I have used italics as a way to differentiate between past and present thoughts.
Part One:
Reflections of a painful past
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-When I told my father I would be following in his footsteps by joining the military he wrote me a letter telling me how proud he was of me and giving me some advice from his service experiences. The most important piece of advice he gave me was to join for the right reasons. He told me to make sure that I joined because I wanted to and not just to make him proud, because he was already proud of me and would continue to be proud of me no matter what I did. It was a beautiful letter and I kept and cherished it for many years.
I did join the Military; I joined in the Signallers Core as a radio operator and remained in the service for four years but then when I became pregnant with my first child, Leanne, I knew it was time to move on. Of course there was a lot more to it than that and now that Leanne is in her last year of school, planning her own future career, I sit with my pen poised above the paper and revisit the darkest place in my soul...
Dear Leanne,
Throughout your life you have made your father and I so proud and it has been a privilege to share the journey with you. During those dark periods in my life when my demons caught up to me it has been my love for you, your brother and your Father that kept me going but especially my love for you. I've really missed you while you've been away at school but Jack and I have always been impressed not just with your academic progress but how well you are growing into a mature and sensible young lady.
I read your email today. It came as a bit of surprise but if that is what you really want to do you must know that you have my full support. Your grandfather would have been so proud of you for following in our family's tradition of service to the country. I wish you could have met him, he would have loved you. When I joined he gave me a very good piece of advice and I want to share that with you. Please dear, make sure that you are doing this because it is what you want to do. If you are simply following in my footsteps then that is not reason enough. Your father and I will love you, respect you and support you through any life you choose to live. We are already so proud of you that we couldn't be any more so.
It is not an easy path that you have chosen and it will take all of your strength, resilience and endurance. I am sure you are up to the task. Personally, I struggled in the military and only stayed for four years. It was both a wonderful time and also the worst time of my life. Those four years are where all the demons that you have seen haunting me throughout your life came from, though it was not the military that caused that. Now that you are embarking on life as an adult I think it is time that I told you about my past. This will not be easy. Your father picked me up from a very dark place.
-I put the pen down and took a shuddering breath. My hand was shaking so much I couldn't write. My eyes squeezed shut. Can I really do this? Can I open that door and cope with the consequences? Can I tell my daughter the truth so she never makes the same mistakes I made, never surrenders her sense of self worth?
I joined when I finished high school just after I turned 18. The system that militaries use to train new recruits is tried and true. While warfare has changed over the years, the process for turning bright inquisitive young people into killers who shoot first and ask questions later has not changed. It is the same now as it was in ancient Rome, China or Greece. It is the same process that is used to brainwash people in religious cults and tyrannical nation states.
First they take away your sense of identity, they shave your head, put you in a uniform and take away your name, replace it with a number. Then they wear you down. Days, weeks and months of gruelling physical activity in extreme conditions, psychological abuse, no rest and no comforts. They have to break you to put you back together again in their image. Then when you're desperate and flailing about for some new anchor, some safety, they give you what you need. Structure, discipline and ideology. Indoctrination and institutionalisation.
"Pain is just weakness leaving your body!"
"Sir! Yes Sir!"
"Kill or be killed!"
"Sir! Yes Sir!"
"Show me your war face!"
"Sir! Yes Sir!"
"One shot! One kill!"
"Sir! Yes Sir!"
This is your first six months in the military. They call it your basic training, they teach you all the basic skills to be a soldier. Later you complete your core training where you learn the skills required of your specialist role in the military. But all soldiers are soldiers first. The truth is I probably wouldn't have made it through basic training. But someone came into my life. My first love. No dear I'm not referring to your father. I have loved Jack and honoured him but before him there was Claire.
-Her face... Her scent...Her kisses! But Pain! So much. Too much. Cold sweat and tears, shaking breath as I struggle to go on...
We were divided up into Platoons. Each platoon was divided into sections of ten people and each section occupied one room in barracks with a platoon to each building. There were three toilets, a laundry, and ten showers. How we ran to be the first to those showers. Late comers showered cold.
Our rooms had two rows of beds, one down each side of the room with an isle in the middle. Everything had to be uniform. My bed was up against the end wall in the left hand row as you came in the door. Then there was a small gap followed by my tall boy wardrobe and a set of draws side by side and on the other side of that Claire's space began. It was exactly the same as mine and on the other side of that was Natalie, and so on. We each had a flimsy curtain between our space and the central isle. This small nod to privacy was a privilege only offered in the woman's barracks; the men had no curtains in their barracks. Platoon Sergeants worked in shifts and most of the time we had a female Sergeant but every now and then the Sergeant was male, hence the curtains.
