Numero Uno

I want to share a dream last night. I'm really good remembering dreams for a long time. Here's last night dream:

I was in senior in high school. I took the Marines JROTC class. All of the JROTCs cadets in the high school district met once a year at the high school where the JROTC office was located. My rank was Cadet First Lieutenant.

The buses arrived at the high school. It was an early first Saturday in the month of June just after 8am. We felled in and formed squads to march to the campus. All of the cadets formed lines horizontally. I suggested the officers like me were the squad leaders, the first person on the lines. Two of the officers were reluctant and said it was a bad idea behind my back, but they followed my suggestion (orders).

We marched from the school bus parking area to another part of the high school were the Marine Instructor and Senior Marine Instructor gave orders that all of the squads were separated into various activities. I remembered during the march we turned left. It was a big left with at least six squads. I was squad #3 from the left. Squad #1 and #2 turned left and sped up intentionally leaving me and my single file cadets squad row behind.

My squad was ordered to occupy the stage inside the auditorium. The auditorium resembled my actual library in first grade; however, it was much bigger for high school students. I led the squadron inside the auditorium. I approached the stage while my squad sat down in the audience section. The audience section consisted of 1950s school tables and chairs scattered around the section. I said that we have the stage for three hours. The time was just after 9am. Then I asked for suggestions on what to do. Nobody cared. They were quiet. It was like they didn't want me as the squadron leader.

I could see the squadron has no confidence me leading. I wasn't hated, disliked, and the least popular cadet. I wasn't a jerk. I was too quiet, expressed little enthusiasm, and naive. I was a graduating high school student going to college next year. My wisdom was a sixth grader. I just studied and got descent grades in my classes while having no high school life.

I persevered. The cadets made fun of me playing harmless physical jokes. They just wanted to tease me because they were bored. I found a guest speaker to talk about something for 30 minutes to pass the time. I didn't know how. The speaker just appeared magically. The cadets found another guest speaker seconds later after I announced to the squad. I wanted to be fair and let both of them speak to avoid any conflicts. I let my guest speaker speak first and the squad's guest speaker to speak second. The second guest speaker flirted with me which actually was more teasing.

The squad continued to be bored and fooling around with each other afterwards. I continued to be ignored while I spoke on stage. Then I played my trump card. I sang on stage like karaoke. I couldn't sing. I was prepared to sing up to noon. I knew plenty of Beatles songs. I downloaded the lyrics to my smart phone. I scrolled down with my left thumb holding my phone on my left hand. My right hand held the microphone. The melody for all my songs were played like the television show Glee. Somewhere, somehow inside the stage the music theme for my songs were played. There was no live band. I didn't even check the clock and my watch.

The singing and karaoke worked. My squadron was into singing like we were the Glee Club. Other squadrons entered the auditorium. Some cadets offered to help sing. A few cadets set up actual karaoke equipment. I didn't ask for help for singing nor asked for the equipment. I got all of the JROTC cadets, the company together inside the auditorium. I even got other high school students and some grade school students inside. A couple of grade school students offered to sing, and they sang well. One of the grade schoolers wanted to activate the raised shakable stage for him to sing and dance and move. There were two star singers from Japan who sang. One of them wanted a duet with me.

The rest of the dream the students and cadets sang. I just watched from the side of the stage alone. Then I sang Beatles songs. I sang one Beatle song I forgot the title followed by Lady Madonna. Everyone in the auditorium sang Lady Madonna with me, including the grade school students and the Japanese singers.

I went outside after I sang. The time was after 5pm. A cadet who was, of course, a female junior and a cadet non-commission officer, approached me. She said I did a good job. My strengths were a quiet leader who brought people together, a strong cadet officer who continued despite criticisms and teasing, and avoids confrontations. I find solutions to satisfy multiple parties. She affirmed the entire company liked me. I was numero uno.

There was an ending theme song played at the scene outside as if my dream was a television show. The song was titled "Nyan Nyan Special Service Medley (Toku Mori)" and specifically the first "Lion" song from the Japanese Anime series Macross Frontier sang by Megumi Nakajima and May Nakabayashi.