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by Milt Mays
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Annapolis, Bancroft Hall, the Naval Academy, standing at attention, chin in, eyes looking straight ahead, in first class midshipman Cruz’s room, nauseous and sweating from running up five flights of stairs after lunch, or from fear. Mr. Cruz is a small, dark man who loves to give orders. Hard-ass Cruz, we call him. He has the black-eyed stare of a shark. Impassive, yet dangerous. This is the first year us plebes cannot be physically hazed, 1972. I think he hates that. He’s a Firstie, a senior, and our company commander, a three striper. Important. Powerful, despite his small stature. I am the lowliest of scum, a freshman, a plebe—a shortening of the Roman plebian, an unrefined, inferior member of the lower social class.
His room is typical spartan midshipman: made bed, neatly shelved books with each spine evenly aligned, bathroom sparkling clean, uniforms hung neatly and color-coded in his half-open closet. Yet, as I stand stiffly in his small foyer, I realize that other Firstie rooms I’ve seen are slob pens by comparison. Cruz is a squared-away dude.
I stand a head taller than him, but a plebe, someone he can order to do anything—almost. He stares up at me with black marble eyes that always seem angry, with a touch of smirk, enjoying his senior year of authority. A Firstie, already god-like to us lowly plebes. But he is in a position of leadership, the head of our hundred-and-twenty-man company. He must be obeyed. And most midshipmen come from a long line of obedience to authority. That’s how we got here.
“I want you,” he begins, reminding me of the recruiting poster, “to match all our company lockers in the basement with the names of those who own them, and I want that list tomorrow before noon formation. But you can’t go to the basement. Leave. Get out of my room.” He smiles. It is not a pleasant smile.
“Yes, sir.” I do a smart about face and run out of the room doing a right angle into the middle of the corridor, “squaring” the corner, and continue running to my room. This running, called chopping, and squaring corners are two of the many demeaning things required of plebes. Builds character, they say, and quickly identifies you from afar as a lowly plebe. I force my face to stop the hateful grimace. I know if I don’t complete this task, I will get punished. Fried. Demerits. The only way to work them off is to march back and forth after classes in the afternoon for an hour, marching with a rifle in hand, over hard brick tiles in the courtyard, no matter what the weather. Not twenty lashes, but boring and wasteful, and so much worse for me.
I need that time to study, to improve my grades so I can get into the premedical major, then into medical school. Demerits can lower my GPA. Also, it is winter in Annapolis. Snow or cold rain could start at any time while marching. Yes, I have a raincoat and a warm reefer to wear, but sometimes you start out with the wrong clothes and get soaked. I don’t need sickness to add to failure.
I have not yet learned Tai Chi, the ability to find beauty in what seems boring. Live in the moment, each Tai Chi movement. The only moment I live in right now is succeed, do well, please the authority so I can get into medical school. This has been my life’s ambition, the only reason I came to Annapolis, to help people using science coupled with compassion. I never wanted to become the all-powerful ruler that Cruz does. Cruz wants me to be a good officer. I want to be a good doctor. Just get through this and get on with my life.
Yet there are the nagging thoughts: Why does he want me to do this? Why now? Why me?
Do not question orders, just do them. I stop chopping, square the last corner and enter my room. My room, the only haven a plebe has. Maybe I should discuss the order with my roommate. No. He has enough on his plate. My problem.
Cruz’s order is the first I’ve had that seems impossible, not completable. Going to the basement and copying each name by the number would be simple. Probably some names won’t be there, though most will. But I’d have to talk to each and every upperclassman to find out who’s assigned which locker. It would be quickest to go to the basement and just look at the names on each locker. Efficient. Quick. Over and done. Why would anyone want to force someone else to do something that was inefficient, slow, impossible? No way I could talk to each upperclassman between now and noon tomorrow. Sixty guys. No way. I’ve got homework tonight. I have classes tomorrow morning.
My face feels warm, my temples pound, and I clench my fists. I want to sprint back to Cruz’s room and scream, “This is stupid. You’re an idiot.” Punch him in the face. I hate him. He has power over me, over my life, that I can’t change. He can tell me to do anything and I will have to bear up under his orders. I wonder if this is how someone in the front lines in war reacts to an illegal order. This is not illegal, but it’s inhumane, like he’s going to enjoy seeing me fail.
