Female veteran’s of the war in Iraq speak about soldiers dying on their watch, dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and the difficulties of returning home. In this episode of The Massachusetts School of Law’s Books of our Time, Professor of law Diane Sullivan interviews Kirsten Holmstedt on her book, The Girls Come Marching Home: Stories of Women Warriors Returning From The War In Iraq.

MSLaw is proud to have received a Gracie Award for this Episode of Books of our Time.

Educational Video from The Massachusetts School of Law.

The following is a very rough, unedited transcript of the above video of “The Girls Come Marching Home”. It was downloaded from YouTube’s machine transcriptions.

allow on that and some of that your hosts
for this edition
of the educational form
brought to you by the massachusetts school
of law at at andover
since deborah stamps at the massachusetts
blocking the revolutionary war women it played
many roles throughout our military history
today is women are fighting pond that on the
front lines of kuwait
appointed today
p_v_c_ report
over two hundred thousand u_s_ women have
served in the middle east since two thousand
three
yet with no exception
yes that is the one hundred dollars on notice
despite the fact that
and over a hundred have lost their lives
many thought possible
here is about
i sat down with a simple instead
to discuss her award-winning book the in the
system
american women at war
the book detailed female soldiers sailors
airmen
an army fighting on
front lines in iraq
now person returns to tell the stories of
americans fighting with it
returning from iraq supplied by the full battle
trying desperately to pick up their lives
where they left off
person explains the accomplishments and setbacks
are women experience on the battlefield so
i think the challenges that women
on the battlefield in iraq and afghanistan
have
less to do with combat
and more to do with
sitting in wanting to fin and
are not wanting to fit in with the unit
standing out
%uh maybe sexual harassment military sexual
trauma
%uh set has more to do with
the soldiers in the marines they’re working
with than the actual combat and doing their
job i think women have proven that they can
do their job it’s is that unfortunately %uh
situations with fellow soldiers and marines
make make it a little more difficult sometimes
%uh as far as accomplishments i think what
we’re gonna see from this war
is on lot
%uh women women and become leaders on the
battlefield
which is awesome they’re reading convoys
a leading security missions
and nam
in order for what
for anyone to go up and rank in the military
higher rank you have to have combat experience
so i think that in the future we’re gonna
see a lot more women
and higher positions in the military
suppressed and what do you alternately conclude
about the suitability of women for combat
well my conclusion is that women are suitable
for combat that they can do the javan they
can do well
and to get through that %um they do that and
i said that and band of sisters
i think it that the lobbying women from combat
pass to the %uh i think they need to reworked
that
because women
are in combat over their and they’re just
not getting the recognition that they deserve
itself allegedly because of the end on women
in cardiac but in fact women women will meet
later in the self are in fact on the front
line great they are they’re returning fire
there kicking down towers
they’re being ambushed their being hit by
these
they’re coming back with the same wound physical
mental
%uh emotional as the man
and i i i mean we need to recognize that their
combat so we can help them when they come
back
in your new book when the girls come marching
home which i hope everyone reflexes ass
as wonderful as the last day very sad on but
we need to know what’s going on so in your
new book you really focuses on winning coming
back to the united states after having served
in combat roles
what do you conclude are some of the major
issues that women face when they returned
home to the united states
major issues include
depression isolation
armed some
some will talk about their experience over
there adders if they’re still on active duty
sale talk about it when i’m finished with
active duty
so they’re holding it in
%um women are less likely to act out there
now
they’re less likely to go out and drink and
maybe the
in reckless driving
but they i think they
there’s there’s a group of women that i mean
they talked and talking feeling and there’s
another group that just holds it in
stays in a corner in the bedroom keeps the
lights off
and we really need to reach those women
why did you write the book
i wrote the book because
i finished in the fifties and started the
book tour
and alleyways running into a lot of
female veterans
and they were telling their stories about
coming back
and in some cases the war hadn’t started and
so they can started inside them
four thousand them home
and there was one instance
where i was speaking at the university in
new england
and ice off you know that and she said very
little to be that i looked into our eyes and
i thought
she’s got done and i’m not
from the anything’s
%uh i was avoided seconds of ways for them
which
which actually sounds
%uh and it sounds too big but i feel like
i’ve been in place for them
%uh in combat and now i want to be a voice
for them when they returned home because they’re
not gonna put the spotlight on themselves
when they’re over there and their accomplishments
and they’re not gonna do when they come home
that’s right in vegas so much fun
finance
on their behalf
how do these women go about read claiming
their earlier roles as wives as mothers as
civilians and who helps them
it’s really hard
and %um for the mother’s
you know that comes home from war a father
if he’s feeling a little anxious server restless
he goes down the local joe’s bar and grill
has a couple of years of his buddies indian
soldiers and dreams
a mom comes home and the grandmother of whoever
