Bad Luck Cadet by Suzie Ivy Read Free Book Online Page B

the panic that sets in when you can’t breathe.
There was fire in my chest. I didn’t think even getting out of the
tear gas would enable me to breathe again. The burning in my eyes
was so bad I couldn’t keep them open. I could hear my fellow cadets
coughing and choking. I seriously thought we would all die before
that whistle was finally blown.
    The shrill noise sounded and we all ran away
from the gas. Besides coughing and choking we were also throwing
up. Everyone had tears, snot and saliva running down their faces.
I'm still amazed at the amount of mucus we expelled. It was not a
pretty site, but we had succeeded. And that is all that
mattered.
    Our skin was still on fire, but after about
ten minutes our breathing returned to normal. We were marched back
to the classroom.
    Sgt. Dickens came in.
    “I am so fucking proud of you! This is what
I’ve been waiting for. You are a team. You are Class 95. You are my
Class and you should be proud of yourselves.”
    And we were. It was a great moment. We were
all smiling and laughing and ready to take on the world. It didn't
matter that our lungs were scorched, our skin was still burning,
and our eyes and noses hadn't stopped running. On that day our
Sergeant could have led us anywhere, and told us to do anything,
and we would have followed.
    This was how soldiers were made. I was
forty-five years old but entirely susceptible to the phenomenon. We
all wanted to go out and fight evil and we felt we had earned the
right. After everyone showered, we gathered outside and talked and
laughed until late in the evening. We didn’t want the day to
end.
    Throughout the rest of the week we spent every
available minute trying to come up with a suitable class slogan.
Our first slogan was rejected by the Sergeant Dickens as being
inadequate. We worked late into the night on Thursday worried that
our hard work would be rejected again and our positive week would
be ruined.
    Friday morning, when called to attention for
morning inspection, we belted out.
    “Class ninety five is the best by
far.
    We smoke all the rest like a cheap
cigar.
    Ugh.”
    Sgt. Dickens liked it and gave his approval.
The new class 95 slogan was officially added to our drills. We had
succeeded
    I didn’t drive back to Small Town that
weekend. My husband was away on a business trip and it was easier
to stay on campus and relax.
    I took a trip to the drugstore on Saturday to
get some cream for my head. It itched like crazy. I was getting
used to what I looked like in the mirror but if I had scratched
like this when I’d had hair everyone would have thought I had lice.
I bought a couple of scarves as well and experimented with no luck.
I couldn’t scratch with the scarf on and even with the lotion my
fingernails needed access to my scalp.
    I ate dinner in the cafeteria Sunday evening
with a few fellow cadets. We watched as Class 96 marched in with
the same looks on their faces that we’d had on ours that first
day.
    It sucked to be them.

 
    Chapter 12 Small Acts of Defiance
     
    Week six began with us sporting our new polo
shirts and the sounds of Class 96 being yelled at by their
Sergeant. It was nice to breathe without a tie around our necks and
Sgt. Dickens lowered his voice and tried to pretend we were human.
Inspection went smoothly. We were only given twenty pushups and not
a single hill run. Our Sergeant wanted us to appear superior and
leave 'the hill' for Class 96. It wouldn’t last, but that week we
suffered very few punishments.
    We took our weekly academic test Monday
morning. Nine cadets did not pass. After the retake test the
following day, all passed but two. Cadet Rodriguez barely scrapped
through. Out of the original thirty-five cadets, we were now down
to twenty-nine.
    I was lucky the academic training came easy
for me. The physical and defensive tactics training did not. I had
never been last at anything in my life. During my childhood, I was
athletic and competitive. At the academy, though much