The Making of a ROTC Marine

The Making of a ROTC MARINE

         “I cried,” said the ROTC Marine, a female.
         I hadn’t heard a knock.  But the door was ajar.  No doubt, she just stepped in – her and her scuffed black Army boots, camouflaged pants and shirt, and the paper.
         “You gave me a D,” she said.  At the very least, I would have expected her to say this while standing at attention.  She was not.  Her spine was not straight.  Her shoulders were not thrown back.  Her arms were not at her side.  I’d say she stood in the slouched position.  To be generous, I supposed I could say in the at ease position.  But her shoulders frowned at me.  One knee pointed at my shin and seemed poised to genuflect a swift kick there.  Left hand fisted on a hip, and the other wing flapped the paper back and forth and up and down – almost like it one of those signal corps flags.
         She was not my first ROTC student, or my first ROTC Marine student, or even my first female ROTC student.  But she was the first to complain about a grade.  I guessed before this I always believed that Marines, even ROTC Marines, aren’t supposed to complain – at least not to a superior officer.  And isn’t that what I was – her superior – her instructor?  I’m sure all her shooting instructors and drill instructors and military tactics instructors considered themselves to be her superior officer.  And I expected she accepted this truth.  I couldn’t see her complaining to any of them.  At the very least – she’d be standing at attention and saying – Excuse me, sir, or Yes, sir, or I beg your pardon, sir.  But in front of me not a single SIR came out of her mouth.  Right now I’m thinking it would have been better for her to have spat out one insincere ‘sir” than ignore my ‘sir’ standing completely.  I guess she should consider herself fortunate that I didn’t penalize her for her attitude when she turned in the second, third, and final paper of the semester.   
         However a part of me wanted to hold it against her that she was this Marine-in-waiting --- this Marine-to-be.  And it wasn’t that I hated the Marines or how they sang their “from the halls of Montezuma” song.  I guessed it was about her.  I didn’t think she was marine worthy.  No way could I see her storming out of some carrier landing craft, then skipping, hopping, and jumping through the bubbling waves onto the shores of Tripoli.  I couldn’t envision her piloting a troop carrying helo or even in the rear banging out communication memos to forward commands or back to Washington.  A part of me supposed she could be trained to follow orders and acquire a more effective approach to dealing with superior officers.  But never did I believe she could be a true Semper Fier.  I knew enough from my other Marine ROTC students and from studying real Marines being interviewed on news programs and from watching TV portrayals of flat-topped Marine grunts that she would never have the right attitude.  And I didn’t think such attitudes were ever really developed.  One was born with such an attitude.  Somehow I think she knew this.  Somehow I think she knew that the Marines only brought out something that was inside – and that she didn’t have this something. 
         Of course, knowing and admitting are two different things.  Right now I couldn’t imagine how she decided to believe that she did have it, or that she could somehow develop it.  I supposed this denial just had to about her parents -- something they did or didn’t do.  And isn’t this basically the starting point for all of us as we begin our search for our own destiny?     
         I wanted this ROTC Marine to move past what had happened or what didn’t happened between her and her parents.  I wasn’t even sure I wanted or cared about what happened.  Of course, the most obvious scenario was that her father had been a Marine – a rough and tough and Popeyed-forearmed Marine who spent too many tours away from home and even when home – just was not into girl’s soccer and overlapping runs leading to a cross and header over the top of the goal or just not into volleyball and diving digs that led to a finesse ding over the net.  So the Marines were just a way to get his attention and approval.  And maybe, it could have worked if only she had been a boy.
         On the other hand, this maybe was more about her mother – and the ten-year affair with the deacon who made sure every blade of hair stayed firmly in place by squeezing this 10 level styling gel onto a comb and then running it through his thinning hair like a rake.  Of course, once the ROTC Marine-to-be learned of the affair (she found a rendezvous note underneath her mother’s underwear while searching for an elastic tie to put her hair in a ponytail and read how he couldn’t wait to try out these different karma sutra positions), she vowed not to turn into her mother.  No makeovers.  No long fingernails.  No manicured fingernails.  No coquettish batting of the eye lashes.  No, she would be like her Dad – the dependable Marine, the never-say-die Marine, the never-let-them-see-you-cry Marine – and not a cheating girly girl like her mom. 
