WOMEN VETERANS HISTORICAL PROJECT
ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE:Amanda D. Westfall
INTERVIEWER:Beth Ann Koelsch
DATE:22 November 2016
[Begin Interview]
BAK:Today is November 22, 2016. My name is Beth Ann Koelsch, and I'm at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Student Services Building, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to conduct an oral history interview for the Women Veterans Historical Project at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro. Amanda, if you would state your name the way you would like it to read on your collection.AW:Amanda D. Westfall.
BAK:Okay. We did go over some of these on the questionnaire, but now it's for
posterity. Please tell me when and where you were born.AW:I was born in Charleston, West Virginia, in 1984, June 17. My family's from
[unclear], but that's where the hospital is. And I grew up there for 90% of my life. There was a few years when I was about five or six that my mom and dad moved to Virginia Beach, Virginia, but then they ended up coming back.BAK:Okay. Do you have any brothers or sisters?
AW:I do. I have a younger sister and a younger brother that still live in West Virginia.
BAK:Okay. What did your parents do?
AW:My father was a mechanic until he hurt himself in 1992, and my mom is a DMV
[Department of Motor Vehicles] clerk.BAK:Okay. Did you like growing up in West Virginia?
AW:I did, yes and no. When I was younger I liked it because I just went up on
the mountainside and hung out in the woods all day.BAK:Yeah, I bet.
AW:I don't think they let kids do that anymore, but I liked it. And then as I
got older, as I became a teenager, I started to dislike it, just because the Internet, and I realized that this wasn't the norm [normal] for the whole world, so I wanted to get out and see that stuff. And then I started to really look for a way out at that point.BAK:Did you like school?
AW:I did like school. I actually got an academic scholarship to go to anywhere
in state for free, and I was about one semester into college and decided to drop out and join the army.BAK:Okay. Where was that one semester?
AW:That was at WVUIT, the West Virginia University Institute of Technology in
Montgomery, West Virginia, which is also way back in the mountains in this little tiny place.BAK:Tiny places in the mountains seems to be a theme.
AW:Yes. [chuckles]
BAK:What was your favorite subject in high school?
AW:Wow. I guess science classes; I really thought they were interesting and fun.
And my least favorite was always math, so I don't know how that worked out, because they kind of go hand-in-hand, but for me, they--I don't know--I disassociate it, I guess.BAK:Okay. What year did you graduate?
AW:Two thousand two.
BAK:Two thousand two, okay. And you were there for a semester or a year, you said?
AW:One semester. I completed the Fall semester, and then once that was over I
left for basic training in February of 2003.BAK:Okay. Had you chosen a major?
AW:I did. I really liked cars growing up, so I actually went to school to be a
mechanic, initially, and yeah, that lasted one semester. [chuckles]BAK:Were you married or had a partner before you joined?
AW:I was dating my high school--I feel weird saying "high school sweetheart,"
but I was dating the guy I really loved in high school at the time, and when I told him that I was leaving to join the army, he was actually mad at me--that was a big fight--and we kind of went our separate ways after that. From what I've heard, he was really--he held a grudge against me for that for a long time, and I didn't know because I was gone. And I'm like, "Okay. Sorry."BAK:Okay. Why did you decide to join the military?
AW:I really just wanted to go see different places and explore the world, like
the recruiters say--I was actually asleep on the couch in the living room when the recruiter called and--because I was still half asleep--this guy was making small talk with me and I was like, "Who is this person?"And then finally he's like, "You know you can fix cars in the army, right? Be a
mechanic in the army."I'm like, "Huh?"
And then from there he was like, "Oh, yeah, just come down. We can talk about it."
BAK:So he called you; you didn't call him?
AW:No. I hadn't even--It hadn't really crossed my mind until that random call.
And it wasn't hard for him, he just was like, "Hey, come talk to me." And it kind of just happened from there. To a degree, I was looking for a way out and that was it.BAK:How did he get your name? How did find you?
AW:Recruiters are really--I don't know how he did it, per se, but I guess
graduating classes of high schools, they just somehow get their hands on that information. It's--I never--That's a good question. I should ask him how he got that.BAK:So if you hadn't picked up the phone. Okay. So you decided that you wanted
to do that to more see the world and you would be able to be trained in what you wanted to do?AW:Yes.
BAK:And you joined the army because that's who called?
AW:Yes.
BAK:Got it. Okay.
AW:It was on a whim, almost.
BAK:Alright. You said your boyfriend was not happy.
AW:We didn't talk after that. I had a, like, going away, leaving for basic
training party, and he was just really like, "Whatever. Bye."BAK:Okay. What about your friends?
AW:Everyone else A) thought it was awesome and B) were kind of sad, because we
had just all graduated high school so we were all kind of starting to go our separate ways, so. Everyone's like, "Oh, I'll miss you. Come home. See us." All that. It was good and bad. Everyone was happy but sad that parts of the group were leaving.BAK:Sure. What about your parents?
AW:My dad was actually in the 82nd [Airborne Division] for three years in the
seventies, and that's still all he talks about, and it's still really annoying. [both chuckle]BAK:Yes. I saw you roll your eyes, and something tells me that you've heard a
lot about the 82nd. Okay.AW:Yeah. I'm sorry, what was the question?
BAK:Just what your parents' reaction was to you joining.
AW:He, at first, was like, "You won't make it." I was like a little--I was a
hellion when I was younger, and he was like, "You won't make it," blah, blah, blah. I'm like, "Whatever. I'm out of here so that's all that matters."BAK:Because of the discipline?
AW:Yeah, he thought I wouldn't be able to make it through or listen to anyone.
I'm like, "No, it's just you." [both chuckle]BAK:As long as you're not the drill instructor.
AW:Pretty much.
BAK:Okay. What about your mom?
AW:My mom and dad were divorced when I was ten or eleven, so I ended up living
with my dad, but only because his mother was technically the caregiver and just--like, legally he had custody. And I don't know how because he's a raging alcoholic. But yeah, that worked that way.BAK:Okay. Were your siblings living also with you; your brothers?
AW:My brother and sister were living with my mom.
BAK:Yeah, brother and sister. Okay. I don't know how close you were.
AW:Oh, sorry. My sister is seven years younger than me and brother is nine or
ten years younger. I don't really talk to my brother, like, ever. And my sister, she was I think still too young, because I left when I was eighteen, so that would have made her --what?--eleven or something. So she was still a little kid and I don't think it really impacted her one way or another; or it didn't seem to.BAK:Did you enlist for a certain duration?
AW:Initially, I enlisted for three years. And I ended up--When I took the ASVAB
[Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Test], I saw other options, and I'm like, "I could work on signal equipment. That's cool." Yeah. So I ended up switching from, like, mechanics to computers and radios. I thought about, like, "What if I get out, then what?"BAK:Right.
AW:And I'm like, "I think computers and radio would have a better job option
than a mechanic, diesel mechanic."BAK:Okay. What date did you join?
AW:February 4, 2003.
BAK:Okay. Where?
AW:In Beckley, West Virginia.
BAK:Okay. Alright. Was this the first time, when you went down to basic, that
you were so far away from home?AW:Alone, yes, but when I was much younger we had lived in Virginia Beach for a
few years, but that was with my parents. So on my own, yes, the farthest I had been away.BAK:What do you remember about your first days in the service?
AW:Wow. That's a good question. I was not sure what--like, I had heard so many
things and opinions that at that point I was like, "Okay, great, I am glad you all feel these ways. I'm just going to see what happens." [chuckles]BAK:Right.
