I return to my platoon just as quickly as I had left.

The Company Commander escorts me to my room in the dark passageway. I pack up my seabag again and am escorted back to my original room. I unpack all of my stuff and wait for the platoon to return from whatever activity they are doing. Once they return, I just waltz right in like nothing happened. During the next count-off on the bulkhead, our platoon is one person larger than the last time they formed up, and I think nobody really notices. Then the cadre announce,

 “Swab Matthews is back after a brief vacation where he quit and left his fellow swabs.”

Again, standing out for any reason in this environment is bad. Standing out because I quit and then changed my mind is very bad. The cadre are relentless, and my quitting is referenced nearly every time they talk to me.

“Swab Matthews, are you planning on quitting again today?”

“Swab Matthews, those push-ups look hard. Maybe you should just quit again.”

We also get some extra visits from the Company Commander now. Although he oversees three platoons, I am the only person who has been resurrected from quitting, and he wants to make sure I am here to stay. None of it really affects me. I have already put myself through enough hell. They can’t inflict any pain worse than what I’ve already said to myself.

Despite all the hardships there is starting to be some good coming out of all this. 

My mom loves spilling tea, so the second she gets home from her visit, most of Rhode Island knows that I tried to quit. As embarrassed as I am, it turns out to be a blessing. Every day, I get letters now. I hear from my godfather, who was my dad’s roommate at the Academy, my best friends from high school, aunts and uncles, cousins, my girlfriend’s parents and grandparents, and my mom nearly every day. No matter what hell I am going through, I look forward to being marched into the mailroom. The support I receive is incredible, and I am overwhelmed by how many people show up for me. Most days, I have to wait until I get back to my room to read the letters because nearly every one brings tears to my eyes. I am so accustomed to fighting alone and struggling in silence that I never could have imagined how many people were rooting for me.

I am essentially going through the world’s worst exposure therapy. Harvard Health defines exposure therapy as “a type of psychological therapy used to help people overcome problems such as phobias, panic attacks, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and obsessive-compulsive disorder. It involves exposing a person, in a safe environment, to the object, activity, or situation that they fear or struggle with.” I am definitely being exposed to the situations I struggle with, but I would not go so far as to say the environment is safe. If you happen to be struggling, I absolutely would NOT recommend Swab Summer as a means of overcoming your problems, but it does help me. Meal after meal, day after day, shave after shave, I realize that the sweat, the terrible shaving jobs, and the loss of control are not going to kill me.  I certainly have not been cured, but things are manageable.

There is also a light at the end of the tunnel. Swab Summer is due to end on August 18th, and, more importantly, Labor Day weekend begins on August 29th. I will get to return home for the first time. When the days are hard and I’m feeling defeated, I find myself daydreaming about that weekend at home with my family, friends, and girlfriend. I am most excited about seeing my girlfriend. I miss her terribly and can’t wait for her to see this upgraded military version of myself that has been forged through seven weeks of struggle. I daydream about it so often that I construct the entire scene in my mind.

In the 1982 blockbuster An Officer and a Gentleman, Zack Mayo, played by Richard Gere, is struggling through Officer Candidate School with dreams of becoming a pilot. Along the way, he develops a relationship with a local girl named Paula, played by Debra Winger. Zack nearly gets kicked out of Officer Candidate School, and Paula encourages him through many challenges. Everyone warns Paula that Zack will be like all the other cadets and leave her after graduation. (Spoiler alert) In the final scene, Zack has just graduated and is wearing his full dress whites. He barges into the factory where Paula is working while the hit song “Up Where We Belong” begins building in the background. He surprises Paula, and they share a passionate embrace. All of the factory workers cheer as he honeymoon carries her out of the factory and into their hopeful future.

This is the scene replaying in my mind for weeks. 

The back half of Swab Summer picks up speed as I make incredible friends and we share in the misery together. I suspect most people only like me because I am a lightning rod for the cadre. The focus is usually on the many things I am doing wrong and my friends all get a break.

During the final week of Swab Summer, we get to go aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Eagle, a 295-foot tall ship. By contrast, the Eagle cadre are nice and encouraging and begin to build us back up after six weeks of brutality. We spend the week climbing through the rigging, hauling on lines, and learning how to navigate. It is an unbelievable experience.

At the end of Swab Summer, we are finally presented with our fourth-class shoulder boards, and I swell with pride. I can’t believe I have made it through. The version of me who quit seven weeks ago seems like someone I barely know. We are rated by the cadre throughout Swab Summer, and as it concludes, we are ranked as a class for the first time based on our military performance.

I am dead last.

I’m not necessarily surprised, as I don’t think they grade quitting favorably, but I don’t care at all. 

Last still means I endured.

After Swab Summer, the regular academic year begins. We are moved out of our Swab Summer company and into our new company for fourth-class year. The schedule is a little more relaxed, but most of the same nonsense still applies. We still march everywhere. We still square meals. We are still asked useless information all day long. There is just slightly less screaming.

