Chapter Two - School of Music

From MCT, I was sent to the Armed Forces School of Music in Little Creek, Virginia. Again, I befriended the wrong people. Despite my expectations the school was not fun. I was surprised to find many of the other students had degrees in music, or had personal music tutors or private lessons. I only had my public school experience with music, which made me feel a little better when I disclosed my low audition score. However, many other scores didn’t seem much higher than mine either. We had various music classes from seven in the morning to three in the afternoon. Then, my personal instructor assigned me 25 hours of practice in the practice rooms. These hours were logged into the practice log book in the center of the practice room halls. I first got in trouble when a new friend, Valdez, got a new 2003 Mitsubishi Spider convertible from her parents. She was a clarinetist from Texas, and by her own admission, was a troublemaker in high school. Our other friend, Donovan, had a 1999 Firebird. Donovan was older than us, and had a Bachelor’s in Percussion. We were not permitted in private vehicles, because we were fresh from boot camp. The two convinced me to go with them to try out the new Spider, and Donovan wanted to show off his Firebird. I went in the car with Valdez and another clarinetist. The night ended as military police brought Donovan back to the school barracks because Valdez and Donovan began competing as to which car could to better donuts on ice in December. Unfortunately, we were directly under a Navy watch tower. The military police spoke with those of us in Valdez’s car let us go without telling our command. However, Donovan gave the police that spoke with him attitude, and they escorted him back to the command. We all endured repeated ass-chewings and a Page 11 for this.
Weeks later, I went to a shopping mall with Valdez. She brought me in a dressing room and showed me items she had shoved up her pant leg that she had stolen from previous shops we had gone to. I told her she needed to return them, but she retorted that she couldn’t because she would get caught. That night, I met Donovan in the smoke deck and told him about it. He insisted I tell our command. I told him I wouldn’t do that, but I had warned Valdez I wasn’t cool with what she had done. The next day, we were called into the Master Gunnery Sergeant’s office. We knew this must be bad, because he was the second highest in command of the Marine Corps branch at the school. He asked what we did over the weekend. After Valdez explained we went shopping, he asked if we paid for everything. Valdez immediately said “Yes”. I hesitated. I am a terrible liar, and I am not stupid. I knew if he was asking he must already know, and Valdez had already began digging herself a grave. My mind raced, and I quickly concluded the only person that could have told him was Donovan. Eventually, I said “Yes, Master Gunnery Sergeant, I paid for everything”. I specifically worded my answer so I hadn’t lied. I did pay for everything. Valdez hadn’t.
After we left the office, Valdez and I got into an argument. I insisted we come clean, and she begged me not to. I told her they must already know from Donovan, and we were only racking on problems with lies. I didn’t want to get into trouble for this anymore than we already would be, but she begged me. I told her I was going to speak with the command, and she could come with me or let me go alone to explain it. I told her I would let her go first, if she wanted to come clean. She declined. As I stood waiting to be recognized in front of the office, she stood behind me and begged me in Spanish not to tell. I spoke little Spanish but enough to converse with her. I told her she could step in front of me and go first, but I was going to come clean. She continued to plead and even offered me money.
The next moments were some of the most embarrassing of my Marine Corps career. Our Staff Sergeant and Master Gunnery Sergeant stood looking at me, waiting for me to explain. Instead, I cried. It was the first and last time I ever cried in front of other Marines, and I hate the fact I let it happen even once. I told them what happened, and they asked why I was crying. I explained that she was my friend, and I was betraying her. They seemed to sympathize with me, and told me I was a good person but I needed to stay away from her. They decided not to punish me, but ordered me not to speak to her anymore. Valdez lost rank and was fined money from her paycheck as punishment. On Valentine’s Day of 2004, we were both sitting in the pool hall across the street from the school. Most of the school went there every day. Today, we were the only ones in the hall as everyone else had left on a long weekend. She came over and talked with me. I knew we could get into trouble if we were caught talking, but I thought no one would see us. As we walked out of the pool hall, our Master Gunnery Sergeant drove by and stopped his car and shook his head before driving away again. For some stupid reason, I allowed Valdez to talk me into calling him on the phone to request to spend Valentine’s Day together since everyone else was gone. He said “No”, and hung up. Needless to say, this furthered the injury to my record. I was simply too passive and far too easily influenced.
