Don't Call Me Hero (3 page)

After boot camp, I spent two weeks in Marine Combat Training Battalion to learn things like communications, intelligence, electronic warfare, nuclear and biochemical defense, logistics, and vehicle repair. If I’d been a man, I would have gone to a fifty-two day Infantry Training to serve as a grunt: infantry, machine gunners, mortar men, assault, and antitank guided missile men.

Being a female in the Marines was akin to walking a tight rope. If you didn’t hang out with the guys in your squad, you were a lesbian. If you palled around with the guys too much, however, you were a slut. The best I could hope for was to be thought of as their little sister.

My first tour was relatively unremarkable. My mosquito wings were freshly stitched on my uniform, and I was admittedly gungy—gung ho, but inexperienced. After witnessing the death of my first Marine, however, they stopped looking at me like a Wookie monster—a female Marine. I was simply a Marine. Sometimes being a woman in Afghanistan was problematic, especially when interacting with village elders. But other times, like when it came to defusing situations between Marines and local women, it came in handy.

I wasn’t technically allowed to engage in direct combat until February 2012 when the Pentagon finally changed their ban on women in combat battalions. It was little more than a rubber-stamp of approval on a piece of paper though. I’d been serving as a signal officer through a loophole that allowed me to be attached to a combat unit. A few months later, however, we started to withdraw from the country.

Being a Marine meant working until a job or objective had been completed as expected. At the time, I’d found it ironic that the President was removing troops from Afghanistan. The job wasn’t finished. And in my opinion, it hadn’t been done the right way.

After my second tour came to an end, I briefly entertained the plan of becoming a Marine security guard for an embassy or consulate. But in the end, I decided to go back to America and be with my family. Marine security guards typically served three rounds of twelve-month long tours. After another three years in the military, I would have been thirty, and I wanted to start the rest of my life before then. 

When I ended my service with the Marines, I came home to a hero’s welcome. Signs all over town welcomed me back. I even got a parade down Main Street. I’d sat on the back on some stranger’s red Corvette convertible like a goddamn beauty queen who wore Marine dress blues instead of a prom dress. There had been a nauseating amount of tiny American flags in the crowd, all stiffly waving as the car carrying me drove by. Kids ran into the streets with their hands on their hips, expecting candy. It was supposed to be a parade, after all. The town did everything short of giving me a key to the city and declaring it Cassidy Miller Day.

During my two tours abroad I’d returned to St. Cloud occasionally, but being back for good was different. Nothing looked the same to my eighteen-year-old self. The only thing relatively unchanged was my parents’ house and my childhood bedroom. VCRs had been replaced with DVD players and tube television sets had been exchanged for flat screens, but that same hideous brown carpet still covered the floor.

I hadn’t believed that coming back after all that time in a war zone would be easy, but I’d underestimated the real difficulties of transitioning back to civilian life. War is hell, but the aftermath is endless.

I parked my bike in the small paved parking lot adjacent to the riverboat bar and climbed up the stairs to the second level. Angie was already at a table with a beer in front of her when I showed up.

“You’re alive,” she observed. She wore sunglasses on the overcast day, which told me how the rest of her night had gone.

I sat down in a plastic lawn chair across from her. “Yeah, I’m sorry about last night.”

Angie lifted her sunglasses to her forehead and rubbed at her temples. “Who bails on their own going away party?”

“I know. I’m sorry,” I apologized again.

“What are you drinking?” She waved down the bartender. Normally there wasn’t table service at a bar like this, but we were the only people on the boat so the bartender made an exception.

“I’m good,” I declined the offer. “I’ve got a long drive ahead of me today.”

“You can have one beer. Besides, I’m buying.” She pulled out a dark blue credit card, which I recognized as my own.

“Thanks for taking care of that. It saves me the hassle of having to cancel the card.” I took the charge card back and returned it to my wallet. “What’d I miss last night?”

“Rich went home with one of those chicks,” Angie snorted.

I immediately bristled. My reaction didn’t go unnoticed.

