Soldier Girls by Helen Thorpe Read Free Book Online Page A

he asked.
    â€œI wish!” Debbie replied.
    So Tony asked her out on a date. He was five years younger, and Debbie assumed the relationship might be brief, but he never broke it off. After Ellen Ann turned three, Tony and Debbie married, and two years later, Tony legally adopted Ellen Ann. By then, Tony had left the army and had started working at the sheriff’s department. When Tony lost that job, however, he did not seem in a hurry to find another. He loved material things, and while unemployed—during which time Debbie supported all three members of the family—he bought aquariums, rare fish, fancy cologne, gold jewelry, according to Debbie. After severalyears of this, Debbie confronted her second husband. “You’ve either got to work or you’ve got to go,” she said. “Because you’re expensive.”
    Tony moved out when Ellen Ann was eight, although they stayed in touch. Looking for a more consistent income, Debbie landed the job at the salon at L. S. Ayres. She earned $110 a week. Debbie’s best friend, T.J., was also a single mother. Often Debbie went to the bar where T.J. worked—it was called Shipwrecked Jimmy’s, and T.J. had to wear a ruffled top and tight shorts with an anchor on her bottom. One evening, T.J. introduced Debbie to a friend named Jim May, a member of the National Guard. “Oh, I wanted to do that,” Debbie said. “I tried to sign up for the army, but they told me I couldn’t. They won’t take single moms.”
    The National Guard would take her, Jim May said. But she had to be under thirty-five. From that point forward, when Debbie ran into Jim, he asked if she had signed up. On July 11, 1986, Debbie turned thirty-four. She steeled herself for another rejection and returned to the same recruitment office she had visited a decade before (which recruited for the Army National Guard as well as the regular army). A recruiter explained that if she gave up custody of Ellen Ann, then she could enlist in the Guard, as May had suggested. Training would force a separation from her daughter of anywhere from six months to a year, depending on her job specialty, but then all she had to do was show up for drill one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer.
    Ellen Ann was thirteen going on fourteen and when her mother raised the possibility of living with her grandparents, she responded with enthusiasm. Ellen Ann seemed to think the new arrangement would involve the suspension of parental authority. Her grandparents lived close by, and Ellen Ann would not have to change schools. Debbie made certain to underscore that she didn’t really want to give her daughter away. “This is a legality,” Debbie told Ellen Ann. “You’ve still got Mommy.” Tony opposed the idea, saying he didn’t think Debbie could make it through boot camp. “You’re too old!” he told her. Debbie’s mother said, “Well, if you really want to . . .” But her father encouraged her. “You’ve wanted to do this for so many years,” he said. “You should sign up.” The thought infused Debbie with a renewed sense of purpose. The extra income would help, too—and she craved travel. Sometimesmechanics from the 113th Support Battalion flew to Germany to maintain vehicles for the regular army. She wanted to fly to Germany. She had never flown anywhere overseas.
    Debbie started running to get in shape. Right after the July Fourth holiday—one week before her birthday—she went to the closest processing station, in downtown Indianapolis, and said she was ready to sign up. A nurse took down her vital statistics. “You don’t weigh enough,” the nurse pronounced. The scale said that Debbie had dropped to 110 pounds. At five feet eight inches she was supposed to weigh at least 113 pounds, according to the height and weight chart. The nurse said to come back after she gained some