Chapter XV – Camp Shelby
Anthony finally made it to Camp Shelby. He was there from January 2004 – June 2004. While he was there he had his seventh birthday, I hated that because we were unable to celebrate it with him.
There were two times Anthony was allowed to come home for the weekend. I had to get up at 5:00 a.m. in order to leave Tupelo and arrive in Hattiesburg, MS by 9:00 a.m. sharp. If we were late, they weren’t allowed to come home.
The first time I picked him up I was so excited to see him, the boys were in school, and Eddie was at work so it was just him and me on the car ride home. We had a lot of catching up to do and when I looked up, we were in a neighborhood in Alabama. How we got in Alabama I have no idea.
I called Eddie and asked him how to get home from where I was and he told me I shouldn’t be in Alabama and he had no idea how I got there. He said I must have missed my turn in Meridian, MS and I told him I never went through Meridian on the way home but I did go through there on the way to pick Anthony up. He kept arguing with me and telling me I had to have driven through Meridian and missed my turn. For those of you that have never been to Meridian it is a pretty big city and hard to miss from the interstate. I think I would’ve known if I’d driven through Meridian or not but he was bound and determine I drove through there and missed my turn. He just happened to be with a man from Alabama and asked him how I could get back to Meridian and the man told him. I swear to you I never went through Meridian. I was using my GPS and it took me a different way than I was used to and I ended up in Alabama on the back roads.
There was a time after that Eddie, the boys and I went to Camp Shelby to see Anthony. The cadets had spent a lot of time learning routines they were going to perform for their families and Anthony was so proud of what he had accomplished. He told me he was supposed to get an award for the cleanest area in his platoon and he was sure his platoon would win the best routine award.
When the time came for their routine they were very good up until the very last two moves. The guy to Anthony’s left turned the opposite direction of the others and Anthony followed his lead which caused the two of them to do the move wrong. I just cringed when I saw that.
After the show was over and the awards had been handed out Anthony was allowed to come visit his family. He was so angry at himself and the guy beside him for turning the wrong way because he knew if they had made the right move his platoon would’ve won the award but instead another platoon got it. He was also mad because he was told he was going to get the award for the cleanest area and he didn’t. My heart just ached for him because he was so proud of what he’d accomplished only to be let down again.
While we were there he was telling us a story, I don’t know if it is true or not, about how he’d made a homemade bomb from a 2-litter coke bottle and some MRE’s he had saved up. For those of you that don’t know what a MRE is, it is the food in the silver packets you add water to. He said he made the bomb and threw it on the ground and it blew up a pine tree. He thought that was the funniest thing and his brothers and I started laughing but Eddie didn’t believe him and just stood there. I didn’t care if the store was true or not. I was laughing with my son for the first time in a long time and the story was funny true or not.
He got to come back home with us for the weekend and on the way home Anthony, Kevin, and Brett were in the backseat of my car, Eddie was in the passenger side, and I was driving. We were all just talking away when Anthony said, “Busted!!!” I didn’t hear him so he repeated, “Busted Mom, you are busted!!!” I looked in my rearview mirror to ask him what he was talking about and when I did, I saw blue lights. As I was coming to a stop Anthony said, “Didn’t you see the cop? He was sitting behind the levy when you came over the hill. I knew when I saw him he was going to pull you over because you were speeding.” I just handed the police officer my license and registration, he wrote me a ticket and we were on our way. To the day he died Anthony would remind me of the time I got pulled over by a cop.
In September of 2003 Eddie, the boys, and I moved to Virginia and not long after that we got a call from Anthony telling us Chris, the friend that hung out with Carrie, Wyatt, Shocoby and Anthony was killed. He was in the back of a truck that one of his brothers was driving while the other was riding in the passenger side. It had been raining and the road was wet, they went around a curve and Chris was thrown from the truck. One of the boys gave him CPR while the other one drove to get help but it was too late when helped arrived, Chris was already gone.
Mother was taking Anthony to the funeral and he wanted to know if I wanted to go. I told him I wouldn’t be able to get off of work and drive there in time for the funeral because it was too far away. I am so glad mother took him to Chris’s funeral because he and Ms. Cathy, Chris’s mother, had a very good visit and had a lot of memories to share about Chris.
I never thought Anthony would graduate from high school so the day he graduated from Camp Shelby was the proudest moment of my life. Anthony was allowed to invite a limited number of family and friends. The family members that came were Tina, Greg, Christina and Gregory along with Aunt Georgia and Jim, Mother and me. The friends that came were Brittany and her family.
I made sure to take my camera with the 400 power lens so I could get good pictures no matter where we sat. Tina, Greg, Christina, Gregory, Jim, Georgia, Mother and I sat together and Brittany and her family sat together. When it came time to take the pictures I was so nervous that when the pictures were developed they were all so blurry you couldn’t tell what they were. I was very upset I didn’t have any pictures of Anthony’s graduation to give to him.
Instead of being the happiest day of Anthony’s life it was the saddest. While Anthony was at Camp Shelby not only had my family moved to Virginia but my parents had moved to Florida. Anthony wanted to go back to Mississippi to be with his friends but instead he was going to have to choose whether he wanted to live in Florida with my parents or in Virginia with us. He chose Florida because it was too cold in Virginia. Making that decision was the beginning of the end of the rest of his life.