Free Limbo by Melania G. Mazzucco

operations were usually not particularly complex. But spring was coming, and when the snow in the mountains melted and the roads, now impassable, reopened, and especially after the opium poppy was harvested, an increase in hostile activities was expected. Men, drugs, and arms would start moving in April, attacks would intensify, casualties would increase. Insurgents would undoubtedly engage us in armed conflict, which meant we had to train rigorously every day. But I knew all this already, and while the captain spoke, my gaze wandered outside the shed. Sand as fine as powder, kicked up by the wind, whirled among the tents. All that mattered to me was that I had been assigned to S3—operations—and was responsible for thirty men.
    Pegasus platoon expressed surprise at having a female commander. Everyone feels insecure when faced with something they’re not used to. The men greeted me with curiosity, but I had learned to look inside people, and knew how to decipher the language of their evasive eyes, even the skepticism in their voices when they said, “Yes, ma’am.” Without even knowing me, they’d already judged me. I could guess what they were saying. Little Miss Graduate, fresh out of school, unsuited to such a delicate operative role, unfairly promoted by the army general staff, protected by some bigwig at the ministry, or the lover of some high-ranking officer. I was determined to ignore their resentment, which in any case I understood. But I would win them over. I would treat my subordinates as I wanted my superiors to treat me. I would lead without coercion and instruct with behavior rather than with words. I would be firm and consistent; I would delegate so that my subordinates felt involved: I merely had to identify my most capable men. I would face problems calmly, and with the utmost self-control. More than anything, I wanted to appear sure of myself. But I knew I had to earn their respect. That’s how it always is when you’re a woman. You have to work three times as hard to prove you’re worth half as much as a man.
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    And besides, I’d already been through it. I’d spent twelve months in the rank and file. At eighteen, I survived it. At twenty-seven, I considered myself strong enough to deal with Afghanistan and my platoon’s prejudices at the same time. In a Sollum perennially enveloped in a cloud of sand and smoke, I sought the joy and enthusiasm I’d felt during my first months in the armed forces, and which I thought I’d lost. I was nostalgic for those ten weeks of basic training in Ascoli Piceno, in a barracks reserved for women. We slept in a dorm, six beds to a room, like at summer camp. My bed creaked and my locker was small, but it didn’t bother me, because I really didn’t have much. Apart from my underwear, gym socks, rubber insoles for my boots, seal fat to keep them soft, apart from my sweatsuit, flashlight, padlocks, toothbrush, shower shoes, toilet paper, multi-outlet for charging my cell phone, gel Band-Aids for the blisters on my feet, and a hairnet to hold my hair in a bun, all I had was one change of clothes for when I was off duty: a pair of jeans. The prohibition on colored nail polish—which upset my fellow soldiers, who considered it an offense to their femininity—left me indifferent: I’d never used it.
    Life followed an elementary, repetitive rhythm. Reveille at 0630 hours, fall in, flag-raising, marching, military theory, push-ups, training, guard duty, firing range, fall out, lights out at eleven thirty, like when we were kids. The other women were done in by the marches in the rain, the training runs where we had to follow the instructor all around the barracks and then along dirt roads, but I enjoyed them. (I was a cross-country champion when I was young, and I might have kept at it if I hadn’t found out that my father had been a good runner. I didn’t want to have