We are welcomed into our new company with a personnel inspection. We spend the entire weekend preparing our uniforms. We shine our shoes, polish our belt buckles, measure the proper distance between our name tags and pockets, remove every loose thread, and iron “military creases” into our shirts. We are ready to showcase everything we learned during Swab Summer to our new upper-class leadership.

A few minutes before heading to the inspection, I am fully dressed and proud of the uniform I’m wearing. I am ready for a fresh start with a new guidon and Company Commander, and I’m eager to put Swab Summer behind me. Moments before marching out to the inspection, I notice that my combination cover needs an adjustment. The white cloth fabric is stretched over an adjustable circular metal frame, and mine is a little too loose, causing the material to sag slightly. I open the small metal clasp and stretch the metal frame. My finger finds a sharp edge and gets sliced open. Bright red drops of blood immediately stain my pristine white combination cover. I have about one minute to fix the problem. I run to the bathroom and try to clean it. It is not possible and I also manage to get blood on my light blue shirt. I wrap my finger in paper towels and go into a full panic. I consider hiding in a closet. I consider going AWOL. I contemplate whether I can go to medical and miss the inspection.

There is no escape.

I march out for the inspection, and we all stand in neat rows. Everyone passes report to the Regimental Commander, and the Company Officers, Company Commanders, and guidons troop the line. They stop in front of each person, stare at their shoes, inspect every part of their uniform and search for the slightest discrepancy. At best, they say nothing. At worst, you can get restricted for the weekend if your uniform is a disaster. I’m worried that this blood-related infraction might mean I won’t get to go home for Labor Day weekend. The stakes are high. I feel a terrible sense of dread as the inspectors get closer and closer. When they approach, I am braced up at attention, my finger still wrapped in a bloody paper towel, blood on my shirt and all over my cover.

The guidon squares up in front of me.

He starts at my shoes.

“Shoes could come up a little bit.”

He moves up.

“Belt looks good.”

Then he gets to my shirt and finally looks up at the blood on my cover. I’m doomed. There is no way he misses it. I look like a crime scene.

“What happened here?”

“Sir, Swab…uh, Fourth Class Matthews was adjusting his cover and cut his finger.”

He is quiet for a moment as he assesses the damage. The finger. The shirt. The cover.

“Bleeding isn’t professional. Try not to get blood on your uniform next time.”

Then he walks off without saying another word.

I’m not sure what the procedure is. Do they tell me immediately if I fail? Am I already restricted? I spend the rest of the inspection, and most of the day, sweating over it, but nothing happens.

Once again, I have managed to stand out in front of new leadership for all the wrong reasons, but at least there are no consequences yet.

My Officer and a Gentleman reunion is within reach and it’s all I can think about.

After a couple of weeks of the school year, I finally make it to Labor Day weekend.

On Friday, I am all packed up and ready to go after class. My parents pick me up and drive me home. On the way, I feel so free. After a summer full of misery, I am finally getting a short reprieve from Academy life, and I am ecstatic. On the drive, I tell my parents everything about Swab Summer, the Eagle, and the start of the school year. I can tell how proud they are that I stuck with it and made it through the summer. The ride home is just over an hour, but it feels like an eternity.

Once we get home, I check my uniform one last time, get in my car, and speed over to my girlfriend’s house. As I approach, “Up Where We Belong” is playing in my head, and I prepare for my big moment. After so many weeks of military school, I am longing for this embrace. I want to feel someone love me, hold me, and tell me how proud they are of me. I ring the doorbell, and my girlfriend answers. She smiles, and I look into her beautiful eyes before pulling her into my arms. I squeeze her tight, and just as my movie moment is finally here, just as the scene I have been dreaming about is unfolding, she pulls away.

“Your pins on your uniform are poking me. Why are you even wearing that?”

I try again for my moment and desperately try to hold her tight, but there’s nothing there. As my dad would say, the hug “went over like a fart in church.”

I know something is wrong.

After some time at the house, she tells me that she isn’t feeling well and that we can hang out later. I return home absolutely destroyed. I am spiraling, running through every possible scenario in my head, and then her friend calls me.

I am surprised that she is calling and immediately know something is off. She tells me that my girlfriend “caught feelings” for one of the lifeguards I worked with. She says she wanted to tell me herself but couldn’t bear to do it. I confront my girlfriend. She admits to it, and we break up. She is my first love, and just like that, it is over. I am left heartbroken.

It hurts like hell, but I don’t blame her at all. She saw me at my weakest point. She watched me quit on the only dream I had ever had the moment things got tough. She was probably scared I would quit on her too. She deserved better. She deserved to be with someone who would be there no matter what, someone strong, someone who would never quit.

Author’s Note: I want to be clear that she was never a villain in my story. She is an incredible woman who helped me through a very difficult time in my life. I was FAR from perfect and had a lot of work to do on myself. We were young, the timing was wrong, and our lives took us in different directions. I will always be grateful for what she meant to me and for the ways she and her family supported me when I was at my lowest point.