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    With a groan, I roll over and hit the snooze button on my alarm. Of course, it’s a moot point which button I hit, since it doesn’t really matter. It’s now 1500 hours. I have an hour to get up, press my uniform, dress, and head to my next shift.

    My name is Edward Star. I am a male skunk, 6’0” tall, weighing in at about 180lbs. My eyes are crystal blue, providing me with perfect vision, having no need for corrective lenses or contacts of any kind. My pelt is that of a normal skunk, kept clean and soft with regular showers and brushings. I just turned 20 years old merely 9 days ago, on December 22nd.

    I’ve been here in South Korea for five months already, and the routine, though tiring at times, was at the very least familiar and comforting in such unfamiliar territory. I work on one of the strangest work schedules ever thought of; two days on, two days off, two days on, three days off, three days on, two days off.

    Every day, report for duty at 1600 hours. Receive my order for the night, as well as my assigned shift position. Be delivered to my position and relieve the uniformed member of their position, getting a report from them of what went on the night before, if anything. Then, depending on my position, sit in a shack from 1630 hours to 0630 hours either guarding a flight line, guarding an entrance, or guarding a weapons cache, or very rarely patrol the base in a humvee from 1630 hours until 0630 hours.

    I am a member of the American Armed Forces. I am a military policeman, whose duty is to enforce the law and maintain the peace. Or supposed to be. Lately I’ve been feeling like I’m merely a security guard, meant to guard without question, without knowing what I’m guarding. I’m meant to be loyal to the orders I am given, without wavering, without questioning.

    Every night, during role call, myself and my fellow military members are given a small speech meant to encourage us. We are told of how everything we do here is beneficial to preserving the freedom of the civilians back home. I’ve heard so many speeches, I wonder if they’re not written on some kind of flip calendar sitting on the Lieutenant’s desk. I wonder if she spends an hour or so of her time getting ready for her shift every day memorizing the speech.

    I’ve gotten out of bed and have stretched out all the kinks in my back, arms, neck, and tail. My back has been particularly troublesome lately, ever since my shift the week before where I was carrying around the SAW and all the ammunition that went with it. That pack was at least 50lbs! And the weapon itself was no lightweight either. Okay, yeah, I’d spent the entire shift riding around in a cop car, but I still had to wear the ammunition pack whenever we stopped, and we stopped often.

    I’d gotten my shower that morning, so there was no need for me to get one now. Almost robotically, I already had an ironing board out and was ironing the creases in my BDU uniform shirt, making sure to spray down the creases with hairspray as I did it. It was a trick I’d learned from some friends while I was there. Sure, it was cheap, but I had ironed creases into the shirt and soaked it down with liquid spray starch before I went to bed, so this was just a precaution to make sure the creases stayed in the uniform this time. I wasn’t the most reliable soldier in the group when it came to my creases.

    Before I knew it, the shirt was done, fresh and crisp and smelling like hairspray and aerosol. I hung it back on its hanger and pulled my pants up to the ironing board as well. Inside, I felt like this whole thing was pointless, that the military was focusing mostly on appearance. The appearance of its members as ‘looking professional’ was more important than the quality of work they did, which was becoming more hum drum every passing day.

    Today, as I went over these familiar thoughts in my head, there seemed to be more waiting. I am a self-diagnosed Manic Depressive. For the past week, I had felt a depressive episode sneaking up on me, and as I finished the pants, I realized I didn’t have the usual spring in my step that I normally forced to get through the night.

    I should not have thought so hard. Immediately, I began to crash. The usual thoughts flooded my mind; I’m worthless, I’m not doing anything for my country, I’m not going where I want to go. I began to focus less on the coming weekend, and focused more on the crap shift I had ahead of me. With my luck I’d be stuck in a shack all night, to watch over a useless flight line. I’d be the last line of defense between a North Korean spy and some stupid spy plane that woke me up in the middle of the night every time it took off or landed.

    I felt my mind blank out. I could feel all my emotions draining from me except for the most logical one: sadness. I was sad. I hadn’t been in very good contact with my parents for a good six months. The entire time I was here, I’d felt that staying away from calling them, or staying away from long letters would help keep me from being homesick. And until now, it had worked.

