Fairfax County Courthouse on a drizzly, dreary Tuesday morning. The air in Courtroom 4 was thick with the smell of polished wood and the arrogance of the rich.

I, Sarah Vance, stood in the hallway, clutching my white kepi. Ten years. It had been ten years since I last entered my parents’ world.

Inside, my father—Richard Vance, a notorious real estate mogul—sat cross-legged, whispering to his lawyer. My mother, Eleanor, adjusted her pearl necklace, her face a picture of perfect victimhood.

They were suing me.
To be more precise, they were filing for a Conservatorship of me.

Their reason? That I was mentally unstable, addicted, and had been missing for the past six years. They wanted control of the $5 million inheritance my grandmother had left me—money my father’s company desperately needed to make up for its losses.

“Miss Vance,” the court clerk called. “Come in.”

I took a deep breath. I wasn’t wearing the cheap business dress my public defender had advised me to wear to look “miserable.”

I was wearing the uniform I’d kept locked in a safe for the past six months. A U.S. Navy Service Dress Blue.

The heavy oak door swung open.

The room fell silent as I entered. The sound of my leather shoes hitting the wooden floor echoed off the walls, a metallic clunk-clunk-clunk.

My father turned around. When he saw me, he chuckled. A laugh of undisguised contempt.

“Look at him,” he whispered to my mother, loud enough for half the room to hear. “She’s acting up again. Where did she get the costume? She must be trying to play G.I. Jane to appease the court.”

My mother shook her head, sighing deeply as if I had embarrassed the family again. She dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief, playing the helpless mother to her spoiled, delusional daughter.

“Your Honor,” my father’s lawyer, Mr. Sterling, stood up with a smirk. “As you can see, Sarah Vance continues to exhibit unstable behavior. Wearing a fake uniform to court is a serious offense…”

But the judge didn’t look at him.

Judge Harrison, a black man in his sixties with white hair and a stern face known as “cold steel,” was staring at me.

No. He wasn’t looking at my face.

He was looking at my shirt front.

He looked at the Budweiser pin – the shiny gold SEAL Trident – on his left chest.

And below it, the ribbons of the Navy Cross and the Purple Heart.

Judge Harrison froze. The pen in his hand fell to the table with a clatter. His hand shook as he removed his glasses, squinted to get a closer look, then whispered, the microphone still on:

“Oh my god… is that her?”

Everyone turned to look. No one said a word. The silence went from curious to tense.

“Your Honor,” Sterling broke the silence, his tone harsh. “I’m asking Ms. Vance to change her clothes immediately. This is Stolen Valor. My client testifies that their daughter ran away from home six years ago, never joined the military.”

“Silence!” Judge Harrison roared. The powerful shout startled the entire courtroom. My dad’s smile faded.

Judge Harrison looked at me, his eyes blazing but also filled with respect.

“Girl,” he said, his voice trembling. “What’s your name?”

“Major Sarah Vance, Naval Special Warfare Command (NAVSPECWARCOM),” I answered, my voice calm and clear. “Service number: 894-33-XXXX.”

“Major?” My dad laughed, standing up. “Don’t be ridiculous! This girl can’t even swim! She dropped out of college to go with some bad boy. Judge, my daughter is schizophrenic, she has fantasies…”

“Judge!” Judge Harrison ordered. “Sit that man down. If he opens his mouth again, put him in jail for contempt of court.”

My dad paled and slumped back in his chair.

“Major Vance,” Judge Harrison looked at me, swallowing. “Your records… why aren’t they in the civilian system?”

“Your honor, my records are sealed under the National Security Act Level 1,” I replied. “I’m in Team 6 (DEVGRU), Black Detachment. I’m a field intelligence and special operations officer.”

The room erupted. SEAL Team 6. The most elite unit. And women in SEALs? That was almost unthinkable, or at least never made public.

“That’s a lie!” my mother screamed. “She’s a lie! My daughter hasn’t contacted home in six years! She’s in rehab!”

I turned to look at my mother.
“You’re right, I haven’t. Because I’ve been in a hole in Yemen for 14 months.”

I took off my white gloves, slowly unbuttoned my left sleeve, and rolled up my sleeve. The scars were all over, concave and convex. Burns and cuts from the

tons. And a long scar down my arm from a gunshot.