         No, even if I wanted to know the initial impetus for her ROTC Marine choice, that knowledge would not set me free or her free, either.  No, my responsibility would still be the same, and she would not be free of guilt or shame just because she somehow realized she had human parents who were not up to her standards of what her parents were supposed to be. 
         So I told the ROTC Marine to sit down.  How could we have a rational conversation if she continued to stand above me while waving her paper as if it were a concert ticket she was trying to scalp for triple the face value?  At the same time, I doubted she wanted a rational conversation.  I really expected her to toss the paper at me like some sort of wounded Frisbee.  In her current emotional state, I suspected she thought she could fling it at my neck or at least my bare arm and cause a deep paper cut.  Then she would rush out and head to registration and records to drop the course.  And unfortunately, this was not the worst possible scenario I could imagine.  Still I hoped for better.  I didn’t expect miracles, maybe just some rabbit-out-of-the-hat magic, if she did sit down and we talked.  But in any case, I needed to try to explain.
         “Please sit down, and let me see that paper,” I said in a voice that was somewhere between a request and an order – I hoped.
         Yes, of course, she should have responded with a yes, sir.  But I couldn’t expect one at this point.  At least – she sat down so that I could smile.
         I didn’t wait for her to hand me the paper.  I reached out and grabbed it.  I flipped through the five pages quickly.  I didn’t look at her as she sat in the gray metal side chair next to my desk.  But I could hear her fidgeting.  With one leg glider missing, the chair rocked and creaked every time she shifted.  And I remembered that this D was generous.  I wanted to just scream it into both of her ears.  Unsupported rambling -- that was the best thing I could say about it.  Not worthy of a Marine who prided herself in doing the best for God and country.  Not worthy of an offspring of a Marine who survived two tours in Vietnam.  So I returned to the first page.  I read her the second paragraph.  It lacked cohesion.  I said too many sentences did not easily follow the sentence before it.  I read my marginal comment, “You’re making this reader work too hard to follow your analysis” – a nice way of saying – I thought – this is crap.  I read more of her paper out loud.  I asked her – as did my comment – what does this have to do with the initial focus of the paper?  She shrugged her shoulders.  “If you don’t know, how is the reader supposed to know?” I asked.
         She didn’t respond.  “That was not a rhetorical question,” I said.
         I watched her look away and down at the ground and her Army boots.  I waited.  I fully intended to go through the paper line by line and paragraph by paragraph.  I fully intended to read most of my margin comments out loud.  I fully intended to do my best to get her to understand that this was not a good paper.  She would have to face it if she was ever going to begin writing solid academic papers.  She would have to face that she would need to take more time and care in writing her papers.  She would have to work through her ideas and her reasoning with a much greater understanding of the overall purpose for the paper.  She would have to have a much better grasp of the details and how they fit into the overall scheme.  And my line by line reading was the start.  The honest criticism was a start.  Then I would begin the building up process.  Not really something that required magic.  And not hopeless.  You have potential.  But – and I would begin to map out the beginning of the process – the stay-with-the-program process where I move the student through the research process, the understanding of questions that need to be addressed, the deliberate and diligent collection of information, the thorough and painstaking analysis of individual bits of data and what it may or may not mean to the larger whole, the formation of a focus and/or thesis, and finally to how to organize and write the paper. 
            There was just one problem.  The ROTC Marine didn’t hang around for any of the above.  All of sudden, she stood up, reached up and grabbed her paper out of my hands.  She muttered, “Thanks” and stormed a retreat out of my office.
         My initial reaction was that I probably didn’t take the right approach here.  I supposed I could have just let her talk.  I could have asked her what made her believe she deserved better than a D.  I could have just listened and waited until she talked herself out.  And maybe in this process, she would have come to realize she really didn’t know what she wanted to say in the paper and really didn’t have a very strong grasp of the information or how to present her ideas.     
