Radical Selflessness
I was seventeen when I first wore a Virginia Military Institute uniform. It was the physical training uniform given to every prospective student as soon as they arrived at the Institute on Matriculation Day: a gray t-shirt and red athletic shorts. It wasn’t even mine to wear, as I had yet to stencil my name on that gray shirt with Institute-issued die-cut cardboards and sharpies. That would come later. It would come after I said goodbye to my parents, my sister, and my girlfriend. After I stepped down from the bleachers and joined my company. After a Cadet Sergeant whispered in my ear that I was never to hold hands or openly display affection with my girlfriend while in uniform. The uniform would be mine after all that. After I began the long process of letting go of my selfhood in order to become a rat. After I learned to stop saying “me” “my” “we” and “us” and learned to say “this rat” and “these rats.”
On that day, we all left our senses of “self” in the bleachers and began the long work of developing a sense of selves. It took me longer than most to let go of my “self” because my sense of self was buried deep within me, and I selfishly guarded it whenever I had the chance. The Institute couldn’t tolerate selfish individuals like me, and I learned that the hard way time and again.
One such time, one of the few times that stays with me all these years later, is when my company was preparing for a marching competition along with the rest of the Rat Mass (which is what the VMI freshman class is called until they complete their training on The Ratline).
Whether marching a parade or a competition, one is required polish every piece of his or her formal uniform, down to the buttons and cufflinks. All in all, about sixteen pieces of brass must be polished along with polishing shoes, pressing pants, clipping belts, etc. It’s a time consuming preparation and one that I began in earnest four hours prior to joining the company formation and marching out to the secondary parade field which was actually a soccer field where the NCAA team practiced during their season. About an hour after beginning, I was finished polishing and had the rest of my uniform prepped and ready for competition.
One of my four roommates, however, was still at baseball practice. He was red-shirted for the team and was, at the time, working his ass off to earn a full-time spot on the roster. I knew where he was and why he was there, and I also knew that his uniform still needed preparation. My other two roommates knew these things as well, and as formation time crept closer, we worried about him. “Is he going to make it back in time to prep his gear?” gradually became “There’s no way he’s going to be back in time to prep his gear.” Eventually, about thirty minutes from Go-Time, we all looked at one another and said, “Fucking sucks to be him.” Because it would definitely fucking suck to be him very soon if it didn’t already.
If he went out to the parade field with tarnished buttons, a messy collar, and scuffed shoes, then he would doubtlessly be punching a one way ticket to the proverbial World of Hurt which, at the Institute, is a basement room populated by select group of large, furious men who scream and wail all manner of insults at you while forcing you to do push ups and jumping jacks in the dark in your sweatsuit until you puke. Compared to the pain we were consigning ourselves to at a later time while in the military, this World of Hurt was more like a World of Minor Inconvenience but to a group of boys, most of whom had yet to shoot a firearm, this was the most full-bodied vintage of Pain we knew because it wasn’t just a physical pain, but a social pain. Rats sent to The World of Hurt were shamed. Publicly shown to be unreliable and so punished for it. We pitied our roommate for his fate, and shortly after the pity began, he came rushing into our room red-faced and hustling to try and polish the largest pieces of brass and spit shine his shoes to pass for something like prepared. It was hard to watch, because we knew it was too little too late.
We formed up shortly after he returned to the room and marched down to the parade field. There, while waiting for our turn to march, our Cadre began inspecting each of us. We were all trained to lock our gaze straight ahead, so I could only watch in my periphery as one of our Sergeants made his way to my roommate. He lingered on his uniform for a beat too long, and I knew my roommate was caught. The Sergeant leaned into my roommate’s ear and began the dreaded reckoning. I could hear my roommate muttering answers to his various questions, when suddenly The Sergeant stepped back and called out.
“Raise your paw if you live in Room 404,” he said. As rats, we didn’t have hands. We had paws. I saw my two other roommates raise their paws in my periphery and I shot mine up just as fast so I wouldn’t be accused of avoiding the question. Something wasn’t right with this reckoning and our three hands in the sky were enough of a sign to us three that we were now, all of us, on the fast-track to citizenship in The World of Hurt.
The Sergeant saw my hand and strode down the line. He got right in my face, close enough to whisper. Of all the times I’ve been corrected in my life, I’ve always preferred to be yelled at then whispered to. If you’re being whispered to, you have fucked up so uniquely and so totally that there is no lesson for others in your correction. You are the only one at fault.
“Why didn’t you help your Brother Rat?” he whispered, “You and I both know he had practice this afternoon, so why didn’t you prep his gear for him?”
The question stung my heart from a fresh, yet unknown angle. The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind to help my roommate. Every man for himself was my working motto. Keep my head low, don’t make any noise, survive the Rat Line, that was my working MO and so far I’d avoided The World of Hurt.
“I know you had time, Luck. I know your schedule. I know you. And I know this: you’re selfish. And that selfishness is going to hurt everyone around you unless you correct yourself.” And with that, he turned from me and marched away down the line in total disgust. One of my Cadre Corporals nearby shook his head at me and in that punctuation I felt a fresh, new kind of pain. A pain from within. A pain that I myself, in my being, had created.
This pain would resurface again, only a few short weeks later.
The Rat Mass was slated to travel an hour south to nearby Liberty University for an away Sunday football game. That Sunday, however, my mom was coming to visit after spending months in a rehabilitation center for alcoholism. I was excited to see my mom, and I wanted to be with her to tell her how happy I was that she was recovering and how proud I was of her finishing her program. The only hitch was attendance at the football game was mandatory. So, I went to my senior mentor and asked him if he knew of any way I could get leave to see my mom.
“I don’t see why not,” he said. So he took me down to the Commandant’s office and stood me in front of a Major whose name I’ve since forgotten but whose face will live with me forever.
“What do you want?” He asked.
“Sir, I’m requesting leave to visit with my mother this coming Sunday.” I said.
“Where does she live?” He asked.
“Richmond, Virginia, Sir.” I said.
“So about two hours away?” He asked.
“Yes, Sir.” I said.
“So you think you’re special?” He asked.
“No, Sir.” I said, a pit opening in my stomach.
“Your request is denied,” He said, “Do you know why?”
“No, Sir,” I said.
“You have Brother Rats from China, Korea, and Japan. You have Brother Rats that won’t see their mothers for another year, if they’re lucky. Some of them won’t see their mothers for another two or three years. Your mother lives two hours away, you can see her in a month over winter break. You are not special, you are selfish. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Sir.” I said, because it was the only two words I could bring myself to say without crying. The thought of telling my mom that I was going to a football game instead of spending time with her after she’d just be released from rehab was too much in the moment, so I saluted and left the room. Eventually, later that spring, I left the Institute as well.
I wasn’t prepared for the brand of selflessness that the Institute was trying to instill in me. I wasn’t ready to accept it. It felt radical and backward, and maybe it was at times. No doctrine of radical selflessness is ever perfectly executed. But the more I reflect on these moments, the more I enter into those Worlds of Hurt, the better I feel I understand their lessons. I’m not prone to thinking of others before myself. I am, at my core, a selfish person.