WNBA Today, New City, New York, New City, NY (2025)

11/17/2025

In the suffocating heat of an Afghan ops tent, one soldier's fury over a battle gone wrong ignites a firestorm. His men were abandoned, left for dead, and he wants a name. But as accusations of betrayal fly, the real truth isn't in the shouts of the warriors. It's in the silent, terrifying grace of the one person they all dismissed.

The sound was like a bone breaking. Marcus Kane’s fist, wrapped in bruised knuckles and desert grime, slammed onto the metal briefing table. The crack echoed through the stifling air of the operations tent at Forward Operating Base Python, a gunshot in a room already thick with the ghosts of gunfire. His face, a roadmap of fresh cuts from three days ago, was a mask of pure, undiluted rage.

"You left us to die out there," he snarled, his voice a low growl that vibrated with betrayal. He jabbed a trembling finger toward the empty chair at the head of the table, a space reserved for specters and senior officers. "Ghost Seven. Whoever the hell that is, they abandoned us. Two kilometers out, a perfect overwatch position… and nothing."

Behind him, the eight remaining men of his SEAL team were a tableau of exhausted fury. They stood like pillars of salt, their eyes hard, their jaws set. Three wore the clean white of fresh arm slings, a stark contrast to their dust-caked fatigues. Two had their heads wrapped in bandages that were already beginning to show the faintest blush of seeping blood. All of them looked like they had clawed their way out of hell and dragged its dust and shadows back with them.

"We were pinned down," Marcus continued, his voice rising, pitching toward the ragged edge of control. "Two klicks out, perfect overwatch, and we get static. No comms, no shots, no backup. We called that S.O.S. twenty-three times. Twenty-three." The number hung in the air, each one a testament to a moment they thought was their last.

In a quiet corner of the tent, away from the heat of the confrontation, a small figure sat hunched over a medical kit. Her movements were methodical, economical, a quiet ritual of order in a world of chaos. Specialist Sarah Mitchell, twenty-seven, was carefully cleaning and repacking the instruments of her trade: gauze, tourniquets, hemostatic agents. With thin shoulders, gentle hands, and eyes that seemed permanently fixed on the task before her, she looked more like a graduate student cramming for finals than a combat medic. She was an anomaly, a whisper in a place that only understood shouts.

Lieutenant Brooks, a man whose arrogance was as starched as his uniform, sneered in her direction. "The medic," he muttered to Marcus, just loud enough for the entire tent to hear. "Can barely lift her own rifle, but somehow she’s the one patching up real warriors."

For the barest fraction of a second, Sarah’s hands paused their meticulous wrapping of a bandage roll. It was a hesitation so slight it was almost imperceptible, a skipped beat in a silent rhythm. Then, they resumed, just as quiet, just as precise as before. She didn't look up. She didn't speak. She just continued her work, a statue of deliberate indifference.

But some secrets aren't spoken. They are assembled, piece by piece, with the terrifying click of cold steel.

To be continued...

11/16/2025

In the war-torn desert, they captured a woman who refused to speak. She just stared at the hills where their men were, her silence a chilling prophecy. They saw a prisoner, but her stillness held a secret that could either save them all or lead to their utter destruction.

The smoke told the first part of the story. It was a thick, greasy smoke that tasted of burned rubber and something acridly chemical, a foul breath rolling through the shattered valley in the high desert. It coiled around the blackened, skeletal husks of technicals and supply trucks, clinging to twisted rebar that jutted from cratered earth like broken bones. The air, heavy and hot even in the late afternoon, trembled with a symphony of aftermath: the persistent crackle of fires stubbornly refusing to die, the low, gut-deep hum of generators powering the makeshift command post, and the distant, almost serene whine of engines idling in the American armored vehicles that now owned this patch of scorched ground.

This was the part of the job that never made it into the recruitment brochures. The cleanup. Boots, heavy with the grit of pulverized concrete and sand, crunched over a carpet of spent shell casings and shattered glass. Soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division moved with the methodical, almost weary grace of men who had done this a hundred times before. Their voices, calling out coordinates or shouting updates on potential IEDs, were sharp and businesslike, yet they echoed off the blasted rock faces with a lonely, hollow quality, as if the valley itself were mourning.