was taking care of those children says here
opinions of the children
fat one minute
instantly going from soldiers marines
teen moms
there’s very little time for transition and
it’s extremely difficult
so that transitions really hard as mom
the ones that really concern me the most are
the
the younger females and males to but
younger females who are wounded immersing
mentally or physically
and have to go through some health care system
and don’t have an advocate
don’t have an older sister on mom and grandmother
in somebody to help them through the system
because personally i think that even healthy
going through the v_a_ system would be difficult
for me and i’m forty six
i can imagine being
a twenty one-year-old lance corporal trying
to
navigate that system
and that that’s a really worries me
person do you believe that
women are ultimately successful in re claiming
they have prioritized or does the war experience
so to speak changed and irreversibly
it definitely changes down
i mean i don’t think you can go to war and
come back
unchanged
but i also think that women are incredibly
resilient
i think %um that book that girls come marching
home is all about resiliency
and yes the stories are really sad
but %um to see the women
going through physical therapy going to counseling
taking care of themselves taking care of their
children
still cooking and cleaning and working
i mean un
so
%uh they
i think i think they
i think they come back stronger more courageous
and
really there’s nothing they can’t do once
they’ve been through combat and over there
crescent park above vicarious
a multi multi drama if you would a what the
impact was can you personally
in writing this book here
i’d been interviewing the women
for about a year
and hiding their stories and yet you know
when you write you rewrite you re ray and
and %um
when i interviewed them i’m not a therapist
and
%uh internalized a lot of the stories i was
really effective and has since then i guess
in
an online internalize their stories and one
day it’ll
in november of two thousand
eight
i sat down at the computer and i just couldn’t
write
and i just said it crying
i was working on c_j_ radisson story
and her story
i think affected me the most
of all the stories in the book and i was really
sad because what i saw
was a soldier
who was wounded and iraq and watches soldiers
come back to undid
but point she came back
%uh how i feel is that
the wounds did not break our web broker
was our country and our health care system
and the fact that they did and all at the
red carpet for her they didn’t take care of
her when she came back
an arm
she faced so many battles with the v_a_ and
trying to take care of urself n
and she’s a master sergeant ship eighteen
years and i mean this is one cup woman
and she could not get the help she needed
and that’s the one i sent them in the computer
and just frozen started crying
%um and that’s what i was really feeling of
for c_j_ and also
i was feeling very humbled and
not worthy
you know because
here i a m writing about these women who put
their life on the line
and they’ve all been wounded and something
you don’t come back for more on the fact that
i can send and here i am just sitting in a
safe of computer reading their stories so
i think i am i was feeling a bit
unworthy
the women you wrote about you grew the laughlin
three and a deeper in the body so therefore
i
reports on what you thing
how do you think about it
put that off
put a smile on your face
and write another book well it’s hard because
as i just mentioned to you i mean when i felt
i had a signing yesterday
and when i went to sleep last night and united
tears
and on tears of joy did i’m bringing these
women together and they’re getting out there
in telling their stories
and educating the public which i think is
really awesome
but i’m just serious
having to do with what they went through in
and secondary trauma is um
u_s_ secretary trauma is right allot of
healthcare people go through and counselors
did some when you have been three the experience
yourself but you really close to people
maybe someone who was great
%uh and you just feel that you just feel really
strongly
and so the best thing for me i’ve been in
counseling since november
and just like just keep talking about these
stories and
need booked or is very emotional
i mean there was a gentleman lasted last night
at this but at this book signing who have
lost a son
and iraq there was another woman who said
on her son was coming home for two weeks of
our in our
and she said what do i need to do when he
comes home
c_j_ said
television sleep and beer
about an hour and to the dr
driver’s side of robinson struck
the explosion rocked the house be in such
a ones this year
luckily none of the soldiers instead by the
flying debris
however the explosion happened just eight
feet robinson
and the sound is deafening
it felt like someone had popped the energy
of a bit tired next spring
she asked the soldiers in the truck if they
were alright if she could inhibit responses
for years irving
she could even hear the voices on the radio
the explosion tests for office
kiss my ass she thought it’s unbelievable
when someone attacks you when you can see
them it’s such a chicken sick thing to do
you wanna come out and fight come out and
fight the enemy can see yes but we can see
him
and i can see the soldiers behind me to know
if they’re okay
was like and nightmare
the wires
nothing that hollywood can ever capture
remember one page thinkin
if they had a camera crew here
they’re still when i get this that feeling
of
rage
that’s smart
i don’t think you could get that from any
other place on the best of diner
with the united states has attacked an eleven
elaine’s easily
was a crime in station on the nearly commission
destroyer u_s_s_ winston churchill
has shifted betsy from more than a month and
was deployed off the coast of portsmouth england
medical and senior staff carried hand-held
radios to communicate with one another at
all times
slavery was sitting at a computer working