“Not your fancy broad, Miller,” she reassured. “He’s not
that
classless. Besides, she basically clammed up the moment you took off.”

“Really?” I didn’t know why that information felt so satisfying.

“Also, I may have bought another round with your card.” Angie smiled sheepishly. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I dismissed. “That’s my punishment for ditching you guys.”

“Why
did
you leave?” she pressed.

“I just needed to get out of there.”

It was a vague excuse, but my pride wouldn’t let me admit the depth of my awkwardness. Besides, it didn’t matter anymore. I was leaving the city shortly and chances were I was never going to see that woman again.

CHAPTER TWO

The wheels of my Harley-Davidson Sportster spit up wet gravel as I cruised down the lonely northern Minnesotan county highway. The bike hugged the center double line as I put more and more distance between the Twin Cities and myself. A motorcycle was an impractical vehicle for northern Minnesotan winters, but spring was starting to fade into summer, not that Mother Nature ever paid attention to days on the calendar.

The town was a speck on the map, nestled between national and state parks, about a three and a half-hour’s drive north of Minneapolis. A wooden sign that looked like it had been made in a high school woodshop class welcomed me as I rolled into town:
Embarrass, Minnesota. The Cold Spot
.

I tugged at the collar of my leather jacket. The words on the sign hadn’t been an empty boast. The bike ride had left me chilled to the bone. A dense fog clung in the sky, making the sleepy town more reminiscent of a costal city than its Midwestern location. It wasn’t much past the dinner hour, but the sun had disappeared for the day about halfway into my trip.

I parked my bike in front of a Victorian-style house whose signage indicated it served as a bed and breakfast. It was the first place I saw on my drive into the city limits, so I took a gamble that it would be cheap but bug-free. I could have kept going, but I didn’t have much faith that I’d find something better the farther into town I drove. I’d been on the bike for long enough. I just wanted a hot meal and an even hotter shower.

My plan was to stay at the bed and breakfast for only the night. I’d stayed on with Angie longer than I’d originally intended, and I didn’t want to bother the town’s chief of police at this hour. I would contact him in the morning to get settled. All I had on me was whatever I could fit into the saddlebags on my motorcycle. The majority of my belongings had arrived ahead of me and were sitting in boxes in the rental unit Chief Hart had procured. I was thankful that he’d arranged housing for me; I’d discovered soon after I’d accepted the job that apartments were a rare commodity in the unincorporated town. My sense of Embarrass was a village from which people rarely moved.

A bell rang overhead when I pushed open the front door of the Embarrass Bed & Breakfast. I flared my nostrils; there was a peculiar scent of potpourri or dying roses in the air. It was unpleasant, but it could have been worse. I would get used to the stench eventually, or it would get stuck up my nose.

The inner décor of the Victorian home was like being sucked into a time warp. But instead of turn-of-the-century antiques, the bed and breakfast was filled with artifacts from World War II. Big band music piped in from some unknown location. Old sheet music sat on an upright piano. A worn couch upholstered in imitation velvet was covered with a mountain of Easter Sunday bonnets, and a hand-painted sign announced tea time on Tuesday afternoons. Everything looked a little run down, but at least it was clean.

There was no one at the front desk, so I rang a bell for service. A small woman in a long jean skirt and white turtleneck walked out from a previously undisclosed location. Her hair was long and dark with grey streaks running through it, and it looked like it had never seen a brush or scissors in her lifetime. When she came closer I saw an embroidered cross on the collar of her turtleneck.

“What can I do for you?” Even from such a small sampling, I heard the thick northern Minnesotan accent.

“I’d like a room. The sign out front said you had vacancies.”

The woman laughed at an unvoiced joke. “
Every
room is vacant. It’s not tourist season, ya know. How long will you need the room for?” she asked.

“Just tonight.”

She pulled out a guest book. “And how will you be paying?”

“Uh, credit card?” The words came out as a question because I had no idea if this place even accepted credit cards.

