For six weeks, he targeted me. Punishments for imagined insubordination. Latrine duty with tools so inappropriate the task became humiliation. Extra marches. Inspections designed to fail. He barked insults, sometimes creative in their cruelty, sometimes just blunt force meant to break the psyche.
“You do not belong here,” he once informed me in front of the formation. “America does not need people like you. We are defending something you will never understand.”
His words echoed those whispered through anonymous reports sent to Army Command. Reports we could never confirm. Reports that died in bureaucracy. That was why I had come. To be the proof.
Recruits began avoiding me. Isolation is contagious. Even Lila grew hesitant, torn between compassion and survival. On the rare nights when lights-out brought quiet, I could feel her watching me with guilt she did not owe.
It all came to a head one Friday during uniform inspection. My gear was immaculate. My boots reflected sunlight. There was no reason for Briggs to find fault, but he did not need one.
He stalked behind me like a storm building pressure.
“Your hair,” he observed softly.
“It meets regulation, First Sergeant.”