Dark Green
In 2001, a year before I joined the Marines, I was only 22 with a two-year-old daughter and broke as shit.
How broke you ask?
So broke that me, my daughter’s mom, and my daughter lived together crammed in the basement of my mama’s split-level house. So broke, we used to BBQ on the grill every day because the gas was cut off in the house and we had no other way to cook. So broke, I was stealing cable from someone else who was stealing cable too.
Living a life like that is taxing on anyone. But the weight for me was that much more having been so young and inexperienced in life. I was supposed to be finishing up college and partying and “finding myself” as a person. Instead, I spent most waking moments in an inexplicable daze plotting where my next dollar was gonna come from and wondering what exactly I was doing with my shitty excuse of a life.
I had a job, of course. I was making a grand total of $150 a week minus Uncle Sam’s bite outta my ass. $50 of that went toward my mom as some sort of compensation for being allowed to live in the basement, which left me with $100 to get by on for the rest of the week.
Some of that was used to stock the kitchen with any food I could afford. Some went toward gas money to get to my shitty part-time job at UPS. And the rest went toward my little girl in any way it could provide. Eventually, I was fortunate enough to find a second job doing gawd knows what. I would navigate traffic for 45 minutes every morning beginning around 5am from 159th street all the way north of Chicago to Buffalo Grove. Then I’d drive from Buffalo Grove to Willow Springs and sleep in the parking lot of UPS before beginning my twilight shift handling packages. I’d end my day by driving home by 1030 pm most nights and do it all over again.
I was in a rinse/wash cycle of misery. Then 9/11 happened.
I remember everything about that day. I remember not believing it was real. I remember how unified everyone became. And I remember the overwhelming love of country I felt after living through a day of such horrifying shit. And though I, like most Americans, felt like a pot of boiling walrus ass watching those twin towers fall and the Pentagon in flames, I didn’t feel so patriotic that I wanted to join the military to avenge the terror. I wanted no parts of the shit storm that was sure to brew. Instead, it took another unexpected event to make me want to seek change in my shit pile of a life I had created.
In December of that same year, I discovered I was going to have another mouth to feed. My daughter’s mom broke the news that she was pregnant and now the thin-ass budget I was already on was going to shrink even further. I was under pressure. And my daughter’s mom let me know in not so nice ways that I needed to do something. So I became desperate and the thing about desperation is that you latch onto any sliver of hope with a willingness to do anything to escape the situation you're in.
I was clearly at that point.
At the time, I started brainstorming things that I could do to take care of my family. I even thought about hitting the corner and selling drugs. Every hustle you could think of, I thought about doing. But then I remembered that my younger sister had joined the Air Force a few months prior and was doing quite well. That’s when it hit me: maybe I can do it too? Maybe I should be dumb enough to sign a four-year contract? What did I have to lose?
I still wasn’t thrilled about joining the military, however. War was the last thing I wanted to be a part of after what happened on 9/11. But with my son finally coming into the world, the weight of supporting a family of 4 on a few hundred bucks a week became a reality, so I hit up the recruiter’s office like, “What’s up? Y’all hiring?” as if they were fucking Burger King or something.
At first, I went to the Air Force office – nobody was there. Same thing with the Army recruiter’s office. I’m thinking, “Dayum, maybe I SHOULD join the military, these MFers never work.” But then the Marine recruiter, Staff Sergeant Ross saw me and walked up to me and started his whole recruitment pitch. I was cautious.
But I listened.
He explained how the Marines always had a tough time recruiting because of their reputation. And in the end, despite all the magical bullshit he was telling me, I viewed SSGT. Ross differently because he was a man of color that came from the circumstances I was trying to escape. He was making it. And he convinced me that I could make it too.
That night, I went home. Mulled over my decision. Looked at my beautiful little girl and my new infant son. I opened the kitchen cabinet to look at my doomsday supply of Ramen Noodles stacked to the ceiling. Then I quietly asked myself if this is the life I want to continue to give my family. That’s when a special about the Marines came on TV and I admit, it inspired the shit out of me.
In fact, I was so inspired that I called up SSGT. Ross the next damn day and told him I was ready to do it. I was ready to become a Marine and it was all because of that TV show. It was like an act of God or some shit. But needless to say, we moved forward and started the whirlwind process of being a member of the Armed Forces, and eventually, I took the oath to defend the Constitution of the United States of America in exchange for a better life for my young family.
Yes. The moment made me feel proud and shit. But more than anything, I was happy and relieved. I felt like I was taking steps to give my family a better life than Ramen Noodles mixed with hamburger meat every other day. I was willing to give the ultimate sacrifice for that very reason. I gotta admit though, going into it seems like an American Dream and all your troubles are going to be answered, but it honestly couldn’t be any further from the truth.
The pay is low. The work is hard. And nobody ever got rich carrying around a rifle and listening to a Drill Instructor talking shit to you day in and day out. But the option was better than everything else I had going for me. And this is what lures so many poor people and young people with nothing going for them in life to join as I did. It’s the perfect motherfucking trap.
You have to understand that military recruiters have a quota to fill just like any place else. For all intents and purposes, it’s a business. So they’re going to tailor their pitch to fit whichever damn candidate is standing in front of them at the given moment. They’re no different than a fucking car salesman trying to sell you a piece-of- shit used car with a very, very high price tag.