AW:I didn't really know what to expect, but I also expected it to be hard, so I
wasn't like, "Oh, I'm just going to go in here and do some stuff." I knew it was going to be, to some degree, rough, and it was okay. I think, honestly, the shower thing was the most--the open showers to me was the most, like--not my favorite, because I'm like, "This is--I don't want this."BAK:Right.
AW:But everyone felt that way. So the first two or three days you're like,
"Whatever, I'm just taking a shower."BAK:And this is at Fort Jackson, South Carolina?
AW:Yes.
BAK:Okay. Can you describe a typical day, or something besides the showers--
AW:[chuckles]
BAK:--that stood out in basic training?
AW:Just sleep. I just always--Everyone always wants sleep, and it's like--I feel
like you--for me, it was like we wake up, do all these crazy things, and then all day all you can think about is sleep and food. And food was another thing, too, because before I went in to the army, I would eat, maybe, like once a day. Because I worked at a pizza place and I hated like--anyway, that's a whole 'nother story. So I really didn't eat a lot, and then we went to breakfast, and by the time lunch rolled around the first day I'm in basic training, I'm like, "Didn't we just eat? Why are we--"BAK:[chuckles]
AW:"Why are we here? It was three hours ago."
BAK:Right.
AW:And then after about day two, with all the physical activity, I'm like, "Oh,
my God. I'm so hungry. When is it time for dinner?" So that was--Yeah, eating was a change. And then also, I came from--like, I was not very athletic in high school. I was really nerdy and I sat on the internet all the time, I guess like all kids do now, but back then the internet was still kind of new.BAK:Right. You were a vanguard [the forefront of an action or movement] nerd.
AW:[chuckles] So going from sitting all day, to being a little junky kid, to
actually exerting lots of energy all day was another physical change that ended up kind of breaking me, literally. About, I think, the second or third week in we did one of the obstacle courses and I remember jumping over--off one of the walls, and when I landed I felt this weird pain in my hip, and then I just thought, "Wow, that's not good, but I got to keep going."BAK:Right.
AW:For the next three weeks it got progressively worse but I wasn't--I didn't
want be like, "Oh, my hip hurts," so I just kept running it into the ground. And by about the sixth week I couldn't stand on my right leg to put my pants on, it hurt so bad. It felt like someone stabbing me in the hip.BAK:Oh, gosh.
AW:I ended up going to PTRP, which is like--I think it's like Physical Training
Rehab Program, or something like that.AW:All the broke people go there. And they did a bone scan, I had fractures in
my ankles, knees, and hips, and a huge one in my right hip.BAK:Oh, my gosh.
AW:I was all messed up. So I stayed there off of weight bearing stuff, and just
doing really lousy little rehab exercises that the army prescribes, because they were so great at exercise. [chuckles] And I recovered, I passed my PT test, went back to basic training with a different group, and then I moved on from there to AIT [Advanced Individual Training].BAK:Okay. And AIT was at Fort Gordon, Georgia.
AW:Yes.
BAK:Okay. And that was for--
AW:That was for my--at the time it was 31 Uniform, and now it's 25, but it's
Signal Support System Specialist--was the actual title--and that was primarily radios. And back then it was not so much computer because they have a whole other MOS for that. As we were going through school, all the instructors made it clear to us that, "Hey, everyone's going to give you a hard time because you're primarily radios, but trust me, you're going to have to have to fill in for computer people at some point," so they kind of made it a point to teach us everything. And then sure enough, I got to my first unit and I had to do that.BAK:Wow, okay. So a typical day there was a lot of hands-on or schoolwork?
AW:Yeah. I actually liked it. It was--To me, it was fun to play with radio
parts, and build it, troubleshoot it. I don't know. I liked that stuff; I guess mechanical type things. I liked that part of the schoolhouse. The other parts of it I wasn't a huge fan of; like, the group punishments and all that; I was like, "Whatever."But yeah, I made some good friends that I still keep in touch with, in AIT, even
though we're vastly different people now. Yeah, that's kind of all I remember from AIT; just lots of getting smoked by drill sergeants, lots of radios and computers parts, and then towards the end, just sneaking off to drink somewhere in the hotel. [chuckles]["Smoked" is a slang term in the military that means to be disciplined through
extreme physical exercise or activity]BAK:Okay. Sounds pretty typical.
AW:Yeah. Pretty usual; noting out of the ordinary.
BAK:Okay. You got out of AIT in about--
AW:I--Oh yeah. I forgot that too. So myself and a couple other females in my
class--there was an option that you could volunteer to go Airborne after AIT, and I always wanted to do that, I guess because of my dad; I don't know. So we did, and we were holdovers for about two months, waiting to get into an Airborne slot. So we were holdovers and we just did a lot of cleaning and random details. I actually drove a van taking people to and from the hospital, which is kind of cool because we just rode around and listened to the radio all day.We finally got to basic--I'm sorry--from AIT to jump school, and they didn't
really tell us, "Oh, you need to be able to do pull-ups." That, for some reason, wasn't--I don't know--they didn't stress it enough, I don't feel like, because had I known that I would have put forth more effort, I think. And so, one of the first things you do there is you do your two mile run, your regular PT test, and they're like, "Oh yeah, pull-ups," because you have to be able to pull slip [steer the parachute]. So just like 90% of the other females there, I couldn't do--I think we had to do, like, ten or something. That didn't happen. [chuckles] They give you one week to miraculously pull off ten pull-ups--because you get a re-test in a week--so I tried and tried, and then at the end of the week I could do, like, three, but it wasn't ten, so they were like, "Alright. We're going to send you on your way. Good luck in the army." And then that, for me, meant Fort Hood [Texas]. So I went from Fort Benning as an Airborne failure over to Fort Hood.BAK:Okay. And Fort Hood, this is 2004?
AW:Yes.
BAK:Okay.
AW:That was--Yeah, that was 2004; like late Spring 2004.
BAK:Okay. What did you do there?
AW:I came in as a private into the commo [communications] shop--that's what we
call it, the commo shop, where it's the S-6, which is the signal portion of the headquarters unit. I came in there and there were a couple other guys, like, just--I don't even know. Looking back now, I'm like, "Oh, man," it was just destined for failure. It was all new privates, for one thing, and we had an NCO [non-commissioned officer], and he was--he was a great person, but he also likes to drink, so sometimes he made it to formation, sometimes no.BAK:Oh, my gosh.
AW:It is what it is. And then our NCOIC [non-commissioned officer in charge] was
also really cool because he was more of a quiet person and he was on his way out, like, to retire, so he was really hands-off. And I don't even--There were so many things that happened--good and bad--I don't even know where to start with that.So I get there and the other three guys, they're all pretty troublesome too.
Like, one of them popped hot on a urinalysis [tested positive for drug use], one of them got a DUI [driving under the influence] while we were there. It was crazy. And at that point, I hadn't done anything wrong, so I was automatically kind of the favorite because I just hadn't messed up yet, so I'm like, "Alright." Well, that didn't last long. [chuckles] I got sucked into hanging out with just dumb people, and they're like, "Let's go out to the bar."And I'm like, "I'm not twenty-one. I can't."
They're like, "Oh, yeah, sure."
I let these people talk me in--I'm still taking full responsibility for this, by
the way; I was an idiot. We altered my ID card by scratching the four off into a one or something. Which if you glance at it, great, but if you look at it under a flashlight, which happens, then not good. We went out for someone's birthday, and as it turned out, like, a large percentage of our unit was there, which includes the officers and warrant officers--like the pilots--there's, like, a lot of high ranking people there. And I went out, and I was like, "Hey, I don't want to use this ID. This was a stupid idea." I got scared, I was like, "This is not good." Because I saw people going in, I'm like, "No, I'm not going to do this."So yeah, one of the other people in my shop was like, "No, come on, come on."
