THE MAKING

EXCERPT FROM THE MANUSCRIPT

The culture in the south reminds me of ancient stories in the Bible, where every father desires a son.  When my dad sired two daughters, as the oldest, I was deemed worthy enough to be the surrogate son.  The sad thing, at least for my father, is that I am a girly-girl.  I have never quite fit the mold of the tom-boy daughter.  While the other girls appropriately dressed for fishing in long pants and boots, I always slipped on a sundress and sandals.  And I never could handle the cleaning of the fish, much less the dressing of the wild game. 

So, here I am, a college graduate with no career prospects and a recruit for the army, one who can’t get through physical training.  I cringe every morning, not because of the pre-dawn wakeup, but because I must put on hideous green fatigues and crawl around in the dirt.  I’ve never been pretty—proven by the fact that I was never nominated to participate in my high-school beauty pageant—but I do have a sense of pride in my appearance.  And the boxy, homogenous uniform of the army does nothing to enhance my look. 

I am not cocky, nor am I overly self-confident.  Instead, I am a fighter; not one who has physical contact with others, but one who has internal struggles and never gives up.  I’m out to prove to myself that I am worthy and that I can succeed.  In middle school my classmates nicknamed me ‘short-stuff’ when day after day I showed up for basketball practice and I wasn’t even on the team.  By mid-season I was wearing jersey #4 and sitting on the bench.  While I never saw action on the court, I was part of the team because I never gave up—I kept going and going and going, just like the Energizer bunny.  I took that success as a life lesson, and I’ve applied that principle to everything I have ever done.  And that is where I find myself at this juncture in my life—struggling to prove to myself that I can make it in this nation’s military.  I’m going to give this army thing everything I have got.