Not Uniform

Despite persistent protestations that I wasn't re-enlisting, I found myself standing before one of the only officers I actually respected one frigid December day. As the perpetual Wyoming winds whistled through the cracks of the old cavalry barn that was our office, I raised my right hand and swore to support and defend the constitution for another four years. All the lifers who'd expressed condemnation for my perceived critique of their lifestyle choice by wanting to punch my ticket at four years looked on with smug satisfaction. Another opinionated upstart had caved under the weight of oppression. I had bucked and thrashed against the all encompassing yoke of military life, straining against the restrictions it placed on my life- where I could live, what I wore, even who I could date and what I could do in the privacy of my own bedroom. I had resigned myself to some of these facts, had even penned a snarky missive I called my "resignation letter." Yet, here I was. The girl who was never going to join the military. Who didn't play team sports and eschewed all the popular trappings of high school life, and I had joined up and sold out, big time.
As a pessimistic pragmatist from a poor family, I couldn't pass up the deal they had offered me- work for them in a job perfect for people with anxiety and a sense of superiority by planning for and teaching about disasters, and they'd pay for college. We weren't even at war. Plus, this was the Air Force, the nerdy, pencil-pushing, business-suit wearing branch of the military.
After four years in the barren high plains of Cheyenne, Wyoming, at a base where three monolithic missiles stood sentry, I hadn't quite achieved my goal of completing college. Plus, in all honesty, I had discovered I loved teaching. So despite my deepest reservations, I re-enlisted, with the promise of a new position at Fort Lost In The Woods Missouri as an instructor.  It may not have been a dream location- with its relentless humidity that left a person ceaselessly sweaty in the summer, bone-chillingly cold in the winter, and prevalence of poisonous insects and snakes.  But it was a dream for me.  Here, I'd get to teach full time and finish my degree, undistracted by anything resembling entertainment since the hallmark destinations of the town were a single super Wal-Mart and Ruby Tuesday's restaurant swarming with new recruits.
At first, things were all right.  I sat, straddling the bench with one leg in the gazebo and the other out so I could breathe fresh air and look at the clear sky above, while the other instructors smoked and swapped stories.  I gritted my teeth and forced my eyes not to roll whenever someone told me to "have a great Air Force day," just like I always had. I pretended to say the Airman's creed and sing the Air Force song, even though their words were meaningless to me.  But overall, I was happy.  I wanted to be here.  I could go into my classroom and shut my door and teach, leaving everything else behind.  And I was good at it, winning Non-commissioned officer of the month and Instructor of the Quarter awards for my performance.
One morning, as I wound my wet hair into a bun so tight that it pulled the corners of my eyes up in a mockery of cheerful attentiveness, I caught sight of myself and was startled by my appearance.  Who was this person looking back at me, wearing a uniform?  It couldn't be me.  I wasn't the uniform wearing type; I was an employee doing a job.  "This isn't you.  You just wear these clothes. You're not like them, you don't say your name is 'Sergeant' and shout the core values in formations while shunning them in practice.  You're not, as your Drill Sergeant would say, 'uniform, of one form. Alike," I tried to assure myself. 
Why was this reflection so jarring?  I had seen it every day for five years at this point.  Even though, unlike many of my peers who had been "voluntold" to take this job, I had volunteered.  Meticulously completing the application with the hope that I'd be picked to be one of the special few instructors, the cream of the crop, chosen to mold new recruits.
Just months into my tour, the formerly ice-encrusted dogwoods blossomed with pure white blooms that broke up the sea of green. They swarmed and buzzed with cicadas. My thin, brown tee shirt the color of the melted coffee ice cream that was Missouri mud on a spring day clung to my damp, sweaty skin.  My uniform, so stiff with starch that the creases stood out angular and rigid, crackled as my hand breached the fused fabric. It trapped the hot damp air against my body. It wasn't just the humidity and hot air that was trapped inside this airless, stiff confinement.  The hyper masculine, sexist environment had begun to take its toll on me.
One day, I overheard another instructor tell a female recruit that the reason for the new gendered uniforms that replaced the unisex ones was "so men can undress you faster."  Sadly, by this point, this wasn't an isolated incident, so I confronted him and was told, "It's a man's Air Force, so you should just get used to it."  I immediately became persona non grata around the office- hearing hushed tones, snide remarks, and sneering at every turn.  Even my "smoking buddies" abandoned me- I had raised a flag and now I was left to bear it alone. 
Each day, I welcomed the searing heat from the blood rushing to my feet after removing the shiny, polished boots that were cinched as tightly as my grandfather had tied my skates. Unwinding the bun, and letting the façade fall while my scalp tingled was a relief.  I wouldn't turn on the TV or radio for company at night, instead relishing the peace and solitude of a darkened, silent house.  I had never really belonged.  I couldn't muster the unwavering, unquestioning loyalty the total institution of military life demands. It was time to go.
What I hadn't realized was how naked I would feel without the uniform.  How it insulated and protected me, even as it trapped me.  How, years later, I would miss it- not because the edges had blurred and somehow obscured the negative, but because that is where the adult I became was forged.  I learned that I couldn't really relate to civilians.  That, thanks to my time in the military, even on the outside I would be an outsider.