One of the bouncers, he took his wristband off, slapped it on my arm, and the moment he touched my wrist, we're getting drug out of this club by this guy, and he's like," What are you guys doing," blah, blah, blah. "You're going to go to jail;" all this stuff. I was actually regretting my decision. I didn't physically do anything and here I am. Anyway, fast forward. I get put in the back of a police car because of my ID card and I spent the weekend in jail.BAK:Oh, my gosh.
AW:Yeah. And by the way, all the people from our unit saw this happen. They saw
the little cop car pull up, and they saw little Private Westfall get thrown into the back. I'm just like, "Oh, God, this is dumb." Anyway, that was a learning curve. I don't recommend that. [chuckles]After that though, at that point, our whole shop was under fire because then we
were just a whole shop of screw ups, basically. Like, our commander did not like us very much. [chuckles] And then I spent the next year and a half of my time in that unit working really hard to dig myself out of that hole I immediately dug myself into. That ended up working out well in the very end, not the beginning, obviously. Yeah.Following that --Oh, I was so bad--so another huge thing that happened there
was, like, I--I don't know--I got pulled into a sexual assault, nothing very severe, but we--our commo shop, we do "retrains", which is basically where you sit your commo equipment on top of a mountain so that the people on either side can talk so that you have line of sight. So we went out on a mission one evening, on a Thursday, and we went out way outside of Fort Hood on to some private property. They had to arrange stuff in advance. We set up our stuff, tested it, because we had a field exercise coming up and we needed to test out location and everything to make sure everything worked. So we go and spent all this time out in the middle of this mountain doing this, and we get back late and I'm like, "Man, I need to wash clothes; I need to pack for the field."So I go take my stuff--and I'm in the barracks at this point and I lived up on
the third floor--and all the laundry rooms are typically on the first floor in those style of barracks. I take my stuff down and I throw it in, and I'm coming back out of the laundry room up--to go up to my room and there's this guy. And I didn't know who this person was. I had seen him. I knew his name and that was it. Because this is--I'm still new to the unit. I'd just got in trouble with the ID stupid thing, and at this point I'm just trying to keep my head down and not be an idiot anymore. [chuckles]So I'm walking back and he's like, "Hey! Hey! I need your help. I'm on the phone--"
And he said something and I'm like, "What? What do you need?"
It didn't register with me at the time, like, he was very wasted, he was really
drunk--and there was some other stuff I didn't know either about this guy at the time--and I walk over, I'm like, "What do you need? What do you need help with?" I was just tired. I wanted to go back, get some sleep.He's like, "Hey," and he's trying to talk to me and I couldn't make out what he
was saying, and the next thing I know he throws the phone down, because it was a pay phone attached to the brick wall near their door--his door and his roommate--So he grabs me by the shoulders and he pulls me--and this is a big dude--I didn't explain this. So he's a Mexican dude, he's a little taller than me, and he's just broad and muscular. He's a really strong dude. He pushes me into his room and slams me into the wall. Then he's got his forearm against my chest and stuff and he's like, "Hey--" and he's just, like, starts muttering things that I have no clue what he's saying.And at this point he slammed the door and I was yelling--and all sorts of things
I won't say on here--in hopes that someone would hear me. I was, like, "F You! Get off me! What's your problem?!" I'm just screaming all these obscene things hoping that that would help. It didn't.And so he just holds me down and he starts biting me, like, on the neck, and
he's like, "Come on, kiss me."And I'm like--I don't--I'm struggling; "Get off me!" It was awful.
It didn't get anywhere past that. I finally--I was hoping to insult him enough
and like--really insult him enough that that would get him off me, and I think it actually worked after about ten minutes. And I was just freaked out. I ran out. He was like, "Fine, get the fuck out of my room."And I was like, "Yes." [chuckles] So I ran. I was like, "Yes." So I ran back up
to my room and I shut the door. My roommate wasn't in there at the time. I sat down, and I was just like--that could have been really bad. I just didn't know what to do. I'm like, "I am not putting my clothes in the dryer. I will get that in the morning." I don't know. So I just sat there like--I just didn't know what was going on. So I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to try to sleep." Many hours later, when I still wasn't asleep, I finally just passed out from exhaustion. When I woke up in the morning to put my uniform on and looked in the mirror, my neck was just completely black and blue.BAK:Oh my God.
AW:I had bruises all over my arms and shoulders and neck, and I was like,
"Fuck." I was like, "I know I'm going to get in trouble for this," and the reason why is because my roommate was like--she was the barracks woman; she was that girl. And our platoon sergeant knew that, and she had to do a lot of things involving my roommate, and so by way of that she hated me automatically. I don't know why, because--BAK:When you say, "that girl."
AW:She was pretty much, like, the barracks ho [whore].
BAK:Okay. I wanted to make sure we were all on the same page.
AW:Clarify. Yeah. She was just a gross person in general. I'm not going to go
there, but. Yeah, so I went--I tried to use as--all the make up in the world. That didn't work. And then I rolled up to our little--it's like the pre-brief, basically, before you do a convoy, and it was awkward because I'm like, "This is obvious. You can very clearly see this." So I walked up there and I had a few people were like, "Dude, what the hell? What'd you do?"I'm like, "I don't want to talk about it."
So then I walk over to where my platoon was, and my little platoon sergeant, who
was, like, five foot three [inches] and just power-tripping all the time, she just starts yelling at me. She's like, "I don't care what you do on your free time. You don't need to be showing up like this in uniform," blah, blah, blah.I just started crying, because I'm like, "That's not what happened."
BAK:Right.
AW:And then, as it turns out, she was also the battalion EO [Equal
Opportunity?], so immediately her tune changed and she was like, "Oh, my God. I'm sorry." [chuckles] She's like, "Tell me what happened." She was, like, "We need to go to CID [Criminal Investigation Command] right now."I explained to her the story, and then I spent the rest of the day in CID being
interrogated. They were like, "Well, how do you know this guy? Did you ever date him? Do you--"I'm like, "I don't fucking know--I don't know this guy. What are you talking
about?" As they proceeded to treat me like I'm lying, I was confused, so I'm like, "I don't--Why would I do this to myself?"BAK:Right.
AW:But what I didn't understand at the time--and looking back now I see where
they were coming from--a lot of guys who deploy come home, wife's pregnant, hasn't been here for a year, what happened? Oh, this guy raped me.BAK:Got it.
AW:I didn't know that though, so it makes sense now. But yeah, as it turns out,
this person had two sexual assaults prior to that. He's also married to two--married twice and had five or six different kids. He pissed hot on drug tests. He was just already a hot mess, and I think that was the nail in the coffin that kind of put him out. And I don't know what ever became of that.BAK:He was kicked out?
AW:Yeah, he was gone. Then after that I dealt with people, like, "Oh, why did
you get Sanchez in trouble?"I'm like, "What the fuck is wrong with you? I didn't do that, Sanchez did that."
So that was really frustrating to deal with.And they're like, "Oh, man, I didn't know you were like that."
Like, "Like what?"
Anyway, I think I try to black a lot of that out too; like, it's coming back to
me now. I'm like--these people. So I was happy to leave there and go to Germany, needless to say.BAK:Got it. So everyone in your--you said it was the--then you went to Germany
in 2004.AW:Yeah, and we--at the end. It was, like, before Christmas, basically. I
remember it was, like, the fall of 2004 that we--the whole unit packed up and moved.BAK:Okay. El Assan[?]?
