Dishonor (2011)

Dishonor Jerry Gabriel (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution [End Page 8] After the long trek to Tallil, the president called the whole thing off, and they returned by Humvees and Chinooks to Saudi to await further orders. It was in camp there that Phillip beat a boy within an inch of his life, a PFC improbably named Francis China; he’d cut in front of Phillip at chow, possibly unwittingly. The kid probably wasn’t even nineteen. He was nothing to Phillip Dante. Just some kid who’d ended up on the wrong end of his infinite anger. Phillip lay in his tent afterward and felt little but the contraband alcohol sludging through his blood. He tried to look into himself, wanted to find some thing there, a piece of good. He sensed that it was there, believed it. But just then it was not available to him. His dad had told him many times that this thing was missing. His dad had told him many things, though, most of them bullshit. [End Page 9] Specialist Phillip Dante’s commanding officer, a twenty-eight-year-old second lieutenant named Hedge, a Buckeye like Phillip, from Defiance, in the north of the state, was forced, finally—he’d had to threaten on three other occasions—to cut Phillip loose; his file was thick with infractions. A book unto itself, he’d said. “Dante,” Hedge bellowed when he found out about the altercation later that night, “goddamn you to hell.” And then he said it again: “Goddamn you to hell.” Phillip stared back at him, placid. The boy was in the infirmary, busted up, Hedge told him. The next morning, Hedge called Phillip to his tent, where he apologized for what he’d said the night before—Hedge was a Seventh-Day Adventist and almost never took the Lord’s name in vain—and then he gave Phillip a written order that, in accordance with the regulations of the United States Army, released him from active duty. “Discharged,” it said in bold typeface at the bottom, and next to that, on a line that had been handwritten, “General.” Hedge’s signature was below, as was the signature of his commanding officer, Brigadier General Stivison. Phillip winced when he saw that. Hedge explained to Phillip that though this was not a dishonorable discharge, that was what it amounted to. If he wanted to seek counsel, it would be within his right, but Phillip should know that he would be ineligible for certain civilian benefits of army service, like the GI Bill. Who gives a fuck about the GI Bill? Phillip thought. Phillip had to countersign two copies of the document. He looked at Hedge for a long moment, though he wasn’t sure why. Perhaps he wanted to be reassured that this was purely bureaucratic, that it didn’t really reflect how Hedge thought of him. Hedge said nothing and did not return his gaze. “That is all,” he said, and he saluted one last time, and Phillip returned the salute and turned and walked out. His head, his back, his entire body burned with humiliation and anger. He was supposed to be debriefed in Germany, but there was a snafu in some office somewhere in Washington, and they decided to send him straight back to Bragg, which was fine with Phillip. At Rhein Main, he talked to a woman at the desk about his flight home. She said it would leave at two p.m. That morning he wandered the strange streets of Frankfurt—ate at a McDonald’s and paid to go to a movie but got antsy and left it to wander the streets some more. He returned to the airport an hour before the flight. [End Page 10] On the Hercules home that night, Phillip was distracted, though not particularly circumspect. His mind was blank, really, not filled with Private China or Hedge or the dry desert or anything that had happened there. He gave not a thought to his next move. He’d been in for three years, and he had no skills to speak of, which, come to think of it, was what had...