In the center of it all, commanding the chaos with a quiet authority that belied his thirty-one years, was Lieutenant Ryan Carter. A fine layer of pale dust caked his face, settling into the lines of exhaustion etched around his eyes. It was a specific kind of tired, one that went deeper than muscle and bone. It was the weariness of the soul that came from months of seeing the world in shades of tan and gray, of smelling nothing but sand and cordite, of making life-or-death decisions based on fuzzy intel and gut feelings.

He knew the cost of war. But he had no idea what he was about to see.
To be continued...

11/16/2025

He was 87, eating chili alone in the mess hall. A group of young Navy SEALs surrounded him. "What was your rank in the Stone Age, old-timer?" they laughed. They mocked his jacket, called the pin on his lapel a "cheap trinket." Then the Admiral burst in, flanked by Marines, and snapped to a salute.

“Hey Pop, what was your rank back in the stone age? Mess cook third class?”

The voice was slick, coated in the kind of unearned confidence that only comes from a body at its absolute physical peak. It cut through the low, familiar hum of the mess hall. It belonged to a young man, a Petty Officer named Miller, a Navy SEAL. His neck was thicker than my thigh.

He stood with two of his teammates. They were titans, all of them. Young gods in digital camouflage, their trays piled high with the thousands of calories needed to forge human weapons. They formed a tight, intimidating triangle around my small, square table.

A table for one.

I didn't look up from my chili. At 87, you learn to appreciate the simple things. Today, the chili was good. Not too much salt. I brought a spoonful to my lips. My hand was steady, a strange, loyal servant to the wrinkled, liver-spotted skin that covered it.

I wore a simple tweed jacket. It was out of place here, I knew. A relic, just like the man wearing it. A wool-and-thread ghost amidst a sea of high-tech fibers and navy blue.

I chewed. Slowly. Deliberately. My gaze was fixed on a point somewhere beyond the far wall of the bustling Naval Amphibious Base Coronado dining facility. I wasn't just staring at a wall. I was looking at a beach in the Philippines, 60 years gone.

Miller smirked at his buddies. They chuckled, the appreciative hooting of a loyal pack.

“I’m talking to you, old-timer. This is a military installation. You got to have a pass to be here. Or did you just wander in from the retirement home looking for a free lunch?”

The sound of the mess hall began to change.

It was never quiet, not really. But the dull roar of a hundred separate conversations began to falter. The background noise—the clatter of forks on ceramic, the scrape of chairs—it didn't stop, but it thinned out. Heads were beginning to turn.

This was more than just a performance. And I was the unwilling centerpiece.

I finished my spoonful of chili. I placed the spoon down gently beside my bowl. The metal made no sound against the plastic tray. My movements are economical. I have no energy to waste.

I still hadn't looked at him.

This placid refusal to engage, it was like gasoline on his fire. He leaned in, planting his massive, tattooed forearms on the table. It was a clear invasion of my space. The table, bolted to the floor, didn't so much as shudder.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

His voice dropped. The mocking tenor was gone, replaced by a low growl. The growl of a predator.

“We have standards here. We don’t just let any civilian stroll in and take up a table. So, I’m going to ask you again: Who are you, and what are you doing on my base?”

My base. That possessive, it hung in the air. Thick and odious.

I saw a few younger sailors at nearby tables shift. They looked uncomfortable. They knew Miller. They knew his reputation. A phenomenal operator, a warrior of the highest caliber. But he carried his Trident—the symbol of the SEALs—like a scepter, and treated anyone outside his elite circle with a casual, biting contempt.

I finally turned my head.

I let my eyes, pale and watery with age, meet his. I know what he saw. An old man. Weakness.

But I saw a child.

A child playing a game of war, dressed in his father’s clothes. He had no idea what the uniform truly represented. He had no idea the cost. The silence in my eyes, the deep, profound weariness, was a language he couldn't understand. It was like looking at the surface of a frozen lake, calm and reflective, hinting at the immense, crushing pressure hidden beneath.

