“Elizabeth,”
Forgiveness is uncommon these days. Few ask for it and even fewer receive it. I believe that both of our lives will be better for it.
The call from one of the two at the center of the Academy case against me in 2006 was something that I never anticipated I’d be alive for. For several years, I hoped for it, I even dreamt about it but moments like it are rare in human nature. I want you to understand its significance so I’m going to tell you the part of the story that you never got to hear during that first call between us.
It was about 12 years prior (2006). And down the corridor, I could hear the distant yells (and screams) of one of the most infamous enemy combatants of the post 9/11 era. It was an extraordinary fall from grace to say the least. Just months earlier, I was gearing up to join you in serving our country and then overnight it was gone. But on that day, I sat in a dark concrete room on a mandatory suicide watch in the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston when I first had the urge to write you.
Please imagine how important the idea of a conversation between us must have been. In those moments, the act of writing someone drowned out the sounds of “America’s War on Terror.” I’d write Lindsey, I’d write my future mother-in-law, and I’d write a number of people that I never had the opportunity to say goodbye to. But I never did send that letter to you or anyone else. Instead, I waited.
I wasn’t angry about the turn that my life took. Even through all of the police drop-ins, the job losses, and our two evictions: I stayed hopeful and positive. But I was confused.
We were friends.
You were well acquainted with my character and yet, the allegations attributed to you were the most destructive. They represented a level of indecency and depravity that the others did not. Your allegations served as an anchor, making the rest of them seem plausible.
If the jury would have voted against me for the allegations assigned to your name, I likely would have never been the father to the children that you would later note as beautiful. I would have been incarcerated for over a decade.
While your allegations were not the most sensationalized by the media back then, they were the most important tactical piece of the trial against me. They represented the most vile acts.
We were friends. But no one on the jury or in the press knew that; they only knew what was on that sheet of UCMJ violations.
The night in question, I did what any man would do when a close friend of his was intoxicated and vulnerable. I helped you up flights of Chase Hall stairs after a night of partying. I walked you to the dorm room of your best friend, the same woman that I considered my first love. And I delivered you to safety. I walked down the stairs to my room, got situated and went to sleep. The next weekend day, we did what we always had: sports, school, and fellowship. Our friendship was beautiful to me and it still could be.
And then on February 9, 2006, three months after our last conversation as classmates, I received the word that you accused me of sexual assault.
When I saw the allegations, I instinctively laughed because it didn’t register to me that it was real. Or that the life that I knew was already over. When I saw your name, I began choking up. Then, it all hit me and I broke down on my father’s shoulder. We had an upstanding friendship.
Your allegations made the others seem plausible to third-party observers. No defendant could have survived the accusations on that sheet of paper. To the two men that prosecuted your case, they believed it was a sure victory. So for five months, I said nothing and I waited for my chance to speak. The disdain that I saw in the eyes of officers, cadets, and enlisted servicemen and women that I would pass on the streets of New London, Connecticut was excruciating. People looked at me as if I was evil.
The media ran with the original allegations with no regard for anything that I had to say. So when I finally stood up for myself and testified in my defense in June of 2006, I simply explained the truth - that I wasn’t even there to hurt you. And while I was successful in proving so, the damage had been done.
We were friends.
When two people experience the type of history that you and I have had, they surely never speak again. But this letter to you is about the power of the human spirit. Twelve years and one month later, you spoke to my wife and me. I nervously direct messaged you on March 12, 2018 after realizing that you’d viewed several of our Instagram stories over weeks:
Hey [Elizabeth], Linds and I hope that you and your family are well. If there is ever anything that her and I can do please let me know.
To which you eloquently responded:
Hi! You and your beautiful family appeared on my feed a little while ago and I have been thinking about reaching out. I wasn’t sure how you’d react. Your life looks wonderful. Your daughters are beautiful and look just like you. I would love the opportunity to chat with you and Lindsey. I know you probably don’t live in the past, but if there was one thing in my life I wish I could have changed, it was that entire time period. Best wishes.
Life can be ironic; you noted our daughters’ beauty and I was just happy that they exist; they have had improbable lives. Alexis was born just one year after I served time. I didn’t have the time to process, reflect, or resolve a thing. That had to wait.
Your texts to us struck me, especially this one:
I commend you, I would hate me….I hate my former self.
But neither of us hate you. In fact, Lindsey said as much:
Don’t carry that burden with you. We don’t hate you, or anyone involved for that matter. We hate the circumstance and we hate injustice but not people.
When we spoke on the phone and I heard the sorrow in your voice, it felt like the first peace that I’d had in well over a decade. Not only was the conversation freeing, it was beautiful. I had the opportunity to acknowledge and forgive; I was eternally grateful to you for giving me the opportunity to express those feelings. If I had one remaining goal, it would be to express to you that what you said to me was enough.
We can’t change the past and what I’ve learned over the past years is that we can’t overshadow it either. It stays with us no matter what and it will eat you alive if you let it. But I have never been interested in retribution. I’ve been fighting something or someone for nearly two decades so I’d much rather have peace. And for one moment, you gave me that.
Thank you for understanding that just because my life seemed put together, it may not have been. Thank you for having the courage to engage. Thank you for having the integrity to seek me out. And thank you for accepting our friendship.
We are friends.
And I hope that one day, our children will know one another. How poetic that would be.
My best,
Web Smith