My roommate acted as if she liked me, but I was never quite sure. She was a flutist, and was an incredible musician. She was a favorite of the command and instructors, although she struggled with her weight. She had been at the school much longer than I, and was further in her training. However, her curfew was at midnight on school nights, and she did not always obey this rule. One night, she didn’t come in until after curfew. She woke me up, and asked what time I had set the alarm clock. I told her 5:30AM. “Change it to five. I need to get up earlier.” She said as she got undressed in the dark. Half asleep, I rolled over and reset the clock. Then, I went to back to sleep.
“You have got to be kidding me!” I opened my eyes and saw one of the Corporals standing between our beds. I immediately noticed it was daylight, which meant we had really slept in. She told us we had thirty minutes to be at the school, and to go straight to the Staff Sergeant’s office. He was waiting. After she left, my roommate began to express how upset she was that I had set the clock wrong. I said nothing but thought bitterly, I was half asleep! Why don’t you get your own alarm? We stood in front of the Staff Sergeant, and my roommate explained that I had set the alarm wrong. Our Staff Sergeant didn’t punish us, but warned us this couldn’t happen again. I think I was only given just leniency on this situation because of my roommate. She was never in trouble, and it would have been seen as her issue more than mine because she was the higher ranking Marine. I don’t think anyone wanted to punish her for it.
Soon after, my roommate graduated. I had our room to myself. I had just gotten into bed, when I heard rocks hitting the glass of my window. I went over to find Donovan standing below. He shouted to my second story window. I asked what he was doing and he said he wanted to hang out. I said I couldn’t. My trouble with Valdez left me on the phase where I could not leave my room after curfew, and males were not permitted on the female floors. He said he would sneak up. I joked he was crazy and told him good night. Minutes later, I heard a knock at my door. I peered through the peep hole to see a figure in a parka standing in front of the door. I opened it, and realized Donovan hadn’t been kidding. His face was hidden by the hood of his parka and he said “Let me in! There is someone in the laundry room. They will see me!” Foolishly, I let him in. However, I was upset. “You need to go, Donovan!” He argued that he couldn’t because people would see him in the halls. I said “Then you are going out the window!” He looked shocked. “We are on the second floor!” I told him I didn’t care, because I didn’t want to get into anymore trouble. Then, there was another knock at the door. Donovan jumped behind the door in the bathroom. It was an awful hiding place, because the mirror exposed him quite plainly. Yet, I didn’t have time to tell him how poorly his choice in hiding places was. The staff duty and an Army female came into my room explaining they saw a male come up to the second floor on the security cameras. They were going through all of the rooms to find him. The staff duty had brought a female to look through the rooms. She did a quick check, and did not turn the light on in the bathroom. She either pretended not to see Donovan, or she missed him completely.
After they left, I made Donovan go out the window. The walls on either sides of the windows protruded out. I watch from above as he climbed down the wall in his parka and flip-flops by pressing his back against one protruded side and walked down the other. Then, all at once his flip-flop slipped from his foot and I watched him fall from the wall. In an instant, the bushes below consumed him, and I could no longer see where he was. I closed my window and sat and watched. A few moments later he emerged from the bushes and ran into the darkness. However, our efforts were futile. A roving duty had seen him fall from my window. The staff duty made me write out a statement of what happened. Little did I know, he was having Donovan writing the same thing. When our stories didn’t match, we were both threatened with the same fate a Valdez, but it was never fully pursued. I never came clean about his unexpected visit. I don’t know why. Illogically, I think I thought I would be saving him from punishment. I still had not learned.
Another complication arose with a fellow clarinetist named Jimenez. He had a problem touching women, and despite the sassy attitude of Valdez’s roommate, she froze when he began touching her uninvitingly. He began to develop a whispered reputation for his “problem”. I would sit and try to reason with him for hours and understand why he thought he had rights to touch women as he did. I tried to make him see, without judging, of the offensiveness of his actions. He never understood me, and I didn’t understand him. He tried to touch me once, and I sharply told him to take his hands off me. He did as I asked. I think he only obeyed because I was his friend. Other female Marines didn’t necessarily have their wishes granted. Yet, no one ever turned him in. I tried to encourage him to seek help before he got himself into trouble, or hurt a woman. He never did. Years later, I learned he was in the brig for raping a Marine’s wife in Okinawa, Japan.