I looked at his face. I looked at the gold Trident pinned to his chest. Then I looked back into his eyes.

And I said nothing.

“What? You deaf?” One of his friends chimed in, leaning over his shoulder. “He asked you a question.”

“Let me see some ID,” Miller demanded, straightening up. His hand gestured impatiently. “Now.”

This was a gross overstep. Everyone in the room knew it. A Petty Officer has no right to demand identification from a visitor in a common area. That’s the job of the Master-at-Arms. Base security.

But no one moved. No one spoke.

Who was going to call out a SEAL in the middle of the mess hall? The social cost was too high. It was easier to look away. To pretend you didn't hear. To suddenly find your green beans intensely fascinating.

I reached, not for my wallet, but for my cup of water. I took a slow sip.

The silence around my table was almost absolute now. The tension was a living thing, coiling in the air, waiting to strike.

Miller’s face was flushing. A deep, angry red. His public challenge, his display of dominance, was being met with quiet, implacable indifference. And in the rigid hierarchy of military life, that was an intolerable sign of disrespect. He was being made to look foolish.

“That’s it,” Miller snapped. “You and me, we’re taking a walk to see the MAA. Get up. Now.”

His eyes darted down. He pointed to my lapel. To the small, tarnished pin on my tweed jacket. It’s a simple design. A pair of stylized wings, a small shield in the center. Its details are worn smooth with age, with decades of my thumb rubbing over it.

“And you can explain what that cheap little trinket is. You buy that at the surplus store to impress the ladies?”

His finger jabbed dismissively toward the pin.

And just like that, the world dissolved.

The smell of industrial-grade chili and bleach was gone.

It was replaced by the scent of ozone. Of damp earth. Of cordite.

The low murmur of the mess hall became the high-pitched, terrifying scream of a diving Zero. The percussive thump-thump-thump of anti-aircraft fire wasn't a sound. It was a feeling, echoing in my bones, rattling my teeth.

I felt a phantom pressure on my shoulder. A young man’s hand. Strong. Sure.

A voice. Barely a whisper, but it cut through the roar of battle.

“See you on the other side, Ghost.”

It was a flash, a single frame of film from a lifetime ago, but it was as real as the table in front of me. As real as the arrogant boy standing over me.

That pin on my lapel was not a trinket.

It was a promise.

It was the last thing my team leader, Mike, ever gave me. He pressed it into my palm as he bled out on the black sand of Luzon.

It’s a ghost of a memory. For the Ghost of Luzon.

I blinked. The mess hall solidified around me. Miller’s angry face was inches from my own.

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11/16/2025

"Can I Have Your Scraps, Ma'am?" The homeless man, on his knees in a five-star restaurant, begged for my leftovers. He held two newborn babies in his arms in desperation. When he looked up, my world collapsed. By some miracle, I followed him into the darkness of Chicago, and on an abandoned bus, I found the one thing my billions of dollars couldn’t buy...

Tuesday night. Chicago. Rain. The kind of miserable, bone-chilling rain that defines the city in October.

My name is Olivia Hartman. I’m 31 years old, and I am the self-made fashion mogul you’ve read about in Forbes. My company, Hartman L’UX, is the brand America’s elite wears. My face is on the cover of magazines. My penthouse is a three-floor glass box overlooking Lake Michigan.

And I was completely, utterly, devastatingly empty.

The fork in my hand felt heavy. The risotto, which I knew cost $150 a plate, tasted like ash. I was dressed in a sleek, midnight-blue dress from my own upcoming collection, a cascade of real diamonds at my wrist. I was the image of success. I was also a fraud, a shell, a woman so walled-off she couldn’t feel a single, genuine thing.

My last relationship, with a crypto billionaire named Alex, had ended exactly how I predicted. He didn’t love me; he loved the idea of me, the “power couple” narrative, the access my name gave him. When I cut him off, he’d tried to sue for “emotional damages.” My lawyer had laughed. I had just felt… tired.

They all wanted something. They always wanted my money.

