Asters & Dandelions

Make sure you’re buckled up, all your hands are inside the vehicle, grab some snacks, pause your show, update your will, prepare yourself for this roller coaster.

When I began my AIT journey, I met a female; let’s call her Karen. Karen was young and immature but she was kind and we became friends. People warned me about her; all the people. But I too have been the person that people have warned others about and I try to make my own judgements. We grew close and I told her all my secrets and she told me hers. She went through some hardships while being here like all of us do and I saw her self destruct.

As my readers know, I had my own struggles and I tried my best to build her up while I was building myself up. I would talk with her through her struggles with depression, bad eating habits, and lethargic tendencies. One night she had hit a low and expressed to me that she didn’t want to live anymore. She told me she was seriously contemplating ending her life. Me and two of her friends rallied around her and tried our best to build her up. We reminded her of all the things she has brought to the world, all of her accomplishments, and all the people that loved her. We sat in my floor (she was my roommate) for hours with her and she never once seemed to be in a better place or change her thought process so we made the decision to let a Drill Sergeant (basically our AIT parents) know that she had expressed being suicidal. She took this as an ultimate betrayal and blamed me solely for doing it ‘to’ her. We talked about it. I told her I didn’t do it to her, I did it for her and things seemed to be okay again but it was definitely different from then on.

Her mom reached out to me and told me she wasn’t responding to any of her calls and texts and said she was really worried about her. She asked me not to tell her she reached out and I didn’t. I told her mom about how she had been struggling and none of our efforts seemed to make a difference in pulling her out of her hole. We had that one conversation and never spoke again. A few weeks later that conversation had somehow come to light with Karen. She was furious and felt like her trust with me had been broken. We talked about it. I apologized for my wrong doing and not telling her and once again we moved forward but with even more distance than before.

At this point she was drowning in her own struggles and I was full force focused on my fitness, passing my pt test, living the straight and narrow, and getting the fuck home at any cost. Being roommates had become quite the burden if I’m being honest. She slept more than she was awake (at least 14 hours a day), she never cleaned, she’d have food in the room (which is not allowed here) daily, and her negativity was honestly draining. We all know the saying ‘you can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped’ and this was very much the case. She was her own worst enemy and an expert at playing victim. Around this time, all the females were moving to another building and I seized this opportunity and informed her that we’d be parting ways but I was still there for her.

We moved and she became my suite mate (we shared a bathroom). At this point, we’re in full covid lock down. My roommate and I woke up together, worked the same shift together, went to bed at the same time. Our ONLY alone time was in the shower. Karen would often come in the bathroom while we were in there. She’d also shower (there were two showers) or use the restroom; we honestly never minded before but do to the lack of alone time, we’d began locking the door while we were in there. Karen started unlocking the door and coming in anyways. My roommate asked her not to anymore and Karen, in retaliation, began locking our door to the bathroom and leaving it locked for hours so we in turn had to unlock it to enter our empty bathroom. After my roommate had failed at several attempts of addressing Karen about the issues, we decided it was best to involve Drill Sergeants before things escalated. We went and expressed our issues and how we were worried this could easily become a SHARP (Sexual Harassment/ Assault Response and Prevention) case and we wanted to address it before it escalated any further. Unknown to us at the time, she had already filed a complaint that we were bullying her. Our drill sergeant took this into consideration and decided it made more sense to move both of us into separate rooms, some of which were not vacant causing a total of three people moving instead of moving Karen. It felt a lot like a punishment but we moved and that was that.

There was apparently a second bullying accusation so I went to a drill sergeant that I trust and respect to seek guidance. He gave me his opinion, reminded me that I have everything to lose (I was a V+ graduate who was pcsing soon) and Karen (who was relieved of the course here at AIT and is being separated from the army) had absolutely nothing to lose. He warned me to play nice even if I was not in the wrong and moved me to a detail that is away from the company (and Karen) for the duty day. I was thankful for the new detail assignment and things seemed to quiet down for a few weeks. I came back from my detail one day and that drill sergeant told me I was no longer on my detail. I asked him why and he told me it was because I am under investigation for SHARP.

