While most other teenagers were attending prom, going on dates, getting high after school and being, in general, average 'teenagers', I was suffering through 5 years at an Army-based military academy in rural Alabama.
It's not that I was a bad kid - I needed no reform and had no criminal intent beyond perhaps finding ways to get an extra credit on the pinball machine using a slug and some thread. No, it's not that I belonged at military school, but the memories that place gave me, I would discover later in life, would prove to be the most unique and resourceful of any others from my childhood.
There is one memory in particular that I have, which has stayed with me throughout the years since graduation in the summer of 1997. This memory constantly reminds me of the importance of compassion and respect; as well it reminds me that the people in this world who appear to be the most cruel, uncaring and soulless of us are just as human as anyone else who has ever walked the earth. They simply suffer more than most.
This memory is of a young man by the name of William Ward.
When I entered the academy, I was in the 8th grade. I was an awkward, chubby little redheaded kid and I didn't know a thing about drilling with a rifle, shining shoes or taking orders barked at me by someone my age. Needless to say, I was in great need of some sort of guidance - some sort of beacon to help ease my transition from a life of video games and fishing to one of regimented days, sleep deprived nights and egregious amounts of violence.
I found that guidance from many of the other cadets, many of whom had been at the academy for years prior to my arrival. They knew the ropes and they knew what to tell a new cadet (also called a 'scrub') in order to have the new recruit 'on their side'. It was very akin to prison in the way that social hierarchies sprouted.
Atop one such social hierarchy stood William Ward. He was a boy of average height and build, and he was quite ugly. His mouth was much larger, proportionately, than the other features of his face. He had large, clumsy feet and goofy ears. When I first met him I thought I was looking at Alfred E. Neuman from the MAD magazines I had so loved.
The very first thing William Ward said to me when I met him was, "I bet my dick is bigger than yours."
I am dead serious. That was the first sentence that came out of his (large) mouth, and he was being very sincere. This wasn't a joke, and at the academy penis size meant a LOT. I didn't know this at the time. His comment sort of threw me off, and I'm not sure exactly how I responded. I just remember him saying that firstly.
William Ward apparently came from a family with a lot of money. Incidentally, the Ward family had VERY tight connections to the administration of the school, and so this ugly, foul-mouthed young man was lauded by his peers for really only two reasons: he had a very large penis, and he was favored by those in command of the school thanks to generous financial contributions from his family.
This made for a perfect storm.
William Ward became a ruler of us. It didn't matter that he was ugly, stupid or, as I would find out later, completely illiterate. He had connections, money, and a big dick. He could do whatever he wanted. And so he did.
William Ward became a platoon sergeant in Charlie company, where he was basically given free reign to control a group of about 15 cadets, bending them to do as he wished and using them as pawns to further his after-school exploits often times involving hazing, drug use and other debauchery. He could do no wrong - the amount of power that William Ward had was unreal, especially considering his young age and puny amount of life experience.
When it is said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, it rings truest with me, because I have seen it. I saw it in William Ward.
For 3 years I endured the constant berating of this young man. At every opportunity, William Ward would seek to prove his superiority by either whipping out his penis or punching someone bigger than he was, because he knew there would be no ramifications. He wouldn't have to answer to anyone. It didn't matter that he was an ugly runt who couldn't read and failed just about all his classes. He had street cred at the academy.
When William Ward graduated, I watched as this young man left the school and entered the real world, failing out of college and resorting to a life of blue collar servitude in a completely foreign and, I'm sure for him, scary environment. I can only imaging the shock when he realized that he actually had to be able to read in order to get a job...in order to go shopping, balance his checkbook or really just function as a human being in civilized society.
Looking back on it all, I can only feel compassion and sorrow for that guy. William Ward was probably the most callous, mean and disrespectful young man to ever exist in 1995, but it wasn't his fault. The corruptions of a military system instilled into the life of someone who had been born ugly and who never learned to read - these things would create a monster who would eventually be tamed into becoming, I'm sure, an insufferable, miserable peon with infinite regrets and no love in his life.
Wherever you are, William Ward, I hope things turned around for you. I hope you look back on your life at Lyman Ward Military Academy and I hope you see it as a period of serious confusion for you - and I hope by now you have learned that penis size and money mean absolutely nothing compared to respect, dignity and love for one another.
