Blurred Lives

by Melissa de la Cruz

 “Can any of you think of potential situations you may face on campus that might challenge your ethics?” Dean Hsu posed the question. We sat in Sterling Memorial Library, the select six students that managed to penetrate Yale’s overflowing transfer student applicant pool that year, passing muster and gaining what we considered to be the coveted Yalie designation.

Seemingly eager to share their individual philosophies, two classmates vied for the floor. Without completely ignoring the speakers, I shifted in my seat and contemplated the Dean’s words. I noticed my legs sticking to the green leather of the overstuffed chair that was under me.

I should have worn long pants...No..I’m already drenched from the humidity...What was the Dean’s name again?...I don’t know what to say to these people...I can’t let on where I work...I’ll be fine...Is lying by omission really a thing?….I can be normal, right?

Last year at this time I was in a nondescript building in McLean, Virginia, sitting stiffly in a reclining lounge chair, while hooked up to a blood pressure cuff, pulse oximeter, and other instruments measuring respiration and skin conductivity. My eyes ached from the bright office lights. The fabric of the chair was generating heat throughout my core, and even though I dared not close my fist, I could feel that my hands were cold and sticky with sweat. I faced the bare wall as the counterintelligence officer questioned me, studying my profile for signs of weakness.

I tried hard not to anticipate his specific questions. Mucus dripped down the back of my mouth and filled my pharynx. That I would be reduced to tears was a certainty. Nobody knew of anybody––male or female––who had made it dry-eyed out of the Central Intelligence Agency’s initial polygraph.

My parents had instilled in me a strong sense of right and wrong, sometimes to a fault. My father is a first generation Filipino American who remained loyal to his government contractor employer for over thirty years. He still does not acknowledge the early retirement offers that would ultimately leave him pensionless demonstrating his own dispensability to the company whose allegiance he pledged. “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you,” comes to mind. That would not be right.

I had enlisted in the US Army three days after my seventeenth birthday. With one year left to complete high school, the Defense Intelligence Agency was able to complete a thorough background check. By the time I had turned eighteen, I was granted Top Secret access.

Yes, I had held a Top Secret security clearance my entire adult life. And yes, I had gone up against the lie detecting box before. But aside from being connected to the same types of monitors, this experience was completely different. As a military intelligence Army Soldier, I was given the exam inside a dank, dark, office in an old barracks building on an armed forces installation. I had sat on a hard plastic chair and responded to a line of straightforward questions. That exam required no secret location. No recliner. No bright lights. And the question topics were limited only to counterintelligence.

This exam took it a step further-adding a battery of lifestyle questions. The goal, I was told, was to ensure that I could not be a target of bribery, blackmail, or extortion. My previous unscathed years in intelligence did nothing to establish that I was insusceptible to leaking state secrets.

Knowing I would be faced with so-called lifestyle questions raised my anxiety to new levels. I knew lifelong, born-again Christians whose integrity gave graphene a run for its money in tensile strength, and even they had failed the Central Intelligence Agency’s initial polygraph.

“Have you ever stolen anything?” The man inquired catatonically.

I sniffed in the stale air slowly. I had to answer honestly. But I wondered if I would get the chance to explain myself. 

“Yes,” I managed, breathing steadily.

Aloof, the man shifted his eyes downward and began writing in his notepad. “Please elaborate.” 

I moistened my mouth and carefully detached my desiccated tongue from my palate, where it had become stuck after completing the ess sound in yes. I ignored the dizzying apparent temperature rise in the room, and focused on my phrasing.

My entire future was at stake. I had been recruited from the National Security Agency where I had filled a military billet. I was now a civilian of four months. If all went as planned, not only would I be hired as a CIA analyst, but the government would also pay my complete college tuition--an unanticipated cost that I was facing, at which the mere thought sank my stomach and left me sullen. I blamed my own poor planning and gullibility for my current situation. How could I have believed the Army recruiters when they purported that the Army College Fund would be more than enough to pay for my education? I recognized in the moment the make-it or break-it weightiness of it all and proceeded accordingly.

“Well,” I began, hacking up the glob of phlegm that had finally dislodged itself from my throat.