I was pushing the duck around my plate, listening to the buzz of low, self-important conversations and the soft clink of silver on china, when a voice cut through the noise. It didn’t just cut through it; it shattered it.

“Excuse me, ma’am… can I have your scraps?”

The entire restaurant went silent. Not “quiet.” Silent. The kind of silence that happens after a car crash.

I turned.

He was kneeling.

Not standing, not begging. Kneeling. As if in prayer, right there on the polished marble floor next to my table.

He was a wreck. A ghost. He was soaked to the bone from the rain, his thin suit jacket—decades old and ripped at the shoulder—clinging to his frame. His shoes didn’t match. His face was streaked with city grime.

But that’s not what made my breath catch.

Strapped to his chest, bundled in a filthy gray blanket, were two babies.

They were so small I almost didn’t see them. Their faces were pale, their tiny cheeks hollow, their eyes too tired and weak to even cry. They just… existed. A silent, heartbreaking testament.

He wasn’t begging for himself. His eyes, when they met mine, held no self-pity. They weren’t asking me for anything. They were just… hollowed out. His voice, when he spoke again, trembled only for his daughters.

“Please. They… they haven’t eaten.”

A gasp rippled through the room. A woman at the next table, dripping in pearls, visibly recoiled.

“Disgusting,” she hissed.

Bruno, the head of security and a man built like a refrigerator, was already moving, his hand on his earpiece.

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to…”

“Stop.”

My voice came out colder, sharper than I intended. Bruno froze.

I looked at the man. And he… he just looked down, as if expecting the blow.

“Let him stay,” I said, my voice quiet but carrying in the dead silence.

I took my plate—my untouched, $150-dollar-a-plate risotto and duck—and I pushed it toward him. Right off the table, into his hands.

“Feed them,” I said.

The man—I didn’t even know his name—flinched, as if he couldn’t believe it. He looked at the plate, then at me.

Right there, on the floor of the most exclusive restaurant in Chicago, he took my silver fork. His hands, chapped and black with dirt, were surprisingly gentle. He mashed a tiny piece of the risotto, made sure it was small, and brought it to the lips of the first baby. Her tiny mouth opened, like a baby bird. Then he did it for the second.

One bite at a time. One mouth, then the other. Patient. Loving.

Not a single, tiny morsel touched his own lips. His own stomach was probably caving in on itself. He didn’t care.

I had built walls of steel and glass around my heart to protect my fortune from a world of takers. And in ten seconds, this man—this ghost—had torn them all down. I was staring at something I hadn’t seen in my entire life. Not in the boardrooms, not in the galas, not in the arms of the billionaires I’d dated.

I was looking at a love that asked for nothing.

The room was staring. But I was no longer one of them. I was transfixed.

When the plate was clean, he carefully set it down. He didn’t ask for more. He didn’t ask for money. He just started to get up, pulling the filthy blanket tighter around the twins.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he whispered, his eyes on the floor.

He turned to leave, and Bruno just… stepped aside.

The restaurant un-paused. The chatter slowly returned, though now it was all about him, about me. The manager was already rushing over, his face pale, no doubt to apologize profusely.

I didn’t hear him. I threw a black Amex card on the table.

“Pay my bill. And everyone else’s. I’m leaving.”

“Ms. Hartman, please…”

I didn’t listen. I grabbed my coat and ran out into the rain.

I couldn’t get the image out of my head. The hollow eyes of the father. The silent, trusting faces of his children.

“Miguel!” I yelled to my driver, who was waiting by the black SUV. He jumped out to open my door.

“Where to, Ms. Hartman?”

I looked down the street. The man was just a silhouette, half a block away, walking slowly, trying to shield the babies from the rain.

“Follow him.”

“Ma’am?” Miguel looked confused. “Home?”

“No. Follow him. Stay a block behind. Don’t lose him.”

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11/16/2025

He saw a woman sitting alone and decided to make her his target. In a room full of warriors, he thought she was the only one who wasn't. He mistook her profound stillness for fear, her silence for surrender. He was about to learn that some storms don’t announce themselves with thunder.

