After so long in solitary confinement, I struggled with the most fundamental things. Regaining normal speech was challenging. I couldn’t remember how to talk without shouting and sandwiching my responses around the rank of my interlocutor: Yes-Sergeant-yes, as the Marine Corps guards had demanded. It drove everyone at the JRCF nuts, but I was too well trained. Little by little, I regained my balance. I willed my own self into existence again, and not for the last time.
