This guest post comes courtesy of Ocean_Breeze, a Senior Airman in the US Air Force.
I thought this post would be a good perspective for those who have never been in–nor wished to be in–the military. I wanted to talk about what life’s like for your fellow sisters in the services–the more everyone knows the less ignorant we are as a populace. I would like to thank the Harpies for this opportunity to share my experiences.
The first American woman soldier was Deborah Sampson of Massachusetts. She enlisted as a Continental Army soldier under the name of “Robert Shurtliff”. She served for three years in the Revolutionary War and was wounded twice; she even cut a musket ball out of her own thigh so no doctor would find out she was a woman. Her secret was eventually discovered, but George Washington still gave her an honorable discharge. She later lectured on her experiences and became a champion of women’s rights. I find this worth sharing and a bit ironic. For over 4,000 years, it’s been said that women are not fit to serve in the military because of their difference in physical strength and mental toughness–and this woman cut a musket ball out of her leg, for fuck’s sake.
To this day there are many jobs in the military that are not offered to women. One might conclude this is sexist but the argument is again, physical strength and mental differences. It is a popular bit of debate that will probably continue long after I have gotten out of the service myself. Although women are recruited to serve in the military in most countries, only a few countries permit women to fill active combat roles. Countries that allow this include New Zealand, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Israel, Sweden and Switzerland. Other nations allow female soldiers to serve in certain Combat Arms positions, such as the United Kingdom, which allows women to serve in Artillery roles, while still excluding them from units with a dedicated Infantry role. The United States allows women in most combat flying positions. In the American armed forces, the 1994 rules forbidding female involvement in combat units of brigade size or smaller are being bent. Colonel Cheri Provancha, stationed in Iraq, argues that: “This war has proven that we need to revisit the policy, because they are out there doing it.”
A third, and common, argument against the inclusion of women in combat units is that placing women in combat where they are at risk of being captured, tortured and possibly sexually assaulted is unacceptable. In a Presidential Commission report it was found that male POWs, while being subject to physical abuse, were never subject to sexual abuse, and women were almost always subject to sexual abuse. Rhonda Cornum, then a major and flight surgeon, and now a Brigadier General and Command Surgeon for United States Army Forces Command, was an POW in Iraq in 1991. After her release, she was asked not to mention that she had been molested while in captivity. Cornum subsequently disclosed the attack, but said “A lot of people make a big deal about getting molested,” she noted later, adding: “But in the hierarchy of things that were going wrong, that was pretty low on my list.” I would like to point this out for a variety of reasons. This woman has more strength than I do, and then most men I know. I fully believe if a male soldier was molested while being a POW it would be more likely to fuck with his head than it did with General Cornum’s.
I joined the US Air Force three years ago, one fine October day in 2006. I signed up for six years. I have no qualms about admitting that I have no idea if I will stay in or not. There are many benefits and at the same time a whole lot of bullshit. I am sure one could argue that it’s the same with any career but the difference here is that if I don’t like it I can’t just quit. That could be a first class ticket straight to jail for us, and that’s after they strip you financially and you get a few rounds of military community humiliation. Let me lay it down plain and simple: these people own you. If you get a sunburn so bad you can’t put on your uniform you can get disciplined and lose pay. They consider that “damaging government property”. I’m not kidding–there are guidelines that we all must follow that specifically let you know that once you swore that oath, you are government property. You don’t just get yelled at. They will reduce your pay, and take back the insignias that we wear on our uniforms so it’s public knowledge to everyone that you are now in trouble. Our pay isn’t that sexy either, so when you get pay deducted from your checks it really hurts. I have been in for three years and my paycheck every two weeks comes around to $1, 200. What I receive is pretty standard and doesn’t sound too bad, but you have to look at it this way: if you have a family you don’t get more money for that. So if you have a car payment and rent a home and you get in trouble and lose $400 per paycheck for a few months….that hurts. And it happens all the time. I realize that big tax-payer money goes into the military but trust me, it doesn’t filter down into big paychecks for us.
I enlisted because of the simple fact that I felt I owed my service. My parents were both immigrants. My mother was born in south Mexico and my father was born in Cuba. I understand that many people argue that the USA sucks and we are going downhill, but it’s a shit load better than what both my parents had. My father would have worked an oppressive shitty job and always worried about not being able to properly feed his family had he stayed in Mexico. I am very grateful he didn’t. My mother’s experience was another reason. She went to school until sixth grade. My grandfather pulled all the women in mother’s family out of school at sixth grade; he didn’t feel they needed any further education. They could read, write and do simple math and that was enough. They got to stay at home and help with the one-woman breeding factory that was my grandmother. She successfully gave birth to 14 children that lived. So the girls (my mom included) got to take care of the little ones while Gran was nursing/pregnant. Mother has often told me that if she had not left Cuba, what awaited her was a marriage to someone she didn’t know well–Grandpa didn’t believe in contact with any men that were not family–and the possibility that the man would be alcoholic or abusive. My grandfather was both. So my mother came here instead. She earned her GED, married my father, got her citizenship and her own home, had me and my younger sister and lived what they both would consider the American Dream. Not too shabby, right? This is why I joined the military. It felt like the right thing to do, regardless of how much the politicians are shitting on the idea. I know in my heart why I joined and the ideal that is still there in me and I don’t feel the need to defend it.