She pulled out one of those imprinting machines and a multi-layered invoice and filled out the duplicate paperwork while I continued to take in my surroundings. There were kitschy signs hanging on the walls of the lobby, mostly Bible verses.

“Have you owned this place long?” I asked, making idle conversation.

“Long enough. My husband and I took over ownership in 1999.”

She returned my credit card and the receipt for the room charge. “I’ll be at Mass tomorrow morning, so I won’t be here to make you breakfast unless you’d like to wait until I’m back.”

“No, that won’t be necessary.”

“Or you could come to church, too,” she suggested. “Mass starts at 9:00 a.m. at the Lutheran church.”

“I, uh, I’ve got to get in contact with Larry Hart in the morning. I don’t think I’ll have time to make it to church.” I wasn’t a religious person, and I hoped that wouldn’t be a problem in this town.

“What business do you have with the chief of police?” the woman asked.

“I just got hired. I’m the new police officer.”

The suspicious look on her face turned into brightened recognition. “Oh! Why didn’t you say so? I would have given you a really nice discount on the room.”

I looked at the scribbled out bill. She’d only charged me forty-five dollars. I couldn’t image anything more discounted than that. “No, this is really fine,” I insisted. “You needn’t go to that trouble.”

She looked like she wanted to argue with me, but she pressed her lips together instead. She handed me a single key and pointed in the direction of a spiral staircase at the front of the house. “Upstairs, last door on the left.”

The green carpet was worn like the rest of the interior. I followed it up the twisted stairs, my duffle bag in hand, until I reached my designated room. The key stuck in the lock, and I had to wiggle it until the unlocking mechanism popped free. Inside my rented room the carpeting ended, giving way to dark wooden floors. A queen-sized bed covered with a flowered quilt dominated the modest bedroom and a thin area rug struggled to cover the floor. There was a bookshelf against one wall, stacked high with paperback novels, and a wooden bureau upon which a ceramic pitcher and washbasin had been placed. 

I shrugged out of my leather jacket and dropped it on the floor along with my duffle bag. “Thank God,” I sighed. The bed beckoned to me, but not as loudly as the porcelain claw-footed tub I found in the connected bathroom.

I shut myself away in the privacy of the bathroom, not trusting that the proprietress wouldn’t let herself into my room to leave milk and cookies. I twisted my long, blonde waves into a sloppy bun set high on my scalp and stripped out of dark jeans, cotton top, and mismatched undergarments. When I was in Marines, I’d kept my hair cut just above my shoulders. Females weren’t expected to get the same cranial amputation haircut male Marines received at the beginning of boot camp, but I usually tamed my hair into a tight bun like other young female Marines. Now that I was a civilian, I’d let it grow longer.

I inspected the lean, hard lines of my naked body in the full-length dressing mirror on the back of the bathroom door. Nearly a decade of service in the United States Marine Corps had transformed my body from a skinny, awkward teen to the finely muscled woman who stared back at me. I observed the teenage gap between my thighs and settled my palms flat against the swimmer-v on my lower torso that I had maintained long after my high school swim team years. I twisted to the side to regard my profile. My hips were narrow, too boyish I thought, but small, upturned breasts that sat high on my chest in proportion to the rest of my body were evidence of my femininity.

I turned off the bathtub faucet when I deemed the level high enough. First one foot and then the other, as I gingerly sat down in water just a few degrees too hot. My body would acclimate, and it wouldn’t be long until the water became too cool. I sat up in the tub, thighs splayed apart, water dripping from my fingertips. Humid air curled the hair at my temples and nape of my neck. I experimentally plugged up the silver faucet with my big toe, stemming the steady drip of the spigot.

The heat of the water penetrated my bones, alleviating the dull ache that the long bike ride had produced. I pushed damp tendrils that had worked their way free from my bun out of my eyes and ran my hand over my face. Eight years in the Marines and another year with the city of Minneapolis police department, but now I was banished to a bed and breakfast in northern Minnesota. In the morning, I would track down Chief Hart and get settled in my new apartment. I didn’t know what to expect of my new responsibilities on the Embarrass police force, but anything had to be better than the paper pushing I’d been demoted to in the Twin Cities.