The dining facility at Forward Operating Base Falcon Ridge hummed with the steady, reassuring noise of a world trying to feel normal. It was a symphony of the mundane: the scrape of metal silverware on ceramic plates, the low murmur of conversations about home or the next patrol, and, just outside the plywood walls, the relentless, throbbing heartbeat of the generators that kept the lights on and the war running. Soldiers, clad in dusty fatigues, moved in a constant, weary flow, their boots leaving faint trails on the scuffed linoleum floor as they slid their trays along the steam-shrouded metal counters. It was a place of brief respite, a temporary truce with the heat and the tension that clung to everything else on the base.

In the far corner, tucked away from the boisterous laughter and the easy camaraderie, Chief Petty Officer Clare Donovan sat alone. At thirty-four, she had a small, compact frame that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it, and her dark hair was pulled back in a severe, immaculate knot. She was an island of stillness in the constant current of the room. Her eyes, focused and intense, scanned the encrypted schematics glowing on her tablet as she took small, methodical bites of her food. She made no sound, attracted no attention, folded herself into the background so effectively that most days, she was little more than a ghost in the machine of the base’s daily life. People’s eyes slid right over her.

But today, that comfortable anonymity was about to be shattered. A storm, refusing to honor the fragile peace of the dining hall, blew in through the doors. It came in the form of three men, led by Gunnery Sergeant Cole Maddox. Maddox was a man built of noise and sharp angles. Broad-shouldered, with a chest that strained the fabric of his uniform, he moved with the swagger of someone who believed the world was his to command. Their path cut a direct line to Clare’s corner. Maddox loomed over her table, his large frame casting a sudden, eclipsing shadow that fell across her tray and tablet. The ambient noise of the room seemed to shrink, drawing in toward this single point of confrontation.

“Well, well,” Maddox’s voice boomed, a theatrical, condescending drawl. “Look what we’ve got here. The Navy’s little ghost.” He leaned in, palms flat on her table, his proximity a calculated act of intimidation. “Still pretending to be a warrior, Donovan? Or did you finally admit you’re just a five-foot-nothing tech girl who washed out of a real unit?” Each insult was a performance, pitched just loud enough to draw eyes. The entire dining facility had frozen. Forks paused halfway to mouths. Conversations died in throats.

The silence was absolute, a held breath waiting for her to break. But some people don't break. They simply recalibrate.
To be continued...

11/16/2025

"What was your rank in the stone age, Grandpa?" The Major’s voice dripped with contempt. He thought I was just some old man, a "nobody." He jabbed a finger at my chest, humiliating me in front of his Marines. He didn't know his entire career was about to shatter. And he didn't know the four-star General who just walked in... was the man whose life I saved.

The voice was sharp, slick, with an arrogance that only youth and unearned authority can produce.

"So, what was your rank back in the stone age, Grandpa? Sergeant of the Mess Hall?"

It sliced through the quiet hum of the administrative office, a sterile place of gray cubicles and the faint smell of ozone. Every head in the room, mostly young Marines in crisp uniforms, instinctively looked up. I felt their eyes on me, but I didn't turn. Not yet.

They saw Major Kent, his chest puffed out, leaning against a filing cabinet. He had a smirk that didn't reach his cold, assessing eyes. His target was me.

I just stood there, patient, by the front desk. I’m 80-something years old, with a full head of thick, snow-white hair, combed neat. I was just wearing my old dark blue windbreaker, faded jeans, and work boots that had seen better decades. Age has stooped my shoulders, just a bit, but there's a stiffness there, a density that never left.

My forearms, below the rolled-up sleeves of my flannel, are still thick. The kind of muscle you get from a lifetime of hard work, not a gym. My hands, gnarled and mapped with lines, rested calm on the countertop. They don’t shake. They’ve never shaken.

I turned my head slowly. My eyes met the Major’s. They’re pale, clear blue. They’ve been told they’re steady. They held no anger, no offense. Just quiet observation.

"It's been a while, Major," I said. My voice is a low, gravelly rumble. Always has been.

Major Kent chuckled, a short, barking sound that graded on the nerves. "I'll bet it has. What brings you here, Pops? Trying to reenlist?" He gestured dismissively at my jacket. "Let me guess. You found some old pin in a cereal box and thought you'd come down and tell us some war stories."

