A man came to see me in the hospital. It was all kind of spooky. The nurse came to get me after lunch. She told me I had a visitor. Usually, if someone came to see you, they just walked in during visiting hours but I was lead to another room that looked like an office. There was a small man sitting at the desk wearing a suit.
It seemed really odd and then I got the idea that maybe someone was in trouble. I was afraid at first that maybe someone back home had died but if that had happened, I think the nurse would have told me. I discounted that it might be Tom in trouble because it would have been a military person who told me, I think.
He told me to sit down like it was his office. I'd never seen him before so I didn't know who he was. He was very formal. He took my hand and shook it saying he was pleased to finally meet me. He told me he'd read a lot about me. After thanking me for "performing well" as he put it, I thought I was being dismissed.
He got down to brass tacks then. The "program" had been shut down an I, and the others, were no longer needed. He asked me if I'd like to continue in the military. It was almost time to decide if I wanted to reenlist.
I pointed to my bulging tummy and told him that could be a problem. He said he could get me a waiver to take the physical six months after I'd given birth but I told him I wouldn't be reenlisting. I liked the work I did when I did it but being a real mom was more important to me.
I had thought about this seriously. It wasn't a spur of the moment decision. If we had a real "situation" and I had to go somewhere and be in danger, I would always be worrying about my son. Besides that, I wanted to be there when he did things for the first time. I wanted to watch him grow up.
It was my turn to thank the man and I did, starting to get up to leave. I thought that was it. I was beginning to feel a sense of freedom. Maybe a part of me had dreaded that "going to war" bit for a long time. Still the man wouldn't let me leave. He asked me to wait just a bit longer. So I sat. He looked at his watch.
He picked up a phone and said, "She's here, sir." and handed the phone to me. I never knew who was on the phone. It might have been the president for all I knew but I didn't think so because the voice was unfamiliar. I'd heard the president on TV and I knew what he sounded like. I think it was just some official somewhere in an office.
He thanked me for my service to my country. Because of what myself and others had done, we had proved that women could not only do the same things that men could but at times we were better suited for some jobs. I was surprised at that.
He told me I shouldn't talk about this for a few years. It was a "secret" project but one that a lot of people knew about. It wasn't so secret that I could never speak of it again. They just wanted it kept low key until they were ready to use their new found knowledge. I could have told them then that women had been doing the same tasks as men since the caveman days. They'd just never gotten the credit for it.
When ever there has been a war, there have always been women fighting, mostly at home but a lot have put on pants and gone to war. I've read of women in the American Revolution and in the Civil war as well as all those women who did things in WWI and WWII. And lets not forget all the civilian jobs that women did when men were away fighting.
Traditionally, women have stayed home and raised the kids while men went off to work to earn the bread money. What a lot of males don't seem to get is that those women work just as hard if not harder doing their part of the job as the men do.
I just said "Thank you," and the man took the phone back. I left the office like I was walking on a cloud. I felt a sense of freedom I hadn't felt in so long.
Before returning to my room I did one important thing. I ran or waddled as fast as I could to the public restroom in the hall way to pee. I got in the booth and started to shut the door when this giant cockroach came rushing at me. I almost wet myself right there and then. He was at least two inches long if not longer. I did what any self-respecting woman warrior would do. I grabbed the spare roll of toilet paper and threw it at him. I think I scared him as much as he scared me.
Back in the room I told my roommate the tale of my encounter with the cockroach. She never asked me about the visitor so I didn't need to tell any fibs.
It was time to get down to the real job of birthing this kid.