Gray Girl (24 page)

“Thanks, Debra.
 
We hope we can also, but it’s still a
long road ahead.
 
Send us your
address so we can keep you posted.”

“I might do that in a few
months.
 
First I just need time to
be away from all the reminders.”

“Okay.
 
Well,” Jan wasn’t sure what else to
say,
 
“we’ll miss you.”
 

 
“Thanks.
 
Good luck, Jan.”

“Good luck to you, too, Debra.”

23

Friday,
May 7, 1982

1915 Hours

Dear
SKIP,

I
hear you might be able to testify on my behalf.
 
Is this true?
 
If so, I need to know ASAP, so I can
request you as a witness.
 
I HAVE to
know your name, however.
 
I don’t
think they will just allow me to call “my anonymous pen pal, SKIP” to the
witness chair.
 
I don’t know how you
might be able to help, but I’m hoping it’s true.
 
Please respond tonight!!

Jan

She wrote SKIP in large letters on the note and taped it to her door before
walking to the windowless room in Mahan Hall.
 
At exactly 1930 hours, Conrad called the
Honor Board to order again.

“Let’s get right back to business,” he said.
 
“Does anyone have any more questions for
Cadet Dogety?”
 

“Yes, I do,”
Tourney
said.
 
“Sam, what happened after you tried to
calm Markus down?”
  

“We yelled at each other for a bit, then Markus demanded that Miss
Wishart report to his room at 0500 the next morning.
 
When he left, I told her NOT to obey his
order.
 
But obviously, she did
anyway,” Dogety said while looking at Jan.
 

“Did you think Miss Wishart had written the note in the routing
envelope?”
 

“No, I have seen her handwriting and it didn’t look anything like
hers.
 
Also, I don’t believe Miss
Wishart would lie to us.
 
If she had
done it, she would have admitted it.”
 

“Did you explain that to Markus?”

“Yes, that’s what we were arguing about.
 
He was convinced that she had
something
to do with it,” Dogety said.
 

“Did you see Miss Wishart the next morning, Sam?”
 
Gaskins asked, jumping ahead.
 

“Briefly, yes.”

“When was that?”

Dogety cleared his throat, fidgeted in his chair, and then said, “I saw
her between first and second class periods, about 0845 hours.
 
She reported to my room saying she had
something to tell me.”
 

“Please explain what happened next,” Gaskins said.

Dogety appeared ill.
 
He
looked over at Jan, then at Bill Trane, then back to Casey Conrad.
 
He opened his mouth, like he was going
to speak, then he closed it and dropped his eyes to the floor.
 
Jan thought she saw his lips moving as
if he was talking to himself or praying.
 

“Sir, may I ask a question?”
 
Jan looked to Conrad for the answer.
 

“What is it, Miss Wishart?”
 

“Sir, I would like to call a recess,” she stated rather than asked.

“Why, Miss Wishart, do you need a recess?”
 

“I believe there’s a new witness, Sir.”

“What are you talking about?”
 
Conrad almost shouted.

“Sir, I have information that someone saw something pertaining to my
case, but I need some time to
 
…to…secure his information.”
 
She hoped they wouldn’t ask for a name.

“Miss Wishart, we cannot stop the proceedings just because you want to
chase down a new witness.”

“Well, Sir, I just found out about this witness tonight at dinner
time.”

“Miss Wishart, we are running a highly irregular Honor Board as it
is.
 
We are running out of time.
 
TEE week starts Monday, and some of us
need to study.
 
If I adjourn now, we
will lose precious time that will have to be made up tomorrow,” Conrad said.
 
“Besides, you had a full day to submit
your witness list.”

“Sir, the Honor Board guidelines stipulate that new witnesses can be
called if and when they are determined to have information pertinent to the
case.
 
I believe this witness has
information pertinent to my case, and I need some time to get his
statement.”
 

“I am well aware of the Honor Board guidelines, thank you.”
 
Conrad stood up.
 
“I need the Regimental Honor Captains to
step outside with me for a moment.
 
