who among us apostles has ever been unclouded, without sin?

another egregiously long post, be warned.

at the career fair, i found myself face-to-face with an army recruiter, in a moment that came as a jarring highlight in the saga of my moral 180 concerning the military. here i was in my uniform boots, no longer immaculately polished but scuffed and spattered with paint, leaning over a table to talk to a recruiter, something i'd done plenty of times throughout my seven years in civil air patrol and the sea cadet corps. the difference was that now i was masked and wearing a beanie and also talking about the pamphlets i held, which depicted blood spatters and read "start your career in murder today". it stirred some complicated feelings, to say the least. somehow, in two years i'd gone from a master sergeant in cap with a healthy list of commendations and citations -a pro-military poster child in the making- to one of a group of anti-military, anti-police, anti-war profiteering protestors doing everything in their power to waste this man's time and hamstring his recruitment effort.

i wasn't prepared for the feelings the exchange would dredge up. the satisfaction of one more effort to undo some of the harm i feel responsible for and yet facing a source of intense guilt and at times self-hatred that time has barely begun to lessen. the rush of feeling i was finally on the right side of this table mixed with an overwhelming awareness of confronting the skeletons in my closet. i had started to shut down a little from the moment i walked in, nerves mixing with the vivid reality of staring my past in the face.

the fact that i spent seven years in two different military auxiliaries isn't a point of pride by any stretch. if anything, it's a source of deep, constantly simmering guilt. initially, when i first drifted into this new sphere i've found myself in, i was deeply reluctant to mention it, knowing i was still new and unwilling to risk any credit or respect i may have built. 

the first time i told someone here about that part of my past, it was gil, the first and closest friend i've made here. we were both remarkably drunk and sharing a powerade on a park bench at three in the morning. it was election night (hence why i was drunk) and somehow it just came out. i don't know if they even remembered it the next morning. 

after that happened with no immediate backlash or sudden shunning, i began to cautiously open up about it more and more. so far, no one has reacted negatively to it; it's become something to give me shit for, certainly, but i figure that's warranted. and honestly, y'all make some good jokes about it, without adding to my already-intense guilt.

it's not as if those years have made me more sympathetic towards the military than those i find myself surrounded by- if anything, it only serves to deepen my hatred of the institution as a whole. this can be explained in greater depth with a little bit of simple math: i'm nineteen now. i've been out for just over two years. i spent a combined seven years as a sea cadet and cap cadet. meaning i joined when i was ten.

if that hadn't been the case, maybe i'd have some tiny shred of sympathy for members of the military- at least for those who are just ignorant to the harm dealt all over the world by the institution they've devoted themselves to, who like myself grew up enclosed in a narrative that painted them as the heroes. but even that evaporates when i remember that little fun fact. technically, the naval sea cadet corps won't admit anyone younger than eleven, but they may make exceptions on a case-by-case basis for ten-year-olds that seem like a "good fit"- for civil air patrol, the minimum age is thirteen, which isn't a lot better. and somehow no one thought that even the notion of a ten-year-old in an official u.s. navy uniform seemed the least bit fucked up? (not that the idea of eleven-through-seventeen-year-olds in navy uniforms isn't severely fucked up as well.)

not to dwell on that too long. my counselor has heard my tangent about the never-ending guilt, the moral sense of blood on my hands in the form of being walking pro-military propaganda, membership dues that for all i know could have financed any fucked-up action the military may have undertaken in the last nine years, having contributed to that before i was old enough to understand any of the implications of it. no need to repeat it; it's already written out in painstaking detail in a word document somewhere and it's nobody's problem but mine.

my situation is a unique one in this regard. the percentage of people who join cap or the sea cadets is already a minuscule shred of the population. the percentage of those who leave for reasons related to moral convictions and political dissonance is a fraction of that. the number of people who have joined, left for moral reasons, and then found themselves handing out anti-military leaflets at a career fair must be microscopic. i've never met someone with a similar story. 

i get some morsel of satisfaction from handling my old uniform items in any manner that would've been considered disrespectful by those who issued them. i've worn my jungle boots to so many basement shows and work calls that the soles have cracks big enough to let water in. my working uniform sits untouched on a shelf in my closet at home. my old dress uniform parts have been stripped of insignia and ribbon racks and mixed in with my other dress shirts. but they still retain signs of what they have been. my pants are hemmed as if to fit someone shorter than myself. my dress shirt has a horribly feminine silhouette that hugs my chest and waist, and i know i wouldn't have bought anything like that of my own volition. i stripped it of my name plate, insignia, and ribbon rack years ago, but i can still see the holes where they used to be pinned. the blazer hides its past better at first glance; the darker color conceals the pinholes and had fewer of them to begin with. but it's a distinctive navy blue, and the buttons give it away- gold-plated and each bearing a logo with a crest and an eagle. i should replace them.

the old uniform accoutrements and my old ids live in a little pouch on my desk, just in case i ever need them for something. maybe someday i'll be given an excuse to take a lighter to them in public (i've fantasized about that plenty of times) or otherwise devote them to expressing the opposite of everything they represent.

like i said, i get some shred of relief from sacrilege. my boots haven't been shined since i left cap. i've watched them lose a shine so perfect i could see my reflection on them, replaced by scuffs and scrapes and neglect that have undone so many painstaking hours of polishing and buffing and polishing. i've worn them for so many basement shows and paint calls that they're hardly recognizable as military-issue. i'm pretty sure i've had sex wearing my old dress uniform shirt. i've used my old cap id to jimmy open locks and clean under my nails. 

i find something to relate to in stories of people who've left cults. not that our experiences are equivalent by any stretch of the imagination, but that they too have known the crushing feeling disillusionment brings as you see all the cracks in what you've been told is true. the stomach-dropping horror of realizing you've been misled and manipulated, that you'll never get that part of your life back. and just how hard it is to leave. there's a good two years separating my first forays into leftist theory and my cognitive dissonance reaching the fever pitch that finally pushed me to silently let my membership expire. it was considered standard to send an email explaining your reasons for leaving, but by the time i left, i saw no reason they deserved that. i haven't checked my cap email since the day my membership expired- halloween 2021.

i've found comfort in finding people who accept my past and share my convictions. i have an avenue to feel like i'm undoing some of the harm my image, time and money have directly and indirectly upheld. my beliefs and morals are what's important, not the ones they've replaced.

i started this as a fuck-you to the military and imperialism and the whole fucking thing, and it's definitely that. but woven in with that is a thank you to the people i've found myself surrounded by in the "after". their presence comes with simple, much-needed awareness and acknowledgment of this part of my life. there's serenity in that, a peace that keeps my sense of personal culpability at a dull murmur. 

i need to wrap this up and go shower. anyways, moral 180, feeling like i've left a cult, guilt guilt guilt self hatred, reconciling with just how fucked up the idea of youth auxiliaries in the military really is, fuck the whole damn thing. i did something that dragged up reminders of yet another complicated and emotionally fraught part of my past that i'm still trying to undo the fallout from. i've made it my life's mission to be an absolute disgrace to the u.s. military. principled hatred mixed with a personal grudge makes for a seriously potent cocktail. i love what my life's become in the aftermath. i love and am unspeakably grateful for the people on my side of the table.

i think i like being a disappointment.