Gray Girl (16 page)

“No need to get all worked up, Miss
Wishart
, I just want to have a private conversation with
you.
 
Since you sauntered over here
to Boys-1, I’m going to inform you about our policies regarding females.”

For
Christ’s sake, asshole!
 

“First of all, no one here cares if
you scream.
 
No one here is going to
come to your rescue.
 
Besides, you
cannot scream your way out of combat, can you, Miss
Wishart
?”
 
His brown eyes bored into her and she
remembered where she had seen them before.
 
They looked just like the eyes on the German
Shepherd
that bit her in eighth grade.
 
“Just
exactly why are you here, Miss
Wishart
?”

“Sir, I delivered your package.”
 
She decided to try to end this
peaceably.

“No, I mean, why are you
HERE
?
 
Is it to prove something?
 
Is it for notoriety?
 
Is it to find a husband?”
 

With his arms still folded across his
chest, Jan felt some measure of safety.
 
“I’m here for the same reasons you are, Sir.”
 

“Do you think you can go to war with
me,
Wishart
?
 
Do you think I can count on you in combat to fulfill the mission?”
 
His lower lip tightened.
 
“I’m here to be an Army officer and to
fight for my country.
 
I might even
die for my country.
 
Do you really
think I want to worry about whether or not you need a shower or sanitary
napkins or birth control on the battlefield?”

Jan didn’t answer.
 

Jackson lowered his voice, “You
should think about that,
Wishart
.
 
You should think about the fact that you
took a spot away from some guy who can fight and die along side me.
 
You should think about what it means to
be an officer in the United States Army.”
 
He unfolded his arms.
 
Jan
immediately took a step backwards.
 
Surprisingly, he turned and opened his door, “Now get the hell out of my
Company.”

When Jan brushed past him, he slammed
his door shut.
  

She still had to find the plebe
stairwell.
 
Move with a purpose
.
 
Moving quickly was critical to avoiding attention, so she pinged along
the corridors, making one more rotation on the third floor before ducking into
the women’s latrine.
 
Another plebe
was washing her hands in the sink.
 
Jan whispered to her classmate, “Where’s the plebe stairwell?”
 
Her classmate wisely kept the water
running while whispering the directions to Jan.
 
“Thanks,” Jan said, “and stay far, far
away from Jackson.”
 
She pinged out
of that building as fast as she could.
 

Safely back in Central Area, she
sighed a breath of relief.
 
Okay, so why AM I here again?
 
She often asked herself why she came
and why she stayed.
 
Jackson’s
confrontation only caused her to renew the questioning in her own mind.
 
She didn’t agree with him, of
course.
 
She knew the Army had
plenty of roles for women and should probably have more.
 
She knew, fundamentally, that a
government-funded college should be open to everyone.
 
She knew women had as much a right to be
at West Point as men.
 
But the
debate that raged inside her was if
SHE
should be there.
 
Should she stick
it out, miserable as she was, or was it time to
throw in the blanket?
 

Then she remembered that all plebes
are miserable at West Point.

15

Friday,
May 7, 1982

1300
hours

“Jan came back to the room at least twice, in-between trips to
Jackson’s room.”
 
Kristi continued
her testimony.
 
“Cadet Trane and I
were both there.
 
Every time we saw
Jan, she was sweating from pinging back and forth.
 
She was also getting sick and tired of
the nonsense.”
 
Kristi looked
empathetically at Jan.
 
“I told her
she should report the whole thing to the CO, but she wouldn’t do it.
 
She always felt it was better to just
suck it up.
 
That’s what
Dogety
always told her.”
 

“Cadet McCarron,” Gaskins, from Second Regiment, spoke up, “did you see
Cadet
Wishart
leave the routing envelope in your room
at any point while she went to the latrine or anywhere else?”

“No, Sir.
 
She did use the
latrine, but she took the envelope with her.
 
She even said something like, ‘I can’t
let this out of my sight.’”

“So no one in your room that night could have possibly changed the
contents of the routing envelope?”
 
Conrad asked.

“No, nobody in our room touched it and Jan never opened the envelope
either,” Kristi stated.

“How can you know that, Miss McCarron?”
 
Cadet Seymour asked.
 

“Because we asked her what was inside.
 
And she said she didn’t have any
idea.
 
If Jan had even peeked
inside, she would have said so.
 
She
would have said, ‘It’s some drunken love notes between Jackson and
Dogety
,’ or something
like
that.”

“Miss McCarron, I have warned you once already.
 