            Of course, I understood there is only so much I can do to help a student or to help this specific one – this ROTC Marine.  Just continue to talk about focus and supporting details and paragraph cohesiveness and taking the reader step-by-step through the analysis.  Just read and grade and try to explain why I gave the grade that I did.  And the student – the ROTC Marine – could accept it or not.  If she wanted to flounder or ignore my instruction – that was her choice.  If she wanted to ignore the evidence that she didn’t belong in the Marines, then that was her choice.  If she ended up in Afghanistan or Iraq, then she made the decision that led to this outcome.  And if she hadn’t emailed me later that same day she stormed out of my office, I think I would have been content just to ignore her in class and grade her papers.  But she apologized for her behavior – “not acceptable Marine behavior” – she said.  It was just that she “got nothing but A’s on papers in high school,” she claimed.  She even had an English teacher who told her that she “was one of her best writers.”
          And I don’t know that this apology caused me to adjust my interaction with her.  I would not and did not intend to give her any special attention in class.  But it gave me just a dab of optimism that maybe she could and would figure herself out before she ended up trapped underneath an overturned supply truck that was behind the jeep that got launched into the air by the land mine as they headed up the mountain pass into Tora Bora in Afghanistan. 
         Then came the conference we had to discuss her rough draft to paper assignment two.  Just one problem.  She hadn’t turned in the rough draft for the paper assignment two.  But I expected her to bring something to the conference.  At least an outline.  Hopefully even a couple of pages I could read to see if she’d started out on the right foot.  Just one problem.  She had nothing.  So I wanted to tell her she was a disgrace to her Marine uniform or her Marine fatigues.  Just one problem.  She wasn’t wearing either.  I guess I could make the point that if she was wearing any outfit associated with her connection to the Marines, she would be a disgrace to that outfit. 
         Of course, I wanted to believe I could reach this student, and I didn’t know that calling her a disgrace was the way to get her to magically be a better student or at least write better papers in my class.  Besides today she was in what I might call this anti-Marine outfit.  Blue jeans.  The kind that were pre-made with holes below and above the knees.  And this multicolored (and faded colors) tie-dyed t-shirt.  The kind Bill Walton might wear to a Grateful Dead concert.  Besides, she had excuses for not having a rough draft, “I’ve been overwhelmed this week.  Three mid-terms.  A paper due in World Civ.  And Mom made me go to my Grandmother’s 75th birthday party – a surprise party.”
            Excuses.  A Marine-to-be making excuses.  I didn’t know what to make of that.  Of course, she wasn’t a Marine, yet.  This part of her training  just has not set in yet.  I expected it might never take.  And I hoped that it never would since I didn’t think she was cut out to be a Marine.  So I should have been gratified.  This sentiment just reinforced my opinion.  I should have smiled.  Then she could have asked why I was smiling, and she would ask as that would be in her nature, even if it would not be proper Marine etiquette.  Then I could have bluntly just said – You are proving me right.  And I would leave it just at that.
            Instead, I feigned anger.  Well, a part of me might have actually been angry.  A part of me just didn’t understand why she needed to come to my office and tell me she had nothing written for this assignment.  A part of me didn’t understand why she was taking my course.  A part of me didn’t understand with all these excuses why not just enlist in the Marines rather than pretend to be a student.  Of course, a part of me still refused to get why she wanted to be a Marine at all.  And I supposed all of this maybe caused me to respond to her excuses probably more dramatically than I intended and definitely more forceful than I intended.  WHY ARE YOU HERE?
“You are making me and everyone else .. .”  Of course, I should have expected such an answer.  And I should have let her finish her response, too.  But I didn’t.
“I don’t care about everyone else now.  This is about you.  Why are you here?”
        “To discuss my ….”
        “You have nothing.  Why are you here?”
        There was only one answer that would get her off the hook, and even that one was not a good answer.  It was just the best one under the circumstances.  It wouldn’t be a magical response – far from it.  But it would have caused me to reevaluate – reevaluate her chosen path, reevaluate her intelligence, reevaluate her character.  Of course, it never came.
        I bet she had never been sent to her room or told to go to time out by her parents – not even by her Marine Sergeant Dad.  Maybe Marine Sergeant Dad, when he was home, just made excuses for her. 
She didn’t mean to run through the flower garden and trample the marigolds.  She and her friends were just playing tag.  She got carried away. 
        Of course, she lied.  But we don’t have a problem with her dating Eric on the weekends.  So going to a movie on Wednesday night, after finishing at the library, isn’t a big deal.
        And even if Marine Wife didn’t make excuses for her daughter, she didn’t provide the consequences required to break the daughter of the habit.  No grounding.  No extra chores.  No withholding of an allowance or money.  No yelling. 