I ended up telling him everything. I began with the small stuff--about when I was five years old and had looted the bazooka bubblegum barrel at the convenience store. I moved on to less forgivable incidents--like the times I had borrowed things without returning them. “Inadvertent theft,” he nodded knowingly. And I included my tendency toward casual kleptomaniacal behavior--taking change from my dad’s dresser, and much more than the occasional pack of gum from the drugstore where I’d held a part-time job during my high school days. Lastly, I acknowledged that I had kept government issued pens and memo pads for my own personal use. 

I stared at the stark wall, exhausted from my protracted confession. My thoughts raced, but I willed myself to remain calm.

Evidently satisfied that I had fully ransacked the recesses of my mind, the man steadfastly continued his line of questions, “Have you ever…” 

#

“How about you, Melissa?” I was back at Yale. I looked around uncomfortably. Apparently the five other transfer students had already chimed in. There was one other non-traditional student aside from me. He was a veteran, too, and I had yet to decide if that was a comfort or an annoyance to me.

My mind was blank. Can you think of situations you may face on campus that might challenge your ethics? For some reason I regarded Dean Hsu’s question as though it were loaded with scrutiny. It seemed similar to the inquisitiveness of the polygrapher. I was not able to gather my thoughts, but felt compelled to answer quickly, so I blurted out with unmeasured self-righteousness, “I would not feel comfortable buying alcohol for my underage classmates.” My proclamation fell flat. The four traditional students gave each other knowing looks of snickers and disbelief. My veteran counterpart deliberately averted eye-contact, shunning me in short order, and was clearly anything but a comfort at that juncture. 

In that moment, I sat quietly with my confusion. Where did that come from? I’m such a hypocrite. Am I that much of a goody-goody? 

I visualized the countless times my older friends had made beer runs for me as a young teenager. I felt defeated, as though I had blatantly ignored the old adage, “Don’t forget where you came from.” 

Then, retrospectively, I revisited the polygraph. I saw that the government did not only use it to weed out would-be treasonists. I convinced myself that it was a mechanism used to emotionally break down prospective employees, forcing them to question their moral compass. 

During my introduction to my peers, I was still in the midst of taking inventory of my value system and had yet to prioritize how to exercise those principles. It did not help that I had developed such a blurred identity. Yes, I had transitioned from my distinct role of a soldier to that of a civilian. But I was now in unfamiliar territory—launching a new life simultaneously as a Yale undergraduate student and a CIA analyst. Was this an omen, a red flag that I was entering not just the unknown, but perhaps also a risky realm?

In my mind, I had to keep my work at the CIA a secret from my Yale classmates. My plans included a future in the Directorate of Operations, otherwise known as Clandestine Services—what people conjure up first when the CIA is mentioned—and I did not want to compromise a potential cover. At the same time, I was trying to relate to students who I imagined had lived a sheltered life. I wondered how I would connect with others if I was constantly lying to them about how I spent my breaks. How would I forge those lifelong collegiate friendships with such superficial, inexperienced, coddled bookworms? These questions whirred through my head, blurring my thoughts and my vision. 

Did I really believe that the Clandestine Services was a viable option for my future, or was I using that as a sort of bunker so that I could remain fortified from interacting with…civilians? They say hindsight is 20/20. I disagree. Hindsight, for me, is more of a paradoxical Choose Your Own Adventure chapter book. If I were to return to the chapter, Melissa’s Yale Orientation, I imagine I could choose from at least three adventures. The first would be to be open, honest, and direct about my service in the CIA with my peers. I am guessing that I would have established more connections with my classmates, and that I may have created meaningful, lasting relationships. The second would be to allow at least some people into my trusted circle. I believe this would have prevented my feelings of awkward loneliness on campus. The last adventure—the one I selected—would be to live my life as a Yale undergraduate, while keeping my status as a CIA analyst under heavy guard. By appearances, it seems I would have fared better in life with the first two adventures. However, new milestones would have been reached and another handful of adventures would have been presented to choose from—the uncertainty would certainly continue. The question lingers: could I have chosen another path and avoided such bleak results?