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became my personal commandment.
    I decided that joining the service was my only chance. I even fantasized about serving in the air force as a fireman, then one day returning to the Bay Area and showing Father my badge. Trying to enlist proved to be an ordeal. After struggling to obtain my GED, I had to fill out mounds of paperwork for every time I had been bounced from one foster home to another, then explain on separate forms why I was placed in another home. Whenever the air force recruiter pressed me about my past, I became so terrified that I stuttered like an idiot. After weeks of evading these questions, I caved in and gave the sergeant a brief explanation about why Mother and I did not get along. I waited for his reaction. I held my breath knowing that if the recruiter thought I was a troublemaker, he could refuse my application.
    Every morning, for weeks, I stood outside the door, waiting for the office to open, before I hurried in to fill out more paperwork, and studied films and whatever booklets the recruiter had available. I became possessed to enlist. The air force was my ticket to a new life.
    After the paperwork was filled out, double-checked, then reverified, I had to get a physical examination. During the battery of tests I was poked and prodded on every inch of my rail-thin body. At the end, as I sat nearly naked, the doctor kept circling around me as he questioned the ancient bumps on my scalp, the scars on my body, the marks on my right arm where Mother had burned me on the gas stove. I simply shrugged off the doctor’s questions, telling him I had been a clumsy kid. The doctor let out a sigh and raised his eyebrows. Immediately my heart seized. I just knew I had said the wrong thing. Fearing my statement would disqualify me, I quickly added that it was a stage I had gone through when I was a kid. “A kid?” the doctor asked, as if he were not buying my story.
    “Yeah, you know, when I was six, seven years old. But” – I raised a finger to stress the importance of this point – “I’m not clumsy now! Nope, not anymore. Not me. No sireee …” The doctor waved me off and told me to get dressed. I felt a surge of relief as I saw him mark the block that claimed I was medically qualified to enlist. I was on top of the world, right up until the moment I leaned too far and crashed against the table. Folders containing other recruits’ paperwork exploded in every direction, and, still struggling to pull on my pants, I tried to grab the papers, only scattering them more. The doctor ordered me to stop trying to help and get out of his office as fast as humanly possible. As I hurried out the door, the doctor flashed a smile. “Over that clumsy period, eh?”
    Hours later that same day, I sat frozen in front of a computer next to an air force sergeant who typed in an endless stream of information. Finally, the sergeant paused, turned toward me, and nonchalantly asked, “So, what day do you want to enlist?”
    I shook my head, not sure I had heard what the sergeant just asked. I leaned forward and whispered, “You mean, I’m in? I can join? You’re actually asking me if I want to join?”
    “Don’t make a federal case out of it. Yeah, you’re in – that is, unless the FBI tells us you’re a criminal,” the sergeant teased.
    My mind immediately flashed back to all the close calls I had had with the police for speeding tickets when I was a teenager. My heart skipped a beat. I knew that if the air force found out about my past, I was a goner. The sergeant startled me when he tapped on my shoulder. “Hey, Pelz-ter, relax. So … when do you want to enlist?”
    I was lost in a daze. Now you have the chance to make something of yourself. Now is your time to build a life. I simply could not believe that after struggling over six months, I had actually made it.
    I allowed myself the reward of smiling. “When’s the soonest I can join?”
    He snapped back, “Girlfriend problems, eh?” Before I had a chance to respond, the man bowed