My gaze didn't waver. I gave a slight shake of my head. "I'm just here to update an old identification card."

"An ID card?" Kent pushed himself off the cabinet and swaggered over, circling me like a predator. He was tall, fit, immaculate. His medals gleamed. "What kind of ID? You a dependent? A retired civilian contractor?"

He leaned in close, lowering his voice into a conspiratorial whisper that was loud enough for the whole office to hear. "Come on, tell me. I'm dying to know what rank you held that makes you think you can just wander in here."

I finally looked away from him, my eyes drifting towards the large Marine Corps emblem on the wall. The Eagle, Globe, and Anchor. I saw right through it, my focus miles and years away.

"My rank wasn't important," I said softly. "The job was."

This seemed to infuriate him. My calm, my refusal to be baited, it was like sandpaper on his ego.

"Not important?" he scoffed. "Rank is everything. It's order. It's respect. It's the difference between me..." He tapped the gleaming oak leaf on his collar. "...and you." He jabbed a finger towards my chest. "A nobody."

At the far end of the office, I saw a young Corporal named Sarah Jenkins. I’d seen her nameplate when I walked in. She was watching, her stomach twisting into a knot. She hated this. I could see it. She hated the way he was treating me. There was something about me, she must have felt, a kind of peace and power held in reserve that made the Major look like a petulant child.

My hands on the counter were perfectly still. Not a tremor.

"Sir," I said, my voice still even. "I don't want any trouble. I was just told this was the place to come."

"Trouble?" Kent laughed again. "Old-timer, you wouldn't know trouble if it bit you on your sagging backside. Now, show me this ID. Let's see what gives you the right to waste our time."

With a slow, deliberate motion, I reached inside my windbreaker. I pulled out my old leather wallet, the kind that folds over twice, held together more by memory than stitching.

As I fumbled with the clasp, my gnarled fingers brushed against a small metallic object pinned to the inside of my jacket. It was a simple, tarnished silver star, almost invisible against the dark lining.

Kent's eyes narrowed, catching the faint glint of metal. "What's that you've got there? Let me see that."

He reached out, his fingers closing around the lapel of my jacket.

The moment his hand touched the fabric, the world shifted.
..

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11/16/2025

I Was a Kid. I Was Cocky. I Was a Civilian. Then I Stepped Off a Bus at Parris Island. What Happened Next Was 54 Hours of Hell, 13 Weeks of Purgatory, and the Complete and Total Annihilation of the Person I Used to Be...

Inside Parris Island: What It Takes to Survive Marine Corps Boot Camp in 2025.

The bus doors hissed open, and the night air hit me. It wasn't air. It was a physical wall of sound.

"GET OFF. GET OFF. GET OFF. GET OFF."

It wasn't a request. It wasn't an instruction. It was a roar. A sound that ripped through the 3 AM stillness of the South Carolina low country. It was the sound of a god, or a demon, and it was coming from a man in a hat that looked like a park ranger's.

"YOU ARE NOW ABOARD THE UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS RECRUIT DEPOT, PARRIS ISLAND!"

I didn't walk. I fell. I stumbled out of the bus, my civilian shoes feeling stupid and heavy, and my eyes tried to make sense of the chaos. There was no chaos.

There was only a terrifying, shrieking, perfectly ordered system of which I was not a part. Until my feet hit the paint.

The Yellow Footprints.

They don't look like much. Just two splotches of yellow paint on the pavement. But they are a portal. The second my sneakers touched them, a man was in my face. His eyes were invisible under the shadow of his hat, but I could feel them. They were burning holes in my skull.

"YOU ARE ON MY FOOTPRINTS! YOU WILL STAND AT THE POSITION OF ATTENTION! YOUR HEAD AND EYES ARE TO THE FRONT! YOUR MOUTH IS SHUT! SHUT! SHUT!"

I slammed my mouth shut. I stared forward. My world shrank to the back of the recruit's head in front of me. This was it. The "receiving phase." I had read about it. I had watched videos.