The amount of resistance I encountered when I joined up was incredible. We are a very traditional family and it was especially hard for the women in the family to hear me out. The men all gave my father the biggest load of shit they could about his “butch daughter.” I give my father credit–he has slowly come around to support women in his own way, since he had two daughters and a very strong-willed wife. He didn’t let it alter his support in my choice and even helped me calm my angry mother down. For us, the military is just simply something that women don’t do. Curiously enough, even though they claim men should be doing the whole military thing, they don’t seem to notice that it’s the women in our family who have been told from day one that they can’t do this or that who are actually the ones with the college degrees, who are in the military, who own their own homes. My male cousins and uncles all either live at home, are working on marriage number four, etc. They are the ones who have been told that they are the kings of the world from birth, but we’re the ones who get things done.
The military recruiting procedure it really is just as dehumanizing as you’d think. You go through a process of poke, pry, select, study, stamp of approval/disapproval. We are separated from the men but it isn’t any better treatment than what the boys receive. You are nothing more than a number on the little piece of paper you carry around that everyone checks and reads off of but you don’t understand. Your questions are not encouraged or really answered. I remember the moment when it really hit home that I wasn’t an individual to these people, just another number: I was sitting in a room naked under a paper gown with about fifty other women who were trying to join and waiting for the doctors to come in. I don’t know if they do this to males but for females they get you in the little stirrups in a private room and peek in your gown to verify that you are indeed 100% female. That is what we were waiting for, the verification. You get two sets, one male and one female. I have no idea what they would do if someone objected to the male presence. I remember the doctors coming by with everyone’s records in a stack on a clip board and they were checking out bodies for distinguishing scars, bumps, tattoos, etc. It was my misfortune that one of my tattoos is on my moohaha so I was immediately separated from the group and looked at since they couldn’t ask me to open my robe in the room with everyone else. If you get the stamp of approval then basic training is where you go, after a few days or weeks.
Basic training is differently designed for each gender. Our physical tests are different, how we are housed is different. Around the time I joined was when the HPV vaccine was approved and we (females) were all administered the shots. No choice in the matter. We did interact with the men who were also there to train, but that was limited and very much supervised. Somehow there was still a small group that managed to get into trouble for sexual activity, despite the round-the-clock monitoring we receive.
They watched us like hawks but once I got into regular active duty I realized that what they were worried about was sexual tensions. The men become very aggressive towards the end of their training, and testosterone mixed with sexual repression and a few females living in the same building can lead to huge problems. We get to watch videos about sexual assault and what to do about it. It is understood that it happens–that’s no secret in the Air Force. I can’t speak for the other branches, I know that Army and Marines have different policies on it. Women are about 20% of active duty military and the stats on how many get raped or assaulted is enough to turn your stomach. I recall browsing an old post of the Harpies that stated the statistics.
You would think with all this “racked and stacked” that women would bond, but I find the exact opposite is usually the norm. When I arrived at the very first base where I was stationed, one of the women in the office advised me–in a private conversation–not to turn into “the dorm whore.” It’s popular knowledge that when a new woman arrives into the dormitories, she immediately generates a bit of attention from the males. We are all housed in a building together until you reach a certain rank or until you marry/have children. You have your own room but you share a bathroom and kitchen with another room. They always put women with women and men with men, but your next door neighbors could be two guys. So you can guess how that offers opportunities for stalking and harassing. It has nothing to do with levels of attractiveness at first, it’s simply that you are the new shiny object. As one guy explained it to me, “you haven’t been molested by everyone yet.” And sadly there are some women that go along with this notion and ride the train. It never stops surprising me that the guys get high-fives, the girls are the “dorm whore.” And because of this stigma most women hear those bits of advice from fellow women and that starts the, “Why the fuck is she telling me this? Do I LOOK like a skank!?!” So it’s ironic that most women give you the warning but the new women get angry at the one bit of sound advice given to them and stay away from the very women who reached out to begin with. I have been told it has always been like this.
I work in an office full of men and it is definitely a challenge. When I first arrived I won’t lie in admitting that the disappointment in my presence was palpable. I don’t wear make-up while in uniform, I don’t make myself look cute. I consider myself a professional and refuse to use my charms anywhere other than my bedroom on my own time. Picture a malnourished boy about fourteen years in age. That’s me. I’m too tall, too skinny and too angular to be anyone’s idea of a centerfold. The men in my office as they have warmed up to me admitted that at first they were excited because they hoped I would be “pretty.” My work ethic and my abilities were not the main focus, it’s what I would look like that caused speculation.
I have seen this mentality in other offices or flights. A girl comes into the office and asks questions or hands in some official documents… the moment she walks out everyone turns around. “So would you do her?” EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. No matter who is around. Sometimes in an effort to include me in the conversation I get the, “In your chick opinion what would you rate her as? From one to ten.” And the different colors of scarlet I turn while I sputter around the words I am about to throw out usually let them know how I feel about the game. It has been addressed before but with so few high ranking women around its hard to force any real change.
