02 Foxtrot

🌺 Part of the Essays series

Private First Class. 

She wasn’t just a private. 

She was two ranks above the average enlisted recruit there for college money—there was an assumption of competence.  A private could be new, unknown, expected not to know anything.  

Her unique skill set as a musician had placed her there, but it didn’t translate the way it was supposed to. Instead, it drew attention she didn’t want—expectations she couldn’t quite meet, questions she didn’t feel prepared to answer. 

Her rank had already set her apart.

She knew music, not the military.

More than once, she wished she had started at the bottom.

Her mind went back to the county fair in August.

It was hot and muggy, the air still heavy after the usual afternoon rain shower. The tent caught her eye first—bold blacks and reds, men in camouflage standing out front like they belonged to something she didn’t yet understand—and wanted to.

She knew she could get paid to share her time with the National Guard. She liked the idea of serving her country.  She liked the idea of being in a military band.  

Her recruiter was eager—pulling her in, moving things forward: paperwork, interviews, signatures.

He guided her toward the first transformation: the oath of enlistment.

Basic training would come next.

That would make it real.

That would seal her as a soldier in the Army National Guard.

The Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS) itinerary was not something her recruiter prioritized explaining. 

Sgt. Flagg would pick her up at 0430 so they could arrive on time. That was all she needed to know.

She began to notice what was missing: relevant information.

For one, he forgot to mention not to wear open-toed shoes.

His solution was to hand her his black dress socks—still warm, still damp—as he peeled them off in the car that morning. She pulled them on under her Birkenstocks.

He also failed to mention what she would actually be doing.

The day unfolded in stretches of meaningless hurry up and wait, barked directions, and quiet, sideways glances exchanged with the other recruits.

The oath was preceded by the preliminary processing—a full day of tests and screenings meant to determine a soldier’s worthiness: physical readiness, intelligence, mental toughness.

Most of it seemed engineered to include a healthy dose of embarrassment.

Humiliation, she realized, was a major ingredient in the Army’s recipe for Soldier Pie.

Getting through meant becoming invisible.

Not too stupid.  Not too smart. Don’t let them notice you. Don’t speak. Don’t smile.

Scoring a 99 on the entrance exam was the opposite of invisible.

The staff moved quickly after that, redirecting her—labeling her for military intelligence, questioning why she was 02 Foxtrot and not something more influential. They argued it like it was obvious, like there was a better version of her she hadn’t stepped into.

She wasn’t sure what to say.

That wasn’t what she wanted.

At the physical, she breathed a sigh of relief that she still met the Army’s height and weight requirements.

The relief didn’t last.

It shifted quickly to panic when she realized how they checked for hip alignment—squatting, then duck-walking across the room in just a bra and underwear.

The other women had gotten the memo.  Their recruiters had prepared them.

She hadn’t.

She dreaded her turn, painfully aware of the very inadequate thong she was wearing.

Across the room, she waddled—unsteady, crouched low, trying not to lose her balance. Heat rushed to her face as she moved, aware of the eyes on her, even if no one was supposed to look.

There was no way not to be seen.

After that, crowded into a room with an official seal woven into the carpet and American flags at every turn, she swore to defend the country against enemies, foreign and domestic—hoping, quietly, that she would never actually have to.

Now she was a soldier.

Military orders dictated her duties, and she looked forward to the weekend drills with her unit.  As she got to know her bandmates, she began to understand her place—at least in that world. The unit felt like the exception, a pocket of something warmer inside a system that otherwise didn’t quite fit.  The band was a space where she knew herself.

They had even christened her, affectionately, Army Barbie.

She went down to Fort Carson in February for a pre-basic weekend, a preview designed for people like her—the Army’s way of offering a glimpse of what a summer at Fort Jackson would demand.

After getting off the bus late Friday night and collapsing into her bunk, she was jolted awake at 0600 on Saturday.

The day unfolded like a dream she couldn’t quite follow—an awkward, fearful blur, marked only by a few thin streaks of memory: first aid, military marching, physical training, and any available opportunity for the staff sergeants to remind them of their rank. Pushups.

Nothing felt consistent except this—she never knew the right answer.

Everything felt like a trick.

The memories themselves weren’t even that significant. It was the cloud of anxiety that stayed with her—the constant, low-grade pressure of trying to belong to something she wasn’t sure she even liked, much less believed in.

Sunday morning arrived after a night of uncertainty and ache.

She lay in the dingy bunk, wrapped in a scratchy, barf-colored blanket, questioning both the reality of the place and her own willingness to stay in it. She wondered if there was a way to get through—because it was starting to feel like there might not be a way out.

