Alright, so maybe I've made more than my fair share of mistakes. But that's the way life goes. It's not like I had many choices in my life. I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks in Jersey, what is there for me in life?
My friends and I grew up in your typical third rate, government projects neighborhood. My dad was the classic drunk, abusive husband. He got in some fight at work when I was six and ended up killing a coworker. He was put away on second degree murder charges and I really never cared to see him again, you know? Not that he even really wanted to acknowledge me as his daughter, said my mother slept around. In the end I got curious and demanded a paternity test and given the gross slobbering monkey was in prison, he couldn’t really object to the test. Guess he was right in all his drunk ranting, he’s not my father. That information came with some kind of relief I guess. I’m not stuck being his daughter, stuck dragged down by his bad blood. I asked my mother who my dad really was and she didn’t have an answer for me or not one she wanted to give me. I started poking around the neighborhood to see if anyone else knew anything, I mean I’d lived there my whole life, surely someone noticed something. So my mother moved us to another neighborhood that was just the same as the last, minus anyone who might know something about my father and minus my friends. Some things you just have to let go
My mother tried to tell me that those friends were bad for me. But maybe if we would have stayed, things would have been different. We were still in Jersey, still on the wrong side of the tracks. I was still the half breed Mexican with a locked up “father” or a missing one, in the wrong neighborhood. There wasn't much for me to do. I could join the gangs, run drugs, or build cars. Alright, so maybe I did a little bit of all three. All before I was sixteen.
My mother was the screaming idiot in the doorway that you always see in the movies. The biggest damn hypocrite you'll ever meet. An illegal immigrant, she married the first American man who would have her. I already told you about the man I had to call father, enough said. She either couldn't control of me, or she didn't care enough to try. She didn't even really seem concerned if I didn't come home at night... Not that she ever fixed dinner or anything. In fact, I could never really figure out what she did with herself all day. Aside from go to the beauty shop, gossip with her friends, and smoke a pack of cigarettes every other hour. Stealing those damn cigarettes bought me my first car you know, so I guess it isn't all bad.
Yeah, so... Gangs, drug runs, and cars... First off, I never touched the drugs, I swear to f*#cking god. That's not my style. Moving the drugs got you money and the money built your cars. Oh yeah and to get to the drugs, you had to deal with the gangs. Vicious cycle, that's just the way it is. And if one person tries to feed me some bullsh*t about rising above, I'll hit them.
Yes, I've stolen stuff, robbed people... But that's the way we survived. I've been in more fights than I care to count and believe me I have the scars to prove it. Fighting always did good for me, maybe it was my salvation or some crap like that. My high school had a boxing team. It took hell to convince the coach to let a girl on the team. So I kicked his @ss and guess what, he let me on. At least it got me off the streets.
I finished high school, slammed everyone in my division. My coach tried to convince me to go to college, right, like I had the money for that. So he came up with the brilliant idea of using the Army to pay for college. How bad could it be, right? Sergeant Delano, sounds good right? Wrong. I just wasn't cut out for this crap. I really don't like people that much I guess. I don't like people who think I'm incapable because I'm a woman. And don't try and feed me any sh*t about the equality in the modern military, I'm still a woman... Therefore I'm not as capable as any of the male idiots they had running around.
The army might have been a good place for me. Maybe, it was an outlet you know? Even if I was a woman in today's army, I could still prove them wrong. I've damn well done it before. So I don't think I need to tell you about our political issues and the wars we've started over nothing. It's not my business to ask why the wars are started, it’s my job to clean up the mess. Or make it. I never was that great about cleaning up after myself. But messes, those are a particular specialty.
I found my spot in the army rifle corps, found a talent for marksmanship. Turns out I'm good at hitting men with bullets and not just my fists. I found a spot with aggressive tactical units. You don't know what that means, you don't want to. We'd go in first and the rest of the army takes names later. I've pissed in death's face, a couple times. What of it?
So, yeah. The army trained me, taught me and sent me to that hellpit of a sandhole you people like to call Iraq. You use it like a dirty word and believe me it is. It's a whole different nasty world and you wouldn't believe the things I've seen even if I told you. Twice... Twice they sent me over there to clean up political messes and twice I had to come home with new scars. Do you have any idea what a place like that does to a person? Do you even want to? But regardless, the army dragged me back to the states to patch me up. I was spared another tour of duty for a little while, but sitting here in the States just isn’t the same. The army made me what I am, do you blame me for wanting to go back?
And did they really expect a trained fighter to stop fighting? Yeah, good luck. There are plenty of underground rings; I don't need a sanctioned fight. I'll win either way. Won till I got caught. Caught by one of my Commanding Officers if you can believe that. Go figure an officer wants to go see underground fights. I mean if it was okay for her to be there, why was it so bad for me to be there? I know, I was the one fighting. I get it. Anyway. I guess she had an eye for me or something . But she agreed to keep quiet about catching me if I would do certain favors for her in return. It wasn’t a difficult offer to accept. I mean she definitely wasn’t bad looking or anything. What? You’re surprised? You think there isn’t all kinds of underhanded crap going on in the Army… There is, everywhere… You just have to know where and how to look for it. I don’t really want to go into all of that here.
But anyway, I guess at some point it became more than a payoff thing. We got along really well, had some of the same interests. The same attitude towards the Army and what we should be doing. I’m not talking love or any crap like that. We just fit well, had fun. And of course, everything we did was completely against the rules in so very many ways. Things ran smoothly for several months. The quiet and routine was kind of nice. Not that I’m the settling down type. But they always say all good things come to an end and this was no exception. We had a really close call, almost got caught and suddenly she turned on me. Her career was a ton more important than me of course. And the easiest way to protect herself was to get rid of me.
So she did. She made sure I was shipped out with the next big wave to Afghanistan. I’d graduated from a sandpit to a mountain hell hole. All seemed about the same to me. They shoot you, you shoot them. It doesn’t matter where they station you. It was 14 months of that cycle before my tour of duty was up. They shipped me back to the States and I’m really close to the end of my enlistment with the Army. There are big changes around the corner with the military and I can’t decide if I want to be sitting here for that or if it’s time to move on to something new. I can’t spend my whole life shooting at people, right?