My fingers started to prune and the water had become too cool for comfort. I emerged from the bathtub, feeling moderately refreshed. After toweling my body dry, I checked my cell phone, which I’d left to recharge outside of the bathroom. I had a bevy of text messages from my friends, so wrote them each back a brief message to let them know I’d arrived at the northern outpost in one piece.

I pulled a pair of running shorts and an olive green T-shirt with the word Marines screen-printed across the chest from my duffle bag. I slipped into the clean, but wrinkled clothes, and then between stiff bed sheets. In the military my rack had been about seventy percent the size of a twin bed, forcing me to sleep at the position of attention. Getting to sleep on even a double-sized mattress as a civilian felt like a luxury. As I curled up on my side and shoved my hands beneath the lone down pillow, I wished for a dreamless sleep. I knew it was too much to ask; sleep itself would have to suffice.

+ + +

Afghanistan, 2012

It’s July in Afghanistan. My fair, Scandinavian skin has taken a beating these past few years. I used to never leave the house without sunscreen on. Now it’s wasted space in my duffle bag. It’s a dry heat, like my grandparents explain to us how they can handle the plus-one hundred degree temperatures in their retirement home in Arizona. At least I don’t have to worry about trench foot or swamp ass in Afghanistan. It’s a small comfort when you’re driving down narrow streets, the buildings too tall on both sides and the places where snipers can perch too numerous. I’ve been at Quantico for the past few months, receiving training to be a communications officer. Then there were train-ups in the Middle East with port calls in Italy and in France. As a female Marine, the extra training is the only way I’ll ever see real action and get off the forward operating base.

My second tour is as a member of Task Force Leatherneck in the Second Marine Expeditionary Brigade—Operation
Strike of the Sword
or Operation
Khanjar—
in the Helmand province in southern Afghanistan. Since 2001, Helmand has been considered to be a Taliban stronghold and one of the most dangerous provinces in the country. I’m just one of ten thousand Marines, part of Obama’s surge in 2009 into the southern part of the nation.

I met Terrance Pensacola on the transport from the States. Like many other recruits, it’s his first time out of the country and there’s a nervous, but excited energy about him. Private First Class Pensacola is a black kid from Detroit. We shouldn’t have any common ground, but we bond over our geographic similarities and our mutual hatred for the Chicago White Sox. He’s bullet bait and gung ho, and I wonder how long it’ll be before he realizes that this life is nothing like the movies.

Hurry up and wait—it’s the unofficial motto of the armed forces. Pensacola and I play a game of spades. We play a whole lot of card games. Pensacola is a hell of a Euchre partner. If nothing else, I’ve gotten to be a really good card player in Afghanistan.

“You still glad you re-upped?” he asks me.

I’d submitted my reenlistment packet when my first four-year commitment was almost up. I didn’t know what else to do.

I throw down a card. “Well, nothing I can do about it now.”

+ + +

My footsteps creaked down the wooden staircase the next morning. The ground floor was silent except for the ticking of a grandfather clock. The big band music from before had been turned off, and I found myself alone in the bed and breakfast. I still had yet to see the owner’s husband, which made me suspicious that she’d made him up or that she had him locked away in the basement and only dusted him off when company came over.

My steps were light as I walked through the eerily quiet front parlor to the dining room. An old chandelier hung from the ceiling, and the floor was covered in the same worn, green carpeting that spanned the entirety of the first floor. Six chairs surrounded a rectangular wooden table, and a white, knitted doily covered the center panel of the polished furniture.

The proprietress had left a plate of still-warm blueberry muffins and a bowl of plain yogurt and granola on the dining room table for me. There was also a handwritten note saying that she’d gone to church, but that I should help myself to any other food I wanted in the kitchen pantry. I shook my head and took an oversized bite of the muffin. If everyone was so trusting in this town, it was no wonder that Chief Hart needed more police officers. All it would take was one bad egg to corrupt an entire community.