on the medical supply inventory when a message
came across a radio from the bridge
to the commanding officer it was a flash message
extremely urgent
the c_e_o_ responded that he was on his way
within minutes she got on the ship’s intercom
system and announce that the plane had flown
into one of the twin towers
also on the intercom staff received another
class message
deseo announces second tower had been head
then another message the pentagon had also
been struck
safely
a twenty seven-year-old
houston texas
said at her computer and wondered at the world
with survive these
today i wasn’t it
i couldn’t really tell you too much about
it
grateful that i don’t remember too much
i remember and calling my husband’s
wishing a happy birthday
i remember going just for a brief
letting people know who is going to be in
which people in
sincerity for her these he was going to be
first second so on
after that i don’t really remember anything
i woke up in germany trying to figure out
why i didn’t recognize the ceiling
ceilings for kind of important when you start
them for several hours during the nine hundred
recognises sailing
ladylike to my room asking how i was doing
united
had a few choice words for a lot of it
was
who are dealing where am i why am i doing
here
she come it had a small accident how the two
days ago
she then told me that one of the people that
were in line
was in my home the
were killed
but she thinks so make sure was
where they have been injured where they’ve
been killed
what the status was that the other two people
in her the she can tell me anything
all she told me was to concentrate on myself
as according when you’re with the marines
your job is it that way but yourself
his job is to
take care of everybody else
so how do you feel
when you didn’t know what happened to
your friends your comrades i threatened to
be a terrific radical
stupid if i really didn’t
it wasn’t so after a treasury said he had
been folded i realized my left arm was independence
i haven’t every prisoner
an and what i did
what other injuries has you sustained
assistant double fractured my pelvis hybrid
appearance and i actually for a few minutes
and unlucky for austin lucky for you
that it wasn’t just a little bit higher despite
new broke because as i understand that that
would have left him paralyzed
paralyzed oregon
%uh one vertebrae actually separates me from
any employment vegetable and being around
i’m very grateful for that one burkhart
will make it seem
wounded male soldiers before but this is the
first time she’d seen a main female soldier
she returned shaken up to your company
to within feeling like herself
she had been in iraq for four months now
she thought she had seen it all the fact that
she had learned how to block out her fear
of death
that she was able to work has been
that she was invincible vista panic a bit
of all those differences
this at home
by phone
wounded male soldiers and marines before and
it was difficult to deal with
but when i did see a female
and that she looked a lot like
my partner
if you really hit home that this could actually
happen in although i had tried to block it
out for months that
nothing could happen to me out all be alright
all deal with this when i get home really
was staring me right in the face and
occurred misstated anywhere
that this could be me on the ground where
this could be in mind that nobody this could
be anyone
and
i don’t get pretty well to that point and
i don’t that after but it was just something
that they’re really brought it home seeing
a a female get injured
liquidity accurate to say that when you arrive
in in iraq you’re full of idealism
but you lou
lose that idealism you find yourself driving
around
and track without a radio
is it accurate to say that your molds very
basic needs were not being met
yet you look at massless hierarchy i mean
i was in the very bottom rung and it was that
it was set to deal with but at the time you
know i was %uh pretty motivated sergeant and
i was trying to come staff sergeant
and i was gonna deal with it as a came i knew
that the rest of my company had it pretty
well enough ellis anaconda the green zone
in baghdad
i knew what their life was like and gave you
a little bit about what i was going to ring
camper madi
that %um yeah my basically from being meant
that
idea but i could i’d hustled and hopefully
muscled until i got what i needed or my soldiers
and
the %uh
brings that we’re treating it didn’t matter
i just got things done
whether it was going out line answer scrounging
for materials and i would go to
you know knocking on doors saying hey we need
a
extra lumber because you know i don’t have
a bad before
it didn’t matter %uh icestorm make things
happen and
it was difficult to deal with that and my
company didn’t care
let asking each why’d you join the military
%uh and i’m curious why women
new join the military
high and it’s the end from kristen’s fault
that you wanted to join since you were six
tonight come from a long line of finance minister
of finance
marines in the army
and i remember clearly today that my dad pulled
by others chris green uniform with this light
blue
adventure a caller in this trip salad
and how detained and make that work tonight
dot
i’m going to have one of those and mine will
be better
now
hadn’t i didn’t even ask says sixty seconds
feelings
i have
all those places is something that was better
than me that is bigger than me
it wasn’t actually has flown feeney theory
creator and called me after my has that scores
in high school
as the frozen interest
and once i finally decided to listen to what
he had to say
are leaving the find out that i have cc’d
had a lot of other
justin miller distant family members in the
military agony
and it is served but i didn’t know all the
ins and now it’s in
i didn’t know all the details
once i actually listed
tell us more along the lines and i was actually
part of the real family now i want to go to
college and the g_i_ bill it’s really appealing
and
on the same thing happened on c_b_s_ patterson