AW:El Assan.
BAK:El Assan. I'll have to look up the spelling for that. And your unit was--
AW:Twenty-six Cav [Cavalry].
BAK:Twenty-six Cav, okay. Alright. What were your experiences in Germany?
AW:Oh, man. Good. Cold. [chuckles]
BAK:Right.
AW:Yeah, I'm not really sure even which ones to go with. I guess my first
impressions of it there were just--I loved it because everyone in Europe is just really laid back and like, "Whatever," and I loved it.BAK:Okay.
AW:That was exciting to me. Plus, at that point I was still underage, and if
you're underage in the army and you're in Europe you can drink, so that worked out, and I didn't have to worry about IDs so that was good. Yeah, I was just being a young person. I liked to go out and drink and party, that was fun, but also, we had a lot of--it seemed like they did this on purpose. Maybe they do, I don't know. Like, around Oktoberfest time, there's suddenly a Europewide [unclear] that everyone goes to; it never fails; every single year.BAK:That is a little suspicious.
AW:And then, as luck would have it though, I had friends in the other companies
that were crew chiefs, like the helicopter mechanics, just because I got along with them better than the people in my headquarters unit; they were just crazy. And I didn't want to be around that anymore so I just started hanging around with other people.BAK:Okay. Seems a healthy choice.
AW:Yeah, such good things came out of that. So we were all in the field, and
then because I was in the commo shop, and because we didn't have an actual designated computer person they kind of put me in that role, and in Europe you have particular requirements to meet for their systems, and they're like, "Oh, well, you need this forty hour block of training. You have to leave the field. You're going back to your post, but you can't leave." Because people would go to Oktoberfest.BAK:Oh, okay.
AW:Yeah, like, "You'll be on post but you cannot leave. If you do you'll get in
a lot of trouble.I'm like, "Oh, that's too bad."
So as it turned out, my other friends, like, they had to come back for random
trainings also. I don't know how. It was fate I guess. Our little group of friends that always hung out randomly had to come back for different things. But once the week was done, they were like, "Hey, you can--you'll be here for the weekend but Monday you're going back out in the field. You can't leave for the weekend."We're like, "Oh, terrible."
So we sat around and we were like, "You know what? This is a once in a lifetime
opportunity. I'm never probably going to come back to Germany. It's happening now. If we get in trouble, so what." So we were like, "Screw this," and went to Oktoberfest. And we went down to the train, we got on the train down to Munich, which is about a two or three hour ride, and it was awesome because people had, like, coolers on the train, just partying on the train. I had never seen this before. I thought this was the best thing ever. [chuckles] Like, "This is great."BAK:"Germany is fun!"
AW:I know. Like, "I love this." So we get down there, and we didn't make any
plans because we're just dumb kids. We're like, "Oh, cool, we'll get there and figure it out." Terrible idea. [both chuckling] But it worked out. We were like, "Yeah, where are we going to stay--I have this stuff--"So we walked around to several hotels and we finally found one. It was like two
hundred euro for one night, which in American dollars is more than two hundred dollars.BAK:Right, definitely.
AW:We had a group of ten people. Two hundred euro for a one person room. This is
Europe so it's even smaller than you would think for a hotel here. So all ten of us put ours bags in this little room, strategically, so as to not alert the front desk that ten dumb American kids are sharing one room. By the time we dropped our stuff, we go out, have a good time. Nothing crazy happens. We just go enjoy Oktoberfest, have a great time, come back, and we're like, "Okay, where are we going to sleep?" [both chuckle] I have pictures of this too; it's actually pretty funny. So four or five of us ended up, like, smashing onto this bed. There were bodies, like, in the floor, one on each side, one at the foot, one person in a chair, one in the bath tub. It was crazy, but it was fun. It was a good time. I definitely don't regret that. And we almost got in trouble because they did--I don't know--barracks check formation or whatever, and they were like, "Where were you guys?"And our story was, "Oh, I was in So-and-so's room. I was--" We were all in each
other's rooms.BAK:Right.
AW:Which, they couldn't prove, but whatever. So we didn't get into trouble.
BAK:Did you wear civilian clothes down?
AW:Oh, yeah. For sure.
BAK:Okay.
AW:And it was a good time. And then the field, I've never been so cold in my
life. I don't like to be cold because of Germany.BAK:Got it.
AW:I would rather sweat in 120 degrees all day than be cold.
BAK:North Carolina's the right place for you, then.
AW:And yeah--I don't know--I would love to go back to Europe, I guess, thinking
about Germany. It was a good time. I also got to go to Italy over the weekend. They do a lot of bus trips--like, MWR [Morale, Welfare, and Recreation] trips.BAK:Okay. I'm sorry, what trips?
AW:MWR; it's morale, welfare, and recreation.
[Speaking Simultaneously]
BAK:Morale, welfare, and recreation.
AW:And I was initially going to go to Normandy [France] to see the beach because
my grandpa was in World War II, but they ended up canceling that trip, and last second I switched over to Italy, like, to take a bus tour down there. That was super cool because it was my birthday--it was my twenty-second birthday--and I spent it on a gondola in Venice.BAK:Nice.
AW:And checking out Italy.
BAK:Wow. Nice.
AW:That was a good time.
BAK:Okay. I just wanted to verify, when you say commo, that's C-O-M-M-O--short
for communication.AW:Yeah.
BAK:I just want to make sure we got it right. Okay. So you were there for--in
Germany--for about two years, right?[Speaking Simultaneously]
AW:About two years.
BAK:During that time you deployed to Afghanistan?
AW:Yeah, we--
BAK:Was it a surprise, or did everyone just expect it?
AW:Yeah, you get those orders--usually you get those sorts of orders well in
advance, especially if it's a big army unit. And by big army I mean not under the umbrella of Special Operations.BAK:Right.
AW:Because once I went to PSYOP [Psychological Operations] everything outside of
Special Ops is the big army.BAK:Okay. So in the big army.
AW:Yeah.
BAK:You got--what?--three months?
AW:Yeah, you get a couple--Your higher level leadership probably knows more in
advance than that, but yeah, you know. And so, you're training to prep for that, and then all the fun packing and all that stuff. So when we left I was supposed to stay in Bagram Airfield to work for the commo shop there, but for the entire task force. It was seven different companies all under little me.BAK:Wow.
AW:It was kind of scary at first because I was, like, a specialist--an
E4--taking over for a staff sergeant, and I was like, "Oh, my God. This is a lot."BAK:Staff sergeant is E--
AW:E6.
BAK:Okay.
AW:And it was really kind of intimidating at first because he was just like
really quickly trying to show me his one year's worth of work in, like, one week.BAK:Oh, my gosh.
AW:It was my first experience doing a change-over like that. Oh man, I was,
like, so scared I was going to screw it up. Yeah, so I'm like, "When you leave, where do I go? Who can help me?" He was pointing me in the right direction, so he did a great handoff, and it worked out well because I went to all of those people at some point in the deployment. And it was also good that I got actual work experience. And from all the bad stuff that happened before, once we deployed, and it wasn't about the first two months, because I did finally handle those things so well, my command kind of changed their tune a little bit; they're like, "Okay, you're not a dirtbag. Great." [chuckles] They started to come around and be like, "Oh, you're doing a wonderful job. Thank you. Keep up the good work." And that was a huge relief in a lot of ways. And then towards the middle of deployment I actually got to go into a promotion board.BAK:That's great.
