Sometimes, when telling a story, it's best to not always start at the
beginning, but rather to just let your fingers type the words of the memories
that first come to mind. For me, the first memory that comes to mind, takes me
back to my freshman year of college. The year was 2009 and I was a newly
admitted freshman to Boston University, but mine
was not to be a typical freshman experience. When I was admitted to BU, I knew
that my college experience would be different from the get-go, because I was
the recipient of a full four-year scholarship through the Army ROTC program.
While I had grown up in a military family, my father having been in the Army for forty years, I was not as prepared as I thought I would be,
something which would become extremely apparent on October 1, 2009. Before
getting into my "incident" I would like to go back to the beginning
of my year, it was roughly August 26 when I had to choose between going to my
college orientation or my ROTC orientation, needless to say, being the Military
child that I am, I chose the latter, quite ecstatically I might add, as I
wasn't too thrilled about the University's orientation, as I presumed it would
be boring. I would later find out, that with the exception of getting a free
shirt, I was right.
I went on my ROTC orientation, excited for the events to come. The orientation turned out to be a
weekend away at Ft. Devons, MA, approximately two hours from the University. It
was a great chance to meet some of the other cadets, and the cadre members,
while being introduced to the world we had all chosen to participate in.
It all started out great for me, I found a lot of the tasks to be rather
easy and straightforward and had no trouble catching on to the D&C, or Dress and Ceremony (the Sentinel’s
Change of Guard is one of the most precise and extreme forms), which is
essentially a fancy name for learning all of the marching orders, and found
that I excelled in fire-arms training.
While the first two days of my orientation were "fun," the fun
was not to last. The final day of our orientation we were to have a practice
APFT, or Army Physical Fitness Test, a test where you have to do push-ups, sit-ups,
and run 2-miles, being in fairly good shape I thought I had nothing to worry
about, come the push-up/sit-up portions I was feeling pretty confident in
my abilities, having done better than the other three females who joined the
freshman class with me, however, my issues came with the run.
Let's just say I
struggled. That struggle was one that persisted, no matter how much I ran,
and no matter how well I would run on my own, or as a practice, when the real
APFT's came around I would hardly make it to the end. Needless to say, some
people looked down on me for it, and it didn't matter that I had the best
Push-up form, or that I could whip 'em out faster than some of the other
cadets, in my class and older, all that seemed to matter was that I couldn't
run.
Fast forward to October 1, 2009, it was another APFT and I wanted to
contract, which means my contract for my scholarship would get activated, the only way to do that was to pass the APFT at the minimum requirements of scoring a 60 out of 100 in each of the three categories, all
that was standing in my way, or rather should I say running out of my way, was
that dreaded two-miler, but I felt ready for it.
When the time came, I ran. I huffed and I puffed, I concentrated on the
ponytail of the girl in front of me, staying right behind her for pacing, and I
ran, I was about a mile-and-a-half in when the pain sprang up. But I wasn't
about to stop, I couldn't, I wouldn't, and I never have, so I kept going,
through the pain in my ankles, I ran, and I finished, not only did I finish, but I
passed, and I contracted, and I was so proud of myself.
But then I sat down.
When I stood back up, I fell down to my seat, the pain in my ankles wasn't as
minor as the small sprains I thought they were, something that I admittedly had
been prone to, but that had never caused me much concern, they'd come and go in
a matter of minutes, but this pain wasn't the same, it was persistent and it
was debilitating.
I set an appointment for the doctor.
That was when it all went down-hill
for me. I ended up going to the doctor multiple times over the course of the
semester, finally getting X-Rays and MRI's. The results of those tests showed
that I had royally messed up my ankles; I was diagnosed with Tendonitis,
Tenosynovitis, Edema in my feet, and Bursitis. A lot of fancy words to say I
had a LOT of inflammation all throughout my ankles and feet, so much so that
the doctor asked me to be on my feet as little as possible, essentially he wanted
me to be on bed rest. Well, instead of that, I took medication, went to
physical therapy and was placed on a profile. A profile is a sheet of paper
that your doctor fills out saying you have X, Y, and Z and that based on that you are not allowed
to do this, but are allowed to do that. Well, I wasn't allowed to run.
In ROTC if you can't run, and are supposed to not bear weight on your
feet/ankles, you might as well not show-up, people start to look down on you,
and even worse, sometimes some people will think you're faking. Needless to
say, I was slowly ostracized by my peers, and looked down upon by my
superiors.
But, being my father's daughter, I sucked it up, and did the best I could,
once I got the doctors OK, to start lightly jogging again I took it in stride,
and tried to do everything I could to get back in running shape and be better
than I was. I tried hard, and did the best I could, sometimes I failed, and
other times I succeeded.
But then, it happened again, my ankles objected, and I was put back on
profile, unable to run, and unable to participate in many of the activities,
always having to play the casualty or the enemy in our drills, and not
getting the opportunity to learn as much, or be with my peers in security
circles, as I wanted to. It got to the point, where the ROTC did not want to
give me my scholarship for the second semester, but in true military fashion we fought them, won, and then
decided that the best course of action for me, would be to leave my dream
school to go live with my father (who had to leave my mother and
brother, who needed to finish high school, in MD, while he was stationed in
California) so I did. I said goodbye to my friends, packed-up and left. I never
went back.
The point of my telling this story, is not for pity, nor for people to snark
at me and judge me, but rather to show the military values I had ingrained in
me as a child, perseverance and to never give up. While, I never went back to
BU, I never forgot all that I learned while in my one year of ROTC, and I still
feel a deep sense of pride for having been a part of it, whether you make it
through or not, whether you're the best at something or not, I still believe
that ROTC can offer everyone something. The military is such a different world,
living by different values, and with a sense of family built in, even
though some of my peers were rude and hurtful, they were still my family, and I
still always felt a sense of connection to them.
To me that is what the
military is about, it's a family no matter where you go, or where you are, even
now walking around campus at my new school, Salisbury
University, I still feel that sense of camaraderie and family when I see
the Cadets and Cadre members on campus, and to me, that was one of the biggest
gifts ROTC helped me to realize, a gift that I had been give since birth. I leave you with this, always remember that even in the worst of situations, when it seems like nothing could be worse, there is still something to make it worth it, and something to take away from the situation.
Don't focus on the bad things in life, rather take them in stride and use them as stepping stones to help you get where you want to be.
