would fail is extremely small, but it’s clearly not a thing you want to test by shooting at someone five feet from you.

The instructors quickly form an impromptu huddle to discuss the situation, with the pissed off Sergeant leading the charge. He points out the potentially deadly consequences of my actions, berates me for my recklessness and casual disregard for safety, notifies me I will likely be tossed out, and asks me if I have anything to say for myself.

‘You gave a 17 year old a gun, a simulated battle scenario, and some vague instructions. Then you gave a pop quiz that apparently had no right answer. What the fuck did you think would happen?’

I am, of course, paraphrasing, but whatever I say, works. They let me stay. My subsequent fuck-ups do not have the same inherent fireworks. I manage to stay under the radar long enough to pass the course, barely, I made it into military college. I figure the hard part is over.

Attending the Royal Military College (RMC) is like going to Mars. The college has been producing military officers, crazy traditions, and rights of passage for 125 years. It’s still the most interesting place I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been to Burning Man¹ three times.

We arrive after midnight in a convoy of school buses. Dumped onto the parade square² at the center of campus, we form into neat military ranks and wait in the silent darkness. The Imperial March, Darth Vader’s theme music, begins to thunder from the sprawling four story stone building we face. A light grows that leaks out through the chinks in the front doors. They open, and the silhouetted shape of a man walks out onto the palatial balcony. He introduces himself as the Cadet Wing Commander. He tells us we are only Recruits, and we have to get past him before we can call ourselves Cadets at his college.

That performance is the beginning of Recruit Term, a five week hazing of the first year Cadets. Cheezy, sure, but it gives you an idea of the scale of the effort. The guy we just met is at the head of a military hierarchy of dozens of fourth year university students. Their chief purpose for the next five weeks is to make our lives miserable. It’s Recruit Term, a physically and mentally grueling indoctrination, a test of fire.

A typical day starts when the audio system, that has been rented for this specific purpose, clicks on and our “wake up song” is played. It’s not the song that wakes me, it’s the hum of the amplifier clicking on, just before it slips its chain.

“GET THE FUNK UP! GET THE FUNK UP!” explodes from the three foot tall speaker outside my door. I never learn what the song is, but it’s the same every morning, and it starts with, “GET THE FUNK UP! GET THE FUNK UP!”

The three Section Commanders in charge of my squadron are pacing the hallway yelling, “Move it Recruits!”, which barely registers over the thundering music. By the end of the song we need to be shaved, dressed, have our clothes, bunks, brass, lockers, rifles, uniform, and closet, ready for inspection, and be standing outside our room. This is the first three minutes of the day.

The point is to make it as tough as possible, and that means punishment, so standards are set to produce failures, and everything is a test; decorum, rules, bilingualism, college history, dress, military drill, and customs. A loose thread on a shirt, dirt on the sole of a shoe, wrinkled sheets, or a drawer with a missing pair of socks, all punishable offenses.

We do “Panic Drills” for hours, to another unidentified punk melody, our “Panic Song”, that boomed from the sound system. A minute and a half to change into dress uniform and be ready for inspection. Remake a torn apart bed in 60 seconds, and the top sheet had better be folded over eleven inches. With eighteen Recruits, it is easy to find fault, and if one of us fails, we all fail.

When we do fail we received a punishment. Sometimes it is a stereotypical military thing, like push-ups, but often it is more inventive. For instance, we stand out in the hallway and slide our backs down the wall until our knees are at ninety degrees, that is called “The Chair”. Sometimes we also hold our rifles straight armed out in front of us. Combined with “The Chair”, this becomes “Playing the Piano”. Sometimes this goes on for hours. When we can no longer lift the 9.5 pound (4.3 kg) rifle, our instructors have us wear our combat boots on our hands and hold those out in front of us.

On one particularly grueling day the affable French cadet across the hall runs into my room in the middle of a Panic Drill with a huge smile on his face. He tells me, “Hold your hands like this in your boots! It helps.” He turns his hands palm up, every finger curled into a fist, except the middle ones. Two minutes later our Section Commander yells ferociously at us that we have earned an extra 30 seconds of “Playing the Piano” for the smirks on our faces. My shoulders are burning, but he’s right, it does help.

We are in a group 24 hours a day, being whipped into some high energy, high stess activity, and we run on the edge of exhaustion. In the middle of the night, my calf muscles seize into a ball, bolting me upright, clawing at my leg and holding back a scream. The only time I stop moving is when I am sleeping, and there never seems to be enough of that. I’ve never been so tired.

Another common punishment is Circles. You can earn Circles for any number of offenses. Frequently throughout the day I hear, “THAT’S TWO CIRCLES BRITTON.” A Circle is one lap around a 400m (1/4 mile) track. If you have earned any Circles you meet at the track first thing in the morning to run up to 8 laps. If you have more than 8 they carried over to the following day.

My Section Commanders give Circles out like they were candy, not in singles, but by the handful, although, I don’t mind the morning run. That does not entirely explain what is to come, but still, definitely contributing factors.