AW:And yeah, I kind of won the favor of my command back after a lot of hard
work. And towards the end I went to kind of FOB [Forward Operating Base] hop, which is where, for commo, you take the COMSEC--which is the security data that use in the radios each month--and so I'd have to go to the different outposts and change over with them--like, update their signal[?] equipment--and then at the very end we picked up an extra outpost. So it was just--It was a marine outpost, and what we were doing was flying med-evacs in and out, so because we had an aviation element there they needed some of their aviation operators to be down there also so they could be on the radio and just kind of tie everybody in together. And they sent me down there in case something broke. I didn't really have a job. I was there just in case.BAK:Where was this?
AW:This was in JAF; in Jalalabad Air Field [Jalalabad Air Base].
BAK:Okay.
AW:And this was when it was still just marines, and they didn't really have hard
structures yet, they were still building it. Now it's completely built like--well, I don't know if it's still up.BAK:Hard to know.
AW:Yeah, Two Thousand--So it was--God, it was ten years ago. Yeah, so this was
when things were still new, and they were running signal out of the back of a truck, basically. So there was, like, one small group of army guys running the signal for all these marines, and then, like, a handful of us aviation females. Which is interesting, because it was me as a commo person, my platoon sergeant, who was a female, and flight officer--flight operations, two other females. And we had no males from our unit and we were all on this little marine base.BAK:How many marines were there?
AW:It was maybe, like, a company. It wasn't huge. It was a small outpost, but to
me, at the time, that was my first deployment so I didn't really have a reference for comparison. I think it was a company full of marines, and a couple other higher-level headquarters staff there, but it wasn't too big. The only thing that was terrible was that our bathroom was on the other end of the camp[?].BAK:Ugh.
AW:So I quit drinking a lot of water. I don't recommend that either. [chuckles]
BAK:I bet that's kind of a [unclear].
AW:Yeah.
BAK:Were there incidents, or you'd hear about incidents?
AW:As far as, like, sexual assault incidents?
BAK:Yes.
AW:None that I heard of or saw, but there were--
BAK:Is that why you didn't drink, or just because you didn't feel like--
AW:No, I mean drink water.
BAK:No, I'm sorry. Why did you decide to not drink? Was it--
AW:It was, like, a five minute walk from where I--
BAK:It was more--the question--the issue was more, "I don't feel like walking,"
versus it's dangerous.AW:[chuckles] It was, "I don't want to walk that far all the time."
BAK:Got it.
AW:Because it was hot too; it was, like, August and 120 degrees. So I'm like,
"No, I just don't--" and the bathrooms were not air conditioned so it's not a pleasant place to be. So that didn't work out because I ended up swapping over on nights to be, like, my platoon sergeant's buddy for her shift because she worked nights. And that's fine because that means I get to sleep all day.So we went to bed one night, and then the--we woke up--at the end of our shift
so it was in the morning technically--woke up in the middle of the day because the A/C was off. We were, like, dripping in sweat. We woke up in just pools of sweat because it was hot.BAK:Was it broken or just--
AW:They either actually break because of the dust or it runs out of fuel and
people are just not topping it off regularly. And I think in that case it was the dust because it took them a day and some change to fix it.BAK:Gosh.
AW:That was frustrating. So because it was broken she was like, "F this, we're
moving to another tent. I don't care. I have to get some sleep."And I'm like, "Okay, let's do it."
So we load up our stuff on these little Afghan cots. They're just, like, little
cheap frames, basically, and that way we could put all our stuff, both pick it up, in one move and not lots of trips. So we do this, and about halfway from tent one to tent two, which was a decent hike, and I was really dehydrated and sweaty, the lights started to go out. [chuckles]BAK:Oh, no.
AW:So I ended up falling face first into the rocks, because I was an idiot, I
didn't drink water. And she freaked out because she's--I don't know--like, half my size and she couldn't exactly lift me up.BAK:And just for the--this isn't visual--you're not huge.
AW:[unclear] Yeah, she's--well--
BAK:How tall are you?
AW:I'm, like, five seven, she's like, five three.
BAK:Okay.
AW:She's really short. She's a tiny little lady.
BAK:Got it. Okay, I just wanted to get--
AW:She was really strong though; I'll give her that. And so, she's like, "I
can't carry you. You've got to get up! Get up!"I'm like, "Okay."
BAK:Oh, gosh.
AW:So she gets this other chick who is no help at all. She was completely
useless. I didn't get along with her because she was useless. And she's like, "I can't lift her."So they were having this problem, and finally I was like, "Hey, I can kind of
walk, I just need help."So she--
BAK:And this is under the direct sun?
AW:This is still out in the heat.
BAK:Oh, gosh, okay, 120 [degrees].
AW:Yeah, on big rocks. It's not like little gravel; these rocks are, like, ankle
breakers. You have to be careful. So we--It was an air field so--there was an air field down the center, and on one side of that strip you have the marine camp, and on the other side of the strip there was a Ranger compound; the "cool guy compound;" that's what we called it. And also Afghans who worked--I don't even know--they were over there playing games all day.BAK:And that's where you were bunked, on the "cool guy--"
AW:On the marine--
BAK:Oh, you're on the marine side.
AW:We were on the marine side at that time. I didn't even know that there was a
Ranger compound over there at that point.BAK:Okay.
AW:This actually feeds into the end of the story, I guess.
BAK:Okay. Foreshadowing.
AW:Yeah, and it totally changed my life. [chuckles] So she finally gets me
over--puts my arm over her shoulder, and I'm struggling to take little steps. So we walk across the strip, which is actually pretty far, looking back now. I made it though, and I didn't fall down. And she's like, "You need to come over here because the corpsmen on our side are worthless." And they were. They're like, "Here, drink this water."And she's like, "No, no, no. You need an IV right now."
BAK:Right.
AW:So then she's pushy. So we get over there--
BAK:But you have to walk farther?
AW:A lot farther.
BAK:Okay.
AW:It was about a ten or fifteen minute walk; it was far.
BAK:Oh, my. Okay.
AW:And then--Because she had made friends with the Ranger medic, and I didn't
know this, because somehow she had a friend of a friend that was like, "Hey, just come over on our side of you food, if you want to go to the gym, whatever, no big deal."So she takes me over there and he's was like, "Who is this? Why are you here?"
BAK:Right.
AW:And I'm looking like a hot mess. She's like, "Can you just give her an IV?
She just passed out. She's not--"And he's like, "I can see she's not doing well."
I have deep rolling veins, which just means they're really hard to stick with a
needle, and I told him this and he's like, "Well, thanks for telling me. Hold your head down. Don't move." So I put my face flat, I turned my head over, because he stuck me in the neck.BAK:Oh, wow.
AW:Yeah. And I'm like, "What are you doing?"
He's like, "Don't move." I preceded to get four bags of fluid in the neck.
BAK:Wow. How much is in a bag?
AW:I don't remember.
BAK:I can look that up. But that's a lot.
AW:Yeah. I was--And he was like, "You're probably really going to have to go to
the bathroom after this so let me know when you do because it's kind of a walk.I was like, "I can't win today."
So that happened, and then I did, and that was just weird because their
bathrooms are--I don't know--it was just--it was pretty gross. [chuckles]BAK:Okay.
AW:A bunch of guys; I don't know.
BAK:A bunch of guys, okay.
AW:Yeah. So yeah, that was my first experience over there. And then we ended up
going back frequently for food because they have all the money--Special Ops guys get all the money and they get all the good food--versus our marine, no, it was terrible.BAK:What is that? They kind of take a weird pride in getting all the crappy
stuff, right?AW:They just have less funding.
BAK:Right.
AW:I don't know how that works. I never really took the time.