Everyone else remain here.”
 
He walked out the door followed by Cadets Tourney, Leavitt, Gaskins and
Seymour.
   

When they were gone, Trane turned to Jan, “What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to get a witness….”
 

“I understand that much, but why now?
 
Why not wait till we adjourn?”
 
Trane asked.

Because I don’t even know his
name, and I have to write notes back and forth to communicate with him.
 
She needed as much time as possible to
convince SKIP to come out of hiding.
 
That’s what she told herself anyway.
 
But she also wondered why she didn’t ask
for the recess at the beginning of this session. Why did she wait until Dogety
was about to answer a critical question?
 
Was she trying to protect him?
 
Or was she afraid of his answer?

Conrad and his cabinet returned to the room.
 
While standing, he said, “Miss Wishart,
as much as we’d like to finish questioning Cadet Dogety tonight, we realize
that you can call as many witnesses and in whatever order as you want.
 
We want to afford you every opportunity
to do so.
 
Therefore, we will
adjourn for the night and reconvene at 0830 hours tomorrow morning.”
 
He closed his folder before walking back
out of the room.
 

“I hope winning this battle doesn’t cost you the war...” Trane
said.
 

“I hope not either, Sir.”

24

Q: How is the cow?

A:
Sir, she walks, she talks, she's full of chalk,
the
lacteal fluid extracted from the female of the bovine species is highly
prolific to the nth degree.

Heritage, Bugle Notes, 81, p. 242

Jan's parents drove them back to West
Point on January 10, 1982.
 
Her dad
attempted a few jokes and small talk.
 
When he didn’t get any response from the young women, he gave up and
turned on the radio.
 
They were not
in the mood for conversation, laughter or anything other than staring out the
windows and trying to enjoy the last few moments of peace.
   

West Point was not a war zone.
 
They knew that.
 
There were many people in the world
living with real suffering.
 
Sometimes Jan felt guilty for being so miserable at one of the best
institutions in the country.
 
Complaining about it felt a little like not eating her peas at
dinner.
 
Her mother would rightly
say, “There are starving children in Africa who would love to eat those
peas!”
 
And no matter what she said,
it always came out sounding like whining.
 

Besides, some female cadets seemed
just fine.
 
Wright always appeared
happy, confident, and totally in her element at West Point.
 
She and other well-adjusted women caused
Jan to think that her own skin just wasn’t thick enough.
 
Or perhaps those women didn’t hear the
comments and chuckles from clusters of men.
 
She didn’t know how they could have
avoided it, though.
 
The sexual and
bodily comments, some from cadets and some from
officers,
were constant.
 
Every day, sometimes
several times a day, Jan heard something about her body, another woman’s body or
the female body in general.
 

As she stared at the passing white
lines on the highway, she resolved to put on a kind of body armor—a
mental and emotional shell—for the coming semester.
 
She would keep vigil and stay on guard, so
that when she heard snide remarks, sarcastic jokes or sexual comments, they would
not penetrate her skin.
 
They would simply
bounce off her from now on, she told herself.

By fifteen hundred hours, Jan and
Kristi arrived at the gray walls, the gray halls, the gray gloom and doom of
West Point to fight another day.
 

The first order of business was to
change rooms again.
 
Because Debra
did not return, Jan, Angel and Kristi moved to a three-person room.
 
Inspection scheduled at twenty hundred
hours meant they were ready by eighteen hundred hours.
 
They used the extra time to memorize the
menus for the week, the number of days left for every major event, and other
necessary “poop,” all while polishing their shoes.

KNOCK, KNOCK!
 
Popping to attention, the three
roommates shouted in unison, “Enter, Sir!”
 
The door violently swung open.
 
Dogety stood in the hallway in civilian clothes.
 
Jan thought he seemed uncomfortable out
of uniform.
 

He
was born wearing Dress Gray.

“Is this room ready for inspection?”
he asked.

“Yes, Sir!”
 
They replied simultaneously.