I didn’t yell, either.  I just told her to go away.  But she didn’t move.  Again, go away.  I saw her lips begin to part.  I held up my hand.    I waved her off almost like the bedridden Godfather who just found out from his lawyer/advisor that his youngest had entered his corrupt world.  Go away.  Go away.  Finally, she stood up and was gone.
I remembered watching this made-for-television true story movie about this middle school teacher.  He discovered early on it wasn’t enough to encourage the individual student.  So he tried to do these ends around to the family, usually the mother.  And often, there was only the mother – a mother with swollen ankles and sore feet from spending too much time peddling perfume behind the counter at the department store or too much time hunched over a keyboard punching in data and then heading off to that third shift position at the dry cleaners or the night cleaning crew at the bank building downtown.  Of course, such mothers want the best for their son or daughter.  But some just found it hard to believe that this teacher believed Donna or Brittany or Larry really were future college scholarship material.
        I don’t know what I would say to ROTC Marine’s parents even if given a chance, even if it didn’t violate some privacy law now that my students were over 18, even if I didn’t think this was college and it was time for each and every student to step up or head back to that hometown job waiting tables or stocking shelves.           
        I thought the best place to meet her parents might be in a bar.  But not over a beer.  One can’t or shouldn’t discuss one’s kid’s academic attitude and future over a beer.  Not even if the student’s father was a marine.  But maybe over a glass or two of wine.  Some sort of dark and rich red wine.  One with earthy overtones of black currants and spice and licorice and maybe even a whiff of pipe tobacco and oak.  And, of course, I wouldn’t rush into the discussion at the first sip.  First, we would talk about the wine as we swirled, sniffed, and swished.  Marine Sergeant Dad would be on my right.  I’d be surprised, but not too surprised, that he had just the right wrist technique to get a full goblet swirl.  And Marine wife would be on my left.   
         I wanted to toss a handful of dirt in front of them so they’d be forced to breathe it into their mouths and nostrils.  Their daughter was not Marine worthy.  And right now, she wasn’t college worthy.  She was not open enough to my perspective or focused enough on trying to understand the key objectives of my instruction.  So she was not capable of writing competent academic papers.  But of course, if they were caring and good hearted parents, they knew this.  And if they were not, then it didn’t matter whether I slapped them with the truth or spoon fed them syrupy lies.
         So let’s forget the parents.  They had their chance.  And I didn’t want to talk to them anyway.  The ROTC Marine’s time had come.  Time for her to get it or not.  Time for her to make it on her own or not.  And maybe, in spite of the lack of evidence from the conference, she might even turn in a superior paper for this second assignment.
         Yeah, right!  It didn’t happen.  I knew it wouldn’t be good the moment she asked to borrow my stapler just before the start of class.  And I continue to fail to understand how parents can send their offspring to college sans stapler. 
         “Here,” she said.
         It felt light.  The margins and line spacing were too wide.  I knew it was another D.  I slid her classmates’ papers underneath hers as I walked around the room to gather everyone else’s.  So it remained on top after class and after I placed the pile on my desk after class.  I usually don’t read any until I get them home.  But I skimmed hers immediately.  It didn’t take long.  There was not much there.  Less rambling.  But not focused on explaining a key similarity or difference between the portrayal of the sea anemone in one article to the case study of the Hernandez Family living just outside of Des Moines.  Just a summary of each text and summaries littered with pot holes.
         Just wasting my time.  And I would take a stand here.  She would no longer get me to somehow imagine I could throw a series of words and phrases next to, in between, and after the lines on her paper in this effort to have her see the light.  Futile – and I determined I would not feel this as I scribbled comments.
         I sort of wish that this decision was premeditated.  It was part of some overall plan.  If approach one failed, then one moves onto something else – something else that is maybe a bit more drastic.  But no – I made a snap and final decision here.  Only it didn’t happen as I initially skimmed her paper, or even when I read it more slowly that night in my study.  No, I reached my decision while driving home that night.  I just missed getting through the light.  So I was first in line and waiting to turn right in the only right turning lane.  I scanned left and waited for an opening.  None came and that’s when the Ford Explorer created a second right turning lane.  It didn’t seem to care that the lane didn’t exist or that it was straddling the white line dividing the straight ahead lane and my lane.  It didn’t acknowledge my presence.  But it had to know I was there because my Chevy Metro wasn’t that small.       