Most women of high rank generally are very mean to women of lower rank. It’s to show they care. They hold you to a higher standard and I can be the first to admit it sucks. I am a smoker and have been for a while. I love when a higher ranking female walks by and lets me know in a loud voice that, “that’s not what LADIES DO.” I would tolerate the criticism better if I was just reminded that the habit it nasty. It always gets turned into a gender issue regardless of how many men are standing around with cancer sticks. And due to her higher rank, I can’t answer the way I’d like to. I learned this the hard way, because then I am questioning HER authority. Even in private, it gets nasty. By the time she reaches a high rank, she’s been questioned many times before and usually by men, so when a low-ranking female talks back, she instantly has an aggressive response. The higher ranking women have to be ruthless to get where they are in a man’s world.
As of November 2008, the U.S. military has only one woman, Ann E. Dunwoody, with the rank of four-star general. That’s it, only ONE. High-ranking women try to make up for being considered unfeminine by policing the ultra-feminine. The random times I have come in with something on my face other than lotion, it’s always the higher ranking females who comment on it, and always in tones of surprise so everyone looks. My favorite is when I break one of the girly rules and am reminded that I won’t ever get a boyfriend like that. I do enjoy politely reminding them that I am not at this job to troll for a boyfriend but to pay for all the useless things I would like. I could go on about this for hours.
I will round off this post by telling you how the military has impacted my personal life. Whenever I meet men and I tell them I am in the military I always get the blank look followed by, “The Air Force, right?” When I prompt them for how they know this is the answer: “Army/Marine women are much more butch.” Apparently, women will be “butch” no matter what branch they’re in but some branches are “butcher” than others. Some guys don’t take it well at all and I get the speechless look of confusion. Again, when prompted they explain that I don’t look manly enough. Flattering, huh?
For the most part it won’t bother or intimidate men who are also in the military, but the ones who are not/have not served in any branches can get suspicious and or even pervy about it. I have been asked many questions about exactly how often “lesbian encounters” happen. Or asked how many times we look at each other in the showers–in our gym we have communal showers with no curtain–and if it was true that we all get around and want sex about as much as the guys. The suspicious ones seem to have a problem with how assertive I am in what I think and believe. They see this as manly training and not as me just wanting to have my say. Most of the young men in the military are like this, so I try to stay away from military men when it comes to dating. And we are not allowed to date higher ranking people either; it’s usually frowned on. We definitely are discouraged from dating coworkers. So it does get to be pretty difficult, and it is very difficult for women who are single regardless of what color they are. There are all these cultural rules surrounding how we should act and what we should do and what we should put up with, topped off by whatever racial stigma you get, too. It’s just not fun at all. And once in a while I run into a guy who is supportive of my career–but supportive because he smells the steady pay check and would love to have me pay for everything.
Regardless of all that I am still optimistic that there is some asshole out there for me, who will stimulate me mentally and be able to keep up with me ethically. I am indeed a practical romantic. That’s a good summary of some of my experiences, and I won’t take more of your time. I hope that this has been somewhat enlightening. Maybe when you do run into a lady in her uniform, you smile at her, regardless of how hassled she or you may look. Like everything else in life, being a woman in the military is not easy.
Thank you so much for sharing this; it’s a very eye-opening amount of information, and points out how very far we have yet to go in certain areas.
::standing ovation::
Totally agree with Newt that this was a real eye-opener. Much respect to you and other women who are making the military your world–one woman at a time.
Even though change is ridiculously slow in the military, it’s a different world than it was for our mothers/fathers and it will be a better place for our daughters because of the contributions of so many women of this generation.
Thank you for your service. I’m sorry to hear about the unbelievable amount of crap you have to put up with. We will overcome someday, both in the military and everywhere else. But, until then, I am sorry for the crap.
What a great post. Thank you for sharing your views and experiences.
I’d like to echo “Thanks for your service,” and for the insights into what the process of enlisting was like.
When you do raise an issue like the objectification of women by your coworkers, who would you take it to, and how is a complaint like that received?
Having grown up in the Air Force, I want to remind people (and perhaps this doesn’t even need to be said) that not all men and women in the armed forces act the way the people Ocean_Breeze described do. Some of the kindest, smartest, most noble men and women I have ever known are a part of that system (my father and cousin included).
This isn’t said to diminish any part of Ocean_Breeze’s experience, and it’s absolutely necessary that misconduct within the military be called out and publicly acknowledged, but that isn’t the entire story.
I took a break after reading this to see if I could come up with something better than “Wow that was a fantastic post!”, but it turns out I can’t. Wow, that was a fantastic post.
Katie – I know you tried to phrase it so it didn’t come across this way, but saying “Nuh-uh, not MY dad!” is kind of beside the point. In fact, though I’m sure that there are a lot of amazing men who are members of the Armed Forces, I’m equally sure that the family members of all the crappy men would staunchly defend them as ‘one of the good guys.’ Such as.
