My First and Only Trip to the Pentagon

Shots and Bloodletting

   And now, for a flashback to 1974. I wanted to include this story in my upcoming memoir (coming out May 2024), but a Literary Agent (who rejected my story) told me this was “boring.” It’s NOT! It’s fabulous, and it’s part of my past. Read on, dear readers.

 Our readiness for moving to Frankfurt included a trip to the Pentagon for our passports and to get the required shots. It was pretty exciting to be going to the historic Pentagon to take care of these two pre-trip requirements. I wasn’t quite sure what “they” did at the Pentagon. I knew it was an essential place for the military. Everything else was “need to know” basis.

      As a seasoned Army BRAT, I was well accustomed to revering places of historical significance to our country’s founding and the maintenance of its democracy. I didn’t question any of this. It was the fabric of our nuclear, military family.

      We had been instructed by Dad to wear simple clothes-no patterns and to look serious in the photo. I have been questioned by people not raised in a military culture about my propensity to refer to many things in my history by “we” instead of “I.” It had been ingrained into us from firstborn that “we,” as in my sisters and I and Mom, were each part of a unit, of something more significant than the individual. By association with Dad, we were representatives of the Army and therefore were required to behave in words and actions with honor and task commitment.   

     Finding the “I” in me was something I would begin to define and struggle mightily within the coming three years.

    Dad drove for the pre-trip Pentagon visit. We were warned by Mom to “Leave any childhood revelry in the car.”  What were they going to do? Put us in the brig if we fell out of rank? No need to find out.

    The Pentagon halls were flooded with fluorescent lights, and yet the lack of windows made everywhere we walked feel like a dungeon. The only sounds were the click of sharply shined military shoes down the clean, buffed floors. As we walked, Dad and the other men silently saluted one another. This was familiar. It happened whenever we were on Post or at any military function.

     I followed “orders” precisely when it was my turn for the photos—no smile with a super serious look. When we received them a few weeks later in the mail, April took no time in telling me how “awkward” I looked. Yes, that was all I could see too. Yet, looking at it now, I see the sweet, beautiful face of someone on the cusp of change. It would take many years for me to get out of April’s perception of me and form my truth for myself.

      The pre-trip vaccinations were plentiful. Mom had not told us that we would also be required to have blood tests in addition to the poke fest of inoculations. I was as needle-phobic as a body could be. The smell of the rubbing alcohol on the cotton ball, the wiping of it onto my skin, the click of the needle cap being popped off, and the time-stand-still moments when the nurse filled the shot with whatever disease-killing agent was necessary, left me with a heart jumping across the room and out the door, little or no oxygen and blackness that started with my eyes and ended in my soul.

      To my relief, the shots would be administered in the arm rather than the butt: Ahh, the one detectible benefit of being older and having a bit of muscle above the waist. I do not recall all the shots prior to the mother of all shots, the DPT. The trio of diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis required verbal instructions and a warning from the nurse “Now, this is going to burn going in. Stay still so that the needle doesn’t break off. It will also leave your arm quite sore for a few days. This is normal.”

     Uhh, what? There is a chance that the needle could break off? This was something I had never considered before, and I would now add it to my lengthy list of “Things to Be Terrified Of.” Laura immediately began to cry and buried her head in Mom’s arms. Oh my god! This is going to be beyond awful. I must be brave, not cry; I must stay still so that the god damned needle doesn’t break off in my little arm!

      I am pleased to say that my terror left me motionless, and the needle was plunged in and removed without incident other than the lifelong mental/emotional scarring. It was worse for me to watch Laura get her DPT. Mom had to hold her down on the table. This just about shattered my heart. My little buddy was so terrified. I felt her trauma as though it was mine. It was mine. What was happening to her was happening to me.

      As if we had not experienced enough horror for one day, it was then time for the blood tests. Please forgive me if, in fact, the blood test was before the shot fest. I still have nights where this experience ends with me in a puddle of a sweating nightmare. Finally, we were out in the hallway, and each could enter the little bloodletting cubicle for our turn.

     I put out the ring finger on my left hand as that was the one that all other blood tests required. “Oh, Honey. This test is going to be in your arm,” said the military nurse.

     In my arm? Like a shot? How was that going to happen? I quickly got answers to my silent questions. “Now, which arm would you like me to remove the blood from?” I chose my left arm and passed her my spindly bicep.

    “Oh, you’ll have to turn it over so I can get to the veins in the crook of your arm.”

     Say what? Those vulnerable blue veins that I could see pulse with my heartbeats would be punctured? Oh, this was not going to be good. I had a little throw-up rise into my mouth. “I don’t feel so good,” I had the foresight to say, and she quickly laid me down. Now the throw-up was choking me. I turned my head to the side and swallowed the acrid blend of fear and breakfast.

      She tied a rubber tube around my arm and said, “Make a fist. Oh, you have good veins. This will be easy”. Oh, thank god! I had good veins. April had made fun of my protruding veins before; now, they were an advantage. Ha! The actual poke stung a hair, and I can’t say that it was a comfortable experience, but it was quick and over.

      Was all this necessary? Were there going to be any other life-altering wounding’s to move? What kind of hell were we moving to that we needed to be inoculated? Was this a third-world country? Was the water safe? Maybe this was not such a good idea. It didn’t matter-we were going.

     My arm could barely move for a week, much longer than the “few days” I had been led to believe. Dad’s way to comfort me was to share that when he first went into the Army, “The doctor would line everyone up by last name for the required shots and use the same needle all the way down the line! “Imagine if you were at the end of the alphabet for all those shot lines.” Yeah, that sounded horrible, but I was too immersed in the swill of my own experience to empathize with beefy men and their thick biceps.

      I needed a mental diversion to shift my thoughts. For company on the flight, I had my Archie comic spectacular, writing paper with coordinating envelopes, and my mind rife with imagination and dreams. My daydreams generally had me triumphing over some evil that had sublimated the rights of others. I was always coming to the rescue of the underdog.  Even though my Army BRAT inculcation was larger than life in me, so was the pull toward individuality. These daydreams served to begin to help me explore my own desiring’s.

******My Readers, what from your past will you share with us? Put it in the comments below. Thank you for reading, and thank you for listening. It truly means sooooo much to me that you take the time to read my work. (And I LOVE the comments because I truly enjoy the reactions/ stories of others.)******