my junior high school shortly after the army
and marine corps workers for knocking down
my door began
uses the army says more persistent
if i had to do it all over again but he joined
the marine corps said you know that they didn’t
back down
yes the paper school and i figured you know
what other honorable way to do it
then to serve your country and yet reagan
education why did you and why do women stay
estate because
and love everything about it
i had %um
the best time of my life there
and i think that
kind of goes hand-in-hand with the first question
i asked me
fighting the war instead even though it’s
a nightmare it’s probably when i was that
might very fast
unless all the very best human beings
american service members but the most amazing
people on the basis of the planet
and being the mechanism firemen
fifty s
%uh uses patriotic and it is
about dot mom and apple pie from a m
i believed
when faithful with the things that they told
me and
i was very proud to be in leadership roles
and i i i thought i would be the sergeant
major of the army
when i went to basic training so
at high schools i’d always persons there were
no is twenty years
anything less wind
not seem like it was an actual
for service
when my husband i decided
after both his being deployed with the marines
when it was handed out
otherwise our marriage was influenced by it
we figured that since i had to actually spent
longer time in uniform
and he hadn’t
more college
quarries roles
it by the time he got all of his college education
and everything else taking care of
i would be about ready to retire plane stand
if i kept it in
the money coming in is the active duty
and he inside all of his college education
than by the time that i was ready to retire
he would have a college education he would
have the job security
and he could find some one hundred the breadwinner
at that point
and also alliances statement %uh
longer than the ears answer %um i definitely
got out because the experience in iraq
i do have a lot of things to do stand because
mean
they like the camaraderie death
they got found i get so much of that but %um
begin like it is
i do agree that he needs of the best people
and
i met some of the worst people still at the
same time that
consummate very best friends are
all military and
it’s just that %uh
there’s an
there’s definitely a camaraderie that you
never really wanna let go of it when you meet
other veterans it’s the same thing with their
their from the vietnam era or iraq and afghanistan
there’s just some kind of bond that’s unspoken
they just knowing
you know you don’t have to say much else
kristin when you were writing the book did
you get any sense that a lot of women’s stayed
alive in iraq
despite very hard conditions because they
didn’t wanna leave the rest of the people
in their true behind
yes
and i think when a lot of lending money to
stay on that’s not often
their choice
on one of the women in the book did stay on
and i was really tough for her
but yet like them and they don’t want to leave
their bodies
and they feel lake they’re trained and they
know the roads and they don’t want to go home
they feel like they can keep the troops a
soviet tell us a little bit about some of
the struggles beckett based when you came
home on a day-to-day basis
everything was a struggle for me
sleeping
%uh not sleeping
not being with the amount of people not have
indeed paper responsibility i had
and then
having to
%uh children looked at me like that was supposed
to know what i was
there’s a lot of again
religion
really had no idea when i was doing
how long were you going
i think we’ll refund
total with training and everything between
fortunate
around fourteen months
long time to leave your children
and in our dollar in there and i think that
was probably the worst thing that could have
done was come home halfway through
what were some your difficulties my biggest
challenge was the fact that
half my body was broken my brain still worked
with half my body didn’t have the physical
strength to be able to do but i’m normally
that day
i had a wonderful independence about myself
but i think it up and go where i want to go
and do what i want to do
no
my world was limited to
lays the blame to restroom in the refrigerator
to someone with all sorts of was on my body
he did
thankfully my husband was
more than
helpful with that
pretending six well in the morning to you
helton touched you can start
the best i can do is stand on one step to
be halfway decent
excuses so he can go ahead and finish is broken
you have to keep everything study significant
straight
so you went to iraq to fight for our
freedom and in fact the last few hours at
least temporarily in the profile us to mind
temporarily but what i can use a different
perspective
everybody has said
everybody’s on some level a little bit cheated
all take care of that tomorrow
well when you don’t even have the physical
strength to lay yourself down in sit up in
bed leave somebody else’s hope to do that
your world becomes very frustrating of what
you can do and how you can approach things
had to learn really really really
invades
even though i couldn’t do things the way everybody
else to them
i can still do them if i approached it from
a different perspective
well all of my difficulty family deal with
that going back to school %uh don’t really
prepared and
you know
had got everything done that i needed to you
as far as administratively
but %um
it was dealing with a lot of people who are
at nineteen years old twenty years old too
want to tell me how the iraq war really is
and
i’m sitting there like mine
in their and you should be asking me or a
other veterans mister mccurry
and %uh i think it was %um
basically
decide disconnect
that a lot of people think that just because
they see
snippets of the war on t_v_ that they know
what it’s all about four hours
just because they want to certain programs
that there’s some kind of a subject matter
experts on the war
and you really don’t know and skills
