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I'm in Hawaii.  In case you're wondering, there is an ugly place to be found among the Hawaiian islands.  It's called Kaneohe Marine Corps Base.  Even looking at a map of Oahu, it juts out of the northeast side of the island like a tiny brown afterthought.  The volcano that made this chunk of island is extinct, and didn't get very tall before checking out.  Even Earth gave up on this place.

 

The island actually does look nasty from here.  I'm not sure how the corps does it-- because the minute I drive out of the front gate, all of a sudden the razor-sharp ridge of mountains lights up with emerald and gold; leaves gilded in the tropical sun-- but from the base everything looks brown.  Really.  But enough of that.

 

Today my Marine contract expires.

 

I remember the first time I set foot on a military base, the recruit depot in San Diego.  Shortly after arriving, giving up all my personal possessions (some of them getting thrown away, like books and other "non-essentials"), they chopped off all my hair.  This last week I went to get my last "high and tight" haircut and the silly Mama-san in the barber shop destroyed the cut. 

 

"oh... my..." I said.  "Just take it all off.  Chop it."

 

It's like King Solomon says in Ecclesiastes.  I'm gonna butcher the quote, but it goes something like this: "naked we come into this world, and naked we will go from it."

 

I still have clothes.  I wear them.  Seriously.  But I'm bald.  Again. 

 

Here's another odd symmetry: my first week as a Reservist up in Ft Lewis, I was handed a wire brush and told to bust rust off the heavy equipment in the lot.  That means scraping rust, then spraying the patch of clean metal with corrosion-resistant paint.  Not great work.

 

So guess what I did my last week in the corps... yeah.  There I was, Sergeant Robertson working alongside my junior Marines, busting rust.

 

Okay.  It's about this time in any Hammurabi email I assume half of you have fallen asleep.  I need to wrap this up.

 

I didn't tell most of you I was back when I returned from Iraq because things were too hard to explain.  Words like "the desert changed everything" won't help concerned, loving friends understand what all went on.  Besides the pain, the bitterness, the sleepless months, the stress and fury of it all there was among it all the mystery of a failed romance.  A romance I had wanted very much to keep alive.  Roll all this together and you have me sitting in my (then new) 8ft x 8ft room in San Francisco... staring at the wall.

 

I still stare at that yellow wall.  It's putrid ugly, but that's not the point.  In the last year that tiny room has kept me focused enough to write one film script and race after completing another.  I tell you this because in all the discomfort and confusion I found the refuge of writing and solitude-- and it has been healing.

 

And I met new friends.  I mean 'friend' to mean someone who knows the uncomfortable truth behind the "i'm doing okay" and still loves on regardless.

 

I remember very clearly walking up to Amit and Anna's apartment the night I got back.  It was raining and I was soaked; I'd almost gotten lost on muni getting there.  I knocked, and when she opened the door Anna's pretty jaw hit the floor.  It's a good thing Amit is used to cleaning up after her.  :)

 

Alright.  This also can't be a Hammurabi email unless I lampoon a member of the senior Marine Corps staff I've served with recently.  I pick my company Gunnery Sergeant.

 

She's short.  Like, "I thought she was 18 when I first met her" short.  Like, "all my junior Marines wanted to hit on her" short.  She even has a cute voice but then once you listen to what she's saying, you see the Marine.  She's hard but as far as I've seen she's fair.  You wouldn't know it to talk to the Active Duty engineers in this company, tho.

 

They tell me she has four kids-- a "fire team" in Marinespeak as per the Squad Close Combat manual description of four Marines working together to kill things-- and on top of it, and abusive husband.  Apparently really abusive.  As in "last time he fled and is now in jail."

 

These guys really, really hate the company gunny.  They tell me she was having an affair with the only man who tried to "intervene" the last time she was being beaten.  I don't know what's true or not, I'll just tell you what I see.

 

A short, cute woman, mother and Staff Sergeant, who sounds rougher than she is and has reason to be rougher than she sounds.

 

Here's an image for you: you know that wax stick people use to write on their cars?  We usually see words like "JUsT MaRriEd" or something like it. 

 

I'm walking past her car the other day.  It's a crapped out Saturn, very ugly green like so many other things around here.  At the top of the windshield there's a single phrase in deteriorating wax-pen script.  Two words. 

 

"Just Divorced."

 

In the back seat I see the detritus of children: stuffed animals and squeaky toys, and one of her camouflage hats.

 

There's an ironic symmetry to things.  The Marine Corps has been a demanding mistress for six years, the kind who doesn't listen and takes, takes, takes.  She even made me cut my hair stupid and dress like a loser.  She chose horrible vacation spots.  But what can I say?  (apparently a lot if you read all this)  And what can I do?

 

Leaving the corps isn't like a divorce, I don't think, but maybe it is.  Contract over.  I'm not going to paint any compact-but-revelatory messages anywhere, but I will leave this janky lady behind forever.

 

I walk past the car, out of the corps, and on.

 

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