AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hey guys so this story has been assaulting my brain ever since I've read a couple of other people's OC stories and I thought hey why not try my hand at it? Anyway this story has been beta'd by the amazing bayumlikedayum; without her this story would be a failure!

EDIT 8/19/12: REPOST TO FIX SOME NAME ISSUES

Posing as a man to be accepted into the newest combat oriented group was harder than anyone could have anticipated. Getting through the physical was probably the most difficult for a woman in disguise to endure; obviously a woman couldn't just walk in to a doctors' office and get your imaginary testes felt up for a cough test. Thankfully, when ones' good friend is doctor, anything is possible; a falsified test and a written note and I was on my way to basic. But I'm getting ahead of myself; let me start from the beginning.

-oOo-

The day was December 8th 1941 when the United States joined the war in Europe and in the Pacific. The Japanese decided that the Americans were interfering with plans in Southeast Asia. President Roosevelt launched a full scale attack in response on April 18th 1942 that would soon be called the Doolittle Raid. Since then, close to every eligible man was being sent off to boot camp to either fight against Adolf Hitler and his Nazis or Emperor Shōwa and his Japs.

I found myself envying my older and younger brothers for being able to fight for their country; my older brother Gerald went off and joined the Navy and was fighting in the Pacific, as my younger brother Timothy joined the Air Force and was currently fighting in Europe. Being born a woman left me with little choice of my future. Growing up, I had always been the athletic girl who would rather rough house in the mud with all the boys than playing with Raggedy Anne dolls or play house with the girls. I was the one all the guys got along with, the one who was always picked first in sports, and the one never caught dead in a skirt or dress.

When my brothers went off to fight, I wanted to pack up my bags and join them. If women were allowed to fight, you could bet I would have been the first to sign up. Unfortunately, I was stuck back in good ol' Hell's Kitchen, New York. I was born on December 24th in 1921 and given the name Samantha Elizabeth Griffin; the girl with the man's knowledge, that's what all the women would say when they had talked to me for five seconds. I really am not sure what they were expecting; they asked me questions I knew and I answered them. On most days, I would just hang out in back of my father's gun shop, fiddling around with the firearms that were back there for repairs or cleaning. My mother wasn't impressed; she was determined to have me married off to the top suitor.

One day, I found a flyer tacked to a billboard inside Pop's shop saying that the military was recruiting men for the Airborne; at that moment, I knew my time for waiting was over. I was going to do whatever it took to get into the Army and fight for my country.

-oOo-

"C'mon, Chris! You totally owe me from that one time." I begged, holding the paratroopers flyer in my hand. I had just showed it to him. Chris, who was practically my best friend, was a licensed doctor. I knew how the Army registration worked; I had watched my brothers enlist and I knew the fine print of enlisting. There had to be a physical examination but it didn't have to be done by an Army doctor. You could bring a slip of paper signed by a practicing doctor and not have to take the physical examination done by the Army doctors.

"Sam, helping me get a date with Marissa doesn't mount up to doing this! You're asking me to forge a letter clearing you for basic training. I could lose my job! You could lose your life!"

"You know I can do this. I know more about guns than any of those guys put together!"

"Yes, I know that but what about the physical aspect? Or have you forgotten that you're going to have to run miles and do dozens of push ups? If you want to act like a man you're going to have to things like a man."

"I'll be able to do all that and you know I can!"

"Samantha Elizabeth Griffin! No! That's my final answer so stop asking!"

-oOo-

As the weeks went by, I found myself constantly running to increase my stamina and speed for when Chris would finally give into my constant begging and write me a note so I could finally go off and fight for my country. He constantly put his foot down and ignored my pleas for him to reconsider. But I knew he could only say no for so long.

Both sides of the war were getting worse as time went on; I was constantly keeping tabs on the news on both the radio and in the newspaper. Dinners with my mother and father were silent affairs because we all had thoughts of Gerald and Tim on our mind. Mother would constantly leave in tears after something Pops would say about them doing the family proud or something along the same lines. It made me wonder how they would take it if I were somehow able to join the paratroopers.

Mother would probably keel over from dehydration because of all of her crying over her precious baby girl being surrounded by big bad men and the constant thought of me being found out and being put up to a wall and shot. I would take that chance if it meant that I could fight for my country.

One night, it seemed as though my prayers were answered; during yet another silent supper, there was a knock on our door. My father wiped his mouth with his napkin, rose from his seat at the head of table and went to open the apartment door. The muffled voices drew my curiosity. A few moments later, my father and Chris walked into the kitchen. Chris looked suspiciously nervous for just a regular talk.

"Samantha, your friend says he has to tell you something that cannot wait until we are finished with our meal." My father said, sitting back down into his chair and picking up his fork and knife. "Well, don't just sit there; go talk to him so we can finish our supper."

I slowly stood up from my chair, wiping my mouth and staring at Chris in confusion. He gestured to the balcony with his head, sliding the door open and allowing me through, following closely behind me. He sighed loudly once the door was closed again and leaned against the balcony railing, folding his arms across his chest and avoiding my eyes.

"If you just came over to lean on my balcony, I'm pretty sure you have your own to do that." I joked, joining him at the railing.

"Why?" he said looking dead straight into my eyes.

"How am I supposed to know your reasons for leaning on my balcony?"