“Good.”
 
Dogety walked into the room.
 
He looked around, at the bookshelves,
the beds and the closets.
 
He opened
the medicine cabinet and the laundry bins.
 
Then he started to walk out the door.
 
“Guess what, ladies?”

One of the five responses didn't
quite work, so Jan said, “What, Sir?”

“There’s a new chain of command in
H-3, and I’m now your Executive Officer.”

Damn
.

“What do you think of that?”
 
he
asked.

The three plebes looked at each
other.
 
Kristi and Angel kept quiet,
but Jan said, “Sir, I think….” She wanted to say something semi-congratulatory—without
being too over the top.
 
“Sir,
congratulations on your promotion.”
 

Dogety did get a promotion, but
everyone knew he aspired to be the Company Commander.
 
Executive Officer fell one rung short of
his goal.
 
It’s like Vice-President.
 
You have a title but not any real
power…unless, of course, the head honcho quits or dies.

He said, “I suggest you three get
this room squared away before the next inspection.
 
You know my standards, Miss Wishart.”

He walked away and Kristi closed the
door.
 
“His mother must have dropped
him when he was a baby.”
   

“That’s just Dogety, Kissy.
 
He’s wired to be an asshole.”
 
Jan resigned herself to another semester
under his thumb.
 
“You guys will get
to see what I dealt with all during Beast.”

Kristi seethed, “Well, he's a dick
head!
 
And if he brings that Jackass
dude around here, I’m going to kick them both in the balls!”

They set out on a reconnaissance
mission to find Drew’s new room.
 
Hugging the inner walls of the barracks and pinging at three times the
normal walking speed, they read the nametags on the doors without moving their
heads.
 
Looking two or three doors
ahead, Jan spotted “Hambin” on the last door, second floor,
west
side.
 
She made the sharp left turn
to Drew’s room.
 
Kristi followed,
and Jan knocked softly three times.
 
“Come in.”

Jan and Kristi walked all the way to
the middle of the room before realizing they had the wrong one.
 
The male cadet, lying on his bed in his
underwear said, “Can I help you, ladies?”
  

“Uh, Sir…we, uh, we…” Jan stuttered,
flummoxed by his bright pink boxer shorts with something written in black all
over them.
 

“Yes, you were saying
..
” he said.

“Sir, we thought…” She tried to read
the words on his boxers.
 
Something
like
love me, kiss me, baby,
hot
, cute
and other amorous terms.
 
“We
..uh
…we
thought this was Cadet Hambin’s room.”
 
She finally managed to get it out.

“Well, I’m afraid you are mistaken,
my dears.”
 
He didn’t seem at all
angry that they interrupted his bedtime in his favorite, sexy boxers.

“Sorry to bother you, Sir,” Jan said,
executing an about face and striding past Kristi to the hallway.

“Nice underwear, Sir,” Kristi said as
she followed Jan out the door.

“The pleasure was all mine,
ladies!”
 
they
heard him say as they shut the door.
 

The nametag read “Hanlin” instead of
“Hambin.”
  
Rookie mistake
.
 
They set off again and found Drew’s room
on the East side, center hallway,
second
floor.
  
“Come in,” he said.

“Oh thank God it’s you!”
 
Kristi said.

“Who else would it be?”
 

“Oh, some guy named Hanlin.”
 
Jan told him what happened.
 

“Hanlin has some pretty fancy
underwear,” Kristi added.
 
“Pink
with sexy writing all over.”

“Well, you went to the right, wrong
room,” Drew said.
 
“He’s one of the
coolest firsties in our Company.”

“Well, it looked like he was about to
get pretty hot.”
 
The three friends
broke out laughing along with Drew’s cute new roommate.
    

Plebe English continued, as did
History of Modern Europe, foreign language (Arabic for Jan), Calculus and
Military Science (MS).
 
Psychology
replaced the computer class and the PE courses changed, from Self-defense for
Women and Boxing for men, to Survival Swimming for both.
 