I won’t say it again or you will face a
regimental disciplinary board.
 
You
will use respectful language when speaking about your superiors.
 
Do I make myself perfectly clear?”
 
Conrad laid down the law.
 

“Yes, Sir.”
 
Kristi glanced
at Jan.
 

Oh Kissy, don’t be too
sassy—or they will definitely find me guilty by association!

“Good.
 
Now tell us what you
witnessed after she came back the third time from Cadet Jackson’s room.”
 
Conrad pushed on, still trying to wrap
everything up before the weekend if possible.

“Well, Jan seemed relieved to have found a way out of the courier
business.
 
When she came back to the
room, about 2030 hours, she said that Jackson wasn’t in his room, so she left
the routing envelope leaning against his door.
 
She felt happy that the exercise was
over.
 
But about twenty minutes
later, both
Dogety
and Jackson showed up at our door
demanding to see Jan in the CQ room right away.”
 

“And how long was she gone? About?”
 
Cadet Tourney asked.

“She came back to the room at almost 2200 hours.
 
I remember looking at the clock,” Kristi
said.
 
“She was sweating again and
looked exhausted.
 
She said they
accused her of taking their notes and writing another one.
 
She said Jackson was ‘in her face,’
screaming and yelling at her.”
 

“Did she say what was written on the new note?”
 
Conrad asked.

“She didn’t have any idea what was written on anything.
 
She hadn’t looked in the envelope at any
time.
 
She even thought they were
screwing with her again, because they were both drunk, she figured they were
just messing with her.”
 

“Did she tell you that Cadet Jackson wanted her to report to his room
the next morning?”
 
Cadet Leavitt
asked.

“Yes, Sir.
 
She was pissed
about it.
 
She felt like she had
made enough trips to his room already.
 
And she was pissed at
Dogety
for allowing this
whole thing to go on so long.”

Go easy on the “pissed” part,
Kissy!

“Anyway, she got up at
o’dark
thirty the next
morning and went to Jackson’s room.”
 

“When did she return?”
 
Cadet Tourney asked.

“Well, she was not
back
when Angel and I left
the room to deliver newspapers, about 0545 hours.
 
But I saw she made it to breakfast
formation,” Kristi said, confirming Jan’s statement.

“Did you see Miss
Wishart
at any other time
that morning?”
 
Cadet Conrad asked.

“We both had classes right after breakfast until lunch.
 
I saw her briefly before lunch
formation.
 
Then I didn’t see her
again until we went back to the room after classes to change for athletics,”
Kristi said.

“And when you saw her, did you notice anything different about her
appearance?”
 
Conrad asked again.

“No, Sir, I didn’t notice anything.
 
But I wasn’t looking for anything
either.”
 

“The point is, you didn’t see anything unusual about Cadet
Wishart’s
appearance that morning or afternoon,
correct?”
 
Conrad clarified.

“No, Sir, I didn’t,” Kristi said softly.

It’s okay, Kissy.
 
It wasn’t that obvious.

16

“Upon
the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that upon other fields, on
other days, will bear the fruits of victory....”

General Douglas MacArthur

The gym converted into an obstacle
course with low bars, vault horses, flat and hanging tires, an eight-foot
shelf, three levels of balance beams, an eight-foot horizontal wall, monkey
bars and dangling, thick ropes.
 
This perennial torture chamber, known as the Indoor Obstacle Course Test
(IOCT) became the new nemesis for plebes.

“Okay, everyone will run through once
for practice.
 
Then you’ll do it
again for time.”
 
Captain Miller
announced to the G, H and I companies’ fourth-class cadets.
 
He and all the Department of Physical
Education (DPE) instructors were in phenomenal shape.
 

He’s
a stud muffin!
For an old guy.
 

“The men will go first, then the
women,” Captain Miller said.

She watched as the guys low crawled
under the bars, vaulted over the horses, hoisted themselves onto the shelf,
leapt onto bars leading to the upper track, jumped back down to floor mats and
through the hanging tires, ran over three levels of balance beams, scaled the
eight foot wall, hand-walked the monkey bars, climbed the hanging ropes back up
to the track, picked up a medicine ball and ran three laps before crossing the
finish line.
 
A big metal bucket
waited at the exit for anyone needing to puke.
 

Most guys negotiated the obstacles
with seemingly little effort although quite a few struggled with the balance
beams.
 
Some fell off and had to
start again.
 
Drew
Hambin
floated across the tri-level beams.
 
Jan marveled at his agility and strength
as he handled all the obstacles with ease.