I mean, it’d be one thing if you were in the military and had a different experience, but having a dad and a cousin in doesn’t really confer any special understanding of what it’s like to be a woman in the military, IMO.
I don’t mean that to be harsh. I have a bucketload of family members in the military too, I know there are good guys. What I don’t know is that the presence of X number of good guys is enough to make it so that even one woman has a chance to go through her service without being surrounded largely by sexists all the time. It’s a numbers game. (And an Engrained Patriarchal Culture game.)
I, like yvanehtnioj, took a break to try to find something more than, “Whoa, dude, that’s some heavy shit.” So much respect for enduring.
What an interesting article. Ocean Breeze, I would be interested in hearing more about the dynamic among the women. Is sexist treatment/harassment ever discussed beyond the initial “don’t be the dorm whore” comment? Or is that a taboo topic of conversation?
I really appreciate this post. I can’t say how glad I am that you chose to share your experience. Thank you.
Very enlightening post. I know NOTHING about the military and have no family members or friends in it at all so this was very informative.
Ocean_Breeze, thanks for both your service and for this post.
Back between 98-01, I worked with a nonprofit that was contracted by the DOD to carry out some research projects. So I spent a good bit of time on Army, Navy, and Marine bases (never Air Force), even including a couple stints on GTMO (Guantanamo Bay) pre-9/11 (when we were summarily kicked off-site, unsurprisingly). I’ve seen the harassment and objectification you write about firsthand. It was especially bad down on GTMO, where there were ~8,000 people altogether, with maybe 1,000 women. Suddenly, here come these fresh, shiny, new – and, gasp, non-military, so “ultra-exotic” – chicks; we were always the talk of the town. You couldn’t go anywhere without constantly being stared at, cat-called, and hit on by every man in sight.
As you described so well, most of the women wanted nothing to do with us. The impression we got from them was that they believed we were stealing their men and their glory/attention away from them. We also observed fights between the military women over their men (which, really, why?!? when there are another 6,999 men on base to choose from?). Do you see any of this sort of sexual competition in the interactions between women you’ve experienced?
Your writing style is awesome, so engaging. I could read you all day.
(also, how about the fact that your title is “Airman”?!)
(great post, truly
Thanks, Ocean_Breeze! For much of my life my thoughts on the military were largely academic and one-dimensional (focused on the negative). Then I lived near a large military base in Kansas for a spell. News stories about deployments, homecomings, deaths, the struggles of military families, etc., were daily fodder. Service men and women were a huge part of the community, and I had the opportunity to actually meet and talk to people (mostly military wives) about their experiences. While I still have a lot of misgivings about the military – many of which you touched upon in your post – I definitely have a more nuanced, open-minded view now. Thanks again for sharing, and for your service!
Fascinating, thank you!
yvanehtnioj – while I respect your opinion, I have to disagree with it. You’re right that I’ve never been active duty, but growing up in the military system is not the same as growing up with parents who are bankers or teachers – I know that world in a way that people outside it can’t begin to.
You commented that it would be different if I’d been in the military, but that my situation doesn’t confer a special understanding of what it was like to be a woman in that position. Again, I respectfully disagree. For respect to others who haven’t chosen to be engaged in this dialogue I’ll remain vague, but I’ve seen a 3 Star General publicly resign and shame the military because his child and others were molested in their daycare, a woman go up against her entire squadron on a charge of sexual harassment where the only person to support her was her commanding (male) officer and, countless other instances of men doing the right thing when it came to those they served with and those under their command. And these weren’t men I was reading about in the paper, these were the men who lived next door.
I’ve known my share of assholes, too. I also know that the military is a system far different from any other, and that the situation for women is difficult and often stacked against them. My initial comment was never meant as absolution for the military, or to counter Ocean_Breeze’s experiences. However, everything that’s done and said to dismiss the actions of the “X number of good guys” continues to make it less likely that their number will grow.
I’m tired of the good guys within that system being ignored. The only way real change within the military happens is from within, and since men are still the majority within the service, they’re going to need to be a part of that process.
Katie -
I really wasn’t looking for examples of good guys (though I don’t really see what’s so exceptional about the first example anyway. What was he supposed to do, brush off the fact that his kids were molested?), I know they’re out there. But that’s really Beside The Point. The point of this post is Ocean_Breeze’s experience in the military, and what we can learn about the lives of *women* in the military from it. You turning the discussion into “there are good guys” is a distraction at best, at worst derailing.
You say you’re tired of the good guys being ignored; I’m not sure where on Earth you live that that happens. I need two hands to count the number of times I’ve almost missed flights because scores of strangers were tripping over themselves to make out with servicemen in uniform to thank them for being themselves. (/hyperbole!) “Hero” has become an accepted synonym for serviceman (already a fairly laudatory description, if you think about it) on the evening news. A thread about a servicewoman’s experience on a feminist website is turning into a discussion about how many awesome guys there are in the military. Fear not, the good guys are getting their share of attention.