          I looked through its tinted windows.  I fully expected the driver to be a man – either a teenish guy with spiked hair or maybe a middle-aged alpha man with a loosened tie and the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up to the elbow.  I was wrong.  She looked like a soccer Mom. 
         Like me, she scanned left waiting for an opening to turn right on red.  None appeared, but that didn’t stop her from inching forward.  And I couldn’t believe she intended to turn before me – turn right in front of me – cut me off.  Hadn’t she taken driver’s ed.?  No where in any traffic manual would such behavior be considered safe or defensive driving. 
         I thought about inching forward too.  I thought about being ready to stomp on the accelerator as soon as the light turned green.  If she just happened to smash into the side of my car, I would be in the right.  The law would on my side.  I could sue.  She would pay.
         Only I let her go.  She zipped right past me.  With no excuse me wave, either.  Of course, I could not let such behavior go without some sort of acknowledgement.  I HONKED.  I let her know that she had done me wrong.
         So this was when it hit me that I would take a new and different approach with ROTC Marine girl.  She would get a numerical grade  --  65 – on the last page of the paper and little else.  No marginal comments.  No end comments pretending it was a positive achievement that she introduced the comparison linking theme directly and exactly.  No notations noting sentence fragments or run-on sentences.  No circling of grammar issues.  No question marks next to confusing words, phrases, or sentences.  Her effort didn’t deserve it.              
         I thought ROTC Marine girl might immediately blurt out a what-the-hell remark seconds after flipping through her paper void of comments.  She didn’t.  I thought ROTC Marine girl might follow me out the door and down to steps to my office where she would confront me as I slid my key into the lock.  She didn’t.  I thought ROTC Marine girl might rant her dismay in an email as soon as she got back to her dorm room.  She didn’t.  No, she followed my directions.  Take the paper home.  Read over my comments.  Digest the comments and grade overnight.  Then if you have an issue or questions, bring your paper and come and see me during my office hours.
         As usual, I arrived on campus about fifteen minutes before the official start of my office hours.  And there she was.  She sat on the tiled floor against the wall opposite the office door.  She followed me inside.  As I took off my black overcoat and hung it on the back of my desk chair, she dropped into the side chair.  When I turned around, she had already placed her paper on my desk.  It was flipped open to the last page and her grade. 
         “You didn’t make any comments,” she said.
         “Did you deserve any?”
         “I worked hard on this paper.”
         “Really?”
          For some reason, I still expected that her every remark would end with sir.  You didn’t make any comments, sir.  I worked hard on this paper, sir.  She could have even asked for permission to sit down.  For a ROTC Marine it should have been second nature to just say, May I sit down, sir. 
         “Isn’t this grade a bit harsh?” she asked.
         “No, I don’t think so.”
         “So what’s the problem with it?”
         “What do you think is the problem?
         “I don’t think the paper is this bad.”
         “Well, I think it is bad.”
         “That’s all you’re going to tell me?”
         “I think you can figure it out,” I said.
         “I thought it was your job to give me feedback.”
         “I did.  The paper isn’t very good.  It’s a 65.”
         “That’s it?”
         “I think you can do better.”
         Believe it or not, I felt good about this interaction.  I really expected a better effort and a better paper for the next assignment.  And the next few classes reinforced this impression.  I believed she maintained a better attention span in class.  Not once did I see her resting her head and chin in her palm looking as if she about to fall asleep.  I believed she copied essential notes off the front white board two or three times.  Not once did I have the impression that this use of her pen was little more than artistic doodling or an effort to draw a cartoonish sketch of me.  I believed the couple of questions she asked were an effort to clarify her understanding of the text and the assignment.  Not once did I suspect this to be an effort to figure out something she missed while daydreaming.