    But now, I realized how badly I wanted to get away. I realized the military was not where I wanted to be. In fact, for the past month or so, I’d been working with the administrative office, trying to find someone, anyone, that would listen to me, that could help get me out, get me home. I’d almost come to the conclusion that I needed to do something drastic to get out. I needed to do something to get myself in trouble and get kicked out. I joined for schooling, but that wouldn’t be of very much help if I was dead, now would it?

    I looked back at the clock. I had fifteen minutes to get dressed and get over to the meeting room for roll call. It didn’t take me but five minutes to get dressed and get everything together. I grabbed my bag and stashed a notebook and a Gameboy in it, knowing that I’d probably need both of them at some point in the night.

    Once everything was gathered up, I left my room. I lived on the second floor of a six floor dormitory. Every room in the dormitory held two occupants, but if you were really lucky, you could get the entire room to yourself. I wasn’t lucky enough to get the room to myself, so I had a roommate. Currently he was on his weekend, and was probably out at the enlisted casino or bar, but not drinking. Sure, he was 21, and sure, he could drink, but he really shouldn’t be, since his leg was in a cast from an accident he had a couple weeks ago. He had been out drinking with some buddies and had snapped his leg in a grate on the way back to the room, in the dark.

    Funny thing about the military. If you have an accident and injure yourself, and if alcohol was involved at any point, whether you were drinking it or not, the military considers you an irresponsible drinker, and you automatically get enrolled in a six week Alcoholics Anonymous course. So he’s in a cast, unable to be on duty, and enrolled in an AA class.

    He makes up for it, though. During our last exercise, he managed to meet a girl from the medical group, and the two of them hooked up. When he’s not out enjoying himself, or when they’re not out and about in Songtan, they’re in the room, ********. How do I know this? Because they ******** regardless of if I’m in the damned room or not.

    That’s pretty depressing. He’s in a cast and getting p***y whenever he wants it. I’m a perfectly healthy 20 year old, and still a ******** virgin. I’m not entirely desperate for it, though. I have a wonderful girl waiting for me at home in the states. We’ve been dating for roughly two years, and she’s agreed to marry me when I get out of the military and we can afford it. She’s the only one that keeps a smile on my face anymore, really.

    Once the door to the room was locked, I grabbed my bag and headed for the armory. The armory was across the parking lot from our dormitory. Convenient, no? I was out the door and across the parking lot in no time, watching the rest of my shift gathering and talking outside. There was about 60 of us in my shift, not counting our Sergeants and the 1st Lieutenant, of course. Cujo shift, rumored to have the most attitude, the hardest workers, and most of the highest scores of tests in the entire group.

    I dropped my bag outside, making sure it still had my label on it, and headed inside the armory. First I needed to head to the main meeting room to get my assignment and sign up for the meal I wanted to receive during the shift. My assignment would tell me what weapon I would be carrying, and then I could head to the back area to receive and clear my weapon. I signed up for my usual meal, breakfast, and then headed over to the assignments sheet.

    I skimmed for my name. Finding it, I saw that I was working on the front gate, in the smaller shack ahead of the normal gate workers. In essence, by myself, bored off my a**, doing nothing. And since I knew the shack, I’d be freezing my a** off. It was absolutely freezing in South Korea.

    This particular shack also meant I’d be armed with an M4 rifle, which was an upgrade from the M16A2 rifle. The M4 was built for close combat, its most recent use being clearing out houses of terrorists in Iraq. Don’t even get me started in how I believe we’re not even supposed to be there.

    I walked to the back and received my weapon and my radio. Once the radio was in my belt, I took and loaded the seven magazines of ammunition I was given into the ammo vest I was wearing. I then took the weapon and lined up at a clearing barrel. To clear the weapon it to maintain the fact that it’s stored unloaded in the armory, and is still unloaded when you receive it. You stick the barrel of the weapon into a cup made to block any firing of any bullet, pull the hammer back to check for a clear barrel, then lock the hammer forward and pull the trigger, to release the pressure built up by pulling the hammer back in the first place. You then flip your safety on, load a magazine into the weapon, and sling the weapon over your shoulder, barrel skywards. An experienced handler takes no more than a minute to clear his or her weapon.

    I still had a good five minutes before roll call, so I retreated into the map room to sit and think to myself. I must have had one hell of a stoic expression on my face, because a friend of mine that we nicknamed Lunchbox followed me into the room, apparently to talk to me.

    “Hey, Starshine, what’s going on man? You look absolutely bummed,” he said to me.