I start to receive a lot of Circles. Soon, in fact, I have enough on the books that I know I will be running those two miles every morning for the foreseeable future. Then I receive a valuable piece of intelligence. A second year student tells me that soon after Recruit Term ends, the punishment is shut down, and any remaining Circles are forgiven. The simple reason for this is that the fourth year students don’t want to get up at the crack of dawn to supervise the run anymore than we want to do it.

That means that there is a magic number of Circles. Once I reach that milestone, which I am fast approaching, Circles become meaningless, I’d never have to run them anyway. I would simply run my two miles every morning until the punishment was cancelled at the the end of Recruit Term. The punishment was de-fanged.

We are trained to act as a group, not as individuals. If one of us fails, we all fail. It is hammered into us that we should help one another out to ensure the success of our Squadron, not just ourselves. Over and over this is reinforced. We do everything as a group; eat, sleep, wake, run, shower, and train. We celebrate our meager successes as a group and suffer our penance together, except for Circles, they are the only individual punishment.

After I reach my magic number, not only do I see no incentive in caring about earning more, but I use my new power for the good of my Squadron. If there is an opportunity to “take the heat” for someone, I do. I earn Circles in dizzying numbers.

Entering the mess hall, there is a downstairs landing to store hats and gear before heading to our table. This is a strict “No Talking” area for first years. In the midst of Recruit Term one of the two girls in our Squadron is visibly shaken, a common side effect of the constant pressure. Deanne is a sweet girl, she seems even more out of place in this madness than I do, so I go out of my way to give her a quick pat on the back and a word of encouragement.

“No talking! That’s four circles Britton.”

Deanne bursts into tears. At the first opportunity I tell her that there is no need to be upset on my behalf. I explain my insight, “I will never run the stupid Circles I just received anyway.” She looks at me doubtfully. She’s not buying my theory. Genius is rarely appreciated in its time.

Recruit Term eventually comes to an end. We are officially welcomed into the college and our lives become a little easier. Now all we have to worry about is a full time Engineering class schedule and the consuming duties of a military college.

Like any big organization, in the military, supervisors conduct performance reviews of their underlings. My first one as a member of the Royal Military College is just before Christmas break. My Section Commander tells me that I have set a record. There is certainly no trophy in the case for such an accomplishment, but I set a record at a college with 125 years of history. I have received more Circles than any other Recruit, ever. You can be assured that I am the only one that is impressed by that.

Herein lies the heart of my difficulty in the military, the reason I am at odds with everything. I feel proud of my record. They were whipping me with a wet noodle and expecting me to cower. I had taken everything they had, used my head, made a decision, and demonstrated a commitment to purpose no one had ever before mustered. I had exploited a glaring flaw in the system, which in my mind, reflected poorly of the system, not me. I had thrown myself on a grenade for my comrades, metaphorically. I feel triumphant, and that is not the appropriate reaction to being ranked eighteenth out of the eighteen Cadets in my performance review.

I am at the bottom of my Squadron and I am fairing no better academically. I am failing all five of my classes, well, except English. I have a 52% in that. No self respecting Engineering school will fail anyone taking the English course requirement, all you need is a heartbeat. I leave for home at Christmas barely passing the one course no one fails, I am in the French class for the mentally challenged, and I have earned an infamous place in the history of RMC.

You become accustomed to a pervasive odor, but after a single breath of crisp air, the returning stench hits you in full force. You wonder that you ever lived with it. In a personal relationship this is the time you suggest that perhaps you should see other people.

I returned from Christmas break resolved to pull up my socks. I was determined not to be defeated. That lasted about two weeks, and then I couldn’t ignore it anymore. I was trying to force my way through the military, and I was a poor fit. I think it was all of that friction that I smelled. What was I doing here?

I’m glad I went to RMC. Every afternoon the sounds of the drummers and bag pipes echoed off the ancient ivy covered buildings. I was in an honor guard for foreign dignitaries. I rode on a naval destroyer, and in a sub hunting airplane. I learned to iron a perfect dress shirt in under a minute. I watched a twenty thousand dollar missile blow up into a fire ball. I streaked the parade square drunk. I was on a precision military acrobatic display team. I saw the RMC hockey team beat West Point. I made it into a place a few thousand people have ever seen the inside of. I looked fine in my scarlet dress uniform. And I set a record that may still stand. I’m glad I went to RMC, but it was the right decision to leave.

RMC was one of the first major failures of my life, but it didn’t feel that way. You can’t try new things without experiencing the occasional disastrous defeat. It’s like Thomas Edison said, “Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won’t work.” And so, after I left the military I feel I had succeeded admirably in finding something I was most definitely not meant to do.

I’d like to dedicate this story to my friend Rob. I go on a camping trip with two buddies from college every year (except for last year because of all the IVF craziness). We spend a lot of time drinking and telling stories. I told of waking my platoon to save them from the ninja soldiers and he thought that was the funniest thing. He even yells, “Stand to!” at me from time to time. He told the story at my wedding which reminded me to write it down.

Footnotes

1. Burning Man is a crazy hippy arts festival in the middle of the Nevada desert. It’s renowned for being chalk full of strangeness. [↩]
2. A military parade square is just a big chunk of asphalt. Like a mall parking lot, without the cars. [↩]

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