         Still I didn’t know what type of effort I would see in the next rough draft.  And I can’t report that it was best one I ever read – far from it.  I don’t know that it even demonstrated what I hoped to be typical insight for a freshman as she, after observing a college dorm cafeteria, tried to determine the essential values of what assignment three was calling a sub-culture.  And it was not a complete rough draft.  So far she had only presented two out of the three values.  But she presented the two values directly and clearly in their respective sections – Friendship and Healthy Eating.  And while I had some doubts about Healthy Eating really being an essential value in this college dorm cafeteria or any dorm cafeteria.  She did present a workable definition for it – eating what one believes to be in one’s best interest.  So I was even able to smile some as she tried to explain how the daily eating of cheeseburgers and French fries by a large number of what looked to be former high school jocks was actually healthy because they needed all these calories so that they could compete to the best of their abilities in pick-up basketball games and intramural flag football.
         So I expected our best rough draft conference of the semester.  And I suppose that it was.  A better effort, I announced.  The paper and its analysis were headed in the right direction.  Of course, it still needed work.  More details that demonstrate the different types of friendships being pursued in the sub-culture.  More exact analysis that explains more thoroughly how the red meat being ingested or the ice cream being licked or the soda being gulped or even the iceberg lettuce salad being chewed was eating that is in one’s best interests.         
         Still I came away from the conference somewhat dissatisfied.  Yes, she nodded appropriately.  Yes, she claimed she understood the key objectives for the assignment.  Yes, she professed she would put in the necessary time and effort into finishing up and revising the paper.  I guessed what really bothered me was that there was just too much nodding.  I always worry when students nod too much.  This gives me the impression he or she just wants to end the conference as soon as possible and the best way to do this is to nod.  This gives me the impression he or she just doesn’t have the knowledge, or maybe the intelligence, to ask questions.  This gives me the impression he or she has come to the conclusion that the best way to get a good grade is to develop this attitude of just tell me what to do and I will do it.  Maybe I would have been more satisfied and less worried if she had only added a Yes, sir to each and every nod?
         Of course, the final draft ended up being a substantial improvement over the first two papers of the semester.  And I noted in my end note that I liked the effort and I expected to see even more progress in the last paper assignment of the semester.  And I suspected there wasn’t anything magical here.  If there had been, then I would have expected a more insightful and detailed and thorough effort. 
         But improvement is improvement.  And someone deserved credit.
         I wanted to believe my tactics were a part of it.  Just like the basketball coach who switches defenses – whether it be from man-to-man to a match up zone or the other way around.  The tactic confused the opponent and created more offensive opportunities.  In this case, I wanted the ROTC Marine confused.  I wanted the confusion to stimulate anxiety, fear, more effort, and I hoped it might pound any procrastination into bits of dust.  If I hadn’t changed tactics, she might have only made minimal adjustments to her regular habits and patterns.  Maybe she would have added a color coding system to her information gathering system?  Maybe she might have ventured to the library for a couple of hours of research – maybe even checking out a book -- rather than just depending upon research via her computer in her dorm room?  Maybe she would have had her roommate scan her final draft for grammar issues?  Whatever.  My guess was that such measures would not go far enough or really do much to produce a more focused, more detailed, and more thorough essay.  Without a change of tactics, her anxiety level would not have neared the tipping point.  And without a change in tactics, a greater sense of urgency would not have developed and cracked opened the topsoil enough to stimulate more effort and an earlier effort.  If I had scribbled the same tired and lifeless comments, she would have imagined she knew what to do.  She would imagine her writing just needed another shovel or two of dirt, of supporting details.  She would imagine a few sprinkles out of a watering can, an extra line or two of analysis, would be enough analysis to make all the difference in the paper.  Unfortunately the extra soil and the extra moisture wouldn’t be enough to protect the paper from the intense summer sun and leaf eating beetles, and when she read the final draft the morning after the all-nighter, she might even realize as much.
         Of course, I couldn’t rule out that the Marine Sergeant Dad intervened.  Inadvertently, maybe ROTC Marine let it slip at Grandma’s birthday party how overworked she felt because of the midterms and her freshman comp paper?  Maybe she whined that her English instructor expected too much or that her high school English classes did little to prepare her for the writing of such papers?  I also suspect that Marine Sergeant Dad wouldn’t take her aside immediately.  He would wait until there were only a few chocolate cake crumbs on its serving plate and Grandma on her way back to her condo.  He wouldn’t yell, either.  A good sergeant didn’t need to scream and intimate his underlings with a rigid and protruding jaw or a tense neck highlighted by a couple of pulsating veins.  And just a few carefully chosen words.  Get your act together or else.  He didn’t need to elaborate on the Or Else.  He probably didn’t even know exactly what he meant by Or Else.  And it didn’t matter.  He knew it wouldn’t come to that.  She would get her act together.
