Internment of Innocents

02/10/202002/16/2020

Internment of Innocents

…

Memorandum for Record

For Official Release to the US Army upon completion of Spc. (Name Redacted) final mission

Subject: Internment of Innocents

Point of Contact for this action is REDACTED

Secondary Point of Contact for this action is REDACTED

I am a woman with no country.

It is because of this indisputable fact that I, the undersigned, do entirely testify with reasons listed in this missive that are the only qualifying factors as to why I had to do what I did. When this is read, it will likely result in a posthumous court martial and strip of rank. I accept that. I admit that I committed a war crime, but I maintain that it was entirely just.

Therefore, the reasons for my treason are as follows, listed chronologically.

The fat American man asked about my accent after I served him his fourth beer and set down a plate of greasy chicken doused in Tabasco with a thud, like his hand hitting the table to enunciate through his broken teeth.

His accent, Texas thick.

Almost Russian, mine, but not entirely. Thanks be to God. No trilling of the tongue, rolling r sound; no exact pronunciation of heavy consonant verbs.

I feigned a smile; forced myself to keep his gaze; imagined a life across the water where women are forced to wear scarves and men behave like this, just the same here as there, only here I’m expected to voice dissidence, until I’ve said too much, and then it’s man versus woman, just like there.

His thick pinky, the wick of the nail chewed back with weeks’ old dirt left behind, red and angry, traced a shadow across my hand. I kept it there on the table. Angry.

I imagined the way I would react if I weren’t working for tips, if he wasn’t a customer and I didn’t need this job. Broke again, only this time without more than just money, I’d be forced to start over again.

His pinky moved from my hand to my elbow. My skin prickled underneath his touch, involuntary goosebumps that he noticed—that encouraged him. From my middle forearm to my elbow, his pinky slowly skip-hopped between the freckles on my arm. He paused, just there.

I can still look at my arm and feel it. But I didn’t move.

He looked at me, searching. I don’t know if he was asking for permission or refusal, some kind of abject acceptance that as a man, his will is his own. As a woman, my will is his.

Infinitely confounded with the impossibility of grief not yet felt, I knew that encouragement would mean on my next round, his hand would accidentally bump against my thigh, graze against my backside, leading to a grope somewhere in between his fifth and seventh beers. He’s a regular; I’ve watched him do this with other women who are as despondent as me, forced into impossible cages where we pace, inwardly snarling and walking ourselves ragged around the same room, day in and out.

I made my eyes wait with conformed stillness, staring straight ahead and sought a reprieve. I refused to look down, to watch that disgusting finger leave a faint glimmer of grease and sauce. I scanned frantically for someone to help me. A fellow waitress. Another customer.

Absently searching for my anonymous face against the rest of the big-tit women in short shorts who lean provocatively against their customers to get bigger tips. I could never be them.

This is my fault. I looked down.

His grin, maniacal and overstuffed with vile. He knew I couldn’t turn away. His desires and motives oblivious even to him; this primal urge to touch, to force, to claim. I am not a gun, but I wish I were a bullet.

For him, for every single replication of him, I am a whim.

Trapped. Clipped. Caged.

He is hyper-masculine because he has been taught that’s the only way for a man to be in this world. Like cousin Halid, forced to be tough, rigid, reserved. Until they caught Halid and coerced his confession.

But this fat American customer quietly and in waves forced himself on me, pushed further, moved his hand from my elbow to the top of my shoulder and then swept along the rise of my right breast. This makes him nothing like Halid. For Halid, being different meant exclusion and execution.

We all learned the lesson well in Mother’s house. We must conform. No need to burn bright, make no cause to draw attention.

I feigned a smile because I didn’t know what else to do. Mumbled something about getting him another drink, deftly removed my arm from that phallic pinky, and padded off toward the kitchen with the Mexican cooks who knew enough about women to know when to leave me well alone.

The inability for every customer service representative to understand me. I need to do this right, I have to make it work. Here in this country of wide open spaces and too many chains to count, fenced in by bureaucracy and the inability to conform.

The immediacy of looking out for anything familiar, and when nothing was available, reverting to memories of middle space, when Chechen existence seemed more wholesome than it ever was in reality.

Knowing, even when we were small children, that Halid was different, and for that he would eventually suffer. He pretended he wasn’t and I pretended he was stronger.

The distinct urge to protect him, blood but separated by a family. My mother’s refusal to show affection to either of us in the company of Halid’s father.

The slow afternoons of playing together in the dirt, inventing futures for ourselves that we knew would never come to light.

