Feigning surprise and excitement, Cerro carefully folded his paper, packing it away in his briefcase for later, then slowly rose and casually strolled over to the clerk. When he arrived at her desk, she announced she needed two copies of his orders and all amendments. Once she had them, the clerk referred to a computer printout. Finding Cerro's name, she ran a finger across the appropriate line while she copied the information on a blank form.
Finished, she took the form, turned it so that Cerro could see it, and began to explain what he was to do next. "This confirms your assignment to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd Brigade, 16th Armored Division. You'll start your inprocessing with finance in room…"
Cerro wasn't paying attention to the clerk. He had tripped into a mental lock when the clerk had announced that he was assigned to a brigade's headquarters and headquarters company. Simply put, that meant that he would be on the brigade staff. For the first time in his military career, Cerro would not be in a real troop unit. Instead of working with real soldiers and tromping about in the boonies, he would be living in a world ruled by a lieutenant colonel executive officer in search of his eagles, populated by high-speed, low-drag majors out to make their mark on the Army, and run by sergeants who were either too old to be in line units or had been thrown out of them. Such an assignment, to Cerro, was akin to being sentenced to a salt mine in Siberia. The old question, "Father, why have you forsaken me?" kept running through his mind as the clerk continued to give him instructions he ignored.
With his mind cluttered with visions of doom and damnation, Cerro didn't notice the appearance of the female second lieutenant when she was called forward by the clerk seated next to the one mumbling instructions to him. The lieutenant was up out of her seat and at the front of the room in a flash when her name was called. As Cerro's clerk had done, the clerk attending to the lieutenant asked for two copies of her orders and all amendments, then leafed through the great computer printout until he found the lieutenant's name and automatically began to fill in an inprocessing form for her.
The clerk's hand stopped, however, when he reached the column on the printout that listed the lieutenant's unit of assignment. Running his finger back across the line, he first checked to make sure he hadn't inadvertently dropped down a line while writing. Once he was sure the line on the printout was correct, he looked at the orders the lieutenant had handed him, checking that the name and social security number on the orders agreed with those on the printout. Only after he was satisfied that he had the correct entry did he look up at the lieutenant. "I'm sorry, ma'am. There must be a mistake here. According to the printout, you're being assigned to A Company, 2nd Battalion, 13th Infantry."
The lieutenant spoke for the first time. "Oh, there's no mistake. I'm an infantry officer and that's the unit I've been assigned to."
The clerk looked at Kozak for a second before he responded. "Oh, so you're one of them."
As in the old E. F. Button commercial, everyone in the room momentarily stopped whatever he or she was doing, turned, and looked at the five-foot-eight female second lieutenant. Even Cerro, shaken from his thoughts of gloom and despair, turned and looked at the lieutenant next to him. For the first time, he carefully studied her profile. Every hair was in place, neatly combed back and secured in the tight little bun at the back of her head. Small gold ball earrings sat nestled in her soft white earlobe.
Her face, set in a firm, dispassionate stare, was flawless, if somewhat colorless. Cerro paused for a second, as if he was afraid of what he would see, before he allowed his eyes to drop down to confirm what the lieutenant had already announced. When he did, a sudden shudder ran through his body as his eyes locked onto the shiny brass symbol of the infantry secured to the lieutenant's collar. It was her! The day had finally come. They had arrived.
The sudden and unwanted attention had caught Nancy Kozak by surprise.
She had hoped that all the advance publicity and media coverage would have softened the shock and allowed her to quietly slip through the initial processing without a scene. That hope, however, was shattered before she even got out of the starting blocks. The introduction of females into combat arms units was simply too emotional an issue to quietly slip by. "Well," she thought, "so much the better." Regaining her poise, Kozak bent forward slightly toward the clerk. "Yes, the orders and the printout are correct. I am Nancy L. Kozak, Second Lieutenant, Infantry, and, according to my sponsor and orders, I am to report to A Company, 2nd of the 13th Infantry." And, as an afterthought, Kozak added, "That's right, soldier. I'm one of them."
It took a few more seconds for Kozak's confident, almost defiant retort to register with the clerk. Blinking his eyes, the clerk apologized, blushing from embarrassment as he did so, then mumbled that he was just confirming that the printout was correct. For an awkward second, there was silence before he went back to filling out the form. Satisfied with herself, Kozak straightened up, then turned to face the captain standing next to her, who was staring at her. When their eyes met, she tilted her head to one side and arched her eyebrows slightly, giving a quizzical look.
The captain, an infantry officer with master parachutist wings and a collection of ribbons that was quite impressive, looked into her eyes for a moment, then down at the infantry brass on her collar, then back to her eyes. Though he said nothing, his actions and expressions spoke legions.
Only the intervention of the clerk filling out Cerro's inprocessing form broke the stare-off between Kozak and Cerro. "Sir, if you take this, you start your processing at finance." Without taking his eyes off Kozak, Cerro took the form from the clerk with his left hand while picking up his briefcase with his right. Even when he responded to the clerk with a barely audible and perfunctory "Thank you," he was still staring at Kozak. Then, with an abruptness that almost startled her, he turned and fled out of the room.
When he was gone from sight, Kozak turned back to the clerk filling out her form. He too was staring at her again. Rather than feeling uncomfortable, Kozak found herself becoming angry. "Is there something else wrong, soldier, with my paperwork?"
The sharp question caused the soldier to blink. "No, ma'am."
"Well then, let's get on with it, soldier."
With that little incident, Second Lieutenant Kozak passed from reaction to assertion.
It was more than the heat and his assignment to the division staff that was bothering Cerro as he approached his car. It was the female infantry lieutenant. As much as he wanted to ignore the fact that she was there, he could not. All morning, as he had inprocessed, she had always been right behind him as she inprocessed. It wasn't the fact that they were now commissioning women in the combat arms that surprised Cerro. On the contrary, he, and most of the Army, had been following the debates, decisions, and processes involved in making all of that happen. The pros and cons of the issue, and what impact the final decision would have, had been the subject of many discussions wherever Cerro had gone. Though he had reconciled his mind to the fact that whatever happened was beyond him and he had no choice but to live with decisions made by the Department of the Army, it was still unsettling to see his first female infantry officer.
He was just beginning to convince himself that it was foolish to get so worked up over an issue that he had no control over when, suddenly, as if all of his dark thoughts had made his worst nightmare a reality, there she was, standing next to his car. Cerro stopped in midstride and paused, wondering what she was doing there and why she was following him.