I, to this day, do not know the full details of what I was accused of but Karen had filed sworn statements accusing me of ‘abusive sexual contact’ and ‘simple abuse’. I did not find out the charges for a couple weeks until I was called to CID (Criminal Investigation Division; basically the FBI of the Army). They brought me in, searched me, took my fingerprints and DNA, sat me in a freezing cold room, made me wait for over an hour then brought in a packet of papers. They read me the charges, asked if I requested a lawyer and when I said yes and they were no longer able to question me, the packet closed and there was never another mackerel of information given to me about the charges I was accused of.

I spent the next month and a half in my room, not even leaving to buy essentials. I was revoked of all my privileges pending the investigation and there was no time limit to how long the case would take to play out. I talked to my lawyer and his advice was to be patient. He told me I did the right thing when requesting a lawyer and denying the polygraph test. He said that there is no winning when talking to CID without any representation because they do not care whether you are innocent or guilty. Their only goal is to pursue a charge. He told me the horror stories of people who were falsely accused in the past. He told me how they’d grown impatient and vindictive towards their accuser and it cost them their careers and caught them charges and time spent at Leavenworth.

The truth is I was impatient. I was angry at Karen. But I couldn’t become the monster she had painted me out to be. So for lack of self control and drive to keep going, I spent my time in my room. I cried for all the time I’d lose waiting out this process and missing another year of birthdays and my husband’s homecoming. I slept a lot because that’s how my depression thrives. The truth is I was completely defeated. I had already overcome so much on my journey back home and I didn’t have any more drive in me to keep going; I stopped. I stopped living, stopped hoping, stopped leaving my room. My life had stopped. At the hands of a jealous child who had watched me struggle and ultimately succeed. I had accomplished all the things she did not and it ate her alive. How did this help her? How could any human being do this to another human being? I remembered all the times I tried to build her up and all the times people had warned me of her. It ate at me to know I could have loved someone and given pieces of myself to someone like her. But I waited and people began to PCS during covid. I should have PCS’ed last month but instead I was stuck in purgatory at what felt like the devil himself’s hand.

As people kept leaving and new people kept coming, I began to feel like I was being lost in the cracks. Weeks had went by with no information since that uneventful meeting at CID. We had recently had a change of command. Because of the nature of my case, my company commander was the only person I had a line of communication to that could acquire any insight into my case and I had never met him. I decided to invoke open door policy (a policy within the army saying you can go as high as you want in your chain of command and request to communicate with them without reason or explanation). I sat down with him and introduced myself. I gave him the synopsis of the horror movie that had become my life. I sat in front of his big oak desk and said ‘I have been reaching out for weeks and gotten zero information. I wanted to use open door policy because you are the only person at our company who can help me and we’ve never met. I feel like I’m being forgotten’. He expressed to me that I was not in fact being forgotten and he would find me answers I deserved. The following duty day, he called me into his office with an update. I was so grateful to this man and the weight of his word when he assured me I’d get answers.

My commander had informed me that CID had finished their report and sent it to JAG (the legal department of the army) and he should have the final report within a week. There were a couple more updates along the way and it was all looking promising. I was not surprised but relieved. And within two weeks of that initial meeting with my commander, Friday was the day of reckoning. I sat with my commander, Command Sergeant Major of my battalion, and my battalion commander. They read to me the findings of the case and my battalion commander informed me she was referring the findings to my company commander to do with it what he deemed fit. He and I had already discussed his recommendation (which was to drop any further punishment) and I knew what to expect. Immediately after that sit down, him and I had a brief meeting where he just restated what we had already discussed and that this was the end of my nightmare.

Friday my life went back to normal, I was immediately given all of my privileges back and am now awaiting orders to leave. But the truth is, my life is not back to normal. My life will never be the same. I was accused of a felony and this investigation will remain on my file for the rest of my army career. I sat broken as my peers watched me climb into a shell I couldn’t get out of. I sulked through my days while almost every person in my chain of command saw me broken and reached out ‘keep your head up’ ‘you’re going to get through this’. Even they knew this was false and while I had been the suspect, it was known to all that I was in fact the victim. I will never regain this time I could have spent with my children, furthering my career, unpacking and making our home beautiful in preparation for Germain coming home from deployment. I will always stand back up when someone tries to knock me down, I will always regain my dignity and make up for the landslides life throws at me. Karen may have lost in the end, but I lost too. I lost time with the people I love at the hand of someone I tried so hard to love as well and that is a cut that will remain open.

“If you ever feel like you’re losing everything, remember that trees lose their leaves every year and they still stand tall and wait for better days to come”

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