True Tales

A KWTC Veteran Reminisces about Marching (mid 1970s)

“Who are those people and why do you have pictures of them?” Those people being women dressed in army fatigues with complete camouflage make up. This always makes me laugh because I know those people; those women are my friends. I was part of this wild and wooly group of women who dedicated almost every weekend for several years, summer weekends that is, doing something other than shopping for turquoise and coral jewelry. Yes, we were in New Mexico. Yes, we were at what is known as Khalsa Women’s Training Camp, and we did train.

This is what I believe the origin of that offshoot to be: It started with Yogi Bhajan wanting every woman trained in martial arts. This was to increase our self-esteem, awareness and ability to defend ourselves with techniques other then our dreamy hippie smiles. That evolved into marching, yes military style marching. Here I was, the pacifist who marched in many an anti-Vietnam war protest, and I was supposed to want to march military style. I had no desire to march and shout commands… two of my least favorite things, yelling and stomping. I refused to march.

Here we were at Women’s Camp with some man leading us in drills of precision and shooting orders. Drill is the pejorative word. I felt like the sounds drilled a hole in my head. He, our drill sergeant, was really into it, all aspects of it. Can you imagine ordering a couple hundred women around and into submission? More than a few men would have loved that job.

The only reason I really got out of it was I was really pregnant. I am not one of those who gets pregnant and puts on 20 to 25 lbs. I gain in the neighborhood (and trust me it is an entire neighborhood) of 55-75 pounds, which is half to two thirds my usual weight. When you are that big, floating in a pool is about all you are physically capable of doing.

The next summer I was saved from the dreaded marching because I was nursing and banished to the Orchard with no running water. Our mornings were spent loading drums of water to bring, by the grace of Nirbhao Kaur’s car, to our place of banishment. It bore a beautiful name, “The Orchard,” but it was a wild place and we had to clear it and rake rubble and tangles of thickets just to be able to put up our tents. We were kept far away from the rest of the women so our babies could not disturb them, especially at night. The only humorous thing was they also banished the pregnant women with us (I guess trying to scare them with the reality of what awaited them). It might have been a very effective birth control method if we had stayed in the regular camp. All it really did for the pregnant women was to give them a head start on sleep deprivation.

We saw no action in the marching arena and I, for one, rejoiced. Give me barrels of water to carry any time rather than the yelling and stomping routines that awaited the marchers each morning. Where do you go after military marching? In retrospect, I must say that the marching was supposed to align the hemispheres of our brains. It sounded good and no one asked, “Align it to what?” When our beloved teacher suggested an idea – he never suggested, he affirmed it – it was so. We proceeded to work with it. Understanding by doing; that is how we learned in those early days. Have the experience.

So what was next in this evolutionary phase of female empowerment, military style? Weapons training seemed a natural progression. I am surmising that someone suggested extending this martial training to the next logical step, Weapons. He said, “Every woman needs to be able to play a musical instrument. This is important for her grace and creativity.” I think at some point learning to use the weapon of your choice got added on to that.

Yet another military venture! except this time I had run out of children, and thus excuses. So I grudgingly marched off in the grueling heat and dust of the high desert in the middle of the day, in the dead of summer to learn how to shoot. Shoot rifles, handguns, and AK-47’s.

A shooting range was created here on our land. In the dust and heat we learned to shoot and for some of us it was like a homecoming. Me, the pacifist, felt like Annie Oakley with the shotgun. I got why people would want to learn this. I got the power of it. I got what Guru Gobind Singh got. Why he named the Sword “Bhagauti”, which means princess. Meaning that, you had to treat these weapons with the same honor and respect that you would a princess.

Weapon training progressed to survival training, where we learned to ambush and to see and feel who was out there and if they were with us or against us. It opened my intuition and brought us all very close together as a group. The group got smaller as the training got more intense.

I remember one such four-day weekend. It rained, as only the desert can, with open-armed skies, creating a new oceanfront, or so it seemed. As we walked through what was usually a dry creek bed, the water filled our very tall boots. As we tried to find those tiny little catnaps, with someone else on watch, our wet clothing clung to us like eels, keeping us both cold and awake. Our leader cheered us with, “This is nothing, in Nam, (that is Vietnam not the Nam) your sleeping bag was in the water and when you got up you were covered with leeches.” Now that really sounded like fun. It made me think and long for a nice hot bath, not just any bath but a bubble bath.

Minds are wonderful things. They know no limits, and mine was having a field day with what could be, until we were ambushed; then it was move for your life. No, we didn’t use real mortar, but even blanks don’t feel good and no one wanted to get hit. We were the Khalsa Commandos and proud of it. Look at our camouflage, our face paint and our fatigues and you would know that we were serious about learning how we could defend this land, our way of life and each other if it came to that.

This was the summer we spent every weekend in survival mode. Coupled with other situations, I believe that we were complete with this phase, ready to move on to something challenging on another level after that summer. We knew our teacher would have the next phase outlined, we just didn’t know what it was yet. But, these women in fatigues and face paint; they are really great women. Fearless and committed to each other and to stretching beyond what they thought possible. I know these women and I know I can trust them, even though they might look scary to you!