To ensure attention to detail, the
academic schedule included alternating days, numbered one and two
respectively.
 
On one days, half the
plebes attended foreign language, computers or psychology, and history.
 
The other half took math, PE, English
and Military Science, sometimes called “mandatory sleep.”
 
On two days, the schedule reversed.
 
Twice a week, a STAR day was
added—once on day one and once on day two—where plebes had to
attend all of their classes.
 
Then,
the classes were shortened to one hour, except for computers, math, language or
Chemistry, which became one hour, one and a half hours, and two hours long,
respectively.
 
This method, along
with Saturday classes, ensured pinging continued to be necessary to the
fourth-class lifestyle.
 

The male cadets lined the pool deck,
many with their hands folded in front of their genitals.
 
Some guys, braver ones, folded their
arms across their chest or just dangled them at their sides.
 
The women exited their locker room with
arms folded across their chests or clasped together in front of their
crotch.
 

Jan tugged at her black, one-piece,
non-lined, non-cupped, Speedo swimsuit.
 
Obviously no one asked what we
thought about these god-awful things.
 
But the men had it worse.
 
They wore tiny, black, one-piece,
non-lined, non-cupped Speedos.
 
No sane American male would wear such
a thing in real life.

Jan and Kristi looked like
kindergarteners on the first day of school, each trying to hide behind the
other women in the class.
 
They came
together with their male counterparts by the pool, where three DPE instructors
awaited.
 
We should get a passing grade just for walking out here in these god-awful
suits.
 

The men stared at the women without
even trying to be discreet.
 
The
women, on the other hand, kept looking away from the scantily clad men.
 
But Jan stole glances when she thought
they weren’t looking.
 
She had never
seen practically naked men before.
 
Jan's cheeks flushed when she noticed Drew, his new roommate everyone
called Jenk, and Rick Davidson in the group of exposed men.

Captain Janes, in the standard black
shorts with black and white referee shirt, explained a new swimming method
called “The Bob and Travel.”
 
Captain Forrest, in a swimsuit, jumped off the diving board to
demonstrate this technique.
 
Then it
was the cadets’ turn.
  

Jan jumped into one end of the
Olympic-size pool, keeping her body completely straight, arms overhead.
 
Under water, she let out all the air in
her lungs, which she had already practiced with the body fat test, and allowed
herself to fall completely to the bottom of the pool.
 
Once her feet touched, she pushed off
the bottom with her legs, simultaneously arching her arms in a wide circle down
to either side of her body, thrusting herself back up to the surface, a small
distance beyond the first spot.
 
She
took a deep breath at the top,
then
repeated the
process until she arrived at the far end of the pool.
 

Jan’s swimming classes at Camp
Alexander during the summers of her childhood had paid off.
 
She finished “The Bob and Travel” across
the pool in adequate time, climbed out, crossed her arms in front of her chest,
and waited for Kristi.
 
Jan
unconsciously began praying for her roommate.
 

Kristi jumped into the pool, went
down to the bottom, pushed off and came back up.
 
So far, so good
.
 
She did it once more before panicking on the third attempt.
 
Jan saw flailing arms in slow motion
under water.
 
Kristi came up choking
and spluttering water then went under again.
 
The DPE instructors at each side of the
pool, along with Captain Janes next to Jan, saw it all.
 

“Sir, should someone help her?”
 
Jan asked.
 

“Let's give her a minute, Miss
Wishart,” he said.
 
“She may
self-correct.”
 
But Jan knew Kristi
would not “self-correct.”
 
After
what seemed like minutes but was probably only seconds, all three DPE
instructors dove into the pool simultaneously.
 
Like dolphins, they swam over to Kristi
and lifted her to the surface in one swift motion and then onto the pool
deck.
 
Captain Janes coached Kristi
as she choked, gagged and spit up water.
 
“Lean forward,” he said.
 
“Relax your breathing, Miss McCarron.”

“Take it slowly,” Captain Forrest
added. “You're okay, Miss McCarron.”