After finishing the practice IOCT,
the men sat down around the edge of the gym where the women had been
waiting.
 
“Okay, women, your
turn!”
 
Captain Miller shouted.
 

Jan tried to put on a good face but
she knew this wasn’t going to be pretty.
 
“Let the faster ones go ahead of us,” she whispered to Angel and Kristi
while nodding toward Leslie Wright and Debra
Plowden
.
 
She thought it was best not to get in
their way.
 

“First, Cadet Wright will demonstrate
how to negotiate each obstacle,” Captain Miller said.
 

What?
 
The guys didn’t get a
demonstration!
 
 
Most female cadets didn’t like when the
faculty made a distinction between the genders.
 
Having a demonstration for the IOCT,
when there wasn’t one for the men, was just the kind of “special treatment”
they wanted to avoid.
 

Captain Miller must have sensed the
women’s concerns.
 
“The reason for
this demonstration is due to the fact that women have to negotiate the
obstacles differently than men.”

Leslie crawled under the low bars,
ran through the flat tire station and then vaulted easily over the horse.
 

Not
sure what’s different yet.

As she ran up to the six-foot shelf,
Captain Miller said, “Notice how Cadet Wright throws her leg up first.
 
Women usually have to use this method to
climb onto the shelf.
 
The leg gives
you leverage to hoist yourself up.”
 

Okay,
I wouldn’t have known that.
 

Leslie continued through the next few
obstacles coming to the eight-foot vertical wall.
 
“Notice that Cadet Wright uses her legs
to partially climb the wall while grabbing the top of the wall with her
hands.
 
This way, she is able to go
over using most of her lower body strength.”
 

Okay,
didn’t know that either.

“Now, see how Cadet Wright moves her
legs while traversing the monkey bars.
 
Her legs act as a pendulum for the upper body giving her momentum to
grab each successive bar.”
  

There
seems to be a pattern here.
 

“Cadet Wright loops her foot around
the rope and secures it with her other foot.
 
Then she lifts her body up the rope
using her legs like an inch worm.”
 
Jan had no doubt that Leslie could have negotiated every obstacle like
the men, using mostly upper body strength.
 

But
the rest of us mortals…well…
 

They lined up at the start of the
course.
 
Jan strategically stood
behind several women she knew would breeze through the obstacles.
 
Yet, she chose to go in front of Kristi
and Angel, thinking they might be slower.
 
She heard Drew’s voice from the line of men along the wall.
 
“You got this girls!”
 
Jan didn’t mind when Drew used that
word, “girls,” because she knew he meant well.

They started in 15-second
intervals.
 
Jan saw Leslie take off
and negotiate each obstacle much faster than the demonstration.
 
God,
she’s a marvel.
 

Captain Miller gave Jan the signal to
start and she began low crawling.
 
She learned this skill in Beast and it wasn’t too difficult for short
stretches.
 
Then she skipped through
the tires and over the vault; no problem.
 
Jan ran up to the eight-foot shelf, threw her leg onto it and tried to
hoist herself up.
 
But her leg fell
off quickly, taking away her leverage.
 
Captain Miller said, “Go back and run up to it again, Miss
Wishart
.”
  

Jan backed up about ten feet and
charged the shelf again but still no luck getting the leg to stay.
 
“Miss
Wishart
,
throw your head and upper body to the left while throwing your leg to the right
onto the shelf.
 
Become almost
parallel to the shelf and use it to help you up.”
 

Easier
to say than do or something like that…
Jan ran up to the shelf a third
time, doing as Captain Miller explained.
 
This time, she managed to get her knee on the shelf.
 
Wow.
 
That made all the difference.
 
Jan pulled the rest of her five-feet,
ten-inches onto the shelf.
 
She
jumped onto the bars above, then onto the track before circling back down to the
bars and jumping to the floor mats below.
 
She hopped through the hanging tire and ran over the three levels of
balance beams with no trouble.
 
At
the eight-foot vertical wall, her long legs came in handy.
 
She used them to step up the wall and
grab the top with both hands. Then, she folded her body over the top and
flopped onto mats on the other side.

The monkey bars were harder.
 
Jan didn’t have an ounce of rhythm in
her
bones,
hence swaying and swinging didn’t come
naturally.
 

“Use your momentum to grab the next
bar,
”
 
another
DPE instructor said.
 

What
momentum?
 
Jan couldn’t seem to
get the swinging thing to work.
 
She
fell off the third bar.
   

“Try it again, Miss
Wishart
.”
 
Jan
started again, this time making it to the fifth bar.
 