“I’ve already killed him, whom I ought to kill. And those, who stay behind him, I will be killing them, to the very last of them, until I am myself killed or jailed. I will be killing [them] for as long as I live…”

Ramzan Kadyrov

The pain in his eyes when I told him in secret I was never coming back.

The knowing that he would die if I left him there alone.

The knowing that I would live.

The sense of profound loss for a country I never understood. A loss so profound that numbing myself with American television would only graze the surface of the pain.

The lie I told myself to that in order learn my new culture, I must forget, I must erase the longing of home.

The feathered belief that my choice was for a greater good; that through my actions, my act of treason, I would become strong. I would become more than who I could have been.

The knowing that the phrase “over there” eventually will become a euphemism for everything I miss. Everything I don’t understand.

The Puerto Rican girl I befriended, because I was so lonely. She told me her brother had just enlisted, efficiently planting a seed that took a long line of paperwork to grow into who I am now.

The Soldier’s Creed: I am an American Soldier.

The recruiter who sternly told me there was no way I’d get commissioned. Too much conflict in my home region, the turmoil spilling over like hot heat in Assad’s desert. And later, in the same interview, asking me, “Are you sure you’re not a Muslim?” As if I’d forget something as categorizing as that. I lie, shake my head, reiterate that we are not a religious family.

The sound of the door closing as I walked away, suddenly unsure of my choice, my head hanging low with the inability to decide.

The news reports from Chechnya tossed words around without connotation or inflection; my loss of language was profound. Broadcasts without any understanding or connection to humanity. A country so backward it doesn’t even recognize a slur when it uses one. Gays rounded up. Pogrom. Torture camps.

The knowing that Halid would be amongst them, our family too prominent to escape Kadyrov’s reach.

The middle space between being a cocktail waitress and walking into that recruiting station, forever sealing the course of this, my one life.

The searching out of something Orthodox, a soft billowy priest who might bless me, forgive my transgressions, who might finally, fully know my intention. A hollow space when I discovered buried this deep in Texas; Orthodox isn’t something anyone can understand.

The inability to confess with excruciating precision of language lost between transliteration and just wanting to speak, that my only and best friend of my life, hallmarked different by an oppressive regime, would be whisked away with national fervor and acclaim.

The reentering of that same recruiting station, my shame billowing.

The recruiter asking me if I understood: mission comes first, then god, then country. Staring at my last name. The silent question: if I pray five times a day, or am I one of those secular types. My eyes scanned the threadbare carpet, looking for answers. I am none of these things.

Bright white lights of the battalion classroom, briefs, and meetings, subordinate to the officers, who I know I out-smart, out-wit, out-perform. The sinking, hollow feeling of knowing that before the before is no longer, and the future impossible to discern.

The lost catch in my mother’s voice when I call on my lunch break, and it’s middle of the night dark at home, her sleepy willowness whispering through the line.

The ignorance of my birthplace, now tattooed on my career.

The impossibility of my fellow Soldiers to hear me clearly; me, tripping and stumbling over the English-language and its sound configurations.

The wailing child at the brigade gym where I come for refuge, where I come to escape my thoughts. Instincts unknown compelling me to comfort the toddler. The sight of Halid in the face of the youngster, wondering if my cousin survived that torture.

The woman in line at Walmart asking about my food choices. She’s the same cashier every week, blue faded polo shirt, her nametag haphazardly affixed that reads Misty. I miss the pop-up stands of farmers selling root vegetables still encrusted with dirt, old grandmothers knitting away their hours under the tent making scarves for grandchildren who will toss them aside for something more mainstream, something more modern.

The oppressive knowing that when I’m in uniform, I’m supposed to be dripping with patriotism. Patriot I am to this forgiving and fantastic country that welcomed me, allowed me to breathe and cut my hair short and force down my breasts; this country that gave me the chance to compete with men, unabashed and with gusto; this country I have sworn to defend, no matter the costs.

The absence of even a thin band on my hand, second to the last finger, something like what my mother wore for years while my father was on his own missions, in his own field. But that was before ’91, the first war, when we were comfortable being a glob on the wheel in the conglomerate of the Soviet cog.

The judgment from people who search for a way to connect with me but see none. Me, the immigrant woman with no business being in artillery, who shouldn’t be carting rounds and using my azimuth to chart the coordinates that First Sergeants shout at me.

The drill of practice, the officer’s credo, “Trust by Verify” crossing the sides of the house and coming over to us non-commissioned folks, the Army encourages repetition that way—not until we get it right, but until we can’t get it wrong.