My mother covered her mouth, horrified.

“This isn’t a needle mark, Mom,” I said coldly. “This is the price of silence.”

I turned to look at Judge Harrison.

“Your Honor, you seem to recognize my unit’s insignia?”

Judge Harrison stood. He shakily stepped down from the podium, something no judge had ever done in a civil trial. He approached me, staring at the ribbon on my chest.

“Operation Nightshade, Kandahar, 2019,” the judge said, his voice cracking.

I was startled. It was a classified operation. No one was allowed to know the name of the operation except those directly involved.

“How do you know?” I asked, my right hand reflexively going to my hip.

Judge Harrison took off his tie and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. He pulled down his collar, revealing a large, star-shaped scar over his collarbone.

“Because,” he said, tears welling up in his eyes. “I am ‘The Package.’”

The courtroom fell silent.

“The Package” was the code name of a high-ranking diplomat kidnapped by rebels, whom my team had been sent to rescue. The mission went wrong. The helicopter was shot down. The team was surrounded. My commander died. I, then a Lieutenant, had to carry “The Package” on my back for 30 miles across the desert, returning fire and giving him first aid, while taking two bullets in my own thigh.

I looked closely at his face. Older, fatter, grayer. But those eyes… the same eyes that had looked at me so hopeful when I had injected him with morphine in the cave.

“You… you’re Ambassador Harrison?” I blurted.

“Yes,” he nodded, taking my calloused hand in both of his. “I’m retired and a judge. I’ve been looking for my benefactor for the past five years. But the Pentagon said the records were expunged. They said the soldier who saved me was a ‘ghost.’ I never expected… that ghost was a young girl who was called a loser by her own parents.”

Judge Harrison turned, looking at my parents with eyes that were no longer the impartiality of a judge, but the fury of a wild animal protecting its child.

“Mr. and Mrs. Vance,” his voice thundered. “You’re saying your daughter is a loser? A drug addict?”

My father stammered, sweating profusely. “Your honor… we don’t know… She never said…”

“She can’t say!” the judge shouted. “He signed a confidentiality agreement to protect this country, to protect ungrateful people like you from sleeping soundly in your million-dollar mansions!”

He pointed at me.

“This woman carried me on her back when her thigh bone was broken. She gave me her last drop of water. She killed six terrorists with a knife to protect me when her gun ran out of bullets. She is the greatest hero I have ever met in my life.”

He turned back to the judge’s podium, picked up the gavel.

“Your petition for conservatorship is permanently DISMISSED. Furthermore…” He looked at Attorney Sterling. “I will turn this case over to the Prosecution. I suspect there is evidence of fraud to misappropriate the assets of veterans. If I find out you spent a single penny of Ms. Vance’s fund while she was fighting, I swear I will put you in prison for as long as possible.”

My father collapsed in his chair. My mother sobbed, but no one sympathized. The audience began to applaud. It was sporadic at first, then thunderous.

Judge Harrison gaveled the end of the hearing. He stepped down and stood at attention in front of me.

And in front of the entire courtroom, the old judge saluted. The most formal salute.

I stood up straight, heels touching, and raised my hand to the brim of my hat.

“It’s good to see you again, Package.”

I walked out of the courthouse. The rain had stopped. The Virginia sun shone on the white stone steps.
My parents ran after me.

“Sarah! Sarah!” my father called, his voice changed, full of humility. “Girl! Why didn’t you tell me? I’m so proud of you! We just wanted to protect you. Come home, honey, and we’ll celebrate.”

I stopped. I turned, looking at the two people who had given birth to me but never really known me.

“You don’t want to protect me,” I said calmly. “You want my money. And my false honor.”

I took off my dark sunglasses and put them on.

“And Dad,” I said. “I’m not G.I. Jane. I’m Major Vance. And I’ve just been reassigned. I have no home to go to. Because my home is my country.”

I turned and walked toward the waiting military jeep. The driver—a burly Sergeant—opened the door and saluted me.

“Ready, Commander?”

“Let’s go,” I said.

The car rolled away, leaving behind two old, greedy men standing alone in the middle of the courthouse yard, realizing that they had lost the most precious thing in their lives not because of war, but because of their own blindness.

They tried to bury me under the label of “loser”.
But they forgot one thing: I am seed. And the deeper they bury me, the stronger I emerge.