BAK:Right. So there wasn't an issue of you eating or using the facilities there. Interesting.
AW:No, they were, like, "You need to come hang out." Because--And I figured that
out later--he's like, "Oh, yeah," he's like, "You guys are females coming over here and it's a bunch of dudes so--we don't see chicks. [unclear]BAK:Alright, so everyone benefited, then.
AW:Yeah, I'm like, "Great. Awesome."
BAK:Right, "Just what I wanted."
AW:Yeah, I'm like, "This is not what I wanted."
BAK:Right.
AW:So it worked out just because we got to eat a little bit--I wouldn't say
better, but it was definitely tastier. I was only there for a month total, so by the time I came back up to Bagram I--BAK:Now, are you flying back and forth? How are you getting--
AW:Oh, sorry, yeah. So we were--because we were in an aviation unit it worked
out great for us. We could hop on a Black Hawk or Chinook [helicopters]and fly around, versus other people would have to take--well, not necessarily always ground transportation, but yeah, we definitely lucked out with being an aviation unit at an air field.BAK:Was that dangerous? Let me rephrase that, did you feel you were in danger?
AW:Not in the places I went, not at that time. There were definitely some pretty
rough things going on around us, but I--on that deployment I did never actually feel in danger.BAK:But even in going from one place to another, you didn't feel in danger?
AW:Maybe I just--I don't know--Maybe I was too comfortable. I didn't--I was
like, "I'm in an aviation unit, it's no big deal." [chuckles]BAK:Right.
AW:I guess when I would think about dangerous stuff I would think about the guys
actually driving in and out, like, in vehicles outside of our base.BAK:Right. Did you go outside the wire at all, or did you just--
AW:Not on that deployment. When I did it was always in a helicopter, and
generally they would escort unarmed things with Apaches [helicopters]. So I'm like, "We have Apaches, we're good."BAK:Right. Did you meet any Afghan civilians at that time?
AW:I did. We used to have to do--I hate to say it now because it's really
derogatory--we used to do Hadji [a general term used to describe Middle Easterners] guard, and that's basically where you go and you escort workers onto the FOB, because they pay workers that come on and they, like, clean stuff or build stuff.BAK:Right.
AW:So anyway, it was good because it kind of put money back into their families
and whatnot.BAK:But you had to make sure they weren't going to do anything bad.
AW:Yeah, we just did, like, supervising--like, ten guys. And nine times out of
ten they were, literally picking up trash or washing things or building stuff. Most of the time they weren't doing anything crazy.BAK:But you had a firearm and just stood there.
AW:Yeah. You just stand there with all your gear on, and your weapon, and just,
"Hey guys, you're doing a great job." [both chuckle]BAK:Got it, alright.
AW:Well, that was my experience. I'm sure other people didn't have that all the time.
BAK:Right, okay. You're there for how long again?
AW:That was a one year deployment.
BAK:Okay. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about it. I don't want to
cut you off.AW:Sorry, I could talk about this for days.
BAK:I'm here. We've got battery; we can talk.
AW:The only other think I think that was huge for me on that deployment was June
28, and that was a big day.BAK:June 28, 2000--
AW:Two thousand five.
BAK:Okay.
AW:June 28, 2005. I remember this because I--being in charge of the network
for--this is before civilians did all this stuff. Like, I had the power of the network at my fingertips, which was awesome. So I could fix things immediately and not have to put in a work order.I had a young pilot come up to our commo shop, like, "Hey, I need to get this
account made."I'm like, "Okay. Please fill out this paperwork and I'll get it to you as soon
as I can."He's like, " Alright," like, he didn't want to do the paperwork.
I'm like, "You have to. I'm sorry."
So--And I was still a specialist at this time, so I would have to work with all
these officers and warrant officers, and I think they expected someone higher ranking, but it was just me.BAK:Right.
AW:So he came in kind of annoyed that he had to do paperwork, came back, turned
it back in. I'm like, "Are you flying out today, sir?"He's like, "Yeah. We're just doing a routine whatever."
I'm like, "Okay, I hope you have a great flight." And that was the last I saw him.
BAK:Oh, my gosh.
AW:He and--His plane ended up--He was a Chinook pilot--I feel horrible because I
don't remember his name--But it was just a rough day--well, rough several weeks--because he was an awesome guy. He had a lot of friends and he was just a happy, like, fun person to be around. That was really rough, but--And what I didn't know at the time was, that same day I had another friend that I met at AIT--I didn't find out for, like, another month, though, because we had been emailing each other, because he was also deployed, and I hadn't heard from him for a while. And then finally I--I got back to our command, like, "Okay, I haven't heard from him. This is not good." And there's a--I forget which website it is but you can type in names of servicemembers and it'll bring them up if they're in the database of casualties.[Honor the Fallen is a database supported by Military Times, "Honoring those who
fought and died in Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn." Users are able to search the database for military casualties]BAK:Oh, gosh.
AW:And I just sat there and I was like, "I don't want to do this. I know this
answer already." I typed his name in and his picture popped up and I just started crying. I was like, "Ugh." But I found out that the same day that our pilot and others in the crew went down, he did too, but it was in Iraq not Afghanistan. So yeah, that was the first time I really experienced losing anyone while I was in the army; or like a friend.BAK:Right.
AW:Yeah, that sucked. Sorry.
BAK:No, as you should. We can stop if you want. We have Kleenex. I mean, we're
talking about heavy stuff.AW:Yeah. So yeah, I just--I don't know--I--well, our commo shop, it was kind of ghetto.
BAK:Right.
AW:It was in the back corner of this building. It had, just, really shoddy
walls. [chuckles]BAK:Right.
AW:And our window was like a service window. It's, like, the--I don't know how
to describe it. It was, like, from chest high, maybe, two feet--so it's like an actual window.BAK:Yes.
AW:So I'd shut my window and, like, lock the door, and I just sat there. And you
could hear--like, there's no--the wall doesn't meet the ceiling so you can hear them--BAK:Got it.
AW:--people--And I'm just, like--People would knock or like, "Hey!" And I just
didn't answer. I'm just like, "I can't do this right now." [chuckles]And then--And I hadn't planned on being, like, completely lazy or just taking
the rest of the day off, I was just--I just needed, like, five minutes. That was a busy time of the day and people were just like, "Oh, where's everybody at?" Blah, blah, blah.So my NCOIC comes in and he's like--he just walked in, and I think he
immediately knew I just wasn't okay. He was like, "Get out of here."So that was good to know, too, was he was--I called him "Dad" even though he's a
seven foot, jet black dude. I'm like, "That's my Dad." [chuckling] I used to call him "Dad." And we used to joke about that just because he was a lot older; like, he was about to retire too. So we used to--that was, like, our little inside joke.BAK:He was a good guy?
AW:Yeah, he was a great person to work for. Like, he always looked out for me.
As long as I wasn't in the wrong, like, he would bend over backwards to help me out, and I really appreciated that. And he was one of those few people that I actually had in my leadership that I really looked up to and really admired.BAK:You want to give him a shout-out by name?
AW:Yeah. Sergeant First Class [Cletis Trotter?]. [chuckles] Yeah, he was
just--he was super smart, and he knew everything front to back, and he always took care of everybody. He was, like, my little light in the dark, because I wasn't a fan of a lot of leadership in that unit in particular.And--Yeah. That also reminds me, just a few days later we had a JAG officer
[Judge Advocate General Corps provides legal services and advice in all legal matters], this captain who worked down the hall and he was just mean; like, he was a dick to everybody for no reason. And we're like, "What's your problem?"So he came to my shop one day, and I was super busy because there was a
change-over of--moving everything from one network to a new one--which, by the way, is horrible [unclear]--BAK:Okay.