The pressure that I felt became to show. In formations, I started passing out. During a uniform inspection that was held in the instrument room, I passed out and came inches from snuggling my face into a tuba. Luckily, the Marines next to me caught me. These incidents brought further unwanted attention. People commented on how sickly white I would turn. I wanted to fade into the crowd until I graduated from the School of Music. I was given multiple pregnancy tests over those months, because I hadn’t had a period since I went to boot camp seven or eight months earlier. I was a mess, and I knew it.
Meanwhile, my reputation was destroyed among the instructors and students at the school. Before I knew it, I was being called in for petty accusations and rumors of letting my hair down in uniform, or wearing colored socks with my boots. My first week at the school, I only logged eleven practice hours, although I was assigned twenty-five. My personal instructor later accused me of forging the practice log books when I began to complete the assigned twenty-five hours. She didn’t believe I was completing them. Furthermore, she told the Marine Corps command I was rude and gave her attitude. I was so confused, because I was terrified of her. I barely spoke to her unless I was addressed. I knew she didn’t like me, and I was frightened of further trouble. She once drew an oval with pencil on one of my reeds to indicate where my tongue should make contact with the reed. She said my embouchure was incorrect and I needed to re-teach myself. To this day, I have kept that reed. I don’t know why. I had stared at it so long while I was in the School of Music, that I should never want to see it again….but I have kept it for almost eight years.

After high school, I went months without playing my clarinet because of training. Then, at once, I expected was to play more than eight hours a day. This wasn’t much different from the other students, although not many were assigned quite as many practice hours as I was. The reeds on my clarinet all began to look brown and disgusting from blood that had gathered on them from worn my lip. I tried using folded paper to separate my teeth from my lip as others did, but somehow it still bled. I didn’t care. I was frantically trying to find a way to satisfy my instructor. She told me I wasn’t performing or excelling as expected, and she failed me on my mid-training exam. This time, I will say that this failure was not purely due to my own shortcomings. During the exam I watched her change my grades in front of me. I sat dumbfounded. The computer displays your total grade at the bottom as the grades for the individual scales, sight readings, and pieces are entered. Looking at the total, I felt relieved to see I had barely passed. Then, I watched her go back to the pieces I had played earlier and change the grades. She gave me high scores on some, but some were lower also. In the end, my total was only slightly below passing. I had failed after all? I tried to make sense of it. I was confused. I had passed. I saw it! How did I fail?
Who could I make my complaint to? I had been in so much trouble, that I knew any fight was fruitless. Furthermore, I had not been doing well in my sight singing class or my marching classes. I believe I did not see the unsatisfactory performances in these classes because I was far too preoccupied with the trouble I was constantly in, and the social drama in which I became involved. This was quite similar to my high school performance. However, in high school only my grades suffered. My failed exam performance on my clarinet led to an Academic Review Board that decided I needed to be removed from the school. As it was simply explained to me, they believed that remediating my embouchure was not worth the trouble I cause. It hadn’t mattered anyway. My shame was overwhelming. I felt I deserved it. I cried for hours in my room, and sometimes slipped into the bathrooms to cry quietly in the stalls. I was plagued with the glorification I received in my hometown for my success on the audition. I imagined the mortification of explaining my prematurely ended career in the Marine Corps band. Feeling defeated and pathetic that I had failed so many expectations, I was released from the School of Music in March of 2004. I had completed half of my training. I take full responsibility for all of my troubles at the school of music, except my actual mid-training performance with my clarinet and my behavior as claimed by my instructor. My parents were quite supportive, and did not persecute me further. I feel I was pretty honest with them about the happenings at the school. I had many instructors and superiors who I believe tried very hard to give me the benefit of the doubt and I failed them as well. I had others who allowed my troublesome reputation to precede me, and I met their expectations. One Marine explained to me “This is what people think” he made his fingers into little legs. “This is you” and then he made another set of legs with his other hand and imitated it chasing the other. “This is trouble.” He put his hands down, and said “Trouble just finds you.”
My confidence couldn’t have been lower, but I had a second chance. My new military occupation: Disbursing.