         On the other hand, I had my doubts that the Marine Sergeant Dad would hear such direct discord from her daughter.  The more likely scenario would be that the Marine Wife heard the ROTC Marine bitching to friend on her cell phone or maybe the Marine Wife just came across one of the D papers when she moved the daughter’s three-ring binder – the one stuffed with old quizzes, handouts, and her freshman comp essays – off the kitchen table.
         And I don’t know that Marine Wife would confront her daughter directly about the grade.  No, she would just generally ask how the semester was going as she helped ROTC Marine fold her clothes in the laundry room.  At first, ROTC Marine would shrug her shoulders and mutter, “Okay.”  But Marine Wife would press.  Eventually, she would admit that she was in danger of failing two or three courses and only managing C’s in the others.  And then without looking at her daughter and while continuing to fold a T-shirt or a pair of those holey jeans, Marine Wife would ask, “What are we going to tell your father?”
         Of course, it took a few seconds for ROTC Marine to answer.  She matched up a couple of white athletic socks and twisted them into a ball.  “Nothing.  I’m going to put my brain to the grindstone for the rest of the semester.”
         But then again, I suspected the parents could still be in the dark.  Why tell them anything at this point?  Why leave evidence around the house where it could be found and used against her?  Maybe this was nothing more than her sergeant or unit captain asking how classes were going?  She got a memo.  The platoon sergeant would be reviewing transcripts the first week of the spring semester.  Marines with unsatisfactory grades risked disciplinary action.  Maybe more drilling?  Maybe losing out on essential training and field trips?  Maybe the lost of her scholarship? 
         Of course, it could be the ROTC Marine just decided two D’s were enough.  When she looked in the mirror – in and out of uniform – she didn’t see a D student.  She saw someone better.  Someone who could be a good Marine.  The good daughter.  So she just decided to start the assignments earlier and work a little harder.  It was as simple as that.
         But then I didn’t see the ROTC Marine the last week of classes.  I supposed she knew what she needed to do.  But then she didn’t show for any of my walk-in help sessions during the first week of finals.  I supposed she still understood what she needed to do.  She got that I didn’t want some sixth-grade report.  She got that I didn’t want just a list of aftereffects as she looked at the dropping of the first Atomic Bomb or the assassination of Lincoln or the assassination of Kennedy or the impeachment of Bill Clinton.  No, I wanted analysis and insight that argued what the short-term consequences were all about – that argued what the long-term consequences were all about.  So I supposed as long as she understood what she needed to do, then it didn’t matter that I didn’t know her chosen topic.
         So considering that I had not seen ROTC Marine for over a fortnight, I was not surprised that she was the next-to-last one to turn in her paper.  She walked into my office with two and a half minutes to spare.  Just before the drop dead time when I would refuse to take the paper, and she would automatically fail the course.  Of course, most of my students smile whether they gently hand me their essay, whether they do this toss-and-run action, or whether they shuffle in, sit, and still seem to want to hold onto to their work as if it were their favorite Teddy Bear they’ve had since the first grade.  No, whether it is good or bad or just mediocre, they were done.  And that is almost always something to smile about.  But not the ROTC Marine.
         But maybe her look had more to do with the fact that she was in uniform.  Not the camouflage one.  Not the spic-and-span white one.  But the tan one.  The collars ironed in place.  Pants creased just right.  And shiny black shoes.  So maybe she had been conditioned not to smile when in this outfit. 
         “You won’t like this,” she announced as she let the paper fall on top of the pile of essay on the corner of my desk.
         “Why not?”
         “It is not very good.”
         “Who didn’t come to any help sessions?”
         “I’ve realized I’m not ready for this type of writing and am not really ready for college in general.” 
         “I don’t know that I would say that.”
         “I’m going to focus on just the Marines for a while.  I start basic after the holidays.”
         “Are you ready for that?”
         “I don’t know.  But I guess I will find out, sir.”  And she turned and left.
         Yes, I heard the “sir.”  But I don’t know that it meant anything.  It was probably just her Marine conditioning kicking in.  And while her paper was not that good, it was just good enough for her to earn a C for the course when I factored in a generous class participation grade.