I didn't mention Angelique when I was talking about Belgium. She was the most significant of my almost-girlfriends; I've always thought that something could probably have come of it. For one thing, she was seemingly as into me as I was into her, as she initiated the relationship. Angelique was half French, spoke it fluently (which I've always found very sexy), was gorgeous and petite with red hair and pouty lips. And she was Catholic. We looked a bit comical walking about together: I was already as tall as I am now, and she was five foot zero. But I really liked her. Unfortunately, her father found out that I had enticed her out to one of our bars, and ended it.
Anyway, at seventeen I joined the Army. Because I had a GED rather than a high school diploma, I was limited in my choice of MOSes (the Army term for job or profession). But that turned out to be a good thing in the end. They wanted to put me in military intelligence as a linguist to begin with, based on my test scores. But that required a top-secret security clearance, and I had already adopted my policy of honesty at that point (I'll come back to that in a minute). So, for the first of many, many times, I told the truth (that I had smoked marijuana) for no other reason than that it was the right thing to do, and ended up being harmed by it. But that too, ended up being a good thing.
The reason those things were good is that I ended up in a combat arms profession. Firstly, that was good because, though I hadn't understood this at the time of my enlistment, combat arms (the guys who actually do the fighting, rather than supply, cooks, and other support functions) is where the real Army is, and where one learns to be a man and a warrior. And about things like courage and honor. Secondly, it was good because there were no women in combat arms, and I had developed both a philosophical and an emotional aversion to being under female authority: the first based on my religion, the second on my childhood with my stepmother. I got in enough trouble as it is (more on that in a bit too), and I would, quite bluntly, have eventually gotten myself either thrown out of the Army or sent to Leavenworth if I had had women sergeants and officers barking orders at me day in and day out.
So first, about honesty. I had come to recognize, as I grew spiritually, that my practice of hiding behind a mask or facade of a persona was dishonest and wrong, and had repented, determined to be real and honest. I came to believe that lying is for cowards: those who are afraid of the consequences they might have to face if they tell the truth, and had consciously adopted a policy of total truthfulness. And I have, as I mentioned in an earlier post, stuck to that ever since.
The funny thing about pretending, though, is that if you pretend to be something long enough, you at least partially actually become it. C.S. Lewis said something like this about acquiring virtues, but it's true of vices as well. I had pretended to be a bad man and a tough guy for so long, that I had actually changed into that to some degree: i.e., the fights, trouble, rebellion, and hard living were real, and as I experienced those things they changed me. And so began the strange dichotomy that I still live with: half devout Christian, gentleman, lover of high culture, and all-around good guy, half hardened, coarse, crusty bastard. And neither are pretend.
Second, about trouble. I didn't lose my bad attitude or rebelliousness just because I'd signed a contract and had my head shaved. But, obviously, those things don't go over too well in the Army, and I got in quite a bit of trouble. I got in fights. I mouthed off to superiors. I argued. I stayed out till 3 AM drinking when I had to be at formation to run P.T. at 5:30. I went AWOL. But I was good at the actual job stuff and took it seriously, and that kept me in more or less good graces, so that I spent a lot of time on KP and extra duty, but never had any real serious action taken against me. It was a different time back then, too. Soldiers, especially combat soldiers, were expected to be a bit wild and unmanageable: they had, after all, gone to a lot of trouble and expense to develop us into testosterone-fueled killers. That's why the rigid system of discipline exists in the military.
A couple of weeks after I got there, we took a platoon trip to Oktoberfest. I got smashed, decided I was bored being myself, temporarily and drunkenly went back on my resolution to be honest, and spent the whole night pretending I was Belgian. Don't ask why. I don't know. I completely lost my platoon and everyone I knew, and couldn't even remember where we were staying, and ended up spending the night with a bunch of Irish people, discussing politics and world issues in a fake French accent.
One of the first things I did when I got to my first assignment in Germany was to hop a train to Belgium as soon as I got a 3-day weekend. I technically wasn't supposed to: you were supposed to get a pass to leave the immediate area. But I still had a passport, and I knew how to use the trains and navigate Europe, so off I went. It was partly in the hope of finding Angelique that I went (no facebook in those days), and also to reconnect with any other old friends, including Pastor Ray and his family, with whom I ended up staying.
And because I ended up staying with them, I ended up going to church with them. And at church, there was this sweet, angelic, stunningly beautiful young woman who had been a child last time I had been there. And she definitely remembered me.
Beth-Anne's parents arranged for us to see one another. I'm still shocked to this day, because they knew me. And she was sweet, feminine, intelligent, bright, vivacious, gentle, and everything a girl should be. We wrote to each other, and I called her from the phone in the recreation center on post or from the payphone outside the gate. She sprayed her letters with her mother's Oscar de la Rente. And I got up there when I could. But I was living the hard life of a G.I., and I was into some things that, as a Christian, I shouldn't have been, and I felt guilty about it. And about her. She was young. And even though I was only seventeen, I felt that there was too much difference, since she was still in school and more or less a child. It was only three or four years difference, but eventually my guilt outweighed my love, and I broke up with her. Of course, what I should have done was change my life to be more worthy of her. But I was only seventeen. Or eighteen, I guess, by the time I ended it. But end it I did, and I have regretted it every single day of my life since. Until I met the person who is currently making my life miserable.
After Beth-Anne, I met this German girl. We hung out together for one night, and I kinda liked her. But, most significantly, she was upset and crying when I first saw her, which has always been my weakness--damsel in distress. (She had just found out the guy she'd been seeing was married.) Then I got in trouble again and couldn't leave post for quite a while. And the next time I saw her, she was dating another guy from my battalion. So we sort of became friends, the three of us. Then came a time when he got out of the Army, and I didn't see her for a while, and the next time I did, she was in distress again. Turns out she was pregnant, and although he'd promised to go back home, find a job, then come back and marry her and take her with him, she was now convinced that he'd abandoned her, and I took her word for it. So, I did the idiotically noble and chivalrous thing, and took responsibility for her and the child. We couldn't get married right away, as she was still technically not divorced from her German husband (it takes a long time, a year or more in most cases, to get divorced in Germany). But we moved in together, and I made a promise to her, and as far as I was concerned my promise meant that we already were married, morally.
It quickly became apparent that I had made a mistake. She had serious emotional issues, and we had horrible, awful, messy arguments because she would absolutely flip out over what seemed to me like nothing. And of course, I was nowhere near mature enough at eighteen to be a husband and father. But I had given my word, and I stuck to it.
Then John, the child's father, came back. Turns out he had meant what he'd told her, and when he hadn't been able to find a good enough job, he'd re-enlisted and come back for her. To find us living together. I offered to bow out, but he refused. I actually wanted out at this point, but as he wasn't going to take her back, I couldn't abandon her like that. So, I went through with the marriage.
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