We don’t talk about what is painful.

You see, I’m 62 year old woman and most people don’t think of me as having been a soldier.

Pep Talk From One Mom-Vet to Another

You have a combat action badge and know what it’s like to work under adverse conditions without sleep or personal hygiene as the modern world knows it. I have jumped out of airplanes and helicopters and rucked 100 miles in 4 days. We both have advanced degrees that required perseverance to acquire. Yet, motherhood is completely kicking our ass on a daily basis.

I was still a teenager the first time I came home from Iraq.

I’d been home for two or three weeks the first time I realized I wasn’t the same. When I heard my ex-boyfriend call my mom a bitch and I turned around and punched him . . . would I do it again? Probably. But I never would have before. I was so angry, all the time, and it didn’t matter if it was a big problem, or a little one.

Post-Military Education Anxiety

When I decided to leave the military and go back to school, I was absolutely paralyzed with fear. I would work out long, extensive budgets and convince myself I needed to stay in another 2 years, another 4 years, before I would be ok to leave.

Military Service, Field Jackets, and Asshats at the Airport

I am very proud of my military service. I was a good soldier and a good NCO. Joining the Army made me a better person. But I am so resentful of the crap I have to wade through – the expectations and assumptions that people have about women in the military; the questions people ask me that they would not ask a male veteran.

The Best NCO I Ever Had

“People don’t know that pregnant women can be in the military. Sometimes they don’t even know that we carry weapons (and that’s when you look at them with scorn and disbelief, by the way). So I love my picture that shows the hardest-working, most professional NCO I ever worked under.”

I love the Marine Corps. It saved my life.

“It was after boot camp that I feel we did our greatest trailblazing.  I would not except someone referring to me as a “Bam” a term used to descrbe a female Marine.  It stood for big ass marine!  The term was generaly accepted even by officers, tongue-in-cheek of course.”

There and Back Again

I had spent nearly two years as a substitute teacher, but it had been two years since I had been in a classroom as a teacher. Iraq had gotten in the way. I would have had my master’s degree in education last year if I hadn’t volunteered for the deployment.

I Was a Woman Marine Trailblazer

We Women Marines had etiquette classes and were taught that when in a skirted uniform we must always wear or carry white gloves (really), wear girdles (really) full slips (really) and high heels. Pantyhose were a given. Women Marines didn’t smoke while walking and certainly didn’t call each other “you guys.”

Thankful in Afghanistan

Ever been with a group of friends and were just having a great time, and then this moment of melancholy comes over you because you know it can’t be like that forever? You’re watching everyone like you’re an outsider and they can’t see you. You’re outside of your body and you just feel that this is one of those moments you want so desperately to hold onto, forever?

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