Objective: Civilian Life
Sarah Johnson
Pieces of the yellow stone wall thudded against his helmet as they fell. He cursed the wall and then the sniper who was baiting them, trying to coax them out into the open space. “How the hell did I get here?” he asked himself out loud. He asked himself at least once a day. Desert warfare sucked, but not as bad as returning to suburban life after his first tour.
For a year after returning stateside to his mom’s house, he tried to find work. He tried to relax. He tried to “suck it up, Marine,” as his Staff Sergeant always said, and fulfill his objective of being a civilian but the silence was unsettling. Without orders shouted at him, he was lost. He had been trained as a grunt, doing what he was told for four years. Without officers around, he didn’t know what to do.
As a civilian, he went through the motions of filling out applications and answering questions, trying to get jobs that didn’t interest him. He found fault with each one. Pay too low. Job too boring. Commute too long. Boss too much of a jerk. Once a week, when he went to the grocery store for his mom, he parked closer to the Marine recruitment office than the grocery store. He walked slowly past its windows, searching between the vertical blinds to see if the peace he needed was hidden inside.
Christmas came and went and he drifted into another calendar year. “Six months civilian,” he thought, as if he were battling an addiction. The echo of commands ricocheted in his head. He stared like a guard on duty, oblivious to anyone inches or miles in front of him. He shaved his face and buzzed his hair, according to Marine regulations. He polished his shoes and ironed all his clothes. Marine habits were his habits. The two could not be separated and it felt like the world laughed at him for it, the way he used to laugh at his grandfather, a Marine in World War II, who sat in his arm chair watching wars on TV.
At chow time, he hunched over the table. Just like at basic training, he shoveled food in as fast as he could, spending as little time as possible thinking. He held his face over his coffee mug and let the steam blur his vision. The rest of the day, he stood tall, at attention, never relaxing.
He felt best when he was running. Ten miles a day with a pack full of junk, his feet pounded the rhythm to the stupid chants that made him smile. In his mind’s eye, he could see packs bouncing in unison ahead of him and hear voices shouting the chants behind him. He was indistinguishable from the thousands of soldiers that ran before him and were
still running today, all over the world.
When he ran, the only thing that existed was the 50 feet of road in front of him. He knew where he had to go and went there. But when the run ended back at his mom’s house, on a cul-de-sac shaded by pine trees, he panicked. He ran slower down the deadend street and stopped in the driveway, searching for somewhere else he could go besides through the front door.
Finally, one day that spring, instead of walking past the Marine recruitment office to the grocery store, he pushed the door open and tripped a laser that sounded a chime. An officer stepped out from the backroom, the brim of his hat hiding his face until he looked up and their eyes met, both men standing tall, their jaws set, mouths stretched tight.
He saluted the officer and said he would like to re-enlist. The officer stood still, mentally sifting through the recruitment personas to find the one that fit this man: ex-soldier lost in civilian life. He played his role of challenging the new recruit, trying to talk him out of it—presenting alternate solutions for his restlessness, suggesting hobbies and
relaxation techniques—before pretending to relent to the man’s will and sign him up for four years of active military duty. In his head, the officer tallied the commission he was making on his third recruit that week.
Walking out of the office, contract in hand, he felt taller. His chest puffed out with a purpose. He sat behind the wheel and started the car before he remembered he hadn’t gone to the grocery store. In a few months he would be done running errands and applying for jobs. His mom would be sad to see him leave again but relieved that he had found
something to do.
The weeks before he shipped out again passed quickly. The year of mindless job searching vanished even faster. He focused on gearing up and flying back across the ocean to the dry heat of the desert. When he closed his eyes, he could feel the white sun sucking the moisture out of every crevice like he was a sponge whose dirty water was being wrung out.
Back among the crumbling villages with machine guns and camouflage flak jackets, there were no errands or grocery stores, no shade from green pine trees. His mom, holding her head in her hands when he showed her the new contract, was left behind in her suburban life. For him, there was only the sniper and his platoon, playing hide and seek once again.
Forum Literary Magazine 