AW:It's a lot of work, it's a pain, but it had to be done. So he's like, "Hey, I
need this right now."I'm like, "Sorry. I have to do this right now. I promise I will get to it as
soon as I can. I'm only one person. I can only do so much. Please give me, like, five minutes."He's like, "I need it right now!" And he flipped out and he storms off and he,
like--I don't know--goes and tells somebody. I don't know who.So an NCIOC comes in like--I don't know where he always was. Like, "How did you
know when this stuff--" He just appeared sometimes, like, "How did you know this? Do you have a camera or something?"BAK:Right.
AW:So he comes in, like, two minutes later, he's like, "Hey, did you just have
Captain So-and-so come in here?""I did." I told him that I did.
So he's like, "No, no no. Were you disrespect--"
I was like, "No, I was not." I said, 'Sir,' I said 'please;' all that stuff."
He's like, "Okay. That's all I need to know," and he walked out.
And he walked down the hall and I heard the door slam and I was like, "Oh, God."
Anyway, the captain came back to me about ten minutes later, he was like, "I'm
really sorry." [both chuckle]I'm like, "No problem, sir. I'm here for you."
BAK:Wow.
AW:I thought that was pretty awesome that he, I guess, gave him some words of
encouragement; I don't know.BAK:I like that, "words of encouragement." I'm going to implement that in my life.
AW:Yeah. It was interesting. Yeah. I guess those are the moments most that stick out.
BAK:And you started drinking water?
AW:Yeah. After that I really, really started to drink water because I never
wanted another IV in my neck, or to go face first into rocks. That was--I don't recommend that.BAK:Okay.
AW:Don't do it.
BAK:Alright.
AW:I also quit drinking soda. That first deployment, I drank a soda when it was
really hot one day and it just upset my stomach so bad that I was like, "Never again." And I have not drank sodas in, like, ten years.BAK:Oh, wow.
AW:I do every now and then, but--I don't know--it just makes me physically ill
now. To smell it or see it I'm like, "Ugh, gross."BAK:Probably not a bad thing.
AW:Yeah.
BAK:Did they have a whole mess--kitchen set up--or were you eating--
AW:You mean in Bagram?
BAK:Yeah, sorry. Well, no, the one at the--
AW:Jalalabad?
BAK:Jalalabad, yeah.
AW:Or JAF, for short I guess. They did. Like, the Marines had a tent; it was a
dining tent. It was really--It was exactly what you'd expect; a tent with questionable food heated up and served. [chuckles]BAK:Okay.
AW:I mean, it was--it served a purpose if you weren't, like, starving hungry. Or
at least, I wasn't.BAK:Were they MREs [Meals, Ready to Eat]?
AW:You have those. Like, if we going to go out on a mission or something like
that and you knew that you'd be out for a while, or even if you thought you might, you'd pack extra. But I think at that point you had so many MREs in your life that you just don't want them unless you absolutely have to and there is no other choice.BAK:Right. Got it.
AW:Because they're not--I don't know--not my favorite.
BAK:I don't know if they're anyone's favorite.
AW:No, not--No.
BAK:Okay. Alright, so actually, I think you were in Afghanistan in 2006.
AW:Yes.
BAK:Okay. Then you went back to Fort Benning, right?
AW:Well, we came back from there and went back to Germany and then--
BAK:Oh, you went back to Germany--Oh, right.
[Speaking Simultaneously]
AW:Right, to clear out of there and then--yeah, and then go back. Yeah. I
reenlisted in Afghanistan to go to Fort Benning because I still was like, "I really want to go to Airborne." Like, the failure didn't sit well with me still, and I just was like, "Hey, I have to do this." Like, "This is going to happen." And this time I was more prepared. And in the aviation unit I was in, we didn't really do PT so much. Like, it just was not on the same scale as Fort Benning, because that's the home of the Infantry, so you have a bunch of--BAK:I'm sorry, home of--Oh, the Infantry.
AW:The Infantry, yeah, so it's a lot of really ground-pounding guys down there,
and everything's on a whole new level. So I knew that; I knew that before I reenlisted. I'm like, "I want to go there."And people were like, "Oh, my God. Fort Benning, that's going to be crazy. Are
you sure you want to do this?"I was like, "I do." [chuckles]
They're like, "No one ever reenlists to go to Fort Benning." They're, like, "Why?"
"Because I want to go."
BAK:Right.
AW:So I did, and--yeah, and after working--hanging out on the Ranger compound I
was super inspired. I'm like, "I want to work with these guys. They're awesome. Like, they're just badasses. Who doesn't want that?"BAK:Right.
AW:So at that point I kind of got mildly obsessed with that, and I think that's
why--Yeah, that was why. [chuckles] That's why I reenlisted to go to Fort Benning. So I ended up going to 3rd ID [Infantry Division], which is usually stationed in Fort Stewart, but they have one battalion, which is now deactivated--or one brigade--at Fort Benning up on Kelly Hill, which is it's, like, a little section of Fort Benning, so it's kind of out of the way, away from things.BAK:And 3rd ID.
AW:Third Brigade, 3rd ID.
BAK:What is ID?
AW:Oh, sorry, Infantry Division.
BAK:Infantry Division.
AW:It's the patch with the blue and white stripes on it, with the square.
BAK:Oh, yes, got it.
AW:I ended up going there. And then I prepared this time; I started going to the
gym twice a day, getting myself physically ready, because I knew that going from aviation to an infantry--BAK:Very different.
AW:Yeah, not the same at all. And I'm glad I did.
BAK:Did you have a pull up coach?
AW:No, but I knew what not to do at this point so that helped a lot.
BAK:You mean like going out drinking? What do you mean "not to do?"
AW:As far as physical. I'm like, "Okay, I know how to improve on my pull-ups, I
know how to go run and how to sprint to get maximum effort for run times; all that stuff.BAK:Got it.
AW:And then, yeah, I showed up physically prepared, which only worked in my
favor because--I think I signed in on, like, a Wednesday, and Thursday was a six-mile ruck march. And I didn't take that into account, and I haven't ruck marched since that basic training, so my little girl feet did not handle that well, and for the next couple days I had some pretty stellar blisters. It was a learning curve. But then after that, like, once a week we had more ruck marches, and then we do a quarter 20K, which is about twelve miles. And that was one thing I was always really good at, was ruck marching, and I finally figured out how to take care of my feet so that I wasn't completely debilitated all weekend, because they always seem to do the long runs right before a four-day. I wonder why that is? Seems like they plan those. So yeah, Fort Benning was a great place to be.BAK:How long were you there?
AW:About two years. I went into a signal company actually, which was new to me
because I didn't--had not worked at a signal company, so now it's like you have a ton of just, like, commo nerds, which was what everyone else calls us.BAK:So that's why it was great, you were with your people?
AW:Yeah, I'm with my people. [chuckle] It was really interesting because our
first sergeant--who I still keep in touch with--he came from the 82nd, from Fort Bragg, and he was a first sergeant at Fort Benning, and that was a big deal because he was the 82nd guy that always wanted to talk about the 82nd, and people were like, "We don't care." [chuckles] We were at Fort Benning, this was not Fort Bragg.BAK:Right. So you passed Airborne this time?
AW:I didn't go back yet. I still had--It's still in the back of my brain.
BAK:Okay.
AW:I'm like, "I will get there."
BAK:You're prepping for it.
AW:Yeah, I'm like, "I want to do this. This is what happened."