The parking lots with Girl Scout stands, the litany of big trucks with confederate flags and bumper stickers that read, “Don’t Tread on Me,” and all I can wonder is what I’m doing here, so far from home.

The clerk at the library who pretended not to notice my obsessive internet searching on all things from the country I left behind. My last name gives me away, emblazoned on my uniform. On my right arm, the US flag and fuzz underneath. There’s hope yet that someone somewhere will push us into another conflict and I’ll get a chance to earn the colors I wear.

The relief of receiving orders to deploy.

The absence of news of Halid, even as the conflict rages on. Mother’s voice cascading between shrill disbelief at the prospect of me heading off to war coupled with the inability to understand I will fight for America and not Chechnya.

The hollow in my throat, reading all the news available. There is little, and it is hard to find. Torture camps, extolled as being virtuous and redeemers of the Prophet Muhammed. Countless lives lost, the sheer pride of the Chechen government for their executions of those they deemed unworthy.

The complete absence of a news cycle in America about anything going on at home.

The truth that I have no home to go to.

The knowledge that I will never forgive his death, his imminent disappearance from our lives as if he never existed.

The unknowing.

The perfectly petite blond newscaster on Fox, the only channel shown on post, in a breaking news alert, speaking slowing and enunciating clearly that this new country of mine is going to war against Syria.

The immediate furious internet searches following that announcement, looking for confirmation that Russia would send troops as well. Why kill Russian soldiers when Chechens will do just fine in their place? Kadyrov speaking on state television, quoted saying he would be happy to serve as Putin’s foot soldier.

The standstill absence of any news about the deaths, internment of innocents. Truth has disappeared, and with it, news of my sweet dear cousin.

The decision that I must find a way to redeem Halid.

The shame of knowing what I’m going to do in theater, given the chance.

The rest of my unit, charged and scared, pretending that together we are stronger. I know better.

The sad truth that Halid didn’t. He couldn’t know. Ramzan’s satisfaction with torture is far too complete.

The grit of sand in the box and my immobility to do what I came to do.

The duality of seeking the enemy that is both Syrian and Chechen. I want to defend my country against Syria but I have other motives that run deeper.

The truth that I seek to kill a Chechen as a small example of reclamation for Halid.

The truth that when I leave here, my twelve-month rotation complete, I will be a killer, but I will be a redeemer.

The last letter ever from Halid, somehow finding me in the middle of a desert signed with a name I do not know. He is lost, and because of it, I will be lost forever too.

The seeking out at night, on patrol, of the uniform I’d grown up with.

The knowledge that uniform is not a friendly.

The enemy, standing right before me.

The smooth pull of my weapon from its holster, a release of metal from firing chamber, breathless and in control. Now, I am the bullet.

The lauds of success from my fellow Soldiers for killing insurgents.

The inability to recognize the ally among them.

The cold fear at night that I will be uncovered for what I’ve done.

The memory of Halid lost to the coffers of a regime that pretends it is not.

The remainder of my tour lost in delirium for what I’d done, for what I’d gotten away with.

The return flight home, debriefed and released back to my unit.

The cold stone of the Baptist church floor as I kneeled, prayed, my head covered. Orthodox or not, I seek my salvation.

The knowing that I’d done right, and I’d done wrong.

The shaking of the bottle of sleeping pills prescribed by my primary care manager, whose job is not to tend but to manage, because clearly, me, the soldier, cannot care for herself.

The warm greeting from the woman at Fluffy’s, the liquor store in town, who joked that I signed the sales slip with my blood. Crimson from my ears to throat. She must have known.

The four bottles of wine contained in a box that turned my stomach sour and flipped the world upside down but which I drank like grog, in its entirety.

The slow rush of warm water in the bath that always manages to leave behind black particles of sediment, my soul, I’m sure, flaking off into small discernable pieces.

The first cut.

The last swallow.

The final release.

I am a woman whose country has been erased between miles of the Atlantic, rubbed out when I took that oath on the last day of basic training at Fort Sill, as I swore to uphold the constitution with tears streaming down my face, but still I remained impassive. Now crying for Chechnya. Crying for myself.
If you want to have a happier life, you must practice forgiveness.

This is what Halid said to me, long before I knew what the words would mean.

Signed, this day, in full clarity of mind.

Spc. (Name Redacted), Soldier, US Army

Author note: This is a work of fiction though the “gay purges” in Chechnya are ongoing, though largely ignored by western media. You can read more about these atrocities here.