your boots are on the ground and you’re in
it and you have lost a lot reporters even
who have been on the ground
money spent a lot of time at the al-rashid
hotel in baghdad and history
there’s really a whole lot of different
aspects of how
reintegration is really difficult for me but
%um
you know i got through through arm contacting
other matters that i served with and that’s
how
i kept plugging away and he was really difficult
to %uh
to deal with their coming home being that
a lot of people just want to challenge me
all the time and they had no idea where denver
listings michelle mentioned
to me once and i i thought this was great
is that for years men have come back from
more and we just accept the fact that the
intent or they’re coming back if you can have
wounds physical mental emotional
but around because a lot of the public doesn’t
understand that women
have been in combat
these veterans find that the female veterans
find themselves having to explain and teach
the public and their family and friends about
what they’ve been through
on the battlefield and what they’re going
through
when they come home when really they just
want to be accepted by commander which will
probably get there someday but we certainly
nothing right now
and will never get there until people understand
that women are
playing combat roles in the war man and most
of us just ignore appreciate that bad
yet i a m one kernel sittinee
when the guns come out every once in the infantry
breath
convoys are being ambushed and their women
on the convoys and the guns are coming up
the returning fire their infantry
pressed in in your book
in a different chapter on i think it was on
the side in stacy blackburn
she might say it we will you write she informs
you that it’s one thing to be here in the
united states in indiana
being trained to fight in being told that
you’ll have to face cans and old men
but it’s quite another thing to look down
the end of your barrel in old eight you can
take their life
so i guess i’d like to ask the three of you
what is it like
to kill somebody
this is something i would really want the
public to know
do not ask a veteran how many people get killed
how it felt
it’s the worst possible question that can
be aston so offensive if you guys can’t but
helping people realize how
how much that really brings up and its really
such a personal question that anger stand
that you know people need to know
%uh what we’ve been through and what’s going
on with email that’s our veterans in general
but it’s really not a good question
let me let me phrase it then differently being
the lawyer
that i have a debate
when you’re in
in iraq how do you distinguish
friend from fall or do you assume that everybody
is an enemy
land
we first got there
what dr bennett tired a plan that we would
receive briefings
from %uh operation selves
if they had good intel they would tell you
this day
the animators
dressed in black for g_m_ us with
green arm bands
on thursdays or whatever day they got married
if they were in the streets with weapons they
were celebrating that we’re not insurgence
or the enemy
alan best day such changed everyday about
the rules of engagement
%uh what dictate
who and who is not the enemy
however to your responsibility to protect
lives
kiya property
and personnel of the united states
that worries the six-term uber phenomenal
if we ever had any kind of issues
the deal was that they would lay down the
cover fire and they’ve been through means
of the home b
until somebody needed my help
soon thankfully i was never
in any kind of massive danger
of receiving small arms fire any kind of injuries
at that time
i have in the past that tearing
this deployment to iraq i didn’t have to worry
about
he came up
impact
was it on your family deployed to iraq
which which part of my family speaking well
my mother my
kids demo
%um
my mom probably xx blamed if the best me ’cause
i really didn’t get it
i really just stock
again this is what i do for a living
and now i’ve got my call so you need to do
what you are supposed to do
and that’s just going to take care of stuff
so that i can go do what i need to do
thinkin but she would be able to make that
click that’s which
and everybody could turn everything off like
a cat
because when i was in iraq i thought about
iraq
when i was in iraq my mom fat abundant in
iraq
unlike its mister mom
my sister mister sister
all of the family events than this
but i didn’t get it
and and you know they’re told not to tell
you things that are going on at home that
are not going so well
so they don’t
lesser game hate mail from my third grader
with crayons dug in
big circles than stripes down the center
and bubbles over my head that said
i’m retired
with smiley faces
and the other pictures were her with teardrops
and i thought you know what they’re doing
their job back home this is an sponsor
be happening in my mom said to me
when i was leaving the t_v_ isomer minneapolis
she said what if the lines amber band
in iraq
knowing what you know
how would that affect you
and that was slight someone throw
cold water on my face i couldn’t believe it
idon’t think i would be able to
i think they’d have to sit date me movement
and my mom and i just got that are vietnam
with life and
and her brother so
i guess i can imagine what it must be like
to have your baby
in a place like that
sil let me get this straight robinson said
i’m willing to serve my country
for
all i want to see two six nine
you put me through all this shit that the
federal building with a stack of papers like
this
send it to the team
humiliate
and now you want to know how much money i
make
you have my two fourteen certificate of really
start distracts from active duty
that show i served in iraq give me the piece
of paper that shows me that you need to know
how much money i play
i don’t have anything have opposed acting
gave you
lady i’m out of patience and i’m ready to
smack into like its way
i’m not going to tell you how much i made
if you want to know workaholic g_-eight earned
an a combat zone