I was not prepared.

We were swarmed. They were everywhere. Male Drill Instructors, female Drill Instructors. It didn't matter. They were not people. They were forces of nature, all screaming, all demanding, all enforcing a standard I couldn't even comprehend.

"GET INSIDE! FASTER! YOU ARE TOO SLOW!"

We ran. We ran everywhere. We ran to get in line. We ran to stand still.

Hours passed. Or maybe it was minutes. Time had already ceased to mean anything. In this blur, they herded us into a room with a bank of phones.

"YOU GET ONE. PHONE. CALL. YOU WILL READ THIS SCRIPT. YOU WILL NOT CHAT. YOU WILL NOT SAY 'I LOVE YOU.' YOU WILL READ THE SCRIPT. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?"

A collective, terrified.

"YES, SIR!"

I dialed my mom's number. My hands were shaking so bad I hit the wrong digit twice. The DI watched me. His eyes, just inches from mine.

She picked up, her voice thick with sleep.

"Hello?"

I took a breath. "Sir, this is Recruit [My Name]. This recruit has arrived safely at Parris Island." I had to read it. I couldn't mess it up.

"This recruit will contact you in 79 days with a new address."

I hung up. Before she could even say "What?" I hung up. The last link to my old life was severed.

The next 24 hours were a systematic erasure of me.

First, the barber.

"Sit down." A buzzing sound. I looked down, and the hair I had spent 18 years styling—my hair—was piling up on the floor. It was gone. All of us. We all looked the same. We were bald. We were sheep.

"Me or my will no longer be part of your vocabulary." A DI screamed this as we were ordered to put our civilian lives into a cardboard box. My clothes. My phone. My wallet. My individuality. It was taped up and shipped out.

We were issued our new clothes. Green. All of it. The same shirt, the same pants, the same boots. It wasn't a uniform. Not yet. It was a costume of equality.

And then, the "training" began.

They don't call it punishment. They call it "Incentive Training." IT.

I did something wrong. I don't even remember what. Maybe I looked at a DI. Maybe I didn't say "Sir" fast enough.

"YOU! GET DOWN!"

I was on the floor.

"PUSH-UPS! BEGIN!"

I pushed.

"MOUNTAIN CLIMBERS! GO!"

My legs pumped.

"BURPEES! UNTIL I GET TIRED!"

He never got tired. My muscles were on fire. Sweat was pouring into my eyes, but I couldn't wipe it. That would be a "move." That would be more IT.

The thought, the one the DIs count on, was right there. It was so loud it was screaming: Why am I here? And how do I get out of here?

I knew the answer. I had to be here. And the only way out was through.

But I'd just learned a lesson. I had violated an order. And I knew, with a burning certainty in my chest and my arms and my legs, I would never do that again. That's how they build discipline. From the ground up. From the pain up.

The first gate was the Initial StrengthTest. The IST.

"If you cannot pass this," a DI announced, his voice almost calm, which was even more terrifying, "you will be reassigned. You will not train. You will go to the 'Physical Conditioning Platoon.' You will be a 'Pork Chop.' You will be broken."

I'd never been "broken" in my life.

"Ready, begin."

The pull-up bar. The standard was three. Just three. How hard could that be?

My hands, slick with sweat, gripped the cold metal. I pulled. One. I dropped. I pulled again, my back and shoulders screaming. Two. I dropped. I swung my legs, I grunted, I used every fiber of will I had. Three. I collapsed, my arms shaking.

The plank. One minute and three seconds. My core felt like it was being ripped in half by a chain-saw.

"ONE MINUTE!" The DI's boot was an inch from my head. I didn't move.

The run. A mile and a half. In 13 minutes and 30 seconds. This wasn't a jog. This was a panicked sprint. My lungs felt like they were full of wet cement.

"LET'S GO! LET'S GO!"

I passed. I crossed the line. I didn't celebrate. I just bent over and tried not to puke.

The weak had been culled. For now.

Receiving was over. The real training was about to begin. We had cleared the first test, but we hadn't even met them yet.

We hadn't met our Drill Instructors....

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