I wrote of this experience when I got back from a 30 day training exercise and I think it really encapsulates some of the difficulties even in the best environments of the military, and hopefully highligts the change in policy we need.
For the last 30 days I have been at the National straining Center located at Fort Irwin California. Those of you not in the Army probably don't know much about this place. It is just south of Death Valley in the Mojave desert. Yes, it has been hot. We have actually had a rough rotation. An insane amount of heat casualties (the average temperature was about 105), 9 heart attacks, 2 amputations, and unfortunately, we had one soldier die after being struck by a Stryker.
We are not fighting counterinsurgency any longer but are now fighting a 'decisive action' scenario, in this case an enemy brigade with tanks. So we are no longer on FOBs with sleep tents and chow halls. We are mobile, running around the desert and closing with the enemy. Now, I am an intel officer so I didn't even get blanks for my rifle, but we were still in the fight. Directing air weapons teams, coordinating fires, we killed plenty of 'Donovians' from our desks. 18-20 hour days.
In our Stryker BCT HQ we have very, very few females. Our Medical officer , one or 2 in the intel shop, maybe a cook. That's about it. On the order of 95%+ male and certainly all I interact with. After a few days I really felt like I was losing my identity. No showers, sleeping on the hood of a vehicle (and a rock for a night or 2). No one who knows my name or my situation here. No Internet friends or my wife to reach out too. The guys treat me like one of the guys which is nice to be part of a group, but they say and do things you would never say or do around a female. I'm not a delicate flower, but I had an NCO dry hump my leg, listened to talks about who would do what to 'bitches', etc. You can stop some of it, but it's also a bunch of infantry guys in the field. And on top of that it's Hey Bro, yo man, and Sir 24 hours a day. No weekends to unwind, no safe place in the evenings. No makeup or hair or sun dresses, no kids to call me mommy or wife to tell me she still loves her girl.
And after a few days it starts to feel like you fall back 100% into your boy mentality and identity to survive. Be one of the guys because that's the only place I can shed some of the anxiety. I hate it but I can do it again as a boy.
And so I did. I'm shedding everything feminine there is. Purposefully as often as not. Using a deeper voice. Not plucking eyebrows. Back into the language and cussing I try to avoid. I take my medicine but I don't even glance at my body I change shirts in a 2 step process do my breasts are always covered, so no one else sees them and so I don't as well.
It's hard to describe all of the changes after 2 weeks of sleeping in the sand with all men, but I can tell you that Jennifer was not out there any longer, and no one else even noticed.
Has anyone seen Wreck it Ralph? I watched it with my kids a few times, good movie. Most people probably don't remember the name SGT Calhoun from the movie, but she was the female Soldier in the Call of Heroes game that goes with Felix to find Ralph.
She is shown both assaulting towers with a rifle squad and in a beautiful white dress in a church. She was the hard heroine warrior and the soft expression of everything feminine. She was loving and caring while being dirty and deadly.
I don't know that movie came to me. I haven't seen it in forever and I didn't remember her name, just her character. But somewhere around day 14 or 15 I thought of her. One night after moving I couldn't find my bag, it was lost on a truck somewhere. It was dark and getting windy. I didn't have my sleeping bag or hygiene kit. The sand was picking up and it was still hot. The fight that day had been rough. So I sit on a HMMWV hood and lean my Kevlar back on the windshield, loosen my boots and close my eyes. I'm about to just start crying because of how ->-bleeped-<-ty I feel. I started drifting off on that armored truck and for some reason thought of her. She was a warrior and she retained her womanhood. She never had to be male to be dirty, face hardships, fight the enemy. I slept like crap that night.
I woke up the next day still thinking about that and tried to imitate her instead of the men around me. Whenever I was feeling down I would try to picture myself as her. I know it's silly but it never felt silly while I was out there. I felt strong and I felt like I could keep my identity, or at least borrow hers. And so I did for the last week. At first I was like her, and then I was her. Sleep in the sand? Of course she could. Haul 40 lbs of generator fuel across the desert so our systems stay up? Before I would have just been another guy in the sand. But I knew she would have done it to so there is no reason I couldn't. I salvaged not my identity, but my femininity in her. I finished last week not crying on a truck, but standing proud of what I had done as we tore down our Tactical Assembly Area. And I finished NTC as a woman.