    I merely looked up into his face. He was a badger, short and squat, wearing glasses. He was a good guy, though. I never could understand why he’d gotten the nickname ’Lunchbox,’ though. With a sigh, I replied, “Nothing.”

    He reached over and patted me on the shoulder. “If you need to talk, man, don’t forget you’ve got friends here to talk to.” With that, he stood up and walked out of the room, towards the meeting room.

    I watched him go. He was a good guy, and he was right. I had friends here that I could talk to, who could probably work me through my depression. But not tonight, considering I had a job and a duty to do.

    I rose from my seat and headed into the meeting room, standing in formation with everyone else as we waited for our commanding Sergeants and officers to enter. The order was given to stand at attention, eyes straight forward, and we did just that, and once the 1st Lieutenant had entered the room and was standing in the front of us, she gave us the order to stand at ease.

    Our 1st Lieutenant was a rather pretty female rabbit, short, with some Italian last name that I had no earthly idea how to pronounce. For five months I had been trying to work it out, but I still couldn’t. She took the list of names of the group members and read them off, each of us sounding off to prove we were present when our names were called. Once roll was completed, the Lieutenant gave us our speech about how we were doing great things for our country. Then, two new group members were introduced, they were shown to their assignments, and we were released to go to our shifts. I was herded with the rest of my fellow soldier outside, and I grabbed my bag once I found it. I loaded up into the truck meant to take the small selection of soldiers to the front gate, and we soon left.

    It wasn’t but a five minute ride to the front gate. I unloaded from the truck, hoisting my bag over my shoulder, and headed to the shack next to the gate. The soldier I was to replace, a male wolf, had a broom in his hand, obviously cleaning the shack so that it was up to standards to be relieved of his duty.

    I really didn’t care what the shack looked like when I took it over. Often I took over a shack for my shift, and the place was filthy, but cleaning it would help distract me from the immense boring that was the 14 hour shift of sitting in a shack like a security guard. I relieved the soldier from his duty, and he grabbed his bag and headed fro the shift truck. I lugged my bag into the shack and set it in a corner, pulled a chair up, then stepped outside of the shack and stood there for a while, my weapon slung over my shoulder still. It was going to be a long shift.

    All was quiet for the first few hours. I hadn’t pulled my Gameboy out yet, but my notebook was out and on the desk supplied for us. I had already filled out my shift book, detailing how I found my shack, what was broken (if anything), time I got on shift, that sort of thing. The book was supposed to be used as both a report book and a suggestion box.

    In my notebook, I had a section for writing letters, a section for brainstorming stories, and a section for journals. I had the letter section open, and was in the middle of a letter to my mother. It was whiny and emo, detailing how boring life was here, how routine everything was, and how nobody seemed to care that I wasn’t cut out for military service. I knew, in the back of my mind, that I wouldn’t really send it. I’d write maybe four letters, and only send one.

    I got it finished and read it back to myself, and I seemed to crash again. I turned the notebook to the journal section and began to write, detailing everything I was feeling about being in a foreign country, being in a line of work that I absolutely hated, and how I felt utterly worthless. In the middle of the letter, I stood up and grabbed my rifle, stepping out into the cool air outside and standing by myself. I knew this night wasn’t going to end well. I could feel it.

    I heard a voice on my radio, and turned it up in time to hear my 1st Sergeant begin a radio check, to make sure everyone was at their post and still awake. I stayed outside in the cold December air until heard my call sign uttered, then I answered and retreated into the shack, out of at least the wind.

    I radioed into the gate shack for a time check. The answer that came back told me it was fifteen minutes to midnight. I sat back down with my weapon slung over my shoulder, feeling very, very aware of its presence. My depression rushed me at that instance, and I decided I couldn’t take my life anymore. I picked up the pen I was using to write my journal, and turned to a new page. Starting at the top, I wrote in small, cursive letters, ‘Please help me.’

    I was looking for help. I was looking for a good reason why I shouldn’t take my life. By the time I reached the middle of the page in cursive, my hands were both shaking, and I was nearly crying. I unsung my weapon, pulled back the hammer to load a round into the chamber, locked the hammer forward, unlocked the safety, and put the weapon under my chin.