“Once more, Miss
Wishart
.”

I
hope the guys aren’t watching.
Yet, they were.
 
Most of them cheered for the women, but
a few shook their heads or looked down.
 
She dreaded what they were thinking—
that we are the weak links in the Long Gray Line.
 

Every so often she heard Drew say
something like, “C’mon Jan, you can do it!” or “Keep trying, Kristi!”
 
or
“Way to go
Angel!”
 

God,
I love that boy!
 

On the third attempt she made it to
the seventh bar and the DPE instructor told her to move onto the ropes.
  
It took longer to figure out the
rope climb than any other obstacle.
 
After what seemed like an hour, Jan managed to get onto the upper
track.
 
She picked up the medicine
ball, ran three laps and finally finished the torture chamber.

Down on the gym floor Kristi and Angel
were still dealing with the vertical wall.
 
Jan felt sorry for them, yet she mostly felt relieved to see others
having more problems than she did.
 
Then she felt guilty for feeling better because they were worse.
 
God,
I’m a mess!
 

Women like Leslie and Debra didn’t
need to practice the IOCT.
 
Women
like Jan, Kristi and Angel practiced for several weeks before the official
test.
 
The three women arrived at
the gym every day before sunrise.
 
Drew volunteered as their coach.
 
He really is wonderful.
 
They practiced the shelf, the wall,
the monkey bars and the ropes.
 
Then
they ran through the whole thing once more for time.
  

On the day of the test Jan was so
nervous she could barely breathe.
 
She lined up behind Debra and in front of Angel and Kristi.
 
The men were either puking upstairs or
seated against the wall watching the women.
 
She could hear Drew shouting
encouragement.

She hooked her leg onto the shelf the
first time.
 
“Way to go, Jan!”
 
Drew yelled.
 
She climbed the wall with relative ease.
 
“Awesome job, Jan!”
 
She monkeyed the bars better than ever
and shimmied up the ropes with little difficulty.
 
“You’re almost there, Jan!”
 
When she finished, she looked down as
Kristi and Angel inched up the ropes.
 
Drew cheered them on, too.
 

The practicing paid off.
 
When Kristi came over the finish line,
Jan hugged and lifted her off the floor.
 
She did the same with Angel.
 
Drew almost scared them to death when he grabbed all three women in a
big bear hug.

“We did it, bitches, we did it!”
 
Kristi proclaimed.

Their IOCT scores meant diddlysquat
if they didn’t also pass the monthly weigh-in.
 
So at lunch, Jan ate half an egg salad
sandwich.
 
She feigned sickness at
dinner, nibbling only on the roll.
 
She and Kristi hoped they would do well enough at the weigh-in that
evening to keep the weight hounds away for another month.
 
They were wrong.
 
Jan weighed-in at five
pounds under her maximum weight limit and Kristi, three pounds under hers.
 
Apparently they were considered too
close to the line.
 
They were both
assigned to the battalion’s diet tables starting the next day.

The cavernous, cathedral building
with four wings, housed all four thousand cadets for breakfast, lunch and
dinner every weekday.
 
The entire
Corps of Cadets, by companies, by battalions, by regiments, entered the four
wings at exactly the same time.
 
Third Regiment entered Washington Hall by the huge mural depicting
twenty great battles and their generals in world history.

Jan and Kristi found their way to
their battalion's diet tables, clearly marked with large red “DIET” signs.
 
They stood at attention behind their
chairs waiting for the OZ-like voice to announce, “TAKE SEATS!”
  

Jan felt
Dogety
approach and stand almost touching her left side.
 
“
Wishart
,” he
said quietly, “I see you have the notorious distinction of being on diet
tables.”
 
She stood at attention and
since he didn’t ask a question, there was no need to respond.
 
“Do you realize how bad this
looks?”
 

Shit,
that’s a question.
 
“Yes, Sir,”
she replied.
 

“Really,
Wishart
,
a little self control would go a long way.”
 
No question, no comment, Jan
decided.
 
“Besides,” he continued,
“you need to sit with our Company, not with a bunch of losers from the rest of
the battalion.
 
Get your act
together and get off these tables ASAP.
 
Understand,
Wishart
?”
 

“Yes, Sir!”
 
Jan wondered why he never said anything
to Kristi.
 
Maybe he misses me!

 
“Take Seats!”
 
En mass, the entire Mess Hall erupted in
a cacophony of noise as chairs slid back, as plebes carried out their duties,
and as everyone began talking, laughing and shouting at the plebes.