Editor’s Note: This story was published in partnership with San Quentin News and was written during a writing seminar for incarcerated veterans in April hosted by The War Horse at California’s San Quentin Rehabilitation Center. Tens of thousands of military veterans are incarcerated across the United States, and these stories are intended to shine a light on their unique needs, challenges, and experiences. Learn about the seminar here.
I exited the county bus in waist chains and leg irons with just enough room to shuffle my feet forward. My Achilles tendon flexed against the sharp metal with every step.
“You SNY? GP? EOP?” the corrections officer yelled as we moved toward the receiving entrance of San Quentin Rehabilitation Center.
I had no idea what any of the acronyms meant. I followed the person in front of me, lined up against the wall, and removed all my clothing as instructed. I stood there naked as the day I entered this world, trying to understand what the officer was asking.
I was suddenly back in the Marine Corps, on my first day of boot camp, when I’d reverted to survival mode. I did the same now: shut my mouth, used my ears, did my best to fit in, and observed my surroundings as if my life depended on it.
“SNY Tank 4, GP, Tank 6.”
What are they saying?
I was too afraid to ask.
The line began moving again, and I found myself in Tank 6. I sat down and waited. This, I realized, was my new normal. The heavy metal door slammed shut and I felt a rushing sense of claustrophobia.
A voice interrupted my thoughts.
“Hey, you active? Where you from?”
I knew “active” was a term used by gang members to self-identify. Loosely translated, he was asking me what hood I represented.
I didn’t respond fast enough. Two large Hispanic men stood up and walked toward me. My entire body tensed up. I knew I was in danger.
The first blow landed on the side of my face, the second square in the jaw. I fought back, but there were too many of them. The Marines had taught me violence of action—I knew how to protect myself. I met their punches head on , throwing one for every five or six that landed on me.
Fuck. My first day in prison, and I get jumped. How did I get here?
It was my first day at San Quentin but it wasn’t my first day in prison. That had happened years ago, when I was just four years old.
* * *
I’d grown up in the early and mid-1980s in Placentia, California, with no worries in the world. My dad was my super hero, the biggest, smartest, strongest person I knew, and, most importantly, the funniest. My universe happily revolved around him, my mother, and my three older sisters.
That ended one evening in 1987 when my dad assaulted my mom and then my sisters when they tried to protect her. In my young mind, I thought they must have done something to deserve it. My dad was the disciplinarian, doling out justice in our household.
Still, this seemed different. More intense than what I’d routinely witnessed. I felt frightened. Maybe I was next. Several minutes passed. Things were beginning to calm down when I heard three booming knocks at the door. The knocks turned to banging until someone opened the door.
Four men in dark clothing stood in the doorway. Things happened quickly after that. One of the men felt the blood splatter on the wall, presumably from my mom’s face, and he immediately turned toward my dad. A melee ensued.
The four men in dark clothing were Placentia police officers. My father was arrested that night.
After what felt like hours, my sisters and I were herded into a police car and taken to a receiving home, an emergency shelter for children who have been abused, abandoned, or neglected.
“Girls to one side, boys to the other,” came a voice.
I clung desperately to my sisters, but to no avail. I entered a cold, concrete room with two beds. I was alone.
I spent most of the night catching flies and removing their wings. I still don’t know why. When I finally fell asleep, I wet the bed, even though I’d outgrown such things.
I spent days at the receiving home before I was reunited with my mother, who raised me for a short time as a single mom.
* * *
In ninth grade, I was introduced to the Marines Junior R.O.T.C. program. After years of not fitting in, I’d found a direction. I’d found my people. I excelled, quickly rising all the way to the top of the program. My instructor was a short Puerto Rican man from New York who took no shit. He demanded accountability, respect, honor, courage, and commitment.
He demonstrated this to me one day when I decided it was a good idea to toss a powdered donut toward the chalkboard, hitting my teacher in the back of the head instead. Worse, I’d done it while wearing my R.O.T.C. uniform. My teacher stormed out of the classroom—I assumed it was the principal.
She returned a few moments later, alone, with a sly smile on her face. Then my master sergeant’s frame filled the doorway. His shoes were glossy, his green alpha trousers and khaki shirt impeccably pressed. The ironed creases seemed almost menacing, as if daring anyone to look away. His barrel chest heaved up and down, and his gaze reminded me of a shark with a fat, juicy seal in its jaws.
I never acted out in class again, and I learned to give the uniform its proper respect.
After high school, I served in the U.S. Marines for four years. I fell right into military life, where there was a manual and a reason for everything.
But that broken child had grown into a broken teenager and then a broken man who found power and was corrupted by it.
* * *
At San Quentin, my hope and dignity landed on a mental ledge.
I had felt this before, about a month into boot camp, when I’d been stripped of every speck of my identity. This was where Marines were made. This was where the Corps inserted a “never give up” governor into my subconscious so that even at the most dire moments, I would choose life over death.
I did what I’d done as a Marine recruit. Get up. Make it to lunch. Get to dinner. Get to lights out. Get to breakfast. And then start the whole thing over again.
I took stock of my new home, a cell so small I couldn’t fully extend both arms without touching the walls. I had just enough space to crabwalk to my bunk. The toilet sat at the opposite side of the bunk adjacent to a small metal sink. On a clear day, I could look through the bars and a foggy window and see the bay. Ferries slowly floated by. Life, civilization, teased me.
My language changed. Classes were programs. Therapy sessions were groups. Food was chow. Up was down and down was up.
Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, months into years. Then in 2023, after several transfers throughout California’s prison system, I wound up back where it all began—at San Quentin, where one day I was introduced to a former U.S. Marine locked up with me.
He invited me to a veterans meeting that afternoon.
“What’s a veterans meeting?” I asked.
He patiently explained that several incarcerated veterans got together once a week to meet and hang out. I decided to go.
When I entered the room, I encountered whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Italians, and others. This was something I’d learned to avoid in prison, where you’re safer with individuals who look like you. Here though, none of that seemed to matter. We all went around the room introducing ourselves, calling out our names and service branches to the accompaniment of cheers from fellow branch mates and good-natured jeers from others.
“Noah Winchester, United States Marine Corps,” I said as several other Marines grunted Semper Fi, Oorah, and Yut!
That brief acceptance felt like a warm blanket on a chilly night. I decided then and there to give this group my all, and I wanted to help other veterans find their warm blankets, too. About a year later, I finally got my chance.
As a member of the Veterans Group at San Quentin, we’re allowed to wear distinctive royal blue hats emblazoned with its acronym, VGSQ. These hats are a source of pride for us, and many of us personalize them with ranks, ribbons, pins, and slogans.
One day, I noticed another inmate who I’d seen just a few times in our veterans meetings or in the chow line. He rarely left his cell. When he did, he never said much, and he displayed little emotion. I gave him a VGSQ hat and told him he’d earned the right to wear it.
I didn’t think much of it until the next morning when I noticed him sitting in our day room, the royal blue hat firmly on his head. It was still early, maybe 7:45 a.m., but he sat upright, a smile and something like pride on his face. This was my brother.
“That hat looks good on you,” I told him.
“It feels good,” he said back with an even bigger smile.
Thirty years after losing my family, I’d found one again, within the prison walls of San Quentin.
This War Horse reflection was edited by Kristin Davis, fact-checked by Jess Rohan, and copy-edited by Mitchell Hansen-Dewar. Hrisanthi Pickett wrote the headlines.
Editors Note: This article first appeared on The War Horse, an award-winning nonprofit news organization educating the public on military service. Subscribe to their newsletter.