then stick that in a sense appear ance
c_j_ when you testified at the v_a_
i’d like you to tell us a little bit what
that was like but also they ask you how you
felt when you were in a crowd tell us what
your response
can’t really remember exactly what i said
%uh most of the things that person i talked
about warmly interfered i would have to look
at my
i became a great note taker so i’d just you
know
that
i don’t do well in crowds i cant very
anxious an irritated and impatient
and others
and need to know if the exercise
thursday zak
i feel like it’s closing in on me
is sad
constantly on the hill or a result of your
experience in iraq
well the man at the table
said that there was
and i think that part of that is from
being trained not to have that %uh
is supposed to have security all the time
and was in a situation where the crowds from
moving in on us
and %uh
%uh email everyone everyone has different
idea of what steve yes the is supposed to
be
this checklist
ended today expected to fail wendy’s old balls
my old boss are pretty much rectangle
and
i don’t fit into one of those categories
and issues
deface a are at this point there at that
have been affected
by my experiences in iraq
why does it have to have this
labels
and take issue with that
so i had to go to a hearing
analyzed the flight data
korean here and there was a
%uh recorder on the table
and them and have
didn’t only from a hole in the said
and my advocates
and they talk to each other
there you really didn’t talk to me
passing a few questions
and %uh asked me to describe
how i felt that this situation and how i felt
the man situation
and that just
didn’t seem right because i think people respond
differently
but then format that that was all p d_s_p_
mass both of you know what is your understanding
%uh post dramatic stress disorder and do you
feel that you experienced it in any way
caleb experienced %uh in what ways
anger
starlight is
directed in
just generalized anger frustration
where i used to think that was very articulate
if i couldn’t find the words that actually
made sense in my own brain
and adamantly sins in favor of making sense
at all
so i had to costly
modify every fine the way i was trying to
get my point across
after about
trying to explain something to my own husband
who’s our team also severed from the p p est
e he’s very %uh he’s also been to play with
marines
after explain something to him five different
ways of saying
if you are sick and i think that the first
time
day
rapidly presiding later up soon have u_s_
reacting
it’s a lot of
just frustration on the factory
your world doesn’t fit around to the way that
you used to prior to the plant humor
sellers as a matter of trying to get your
feedback on the ground to make sure if the
world is insulting conical
plaza
mental health starting that had a repudiation
for now on c_b_s_ in forty are some really
familiar with the symptoms of the criteria
pat
%um the wave
i have experience it %uh hyper vigilance and
irritability through the roof %um
at a honeymoon period when i came back from
iraq where things are great
until about nineteen year olds
opened up her mouth and everything came crashing
down and i want to smash it does cover it
my temper was
off the charts %um my hands on him
he was horrible after that incident specifically
and i just searched museum or more people
were you know kind of getting a little chair
being certain classes
as a political science major so that didn’t
help minorca
%um
buddy i don’t work and you want but keep in
mind my temper under wraps was a really really
tough
other physiological symptoms
%uh celica medication
but %um
descent stomach problems and sometimes at
night i mean
the %uh
reflexes so bad that i have to save almost
seven almost afraid row so allowed to have
to do with our sleep disturbances and
receiving my my anger in check
kristin as an advocate
four of the women returning home
if you will find from the war
how does our
country
candalyn xfree
women’s soldiers have returned home
hahaha i don’t think they recognize than women
soldiers marines and sailors and airmen when
they returned home i just
and i don’t think you know that they understand
that they’re in combat and
they when they see a female
%um they they estimate the female assist our
souls
and grow from
soldier
so as an advocate
for these women
night at and fills my responsibility to get
the word out about what they’re doing in combat
what they’re going through and educating so
that they don’t have
%um anticipating in informing the public and
and getting them to purchase these books and
just read and understand
and really feel what these women are going
through
justice really get the word out there
you write somewhere in your book
that the cost of staring
is unique to the individual
it name result in emotional scars it may result
in lost limbs
it may have result with the alternate price
and that’s death
so i have a different question
what is the death of a crime ratnam
like we heard a little bit from you michel
but c_j_ in elaine
what is it might win one of your comrades
and skill
i think that’s probably
%uh the single most haunting thing for me
visibly dirt in %uh that powell was the last
person to
have handed down in order
and then that soldier does a return from the
road
and
go back and forth on
well you know
what did i say that was a lot i
things like you know
i was really good a rallying trypsin
it’s going to be a good night air were condemned
you know it’s everybody’s getting back saved
and that kind of stuff
and all
for
and felt with the wind chill
and i have %uh
%uh this huge
debt to pay
and i’m not sure how to get that squared away
thank you already have received a
instead the city
as a quorum and your job issue
protect the people in make sure they don’t
die
when the marines are with you they take the
bullets so that way you can put it back together
it’s nice wonderful
symbiotic relationship is mostly unspoken
when you go out on can resist us another job
equipments business
i can trust for them to protect me