She dressed quickly, pulling on her issued pants and jacket, lacing up her heavy, clunky boots, and hurrying down to the patrol meeting point.

She looked forward to the mess hall. Food, she thought, might bring some clarity to the situation.

All weekend, the sergeant had warned them what to do if they encountered an officer.

None of the recruits could identify one.

He was in the mess line.

The gold leaf on his shoulder caught her eye. That’s probably be an officer.

Okay. Sir.

She stared down at her breakfast tray, trying to disappear.

That’s probably why he chose her.

“Good morning!” he said, brightly—too brightly.

She hesitated. It might be a trick.

“Good morning, sir,” she replied, keeping her voice neutral.

“How are you doing, soldier?”

She relaxed, just a little. It sounded like a normal conversation.

“Just fine, sir.” She avoided eye contact, aware of how unnatural everything felt.

His eyes dropped to the rank on her sleeve, curiosity sharpening.

“An E-3, huh? What’s your MO?”

“02 Foxtrot, sir.”

“02 Foxtrot? What the hell is that?!”

“It’s a tuba player, sir,” she said, caught off guard by the sudden shift.

“Fuck! I’m in infantry!”

“Yes, sir?”

“You mean to tell me that while I’m crawling around on the ground shooting at people, all you’re doing is playing the fucking tuba?” he grinned, sarcastically.

“Yes, sir!” she answered—beginning to understand why he was in infantry…

She couldn’t help it. A smile slipped through, and she tried to catch it, biting her lip.

“Well, I picked the wrong MO,” he snickered, leaving the line.

It felt two faced—a compliment mixed with jeer and judgement.  

But it was the first moment of humor since she had arrived.

And a moment that felt almost human.

Back in the van, the staff sergeant was already irritated.

“What the hell were you doing in the mess line?”

“He asked me what my MO was,” she replied. Her smile faded. Her eyes dropped.

“Do you realize you were talking to a major?”

“No, but I ended every sentence with ‘sir.’”

“I saw you smiling. You owe me push-ups when we get back. You made me look bad.”

In her head, she kept count.

Sets of ten. Sets of twenty.

By the end of the weekend, she had done 260 push-ups.

She reported to MEPS again three months later—the last stop before basic training.

Once she completed basic, she would be promoted to Specialist. She belonged to them. 

On a warm May evening, her mom dropped her off at the hotel the night before. She shared a room with another girl heading into the Marines. At 0500, they boarded a bus for MEPS—for the last time.

She moved through the stations, the process familar now. At the final medical interview, the nurse asked, “Is there anything else you’d like to add?” (She had already hidden her navel ring.)

Obstruction of justice flashed across her mind, along with the image of being discovered somewhere in South Carolina. She no longer needed a prescription for glasses.  She didn’t want the inconvenience of them at basic.

She chose the truth.

“I had laser eye surgery in April.”

“Okay,” the nurse said easily. “We’ll just get a medical waiver.”

“How long will that take?” she asked.

The nurse deferred to the front desk.

“Medical waivers are common,” they said. 

“But we require a six-month delay after laser surgery, just to make sure there are no complications.”

Six months.

“So I’m not going to basic today…” I said, the sentence trailing off.

“No, not today. Six months puts you in October. You’ll get orders for October.”

October.

Marching season.

Drum major.

Impossible.

My heart sank.

“Your recruiter will need to take you home,” the sergeant added, pulling me back.

“He’s not here,” I said quietly.

They graciously called the recruiter—the one I would rather lose.

This went beyond the humiliation I had grown accustomed to. It had screwed me over. This wasn’t the plan.

I tried not to cry as he drove the long and quiet stretch from Denver back to Boulder.

I waited until I saw my mom.

Then I cried.

I cried for the dream that had vanished. For the uncertainty of what came next. For the feeling that something in me had been discredited.

My unit told me they would petition to send me to basic training again in May so that I could finish the school year.  I continued as a member of the 101st Army Band, including parts of the two-week advanced training tour—community concerts, performances, events that still felt like belonging.  

Playing in front of the Colorado State Capital on the Fourth of July was my favorite performance.

I held onto that.

Until August.

When the paycheck stopped, I went into the office to ask about it.

“The year of your enlistment has lapsed,” they said, flat and neutral. “You didn’t go to basic, so the payment expired.”

“But my unit petitioned for an exception,” I said.

They didn’t argue.

They didn’t explain.

They didn’t care.

It was over.

I began the formal discharge process.

That’s when I understood.

I needed them more than they needed me.

And that wasn’t going to work.

As much as I wanted it—
as much as I tried—
as much as some part of me still hoped I could make it fit—

I couldn’t.

I was the round peg.  The Army was the square hole.