Andrew Cave

Professor Rand
UWRT 1102-038
12 February 2015
Dodge, Dip, Dive, Duck, Dodge
In the early winter months of 2012, I was a young soldier fresh back from the stale sands
of Iraq, utilizing the bar as my drinking well, terrified prohibition was going to resume
tomorrow. Life is different when you come home, but luckily my girlfriend of almost three years
was still beside me, and supported me no matter what. Caroline and I started dating before I
joined the Army and therefore went through every subsequent stage of the military with me
whether basic training, Airborne School, being out in the field for weeks on end, or being
deployed to Iraq for nine months. It was quite stressful on our relationship to be on Skype and
her hear the mortar attacks, or me not being able to talk to her for days on end while I was out
trying to win the hearts and minds of Iraqi town people, strapped with a four-foot belt fed
machine gun. Hard, but not impossible, we stuck through it, credited to both of us being strong
willed and passionate individuals, but none of that could have changed the outcome of the end of
the end.
We had gone to a small local bar together one cold, wet night and received a lot of
attention because it was my first time out seeing all of my good friends from back home in
almost a year. Never before has a man been offered so many free drinks from other men in a
single night. This, coupled with my insatiable taste for American whisky was a recipe for
disaster. Caroline immediately started becoming irritated because I was paying more attention to

Jack D. and my other good friends, while not being the attentive boyfriend I signed up to be.
The irritation soon developed into a full blown irate girlfriend who wandered away from me
through the bar. I shrugged it off, and continued to catch up with my old crew.
As Caroline meandered through the crowd, she made an effort to tickle my jealousy nerve
by flirting with other guys. Knowing her intentions, I paid it no attention and drink after drink, I
got progressively bigger, louder, and more boisterous. Catching occasional glimpses, Caroline
seemed to be keeping up with me drink for drink, flirting with a Jersey Shore imposter with an
apparent addiction to steroids and toddler-sized T-shirts. Again, I just ordered another round, and
cauterized my emotions with the burn of the whiskey.
When I was younger, I was a hot-head, and reacted on first instinct which typically
resulted in violence, or at least breaking things, either inanimate objects, or my own knuckles;
more often the latter. My time in the service up to this point may not have controlled my
emotions, but it certainly taught me to contain myself enough to remain under control. It is not
an easy task to be fraught with anger, see red, and still act as if nothing is of real concern, but it's
necessary when dealing with indigenous people overseas to ultimately accomplish the mission.
This repetitive personal training is what I believe enabled me to remain calm, cool and collected
when I confronted Caroline.
About the time the band began to play my favorite Garth Brook's song, Unanswered
Prayers, I decided to try to make a drunken advance on my own girlfriend, so I meandered my
way through the crowd of couples, looking for my significant other. After pushing through
hoards of drunken people, and tripping over feet and glass bottles, I saw her sitting there, looking
beautiful as always, but the Jersey Shore imposter was making out with her, with no opposition
from her.

At this point, my good friend Jon walked up with a bourbon in each hand, and as he went
to hand me mine, he witnessed Caroline kissing the guy as well, and froze in his tracks. Jon then
just handed me both shots, and said "You'll need em, buddy" and stepped to the side. Being
seasoned with combat the better part of the last year, but basted in self control, I put a
millisecond between the shots, and decided that the method of being calm, cool and collected
was the way to approach the situation. Life was in slow motion as I walked up. One boot in front
of the other, the whole way there, deciding what to say and how to say it. I walked up, Caroline
froze, and I attempted to look through her eyes into her soul. She looked so scared and timid,
just like a child when they're caught red handed playing with the prohibited BB gun. I cut off her
stammered apology with a big, facetious smile, and in my nicest voice I said "Caroline, you're
beyond dead to me." Before she had the chance to respond I had already wheeled around to walk
off. I caught Jon's eye and told him to get the truck, we were leaving, and that I had to pay my
tab. I gladly paid my tab with a sense of pride that I had not betrayed my morals and resorted to
violence.
Military relationships are an entity of their own, and living in a close knit community of
men enables you to see all sides and facets of them. Immediately or soon after deployment, guys
wives would have a boyfriend, would file divorce paperwork, or even just take everything and
leave never to be heard from again. These were my best friends; my superiors and subordinates,
and I had to be involved in many of their marital endeavors. At the age of 20, I had already
written a will with designated beneficiaries, as well as knowing more about marriage, divorce,
separations and annulments than most baby boomers. During this time, my views on
relationships became overwhelmingly cynical, and although I had planned to marry Caroline, I