and hassidic trust me
to be able to put them back together and keep
them alive
wing
someone dies on my lunch
it’s almost like a as circular logical error
processing your brain
you wonder if maybe a few inches two studies
concern
is it possible that maybe you could have done
something differently
but i had some
superhuman strength
moment to writes the laws of physics
prevent this person
it’s it stopped
it really is
and that’s where
a lot of the trust issues
a marine gets hurt
and he’s able to
thankfully survive the situation
i’ll go back and talk to every single person
pits in his yet
seemed like this is what happened this is
what i did
he’s fine
and that dole’s the family unit mentality
and they never did
if something like that will happen
got to bed
that i will try to do everything in my power
and sometimes even more than my parts to do
my job
as suicidal
but the problem for women warriors
i don’t think it’s gender specific
what was the costs to do you personally
to serving our country in iraq
%uh the rest of my career
one i’ve lost the rest of my career
and two
so disappointed in
and this huge well from my country
and i still feel but it certainly different
and i really believe that they love me as
much as i love them
and
after dealing with the veterans administration
as come to realize that
i’m really just a number
and
just being
just for filling someone’s order
that’s pretty brutal on the ego
my brain was
first lady go still intact so
the problem
my first hasn’t been as high seas
i’m still here and still active duty
family is right around me my has been spending
cuts and that’s what i think he’s the nominee
for sainthood for putting up with me through
all that crap
i am still going to be in might be able to
fill my dream intimates one
so think the cost hasn’t been as high for
me
the cost is too high for my family
decide
how i was injured inside a frustrating
in all honesty
they can’t do it again
i wouldn’t i’d keep
what i did a number of the men that died in
my
close to me
so what i get frustrated
i don’t end up like in a depression i don’t
get frustrated
how little and reacting to something on such
as this
cuz i’m still here
i’ll use his name raided
motivating learners expressed
unintended just a long-term
in the army and i think when i got back from
iraq it was just all taken away for me i mean
i was a very idealistic going and even though
i had problems with my unit
racially religiously and because they didn’t
have to wait be dot women should
in my community for donnelly women which is
ironic june but %um
it cost me my
peace of mind and
but i want to or monument it nor do our job
rates we actually had to get involved the
had to go outside the wire we had a partake
in
you know the things that
the marines and soldiers are coming in for
and
acting disney’s you said you know
if you stare long enough into the abyss the
abyss years back in
anup i a bird that correctly but it’s something
along those lines and i really feel that
%um both in the council sends and
via a combat operations sense that that’s
what happened
you got to be careful when you’re fighting
monsters you don’t become one fields now
and i think %um it really cost me
that part of me that i kinda miss
sometimes
taxes did a few questions events
why it was okay for officers to mail weapons
home illegally
white was okay for married officers and non-commissioned
officers to have a fair
why alcohol flow through the greens and despite
the army’s anti-alcohol policies theater
when your team is punished for providing desperately
needed medical support for infantry units
by soldiers were promoted based on favoritism
not on ability
feiger command expressed disappointment when
she showed up to the clinic with across traffic
in ashes on her forehead crashed wednesday
by her objectivity as a female was questioned
why the units female leaders attacked others
for holding soldiers to a high standard when
she was instructed to give white soldiers
special treatment for face punishment
no one was saying anything about any of these
infractions all i’m saying is that if someone’s
if something’s going
on that’s wrong you’re supposed to speak out
whether you’re an officer not but i guess
on the asshole who actually believe that
how bad was it himself
i think it’s a single most
demoralizing
part of my life
i think
i go about everyday
and even don’t smiling and i shake hands i
wonder how is this person going to hurt me
i never used to think that this early before
even though
in a person to cover parts of my past sins
felt that i’ve gone through so much and i’m
overcome it
i thought that after the experience in iraq
i was just starting from square one just rebuilding
with crappy dole’s new just doing what i could
in
i suspect everybody now
and totally i’m trusting
what does it take for a woman to derail zillion
to survive in the war
and now the homecoming
i think it’s just
who we are
i don’t
i don’t think there’s a platform on
there’s certainly no tool and die set that
mentions that way
and maybe it’s just %uh my mom
but i think
%uh against any soldiers that said no
and i didn’t see anybody that said i won’t
go
and i didn’t see
sucking up to date there people there have
been lazy they’re scared a get tired but didn’t
see
people
that had been a four-month a signal
and i think that
when you know
can say yes
at the end of they’re still hold
that’s pretty resilient
spaces have persons deploying
male female black plague
yellow green poking out whatever
doesn’t matter
its case
a wonderful person be able to
except comeback somebody coming home deployment
but that’s it
let them be broke what they are
but then half the time they need to decompress
dined at any external pressure on them
and don’t make them think that they have to
come
these high ideals for themselves
so i can come home
enjoy their fate enjoy their families
enjoy their diaries enjoy their tall lanky
crazy husbands whatever
start them because they are not to rediscover
there
i connect with that better myself looking