"No, I mean –" He took a deep breath through his nose, almost as though I were trying his patience but I somehow knew it was to calm the nervousness fluttering in his stomach. I felt my hopes begin to rise but I tried to push them down; it wouldn't do to get excited for nothing. "Why do you want join the army so badly?"

Well. That's an easy question.

"I want to serve my country."

"You could serve our country like any other woman does, Sam."

"I'd rather not serve my country by taking care of injured men who'll just grab my ass. I'd rather actually do something."

He looked away and sighed again before one of his hands made its' way into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small pink paper. He looked at it for a moment before slowly holding it out to me.

"We're even."

I went to grab it but stopped in my tracks.

"What?"

He looked me dead in the eye and said, "After this, we are even for all the things you did for me back from when we were kids till now."

I grabbed the pink slip of paper and slowly opened it, slightly afraid of what I would find written inside.

There written in black ink in Chris's sloppy doctor handwriting was his consent that Sam Joseph Griffin was fit for active duty.

"Chris." I whispered in disbelief, not believing what was in my shaking hands. I looked him in the eyes with tears of gratitude. "I don't know what to say."

He pulled me into a hug and whispered into my ear. "You say thank you and promise me you'll come back in one piece."

I pulled away from the hug.

"You know I can't promise that." I replied, my eyes overwhelmed with the onslaught of tears.

"Well, you better try your hardest to make it happen. I don't want to be the one facing your mother's wrath when she finds out I was the one who made it possible for you to go get yourself killed," he joked with a shaky smile as though he were trying to hide the emotion of what he had agreed to. I laughed a choking sort of laugh and threw my arms around him again.

This was it. I was going. I was really going.

-oOo-

In a sense, the easy part was done. Now I had to somehow come up with a believable story as to why my long raven locks had been chopped off. Chris had suggested that I had been mugged and the criminal only wanted my hair for some odd reason. The look I gave him made him regret suggesting such a loony idea. Chris and I were sitting in a booth inside Marvin's Malt Shop when genius or lunacy finally struck.

."Its no use, there's no story that is believable of why my hair has been chopped off that they would buy." I whined blowing an enormous bubble from the bubblegum I was chewing.

Suddenly, a devilish look took over Chris's handsome visage. It was as though a lightbulb had just gone off inside his brain.

"Or you accidentally blow a bubble so big, it exploded into your hair - making you cut it. Your mother will be so furious that you didn't listen to her warnings about blowing bubbles that she won't question why you had cut your hair."

I jumped up in glee and grabbed my jacket, heading for the door. Chris quickly gulped down the remainder of his soda and chased after me.

-oOo-

"Okay, so you're one hundred percent sure you don't want a professional doing this?" Chris inquired, nervously holding a pair of scissors in his hand.

"And where would I go where no questions would be asked? No sane person of that trade would agree to cut a woman's hair as short as I want it."

"Fine, fine..." He blew out a shaky breath. I had the strangest feeling that he was squeezing his eyes shut as the scissors approached the back of my head, opening and embracing a single lock of my hair before it snipped cleanly and precisely, the single piece of my hair falling lazily to the ground.

"Chris. You're going to have to cut a lot more than that," I told him, trying to contain my laughter.

"Shut up. Slow and steady does a better job."

"If you keep going as slow as you're going, we're going to be here this time next year."

He didn't say anything else after that; his hands ran through my hair once before he fell to chopping off small snippets of hair and, for a few minutes, all you could hear was the sound of the scissors. Gradually, Chris' muscles relaxed until the scissors were practically flying through my decreasing locks. I could feel my head becoming lighter and lighter and I became more and more giddy at the thought of losing all of the cumbersome hair that my mother had so gloried in.

Finally, Chris stepped back and sighed a sigh of great victory.

"If it needs any more touching up, I sure as hell am not doing it. You can get another one of your minions to do it."

I stood up to look in the mirror and he practically threw the scissors at me in his haste to get out of the room before I turned around and he saw the destruction he had done.

It was done.

The next day, I found myself outside of a volunteering booth, holding the pink slip of paper in my hand and staring down at it nervously. This was it. There was no going back after this.

I took the first step, joining the line of hopefuls that were waiting for their turn in front of a man sitting at a table with a clipboard and a pencil.

"Next!"

Before I even knew it, it was my turn in front of the man. He asked for my name. I gave my alias numbly. After that, it was simply a blur. I was waiting for someone to halt in the middle of what they were doing, point at me with an accusing finger, and yell, "STOP! STOP! That's no man!" But nothing of the sort happened. Just the opposite, really. I gave the man my information and the pink slip of paper. He looked at it with the sort of detachment that a man earns after looking at slips of paper all day long and filled out the information, stamped the paper 1A and handed the paper to me.

"Next!"

I was left standing there in shock. It was working. This was working.

I moved on to the next line, waiting to talk to the man that would officially swear me in, and then waited to talk to the next man after that, the man would tell me where I needed to be and when I needed to be there to be shipped off to basic training, excitement stirring in my belly.

It was working.

I was going off to war.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Okay How did you guys like the prologue? Be honest now; I want to know your thoughts as they mean a lot to me.

On to a very important note; chapter update WILL vary seeing as some chapters are already written and some of them aren't, so I need you guys to be very patient with me because I will be trying my hardest to write us the chapters as fast I can so you guys can enjoy them!

Read it. Favourite it. Alert it. Review it.