Chapter one
“You’re not strong enough and this is no place for a lady. I know that you want to ring that bell. This can be over in the snap of a finger and you can go back to the cushy little life that you had before you came here. Tonight, you can be sleeping in silk sheets that wrap around you and keep you cradled like a newborn baby. You could have that wonderful meal and to put your feet up with the television on. All you have to do is give up. I can see in your eyes that you hate me and that you want to ring that bell. You know what you have to do.” Major Tompkins was a hard ass, but his method of teaching was what I needed in my life. This is what I signed up for. I didn’t like losing my dark locks down to the stubble.
I could taste the mud in my mouth, as I crawled through this obstacle course with one another. Thankfully, I’m not the only woman and Sheila with her platinum blond hair was giving me the strength and courage to persevere. I wouldn’t give in and I certainly wouldn’t give Major Tompkins the satisfaction of drumming me out. I don’t know why he had it in for me, but my main purpose was to become a part of this proud tradition.
“I don’t believe that you have what it takes to make it here. You’ve only been here one day and I’ve already seen kinks in your armor. You look like you’re ready to give up and maybe you need to have a nice cry someplace.” I was hoping that he was being hard on me because he wanted me to succeed, but I didn’t think that was the reason. He really didn’t like females being in the military and he was doing everything in his power to let everybody know about it. I’d become the main focus of his tirades. It probably had something to do with my last name. The Billings family had a longstanding career in the military. He thought that I wouldn’t measure up, but I was going to show him that there was more to me than the frail little broken doll that he thought that I was.
“I’m not going anywhere. You can wake me up in the middle of the night and make me do calisthenics, run the obstacle course or whatever else goes on in that sinister little mind of yours, but nothing and no one is going to stop me.” I needed to say that in order to save face and to give him something to think about. I couldn’t just sit back and say nothing, even if it meant that I was going to raise the temperature around his collar.
My green shirt was soaked and the only saving grace was that it was pitch black at this early hour in the morning. One day and I already felt like I was in hell. A few weeks of this and I would probably go mad, but that was if I was anybody else’s daughter. I had been training for this on my own for several years. When I was very young, I dedicated my life to becoming part of the Special Forces.
“I can hear the words, but I don’t believe them. There is no conviction behind what you’re saying to me soldier. Am I looking at GI Jane or cry baby Jane? That is going to be the question that I’m going to answer for you. Either you will make it all the way through boot camp, or you’ll find yourself the one that is looking in. You will break and you are not ready for this. This isn’t some bake sale.” The rain was teeming. I could barely see anything in front of me with the mud covering my face like my own personal mask of shame.
Gritting my teeth, I stopped feeling sorry for myself and began to push myself even further than I thought that I could go. I wanted to see the look on his face. That priceless feeling that I got from seeing him finding out that what he thought of me meant nothing. I wanted him to hold me to another standard. There was no way that he was treating me like the others. He was a brute and a bully, but I was not going to go down that easy.
I had a feeling that maybe Sheila was being left alone because his entire intention was on me. It gave me a sense of purpose to know that I was giving her this reprieve. It also made me angry and determined to break free of the chain that was metaphorically holding me down. The Billings name got me through the door, but now it was up to me to determine my own fate.
I moved through the course with him standing no more than a few feet away yelling and screaming into my ear. There were actual times that I had been able to concentrate and to drown him out. I told myself over and over again that I was strong and that I was here for a reason. I was strong and I was here because I was destined to stand beside those that put their lives on the line every day. He probably thought that I was crazy. I was smiling and screaming ‘Yes Sir’ every time that he asked me a question.
The major was tough as nails. I had done my due diligence in researching the man himself. He had seen several tours of duty not to mention earning the respect of his peers by getting three purple hearts. He had several other medals and he had made a career out of this profession. He was never going to be anything else and I don’t think that he knew what civilian life was all about.
“I don’t know how you are doing it, but I think that you have earned a little bit of his respect. You give me hope that I can do this myself.” I knew that Sheila came from a military background herself. We had grown up in that environment, although our respective mothers had tried to shelter us from the horrors. Unfortunately, it was an effort in futility and eventually we saw the writing on the wall. Sheila was my height and my size of 130 pounds of toned muscle. We also trained ourselves to have the stamina that could go the distance.
“I’m doing what my grandfather used to do back in the day. He told me stories that would curl your hair and turn that platinum blond hair to purely white. He said that any time that you felt like things were getting too hard, then you just reached down and pulled out that necessary reserve from the pit of your stomach. Everybody has it, but very rarely do people know how to reach for it in the time of great crisis.” I was only 24, but I had always had my eye on taking the world by storm.
For the last three years, I was giving my time to the Red Cross overseas. I was part of the first responders who primarily worked with those that had fallen victim to some kind of natural disaster. The floods in Pakistan, not to mention the catastrophe in Haiti was only a couple of places that I saw devastation. I had seen the way that the human spirit could rise up in the face of overwhelming odds. It was seeing them fight back from nothing that I was holding onto with grim death.
I was at the wall and that rope leading up to the top looked like a Herculean effort.
“I don’t think that you can do it soldier. You can stop any time you want. The door is always open for you to leave. Nobody will miss you.” There were parts of what he said that had a ring of truth. Nobody would miss me or Sheila, but then again anybody that wasn’t strong enough to do this shouldn’t be here in the first place. I turned and gave him an emphatic salute, before taking my two slippery hands and wrapping them around that rope.
I looked over at Sheila and I think that we both knew that we were going to feed off of each other’s energy. I pulled myself up that rope using my legs for leverage. Back home in Montana, I had many mountains that I could climb freestyle. This might have been a little bit difficult with the rope to hold onto, but I wasn’t going to let that deter me from succeeding where others had obviously failed.
Hand over hand with blisters now forming in the palm of my hand, I continued to surprise myself. I got to the top and looked to my side to see that Sheila was struggling. Her hands were shaking. It didn’t look like she was going to be able to hold on for very much longer. I had a decision to make, but to me there was no decision and the only answer was teamwork.