Lastly, you say “My initial comment was never meant as absolution for the military, or to counter Ocean_Breeze’s experiences.” But your initial comment said “Having grown up in the Air Force, I want to remind people (and perhaps this doesn’t even need to be said) that not all men and women in the armed forces act the way the people Ocean_Breeze described do.” And that’s, you know, countering her experiences. And then in your next comment you provided counter-examples to her experience. Which is fine if that’s what you want to do, but acknowledge that you’re doing it.
Acknowledging the good guys by calling them heroes and thanking them for their service is not what I was arguing. I’m not frustrated about a lack of recognition for what people are doing on a larger scale for their country, I’m frustrated by the assumption I encounter again and again within the feminist community that all military men are rubbish when it comes to how they treat the women who are serving with them. Those sorts of generalizations towards groups of people get us nowhere.
You say that my argument derails Ocean_Breeze’s experience. I think it provides some hope that her experiences won’t be everybody’s, and that the system can change. I’ve already seen some of those changes, and I hope Ocean_Breeze will, too.
yvanehtnioj argues that the point of Ocean_Breeze’s post was to talk about the lives of *women* in the military – but since every story she cites connects back to men, damn right I want to be reminded that there are *good ones* out there who don’t subscribe to the pathetic, patriarchal stereotypes because those men will be a part of that chance and, fuck yeah, I want to remember that they’re there.
Ocean_Breeze: Thank you so much for this. For a while I dated a gentleman who used to be in the air force, he was a nice enough guy but engaged in this form of sexual one-upsmanship that was toxic. His excuse was always, this is how men relate to one another, I know because I learned it in the air force.
Katie:
I understand your desire to stick up for the people that you know personally, but, frankly, it doesn’t matter how well the people you know act.
If they work in a system where they didn’t have to do the right thing, where they had to stand up to criticism for believing and respecting women, where they could have easily gotten away with not being stand up guys, if we even have to think about how good and courageous these men are for choosing not to treat women like second-class citizens, then there is a problem with the entire system that needs to be addressed.
Thank you for this, Ocean_Breeze. Much appreciated for those of us with little to know understanding of the life of a military servicewoman. Thanks for helping us learn a little bit more.
damn right I want to be reminded that there are *good ones* out there who don’t subscribe to the pathetic, patriarchal stereotypes
Fine, Katie. Fair enough. But this ain’t that post, and to keep saying “but it’s not always that way!” is definitely going out of your way to contradicting Ocean_Breeze’s first-hand experience of sexism in the military. And frankly, you’re missing the whole damn point of the post if that’s the tack you’re taking.
I also find it kind of ridiculous that you keep insisting “But my dad and cousin are in the military and they’re not sexist pigs! Not all military men are sexist pigs! Why won’t anyone treat them like the heroes they are?”
Guess what? Your dad and men like him don’t get a cookie for NOT being sexist pigs. You’re NOT SUPPOSED TO BE a sexist pig, particularly not on the job and even more particularly when your salary is paid with my federal tax dollars. Doing your job like a professional and treating people with respect does not make you heroic or even especially praise-worthy–in the military or any other walk of life.
Ladies, for the ones that asked yes there is plenty of conversation on our treatment once we get over the distrustful stage. I have noted that especially in the more physical oriented career fields that most women complain about the treatment but quietly as they are heavily outnumbered by the men and the few that complain are not seen as “one of the guys”. Then she’s a PMSing walking death trap. At the same time it’s funny that the guys never see them EXACTLY as one of the guys.
And to the upper comments it’s trthere is a big outcry you do get help. The problem is getting them to feel empowered enough to speak. I have usually seen a massive support for the victim but often when not enough evidence is there for a positive conviction then the incident gets pushed under a carpet.
Most women who get upset when the attention disappears are the products of shitty male encounters earlier in life. She wasn’t pretty enough or clever enough or slutty enough to look at but now since she is new she is! And when that attention and approval is taken away it leaves them more hollow than they were to begin with. This is especially obvious overseas on deployments which is when more assults happen. I recall when I deployed we are told by the older-higher rank males AND females to always travel in a buddy system even in the safe zones. Women walking alone at night can be “casualties of friendlys too”.
And @ Katie…
Your correct. There are plenty of good men who don’t act this way but can you honestly say the people you know have not at least once stood in a conversation like this and NOT told them to fuck off? You can’t be sure of that. If you don’t engage in it then I agree that’s good but if you just watch it happen you are not helping. When I have complained I have always been counciled to use the Chain-Of-Command. I let the person know that I find it offensive. If they laugh me off I simply go to who is in charge of them. Like a supervisor. They usually handle it. If not I go to the supervisor of THAT person. By then apologies are issued and they are talked to- but you still come off as the sensitive bitch who blew the whistle and shit-canned the parade. Good thing my skin is tough enough to not care. I have been called worse by better.
And yes I find it funny that I am an AirMAN. Just like part of my job title says JourneyMAN. But little things like that just make me chuckle inside now. I have bigger bad habits to attack.
Thank you for writing this. As others have said, it’s very illuminating. I’m fascinated by all that you’ve written about dehumanization of our servicepeople. Do you think that there’s a way to run a highly functional military without explicitly treating human beings like “government property”? And, if this isn’t too personal a question, how do you hold on to your “self” in that situation?