to have to talk on a follower
embraced i think your you’re absolutely right
ameen just being able to come home and just
the success just
even arby’s roast beef sandwich
this is something you know it is
not have people say you know
what he did was wrong or question you about
every single thing you did necessarily n
jess
comeback be allowed to come back and i think
that
biggest primary integration is
a lot of people in detail american public
don’t allow you to come back in
your perpetually feeling like
a service member of better without a country
and packing my stuff as part of our commitment
kristin
do you wish to comment on that
yellow what i’d like to say is
one of the things that i learned
and interviewing the female veterans
is bit and i think this is really important
for family members and friends to realize
is that were more like and we are different
when you talk about resiliency lack of resiliency
depression
and %uh feeling alone feeling scared
we have all felt that they may feel it for
a different reason there may be a different
cause for it
like a similar more alike than we are different
i remember standing outside in
denny’s or something with stacy’s blackburn
%um who
and fire fights over there and
and she’s talking about feeling alone and
that and instantly funded without feeling
like floyd
you know i still don’t for different reasons
but there is an immediate connection there
and %uh c_n_n_’s they’re talking about giving
the veteran space may come home and stuff
but also as you’re giving them space conduit
for connections to me
let me ask each of you what the future holds
smoker just started unpacking and sure michelle
jaja
alright level on steel this one
%um
and coming back %uh
you know i had no intention of going back
into the mental health medical side the house
civilian or military
at all i was checked out
see you later
delight anything to do with this anymore i’m
burnt out
%um it wasn’t until somebody contact me to
face
and vote team linus page on face book and
somebody contact me inside
you know what’s this team lined us all about
they saw the documentary
and
they want to know if they could mean one of
the houses for rehab center after t_-minus
so we started talking and she %uh some seventy
degrees right now
and i was in the process of looking for a
job
and i said well like many people right now
common important itself
we started talking and she says malanje senior
resume maybe i can help you out with that
and i sent it to our she calls me back and
she goes
well i mean
where did this come from in your resume spine
and you know how about you come work for us
and she’s a vietnam-era vet result frames
leslie licensees my angel
sheet
made it
everything re-open up in a great way
and she knew about my background sheet i told
her every overly gory detail and she didn’t
run away screaming into the horizon and
%um i work for a veteran home sitting right
now which is %uh nonprofit organization that
helps out
%uh injured veterans whether psychological
or physical article we’ve taken and we’re
opening up a new rehab center and gartner
massachusetts called the n_b_c_ r_c_ or
the northeast and training rehabilitation
center
under the weight of the program director
and that’s opening up october sixteenth and
were still looking for more funding self the
federal and state governments still has not
stepped up yet but there’s still time flat
out of
it’s certainly helped me in the process of
and think it’s
overcoming feeling like a victim in becoming
a survivor in a leader that really helped
me get back on track and she gave an opportunity
to me and that’s all i needed
think i have these east of here
unless and efficiently twenty affects seventeen
years come march sausages hold on the floor
for the next couple of years
my husband’s very graduating about a year
before i retire
i’m planning on getting my massage therapy
decrease in that way
i can’t stop pushing tells them people certainly
actually fix the problem
and because of the sax is also made me realize
that i wanted to learn to train service stocks
electives somehow figure out how to keep
well i have a bucket list now
cellmark amend that
but i think probably
other than being a good mom
i don’t know why that kept me
two people to think that and had been a good
mama
i think
pat doesn’t with veterans my path this with
the public
the public
allowed and offered us all the opportunity
to go to iraq
and do what we did
by electing officials but i thought that was
a good idea
so whether it was wrong or right domenici
keep their end of the bargain
and their end of the bargain is
when i come home
and
in screwed up
aniket it give me a solution
not backdoor exit
not a six-month way
self we talked about this last night and i
think the president
amend his family should be invited along with
every other legislature
two-thirds lawless township
to sacrifice their
healthcare
and used to be a system
and tell us fixed
and say how long it takes
what last message
do you have for the audience
one of the things i love my boyfriend was
in a
in a restaurant one day and
the waitress had to u_s_ insti tacked to honor
arm
and if she had in reading the sisters and
you know about all the women in military here
it it just assumed
stood for her husband
or her boyfriend unisons too
but because it meant ancestors you realize
that that might
situated in the marine corps three essential
is
an outside just
and just want the public to madison
officers members coming home are managing
to assist
bed their women as well and
you just recognize them and give them the
support that they need
really
we would like to thank c_ day elaine msl protecting
the time to come in fear their stories with
us
and for their service to our country
we also want to thank our stand for continuing
to highlight are women warriors in combat
situations
and the struggles they face when they’ve returned
home
and finally we would like to thank you for
joining us on this edition of massachusetts school of law’s educational
long so until next time the wealth