Gray Girl Read Online Free PDF

courier was gone.  
    SKIP, an anonymous pen pal of sorts, and Jan had been corresponding all
year.   She didn’t know SKIP’s
identity, which drove her crazy sometimes.   She had narrowed him down to a male cadet in her battalion, one out of
about four hundred.   She was getting
close.  
    She unfolded the paper and read,

 
    Jan,
    Please,
please tell me what the honor charges are.   I HAVE TO KNOW…no details, just the basic charges—when and   what date.   All I’ve heard is that
Jackson accused you of lying.   Please give me a little more information—ASAP!   This cannot wait.    Write it now and tape it to your
door.   I’ll come get it later.    
    I’m
praying for you.   Please be careful
and keep me posted.
    SKIP   

 
    Jan knew speaking about the details of the Honor Board was
forbidden.   But
what about writing?   Was that
also not allowed?   Probably.   But shit, what’s the worst they can do
to me??    Still, she would
not say or write too much.

 
    SKIP,
    Jackson
says I lied about what happened Sunday night and again Monday morning in his
room.   That’s all I can tell you.   I didn’t do anything wrong, but he seems
to have the better case.   Dogety won’t back me up.   I am screwed.   You will probably need to find another
pen pal.
    Jan

 
 
 
    4

 
    “Experience
has shown that a few new cadets will find the initial days of West Point a
difficult period of adjustment, and a very small number may lose sight of their
goals and decide to resign.”  
    From Candidate Letter by Commandant of Cadets, May 1981

 
    Jan received orders to have a Full
Physical Exam at Fort Devens in February.   The paper said she would receive a “pelvic
exam,” which she interpreted to mean someone would check that her hips worked
properly.   Her mother tried to clue
her in, saying they would take a peek “down there” and maybe feel for anything
abnormal.
    When she felt a cold metal thing
opening her vagina and pushing up inside her, she realized she had been
woefully misinformed.   Two
assistants, acting as official knee holders, kept her legs apart.   They told her to relax, but she
certainly could not relax, not while the man in the white coat was down
there .   Jan tightened every
muscle in her body, trying to relax.   And just when it felt like her ovaries were being ripped out, the only
other woman in the room snapped, “Quit moving! The more you fight it, the
longer it will take!”
    The white coat man finally withdrew
the gut apparatus, but then inserted his fingers down there , with one
hand, and used the other to press more on her lower abdomen. Then, he stuck
another thing in her ass.
    The awful ordeal finally ended, but
Jan seemed to be in some sort of trance as she dressed.   She could feel something seeping out of
her, like a period, when she stood up.   But it wasn’t a period.
    She waddled slowly back out to the
waiting area and met her red-faced parents.   They seemed embarrassed by what they all
knew had taken place.   For the first
time in her life, she realized that there were many things they had not told
her.

 
    Beast barracks served to further
Jan’s education in the harsh realities of life.   On the day after R-Day, well before
sunrise, Cadet Dogety slammed open their door open
and screamed, “GET UP, BEANHEADS!   You got five minutes to get dressed and report outside for PT
formation!”
    Jan and her new roommate flew into
their Physical Training uniforms—black shorts, white t-shirts with a
black Academy crest over the left breast and brand new black Army boots over
tube socks.   The cadre wore the same
outfits; only their black shorts, black Academy crest and black Army boots had
all dulled to gray.
    After rushing to pee and brushing
their teeth, the new cadets pinged outside to The Apron.   “Pinging”
was the term for speed-walking that all new cadets
were required to do wherever they went.   Imagine Charlie Chaplin in