I echo everyone else’s sentiments, Ocean-Breeze (sorry, my underline key is wack). Women who serve are even more deserving of our thanks than (straight) man, because they’re going to have to deal with all the problems men do plus a whole lot more.
I started working for the VA part-time in the fall, and one of the parts of my job is interviewing vets. This is a world I knew nothing about at all, and talking to these guys (it’s been mostly guys, as it’s in a VA hospital) has been a huge learning experience for me.
Oh, and @Katie –
“I’m frustrated by the assumption I encounter again and again within the feminist community that all military men are rubbish when it comes to how they treat the women who are serving with them.”
No one thinks it’s all of the men in the military. Apparently it’s just enough of them either committing, covering up, or ignoring really horrendous acts of sexual violence that the military is a far more toxic place for women than society at large. I mean, what’s your point exactly? Are you trying to say that rape, assault, and harassment aren’t endemic in military situations? Because if you are, there are a ton of studies disagreeing (and needless to say, this is one of the major things that makes many civilians uncomfortable with the state of our military). Are you trying to say that we shouldn’t talk about it because apparently even talking about how many women experience sexual violence while serving their country is somehow pointing the finger at every single serviceman? I mean, to take your second example — okay, so that woman’s CO was really brave and a good person. But you do realize that the fact that he was the only one supporting this woman means that there were…what, maybe 25*? other people who did nothing or, worse, impeded their efforts. Do you not think that maybe we should be spending our time criticizing the apparently huge number of people who either do bad stuff or allow bad stuff to go on rather than pulling out the rare counterexamples and concentrating on those as if they were somehow characteristic of the situation even though both statistics and personal accounts explicitly disagree with that interpretation?
*How many people are in a squadron, anyway?
@ baraqiel
I understand and accepted the dehumanizing agenda. It is part of the long hard process that is stripping you down of your upbringing and what you hold true to be your knee-jerk reactions. This is used to cut the shit basically and mold you into what they need: someone who jumps when told, someone who listens to an order. That is the basic idea for the first few days and the instructor is taught how to watch for and help the people who have the initiative and drive to lead. Those stick out even if it isn’t by much and they are molded into leaders. Everyone can be taught to take control but the ones who show it themselves are rare.
When you are in school after basic to learn your trade you are then treated again as an individual. It’s all done with a purpose and I don’t really know how they can move away from it. Some people come out of it for the better, some find it tramatic and some go back to how they always had been…good or bad.
I am grateful that I had a strong enough mind to look at the situation from outside: yes it sucked but it was only for a little while. And it caused me to try to prove I wasnt just a number, I was a number worth keeping and taking notice of.
A squadron can be of different sizes for us, in the place I work the smallest squadron consists of 15 people, the largest is 128. It all depends on positions we need filled. I bet the Army and Marines have a different standard.
*that and it’s also used to find the people who will crack under presure. They have to make sure if the shit hits the fan you won’t just run away, give up or start crying. I got to see both men and women get kicked out of basic training for something as simple as losing bladed control while being yelled at to run faster. I just kept in mind that while they can yell they can’t hit you. So they could yell at me all they wanted.
I was safe the entire time.
@Ocean-breeze — that makes a lot of sense, and thank you for responding. Honestly, as a total outsider, I find that sort of philosophy terrifying and my knee-jerk reaction is to think that it’s a psychological tool used to make it easier for soldiers to kill people, but your explanation adds a lot I hadn’t considered.
my knee-jerk reaction is to think that it’s a psychological tool used to make it easier for soldiers to kill people
Well, that can certainly be part of what soldiers do. And they have to be trained to do it and to follow orders to do it.
@Becky – that’s true, but I’ve always thought that the military was a necessary evil and find the fact of warfare to be morally repellent at best. Not to say anything about the morality of the individual soldiers (my thoughts on that are complex and not entirely settled) but the idea of a state-run institution to train killers is (to me) disturbing on its face. Not that it’s not in some sense necessary or that the military never does good things or any of that — I just find it viscerally horrifying for the state to take normal people and train them how to kill other normal people.
I also find it kind of ridiculous that you keep insisting “But my dad and cousin are in the military and they’re not sexist pigs! Not all military men are sexist pigs! Why won’t anyone treat them like the heroes they are?”
Guess what? Your dad and men like him don’t get a cookie for NOT being sexist pigs.
THIS THIS THIS. Seriously.
@Baraqiel: Yeah, I’m not all that morally conflicted about the role of the military. War is inevitable. The US military–and its ordinary civilians who were trained to kill–are the reason our grandparents and parents didn’t wind up in a boxcar like our European relatives. I can understand a certain amount of leeriness because military power is often abused–hello, Bush administration!–but civilians and civilizations need to be protected, and that’s the job of the military, (and government-sanctioned killing, when it comes to that.)
Ocean_breeze, thank you for what you’ve written here, in the post and in the comments. I’m looking to join the Army this year, if all goes to plan, and your honest account gave me ten times more information than the whole series of articles in the New York Times on women in the military.
Curiously, from all the things you’ve said, the only thing that I expect might be a real concern for me is having to deal with the military as a giant institution, with its bureaucracy and slowness in getting anything done. Have you experienced it? How bad is it in the Air Force?