didn't know why. Maybe it was just the right time, all my buddies were getting married, or
possibly just the pay incentive offered by the military.
I was on the phone walking out the door, looking around for Jon's truck, and double
tasking while drunk is a personal issue I'm trying to work on. I had to concentrate so hard on my
phone conversation that I didn't even see the headlights coming for me. A typical February night
cold and wet, dark and bleak, and I'm drunk in a parking lot with Caroline's Volkswagen Jetta
testing its full acceleration capacity with my hind side as its only destination. I went to run, I
went to hide, but the bourbon severely crippled my nimble catlike agility.
The bumper made contact with the back of my knee, and I felt my ass crush into the hood
of the little car. I resorted to my training of falling out of airplanes and tucked my chin into my
chest, elbows tight into my sides, and was able to roll off the car's windshield in an oblong
fashion, luckily utilizing my face to break my fall onto the rain soaked pavement below. I could
hear her tires screeching on the wet pavement and I was just able to look up to see her taillights
vanishing into the night. I ran back up onto the bar's porch, figuring she couldn't come hit me
there, and limbered up a little to the great relief that I still had all my body parts.
I think the bar scene is too important to disregard that night, with everyone having a good
time drinking, inherently crucifying their inhibitions, especially Caroline. She reacted by trying
to apologize, but she knew me, and knew that I wasn't one to try to talk things out immediately; I
liked to walk away and cool off. She was born and raised in a very southern household, where
women minded their tongues and were always polite. She always put on a smile and hardly
spoke an ill tempered word, but the events of that night made her blood boil enough to finally
take out all of her pent up anger on my ass cheek with her front bumper.

I rode home with Jon that night, and vowed to never see or speak to Caroline again. I
went to Jared's the next day and returned the engagement ring I had planned to give her in a few
weeks, and never have I been so thankful to get back six thousand dollars. I served the rest of
my time in the Army, and never spoke to Caroline again until awkwardly enough I was working
security at Boardwalk Billy's five months ago when she came there to celebrate her wedding
reception. We met eyes at the door, and I saw her new boyfriend, and I smiled inside and out
knowing she was no longer my responsibility.
Everything in life is a learning lesson. Although alcohol evokes a sense of invincibility
and a false sense of intelligence, it severely hinders your cat-like agility as well as your
situational awareness. On the bright side, it dampens your pain receptors so you don't realize
how much car hoods hurt until the next morning. When hit by a car, turn your body so you go
off at an oblong angle instead of bouncing over the length of the car. Most importantly, never
underestimate a woman's capacity for violence. Southern and sweet with a hint of sassy does not
mean she won't run you over in the parking lot, and you should remember this before you go
drop three paychecks on an engagement ring.
I've always put all my stock into this idea to protect people, crush anyone who harms
women, children or the disabled, and to stand up for someone weak. I've always maintained a
watchful eye over my circle of friends and family, and joined the military to be able to protect
America by eliminating threats overseas. I realized through being hit by a foreign car driven by
a disloyal significant other that I had thoroughly overlooked protecting myself emotionally, and I
have now adopted an emotionally detached persona capable of enduring any and all stressors that
come my way.

Process Notes:
Writing this paper was actually quite enjoyable for me because I was able to use my
natural voice and not have too many rules and restrictions implemented that all too often
suffocate a writers voice. I would say that my original paper, or assignment #1, is how I
naturally write, using bold language and leaving things pretty cut and dry, but integrating the
retrospective aspects that were encompassed in assignments #2 and #3 was a brand new
experience for me. I had fun assimilating a story told from first person into my current
viewpoints, and trying to appropriately configure the language needed for a smooth transition.
During my writing process, I first try to just put pencil to paper, so to speak. After I've
gotten a pretty decent outline, I try to play with words a little bit to try to connect with the reader
such as using alliteration or repetitive techniques, and to try to make certain things stand out. I
believe these would be my most significant revisions in my paper, but I think a reader should
notice the transitions used in first person perspective and retrospectively. I formatted my paper
like I did so that I could tell the story, and then throw in a solid explanation of why the situation
panned out the way it did, or my motives behind my actions. I didn't think that it would hold the
same effect if I had tried to incorporate both time frames in one paragraph, so I left it pretty cut
and dry.
I was helped by multiple classmates, first of all with encouragement and them enjoying
the story I had produced and lived through, but also just by talking through some of the
transitional issues from one paragraph into the next. Some things become really obvious when
someone else points them out, and being able to talk through those issues really helps. If I had
more time, I would continue to smooth out my paper, and possibly remove some of the extra
information about the relationship, and maybe try to bend the story to become more of a guiding

principle in entertaining form. Possible involve this idea of loyalty, protection and honor as a
thread throughout the entire paper.
Although I am not an emotional person by any means, my paper inherently contained
emotion as soon as I mentioned girlfriend. It was a difficult choice for me to be able to write
about the entire situation, and be able to portray my emotionally distant attitude now, but I did so
by inserting humor and sarcasm where I could, and tried to maintain a very light hearted attitude.
I'm most proud of writing about something as personal as a relationship for others to read. I'm
not one to share personal information with new people, but this sure makes for a good story
around the bonfire, so I figured I'd share.