    For a moment, time stood still. I willed my finger to twitch, to apply any kind of pressure so that it would all be over. I willed my hands to act on their own, so that I wouldn’t have to make the final decision. I sat in the chair, the weapon ready to go off and kill me, for a good five minutes before I set the weapon down. I ejected the magazine, unloaded the round from the chamber, and put the round back into the magazine. I then reloaded the magazine into my weapon, and flicked the safety back on. Then I set the weapon as far away from me as I could, into a corner, and I scooted my chair back, pulling my Gameboy from my bag so that I could lose myself in it and forget my terrible experience.

    Ultimately, it was the thought that I would be breaking my promise to my girl that kept me from pulling the trigger. If I had died, I would be breaking the promise to return safe and sound to her, and I didn’t want to do that to her. I still felt like a failure, and even more so now that I had put the gun to my head, but was too chickenshit to pull the trigger.

    I was lost in my game for at least thirty minutes before a rapping noise at my shack window startled me and made me look up. The face of my 1st Sergeant made me realize how foolish I was. I was now in trouble, because he had just caught me playing a Gameboy (which was not allowed while on post), and my weapon was a good distance away from me. While I couldn’t hide the Gameboy, I explained to him that I nearly shot myself, and did not feel safe around the weapon.

    His angry expression softened, and he had me step outside of the shack. From there, he used my radio to call to the armory for a replacement to cover my shack for the remainder of the night. He had me gather my belongings in my bag, and retrieve my weapon. Once my bag was gathered up, I gave him my weapon and followed him to the humvee driven by my replacement. We drove back to the armory.

    Once my weapon was cleared, I was told to stand by the front door, to await my 1st Lieutenant. I was in trouble for the Gameboy, and she would give me my punishment.

    I didn’t have to wait long. She entered the armory and made a beeline for me, and I stood at attention, taking it all. I wasn’t allowed to speak for myself, wasn’t allowed to talk back. I was to do as I was told, no questions asked, and I did.

    I can understand why she was so angry. Our military had too many officers, and they were making cuts. The performance of the soldiers under the officers reflected on the officers’ performance, and would ultimately decide whether they stayed in the military or were honorably discharged.

    My 1st Lieutenant took a piece of yellow paper and wrote ‘Burger King Application’ across the top of it. She set it on the floor at my feet and had me drop into the push-up position. She instructed me to do thirty push-ups, and each time I rose, I was to recite, “Would you like fries with that?” She said my performance tonight proved to her that I wasn’t cut out for anything except a fast-food job, and that I was a worthless human being who would go nowhere in life.

    I’ll tell you this right now. As badly as I felt about myself, if I had a gun at that point, I would have shot her clean between the eyes. I would have killed her as easily as one kills a spider. Each recital of, “Would you like fries with that?” dripped with such malice that I believe I scared her. At fifteen, she walked away, but since I had been given an order, I continued to do my push-ups and recite my line.

    Once my push-ups were finished, I remained in the position, having been ordered to remain so when finished. Eventually my 1st Sergeant told me to rise, and then to follow him to his office. Once the door was shut, he sat in his chair and I remained standing until he told me I could sit.

    He told me straight out that he didn’t believe I would shoot myself. He believed that I had too much to live for to shoot myself. I told him everything I had done, including writing out the note and putting the weapon to my head, and told him I would show him the note if he asked for it. He didn’t. He did, however, look into my eyes as I was telling my story, and I think he finally believed. He said I looked desperate.

    I told him about how I was looking for a way out for the past month. I told him I wasn’t cut out for the military, and that it wasn’t where I belonged. He said he agreed with me, but that he hadn’t heard anything about someone wanting out from his soldiers. I’d figured as much.

    He told me that I was being removed from duty. My gun privileges were being revoked, and I would be reduced to squadron details. That was fine with me, I didn’t want to be anywhere near a loaded weapon ever again. He then said I was to go to my room and remove every blade I had, and throw away every pill I might have had.

    I cleared out my room as quietly as I could, noticing the obvious fact that my roommate and his girlfriend were once again asleep in his bed. Once everything was bundled into a plastic bag, I returned to the armory and turned over the bag to my 1st Sergeant.

    He then told me to go to the map room, and wait there for instructions. It was already 0200 hours, and I ended up waiting in the map room until the end of the shift. Once I was told I go return to my room, I somehow escaped out of the armory without meeting any friends. Once in my room, I retired to my bed, falling asleep as soon as I hit the pillow.

    Worst night of my life.