And just after I read your post, I ran into four Airmen on the Metro, one of which was a young woman… I wanted to smile at her, as you asked, but her companions were looking at me suspiciously. Maybe I was staring too obviously
Also, you guys have way nicer combat boots than the Army 
@Becky – I agree with you but at the same time not every war is a just war, and not every war has anything to do with protecting civilians. And even in those that do, there has to be a line between necessary and unnecessary violence, even if it’s fuzzy and hard to pin down. But militaries have a bad habit of unequivocally crossing it. I just wonder if the psychology of dehumanization is necessary and if so to what degree, and how much it contributes to non-protective violence, within militaries, between militaries, and between militaries and civilians.
Wow, great post Ocean_Breeze! I have a lot of military men in my family and only one woman (my grandmother was an army nurse.) My gma will only talk about the positive or physically difficult parts of her job so I cannot get a real perspective of what the army was like for her back then. What you describe frightens me, though, in the way that women seem to have nowhere to turn. They either need to be incredibly strong mentally and emotionally or they won’t make it. I really hope- in and out of the military- that women will be more supportive of each other and constantly be looking out for the younger/newer/less experienced/lower ranks. While I would like to say that I hope the military becomes more women-friendly and the public more accepting of women in the ranks, I think it’s easier to hope for women to make (or force!) changes themselves.
To the comments about the agressive break-down to train killers:
We are told that at a certain point it CAN happen. Many people pass their time in the military and are never put in that terrible situation. The reasoning I have absolved to give myself is the same mantra I have for being assulted or if someone breaks into my home. I my have or have not the right to be there but regardless if it comes down to a situation were I can potential be harmed you best believe I will do my best to protect myself. I was never raised or trained to be a victim of anyone or anything. And yes the political aspects do slow things down. I have a friend who has PTSD due to his first deployment. He was patrolling a fence line that had signs in the English and local languages telling people to keep away and not approach the fence or they will be shot. Guess what happened? A man walked up and when my friend repeated the few phrases he had been taught to tell people to follow commands the man kept walking toward him and the fence. There are not enough translaters employed to have one handy and in this case my friend was told via com radio that he was carrying to shoot. He did. And it still haunts him because this individual had no weapons on him but refused to head the warnings. He could have been a suicide bomber but he maybe was completely illiterate or touched in the head. For whatever reason it cost him his life and my friend his peaceful dreams.
The relationship between people like a lot of us who post here and the military is a difficult one. If you’re a relatively well off, white, college-educated liberal, the service is very much a necessary evil, and one that other people join. People like us have no desire to be part of it or send our kids to join, which is why it’s such a big deal when someone like John Kerry signs up. To be brutally honest, I think a lot of lefties like me regard the military as sort of like garbage collectors-we know we have to have them, we know they do an important job, but we wouldn’t want our kids to work there and we’re happy not to know what goes on inside the organization.
That’s not only unfair and insulting, it’s classist and irresponsible of us. We should know what goes on in the military, because they protect us and represent us around the world, and because they are our employees. To give insiders the power to decide what the morality and ethics of the military will be in return for being able to avert our eyes results in exactly what we have now-an organization run by misogynists, homophobes, racists, religious fanatics and xenophobes of all kinds.
Obviously that’s not true of everyone in a position of responsibility throughout the military, but evidence shows that it’s true enough to be highly problematical. As civilians, we won’t understand exactly what is necessary to create the psyche of a soldier. But we can and should demand that everyone in the service is treated with decency and respect by their subordinates, peers and superiors. Ocean-Breeze and her sisters in the military should not have to be punished every day of their working lives for the decision to serve their country. If we liberals are willing to criticize the military, we should also be willing to work to fix it.
On another, but related question, Ocean-Breeze, what do you think about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?
Extremely well-put, MM. I couldn’t agree more.
Ocean_Breeze, thank you for writing this very honest, clear and illuminating piece.
I’m doing some research right now on the way that soldiers are idolized and/or demonized by the people in the countries they serve (focusing on the U.S. since that’s where I live). I’ve been talking with some military bloggers and including some of their writing in the piece.
Would you mind if I included some of your words from this article as well? (I would send you all the pages on which your words appeared, and you would have veto power at every step, and be credited in whatever form you choose — your name, your online alias, just your rank, or anonymously — your choice).
So far I have permission from five other servicemembers (Army, Marines, Nat’l Guard and Air Force) to include quotes from them — three men, two women.
If you’re interested in talking more about this with me you can reach me at heroes DOT monsters AT gmail DOT com.
@MM – I don’t want to give the wrong impression here — I definitely agree with you. And I think that the military can bring out some of the best in human behavior, but it can also bring out some of the worst. To be honest, some of my thinking on this is informed by the moderate possibility that I’ll work for the DoD at some point in my career in a civilian/consulting capacity, since they give out so many research grants.
And again, I’m not trying to condemn individual soldiers. I’m more worried about the role of the state here — that the state purposefully/knowingly traumatizes citizens, that people are put in the position, economically, where they have no good choices except the military, etc. Like I said, my thinking on this is mostly unsettled. I just find it…troubling.