For a young, Afro-Latino from the hood like myself, SSGT. Ross pitched the ability for me to do something with my life instead of going to jail or getting killed or eating syrup sandwiches for the rest of my broke ass days. He pitched my ability to support my family with dignity. And obviously, the shit worked.
For a young white guy from middle America that can’t afford college or can’t find a job, that pitch turns into a college education or a good job after you get out. And for them, that works too.
The point is the recruiter will bring up every fucking reason as to why it’s a personal benefit to you - so long as you sign that contract. The honor of serving your country is just an added bonus to push you over the edge in making your decision.
Of course, this tactic is nothing new. Uncle Sam been doing this shit since George Washington was fucking up his father’s cherry trees. Hell, after the raising of the flag on Mt. Suribachi on the island of Iwo Jima during World War II, the U.S. government used the event as a moral booster to raise funds for war bonds and increase recruitment – which also worked.
And yes. The military is an all-volunteer force. But all-volunteer force consists of mostly poor people and middle-Americans with nowhere else to go. All I’m saying is the average person that holds up their hand and takes the oath to defend the Constitution is really just trying to pay for college, dawg. That’s it. And really, I was hoping something similar and get the fuck out.
But then Iraq happened.
A few of us questioned why were there in the first place. And I eventually went to the Sandbox like everyone else. But having participated in the cleanup effort in Hurricane Katrina and the Beirut Evac in 2006 allowed me to take pride in the service to my country. I say all this to say: we may join for seemingly selfish reasons, but that doesn’t mean we don’t take pride in our jobs.
For a long time, having survived deployment, I felt like I escaped unscathed. But I’m finding now that while I did not give my life, like so many of my sisters & brothers did just trying to make a better life too, I gave a big ass piece of myself that is only starting to surface 15 years later in the form of PTSD that most us don’t even realize we suffer from.
I was not an infantryman. I didn’t see combat. The majority of us didn’t. Instead, our trauma nibbled away at us unnoticeably in the form of deployments that destroyed our families like the divorce in mine. Our trauma came from the anxiety that hovered over us from the fear of IEDs (roadside bombs) blowing us to pieces just trying to get from point A to point B. And ironically, our trauma came from eagerly wanting to finally leave the Marine Corps back to our civilian lives — and then wondering what in the world we would do when we finally got back there.
But even before the deployments, our souls are beaten up with little spoonfuls of violence from the time we leave the MEPS station until the day we drive off base and out of those gates.
The Marine Corps is physically violent. But more than anything, it’s mentally violent. Every little thing kills a piece of your spirit if you’re not equipped to know how to take it in doses. And before you realize it, if you ever do, you’re changed as a person. The training kicks in when you least expect it and usually when you least want it to. The craziest thing is that you don’t understand what it is you’re exactly trained to do: which is react.
I used to think PTSD was like they depict in Hollywood movies. And if you’re anything like me, you denied you were affected by it since you feel perfectly fine. But in reality, in post-military life, we’re not like other people. Our emotional processing, or lack thereof, rears its head when we try to sleep or when we are confronted with conflict or even as simply driving on the expressway in traffic. Our emotion was suppressed and disguised as discipline. We were praised for having “military bearing.” But really, we were stripped of the very thing that makes us human — just so we can make the best Marines.
Now, many years later, my military bearing makes me an excellent leader and exceptional at accomplishing tasks in corporate America. But the stress of bottled-up emotion from my military days haunts me. Marines like me are conflicted when we are no longer required to be stone-faced.
Yet, even with all I know now, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Being a United States Marine is the only time in life I have ever felt like I have had any kind of identity. In life, before the USMC, I tried various ways to fit in. And even in the Corps, more than many people know, I struggled to find my place. But something that can never be questioned is that I am a part of a brother & sisterhood that only we can understand.
In the USMC, there’s a saying that there is no such thing as color in the Marines, “There’s only green.” And while that is generally true, there is a kind of green that is a part of all of us that have ever stood on the yellow prints — especially if we played in the Sandbox. It’s the part that they don’t prepare you for when you re-join society. It’s the part that attacks your attempt at emotion like it’s a foreign substance invading your body. The world likes to refer it as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder — but I just simply call it…
…Dark Green
Some vets brag about how they served their country and did this or did that, but they only talk about this because they want the privilege that is associated with being a hero in America. They want the pats on the back. And America loves heros. So even when they claim they’re serving their country, they’re still doing it for a selfish ass reason. They’re no different than these Stolen Valor fuckers that go around telling fake ass war stories and wearing ribbons they didn’t earn – just so they can get props.
I write this all not because I want to shit on other veterans or to diminish what we did. I write this because I’m tired of politicians and media personalities using veterans for their own little fucked up games. They are quick to bring us up when talking about respecting the flag and respecting this country and talking about the troops that died. But really, we’re pawns in a political chess match being used on the frontlines and the headlines. It’s not about supporting us, it’s about supporting their agenda. Look how they did Pat Tillman.
In the end, though, I am proud as hell for wearing my uniform and providing a service to my country. But please let it be known that I did not join to defend the rights of my fellow Americans or to fight for my country or any of those corny ass Jean Claude Van Damme movie plots. I joined so that my family can have a chance at life and the American Dream. And honestly, I feel I achieved that. While I gave a piece of myself and still suffer from that, unfortunately, some of us weren’t so lucky and paid the ultimate price. To that, I say God bless them. And God bless America.