3 comments:
-Danich,
I can't really say anything to ease your thoughts, but I was there. I went to LWMA, and I am glad that you realized that the system of hierarchy aren't right. That they aren't just different, or, "another style of leadership,". . . I'm glad that you have come to grips with the fact that the way people are given charge there is just, simple and plain, wrong. I commend you for talking about it, and for being professional. I took a lot of the same ideals you have. I'm glad that a big part of what YOU took from the school was, compassion. Thanks.
great post bret, cadet h here and unfortunately i have not been able to help the cadets of lyman ward nearly as much as you have. i had planned a trip down south last fall but it never came as i ended up going to a funeral as apposed to visiting someone in my family that lives just south of the academy. i would like your assistance in creating a web site to post such accounts in a forum that will not be edited by lwma as all of my previous posts were deleted almost directly after i had them posted. as i told you before i am currently just outside of dc and have many friends/ family whom live/ work inside of that 5 sided building that got hit 911. if we could all post our accurate descriptions of our experiences i could ask these friends/ family members to bring them to the attention of those responsible for the funding of that hell hole. the only thing that most civilians have seen that might give them an idea of what went on there was a film "Lord of the Flies". it is inevitable that when you put kids in charge of other kids the outcome will always be the same. when i read reports of cadets from collegate academies complaining of abuse and hazing because they were given frog/ pip checks( where somebody checks to see if you have the brass backings on your insignias or name plates by punching them- if you dont have the backings the pins in the back of those name plates/ insignias will then pierce your skin like a fat dull needle, if not they are simply punching brass rivets into your collar bone or chest)it made me laugh, we as 11 year olds went through this and much worse daily. nobody ever came to our rescue or seemed to care. the question of why didnt you tell someone often comes up. just out of curriosity, as an 11 year old, would you have the courage to nark out these guys that would probably not receive any punishment for their actions when they lived in the same barracks as you and had complete control of your every action? are u familiar with torture? not only is discipline the traing which makes punishment unnecessary, torture and fear of that torture will often times have the same result. when youve been beaten and seen your closest friends beaten to the point of passing out, you start to allow the fear to control your every action. this is what made me cadet of the year- the fear of making a mistake. yeah cadet of the year, straight a's and just about every award that i could have received i did, in hopes of being allowed to come back home. my parents were getting divorced at the time and the FAMILY decided that it was best for me not to be around during the proceeding in fear that i might get hurt emotionally.
little did they know that where they were to send me would have such a traumatic affect on my life that i still carry those scars with me today... i feel soo bad for those cadets still in harms way at LWMA and i fear that too much of this mentality still affects us all. after being allowed to come home after only 3 years, i found myself with so much pain inside that i can never look at any of my family members responsible for my time at LWMA the same way. I generally dont speak to my mother (the deciding factor of my attendance) but i will send flowers to her memorial when she passes. i moved out of my house at age 16 and slept on park benches while trying to attend public high school in northern va where i found myself severely behind due to LWMA's poor academic standards. after being abused at such an age you start to feel as if you truely are worthless and that death wouldnt be such a bad thing. at least the uncertainty and pain would be gone right? i find myself today the father of two, the husband of a beautiful wife and all though i have come far, i still wish that i could have helped my friends when they were being beaten and tortured but iw as too weak and too scared to help them in their momments of pain. since then i have put myself into very dangerous positions in order to help others because of this guilt that i feel for not comming to my friends aid when they needed me to. yeah ive saved a few lives, even that of a former cadet that i ran into in san diego ca, but i tend to believe that someday my family might pay for my actions all driven by the memories in my past at LWMA. i fear that because of the guilt i feel for not having helped my friends in their time of need i will die trying to help somebody else and leave my family without an income and father to protect them. i also fear of what i might do in my sleep as i still sleep with my eyes open, and freak the fuck out when somebody enters the room where i fell asleep. to all of those whom were in pain during my days at LWMA i am truely sorry that i didnt have the courage to find help. i saw kids have granular comet scrubbed into their skin for having an odor, i saw cadets have their heads slammed into cinderblock walls to the point of unconciousness, i saw a cadet beaten by his peers after they had been beaten by their superior officers when a necklace came up missing and the only solution was to punish the entire company. i saw too many things to forget and to not feel guilty for not helping them in their time of need. i too was responsible because i allowed these things to happen without helping them. i am soooo sorry for all that i have seen and i am soooo sorry for keeping quiet for too long. i am sorry and my only excuse is that i was a frightened 11 year old boy whom was too absorbed in his own pain to know that the only thing to alleviate the situation was self sacrafice. if i had stood up for my peers with my own body then maybe something could have been done.
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