Varian Johnson

WHAT REALLY HAPPENED

OUT OF MY TWIN'S SHADOW

There are a lot of great things about growing up as an identical twin. If you ever run out of clean clothes, a fresh shirt and pair of jeans are only a closet away. You always have someone available whenever you want to play Combat on your state-of-the-art Atari 2600 video game console. And you always have someone to talk to, about anything and everything.

Then there’s the bad—like when you and your twin are so close, you don’t quite know how to function when he’s not around.

That’s exactly what happened to me when I started seventh grade at Williams Middle School. For the first time, my brother and I were in different classes, something that I didn’t even consider as a possibility until I received my schedule. One of those classes was during the school’s lunch period, and it turned out that my brother ended up in first lunch and I had second. And of course, the few friends we had from elementary school were scheduled for first lunch, as well.

I remember agonizing over how lunch was supposed to work. Not just the part where I had to find new people to sit with—I didn’t even know when I was supposed to go to the cafeteria. Was I supposed to line up with my fourth period class, and we’d head to the cafeteria together like in elementary school? Was I supposed to go to my fifth period class first, drop off my books, then go to lunch? I was a good kid; I prided myself on knowing, understanding, and following the rules. The last thing I wanted was to get in trouble, especially on my first day of school. I finally summoned the courage to ask my homeroom teacher about lunch . . . and she responded by basically calling me an idiot.

I struggled during my entire seventh-grade year. I never felt comfortable talking to other students, and I got swindled for money and food more times than I’d like to admit. When my brother and I ended up with the same schedule in eighth grade, I fell back into the familiar routine of deferring to him for almost everything.

Things ultimately changed for me in ninth grade. My high school’s incoming freshman class was huge, and most students had requested to take gym class instead of Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC). After asking parents and students to reconsider, the school eventually resorted to randomly selecting students to take JROTC. Of course, I was picked.

It turned out that JROTC was exactly what I needed. I excelled at the history lessons inside the classroom and the drill instructions in the parking lot behind the school. I loved wearing a uniform—it was the one day of the week when there was no mistaking me for my brother.

And I had a very gifted teacher, Sgt. Leonard Fields, who saw something in me that I didn’t even see in myself. I wasn’t just a smart kid. I wasn’t just a boy that could follow rules. I could be a leader. I was a leader. And I don’t know if I would have ever learned that if I hadn’t been forced outside of my brother’s shadow.