@Ocean_breeze – Right, that makes a lot of sense. To me then the big question is where the state is choosing to put soldiers such that they are in harm’s way, and why they’re choosing to put them there.
@ mischiefmanager
I know PLENTY who are gay in many branches. I view it just like being of a certain religion. It’s their choice. The only time I have seen it become a problem is when a homophobe finds out and flips out. Other than that most people don’t care. I did see someone of my same rank get discharged about a year ago because he caused a scene over his orientation. That is what they are trying to avoid. He wanted it publicly acknowledge/talked about that he was gay. We have no time or patience to stroke an ego like that. So when he really caused a disturbance he was discharged. You can be gay. That’s fine. We just don’t want that interfering with the work place. Same if your a religious nut job. You can get in trouble for that too. Again, no one cares WHAT you are as long as it causes no disturbance.
And everyone I know who is gay does not act “flaming” and that’s why it’s no issue. They don’t talk about their personal sex life and I appreciate that. I support gays but I can see where a few have given the rest a bad name. There is a time and place for everything and like I refrain from talking about my sex life they do too while we are at work.
@ Kate
Yes of course, use what I have said as you see fit. You may use my rank as well if you wish. I don’t mind at all since most of the above is my personal experience and thoughts.
@ baraqiel
I have no clue why we are placed in areas that have NOTHING to do with the active going-on’s of the “war”. When I deployed I was at a base called Manas in Kyrgyzstan. How many people know we have a full on base there? Not many. It isn’t classified info but many people have no idea. It is a very peaceful nation too. I enjoyed my time there. Why do we have a base in what was once the soviet union? No clue but we do. Most people argue that it is a FOB and not a base but it has a clinc, hard buildings, an air strip and PX (post exchange). That’s a base to me, right down to the pizza hut and barber.
Great post, Ocean_Breeze. Lots of things to thing about in here.
“Then she’s a PMSing walking death trap.”
and
“I recall when I deployed we are told by the older-higher rank males AND females to always travel in a buddy system even in the safe zones. Women walking alone at night can be “casualties of friendlys too”.”
These two statements together make me feel crazy. A woman with emotions (“PMS”) or a woman who speaks out against harassment is a “deathtrap” for men, but women are the ones who have to walk in a buddy-system to avoid friendlies raping you? I mean, come on! It’s like this weird distillation of everything about the patriarchy, in two sentences. On the one hand, women are dangerous because they–well, I don’t know, because they have PMS or are crazy hysterical women! So the women are so dangerous! Even though it’s the men who are fuckin’ raping the soldiers who are on their side. I mean obviously it’s morally abhorrent to rape people “on the other side,” but when you’re relying on other soldiers to keep you alive, but then you also have to worry about those same soldiers possibly raping you? I mean what kind of mental gymnastics are necessary to have both of these thoughts in the same head, without seeing the obviously ridiculous nature of the sentiments?
@ Cimorene
Oh I know! When I first heard it I was like, “What?…” Death traps indeed. I recall a case where a woman (army I think) was gunned down by an agressive “suitor” if you can call him that WHILE DEPLOYED. Anyone recall the pregnant female marine who was murdered by the man who raped her and then burned her body and the fetus? One of her fellow soldiers did that to her. It happens but god forbid I have PMS because then I’m a over-sensitive death trap.
Thanks for responding to my question, O-B!
Do you see the military as a lifetime career?
@MM
That is a Toughy for me. I don’t think I will. I’m using my time while in to fuel my edumacation (lol) and to pay for it. When my next three years are up I hope to be able to support myself in other ways and to hopefully have more control in my life. Military isn’t bad but I feel a need for change. Maybe I will opt to be a parent when I get out (single or not). Whatever it may be I am not worried. I have faith in figuring it out.
I’m ashamed of how belated this is, but THANK YOU! Ocean_Breeze for your service and for writing this for Harpyness.
Ocean_Breeze, thank you so much, I appreciate that a ton.
I forgot to mention that if I ever make any money from the book (very unlikely), it will go to a veterans’ services organization of some kind — I need to do a bit more research before I choose one, but recommendations would be great.
I too am ashamed I’m reading this far too many days late but THANK YOU for sharing your experinces and for your service. I’m the granddaughter of three service members, the daughter of a retired Coast Guard officer, the wife to an enlisted Navy man and my best friend joined the Air Force in college (she got out last year and is using her GI bill to finish school). So obviously I’ve heard a lot of first hand accounts of military life – but never one as honest and detailed as yours. My BFF did have very similar experiences when at her first post (she even use the term dorm whore) and also felt there was a real lack of support and encouragement between women. She said it was disheartening to not have a single close female friend for four years – although she did meet her now husband during a deployment.
I am thrilled, THRILLED that you wrote this. I have been looking for a post that accurately tells it like it is for women in the military. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
I would be curious to hear what you think about the current idea to possibly change the policy barring women from being assigned combat duty?
Best,
Christina
Christina Boykin’s last blog post: Women Are Too Sexy For Combat