***
Today I realize that I never stopped to think about the long run, the possible answers to the why. I saw Cruz as a power-hungry Napolean who enjoyed making this big guy fail. Maybe even a Latino guy out for revenge against white supremacy. Forty-plus years later, I realize that I’d led a young life of not being challenged. I had the big white man complex, accustomed to people literally looking up to me, thinking I was better than most, just due to my height. Back then I didn’t see it that way. I thought I’d worked hard to get where I was. Maybe Cruz was not the shark I made him out to be. He probably had to work ten times harder than I did. Probably from a Latino immigrant family, always low man on the white man’s totem pole of American life. The military might have saved him from a life of drugs or crime. I had no idea, nor did I even think about it, then. All I knew then was he had given me an order that seemed inhuman. I was in an impossible position. I saw no way out. I thought he was a jerk. Yet, it wasn’t like he was an SS commander asking me to shoot a Jew in the back of the head. He wasn’t a Marine Captain who just ordered me to burn a Vietnamese village full of women and children to the ground. History gives perspective. As does time.
Given time, I would know more about impossible situations. This tiny thimbleful of adolescent frustration didn’t compare to the mountain of fear and utter desolation thirty years later when I stuck myself with a needle full of HIV and might die due to my choices. Relativity applies more to life than physics. And orders a doctor gives are not unlike orders from a naval officer—some might steer your ship into an iceberg, some might release the scourge of the twentieth century into your blood. I understand that, now. Then, I thought I knew it all. But I was just a plebe.
***
Back in Bancroft Hall, noon arrives, but not before I have gone downstairs to the basement and written down the names and numbers of every locker. The task had to be completed. It was a simple task. No reason to make it hard.
I chop to his room, knock, “Midshipman fourth class Mays reporting, sir.”
“Enter,” he says, low voice sounding put out.
I step inside, stand at attention, chin in, eyes staring straight ahead, and stick out my hand holding the list.
He snatches the paper, glares at me and sighs, almost a growl. “How did you get this list?” Loud. Angry.
Suddenly I realize the dire situation I have put myself into. I could get much more than a few demerits for disobeying an order. I might have to go before the naval officer who leads our company, a real, tested lieutenant commander, the Company Officer. Or, worse yet, have an honor system violation session with the Superintendent of all midshipmen, a vice admiral. I could be expelled. A failure in the worst way—go home and forget about ever repairing the damage. Never get into medical school.
Should I tell him the truth, realize that no matter what happens, I’ll still be here tomorrow? He can’t take away my inner self. Or just lie?
I tell him the truth. I don’t need the lie on top of the disobeyed order. He probably already knows what I did.
“Why did you directly disobey my order?”
My words come out haltingly, my throat getting tight. “Sir … I know you needed the list, and … I wanted to get it to you. But the only way I could see to do it … in time … was to go to the basement. It seemed impossible otherwise.” I grit my teeth and blink hard, twice. “I’m sorry.”
The thought of going home a failure, not getting into medical school … it all hits me hard. Still, I should have never done what I did.
I cry.
He just looks at me, like he’s staring at a failure. “Get out of my room.” I expected him to have me marching demerits. I expected a harangue. I didn’t expect… release.
I was free! I wanted to shout, “Thank you, sir,” but felt if I said anything, he might change his mind. Did I see a flicker of pity in his eyes? Did Hard-ass Cruz feel sorry for me? Why didn’t the shark gut me?
Maybe truthful emotion can win out over impossibilities.
I run back to my room and sit on my bed. What the hell just happened?
***
Mr. Cruz ran the company for the three months he was commander like a tight ship. He really was a good leader. We did well in all competitions. But I never understood what happened that night when he released me. Until writing about it now.
I had been given a challenge by a true leader who saw promise in me. Hoped I would figure out other ways to complete the task that required leadership. Now I realize there were many: I could have asked my roommate or other plebes to help me question each of their upperclassmen. I could have given each platoon commander a request to announce that I needed their names and locker numbers right after morning formation. I could have … but I didn’t. I see now that it was not Mr. Cruz’s intent to embarrass or demean me, but rather to push me to be a leader.
I failed his attempt.
Sorry, sir. I will try harder.
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Milt Mays graduated the Naval Academy in 1976, then went on to medical school and a career as a Navy Family Physician, and then the VA primary care. He has published several fiction novels, fiction and non-fiction short stories, and poems, most related to war or veterans. See his website at https://miltmays.com.
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