BAK:So you commo nerd and doing a lot at the gym.
AW:Yes.
BAK:Got it. Okay.
AW:I would argue to say I was in the best shape of my life at Fort Benning.
BAK:Okay.
AW:That's not the case, by the way. [chuckles]
BAK:Okay.
AW:We--And he--because he was from Fort Bragg we ran, like, every day, at least
three miles, and he--and he's really tall so he's got these long legs. So some of us had to run a little faster and harder than others just to keep up with him.BAK:Right.
AW:At first it was a little difficult, but you get used to it, and it ended up
working out. That was--I don't know. I don't know how to describe Fort Benning other than I just remember liking it. I hated it at the time, but it's not as bad when you go back and look. I did know that we were supposed to deploy. I got there in the summertime, and they were like, "Hey, by the way, we're going to deploy in January."Okay, sounds good." I had exactly a year between deployments at that time. Or
maybe it was February.AW:Something like that. Either way, the math added up, and it's cool because
I've been home for a year so I'm ready to go. [chuckles]BAK:Right. Okay. Is there anything else you want to say? You deployed in January
or so, 2008, right? Two thousand eight?AW:Yeah, from January--well, we actually were slotted for a one year but we
knew--our leadership knew that we would probably have those extra couple months tacked on, just because of the situation at the time, they'd been hearing that. So like, "Hey, it says one year on paper, but just know that it's probably going to fifteen months--or probably fifteen months."And we were like, "Okay, great."
So yeah, we went to NTC for a month, we came home, packed everything, and a few
weeks later we were gone.BAK:NTC?
AW:I'm sorry, National Training Center. That's in Fort Irwin in California, and
it's kind of like a pre-deployment training.BAK:Okay.
AW:Yeah, it's out in the desert. It gets you used to it, I guess. [chuckles]
That--The only thing about that, too, was it was January so it was the only time in my life I've ever taken a shower someplace where there was ice on the floor, and the water hits you and it just hurts. You don't even feel clean, it just hurts.BAK:Wow.
AW:Yeah, but I don't like to be cold because of--I just hate being cold. Anyway.
So yeah, we came home from that, packed, and went for fifteen months. And we built that--by "we" I mean our brigade built that FOB from the ground up; like, there was nothing there. The first people that went out, they were still patrolling, and there was no physical barrier, there was no fence, no wall, no anything, they were just patrolling in armored trucks, and then hoping nothing crazy was going on outside of that, until the rest of the brigade got there to really fortify the area and just build it up.BAK:What was the name, FOB--
AW:FOB Hammer.
BAK:Hammer, okay.
AW:And I remember flying in, and we landed in a Chinook, and it was moondust[?].
Imagine a planet of baby powder, when you put your foot down it's like, "Poof." So that was everywhere, and for the first couple days you just try to fight it and clean everything off and wipe everything off, and I think after about the fourth day you just give in.BAK:Right.
AW:It's in everything, it's on everything. I'm pretty sure there's probably
still some of it in my lungs. You just can't escape it. So yeah, we came there with nothing, and by the time I left, after fifteen months, there was fiber-optic cable that are coming late, over three miles--BAK:Wow.
AW:--and everything was graveled in and there was a lot less dust, which was
great. We had fortified walls, we had, like, a hard dining facility and not just a little tent with MREs. [chuckles] Which that was the first month, we ate MREs all the time and it was awful. And yeah, we had the modular houses, basically; like, the little rooms. We didn't get to stay there because we were on our way out, so we just had to stay in tents for fifteen months. And that was a whole other dynamic in itself because when you put eight females in a tent, with only a few feet of space between you for that long, it's just--aw, it was a good time. [both chuckle] Can I pause real quick?BAK:Yeah, sure.
[Recording Paused]
BAK:Okay, we're back after a short break, and we are in FOB Hammer. It's very
dusty. You laid some fiber-optic cable?AW:Well, I didn't physically.
BAK:Three miles. Your unit did.
AW:Yes.
BAK:Okay. You ate a lot of MREs; I think that's where you stopped.
AW:Yeah, in the beginning.
BAK:In the beginning, okay.
AW:I tried to never touch one again. [chuckles]
BAK:Got it.
AW:Yeah. That was a--as far as professional, my job, a good continuation from my
first deployment where I was a very junior soldier and taking on responsibilities of someone that should be a higher rank, or so they would think. So that helped me out when I did deploy my second time because--because I was able to handle big workloads, or just a lot of moving parts and pieces, well enough that my first sergeant put me in charge of the signal maintenance, and also the vehicle maintenance for our company, and because he didn't have a responsible or trustworthy male to run signal equipment from our FOB up to--that's Afghanistan I'm thinking of--BIAP?--no--yes, Baghdad International Airport--I had to go back to remember my acronym. So because he didn't have someone he trusted he put me in charge of that.BAK:Was that odd because you were female?
AW:Yeah.
BAK:Okay. And why was that?
AW:Because I guess getting back to the signal nerds thing, yeah, if you were a
male and you were a 25 Uniform [25U] in a signal company, typically, I guess, you would go to work on a retrans site somewhere, which is against the [unclear] mountain, kind of alone, with a few other people. And we did, we had guys that were out at different sites doing that, and he's like, "I'm not going to send you, you're a female, it's not going to happen." Because these are--BAK:Oh, right, because you're isolated.
AW:Right, with infantry platoons, that just probably wouldn't have been a good idea.
BAK:Got it. And you said a retrans site?
AW:Yeah, retransmission site.
BAK:Retransmission.
AW:Sorry. [unclear]
BAK:No, it's alright. It's the way--
AW:Our own language.
BAK:Exactly. I've started to pick up on it after a year.
AW:So yeah, it was a retransmission site. I didn't work at those, but because I
was the only 25 Uniform female, he stuck me working for him in the office, which, by the way, I hated, and most other people that I know in the army hate it, because you join the army to not work in an office, but it ends up happening anyway. [chuckles] So yeah.And yeah. So with that I had to run signal equipment from Hammer up to BIAP, and
that was always by convoy, unless it was something small. Then I would fly it up on my person in an aircraft of some sort, have it exchanged, repaired, or whatever, and then come back. So--I don't know--it was good in that way. I got a lot of great experience, and I got to meet some really great people in the brigade at headquarters.Along with that, though, we had one mission--my first actual encounter with any
incoming fire, close situation--was going to take a big reel of fiber-optic cable--well, it was an empty one we would trade it out for a new one. And imagine, like, a spool of ribbon or something. It a spool that's, like, five feet [unclear].BAK:Right.
AW:So that's huge. We had to run that up, and our company has a gun truck, which
is just an armed vehicle with a mounted weapon up top. I was playing gunner that night so I was sitting in the turret on a fifty cal [caliber]--the female--and my two male counterparts--I had a driver and the TC--who, by the way, were both prior marines.BAK:Yes.
AW:[chuckles] I don't know. So we were--It was a night mission, it was a usual
convoy, the same routes that you're used to, so I think after a while of not having any contact you just get complacent, and they always pound that into your head, "Don't get complacent because the enemy is out there," yada, yada, yada, which is absolutely true.So it was really late, I hadn't been getting any sleep, I'm sitting there,
looking around, and it's like I'm like, "Okay, nothing, great, great." We get there and we're tired. I just remember being sleepy and wishing I could go to sleep. Then I just, like, hear a loud noise, a huge flash flies by my face, and I'm like, "That's not good." [chuckles]BAK:Right.
AW:Then I started to really look. And then, immediately over the radio you just
hear, "Incoming! Incoming!" And then what I realized happened later, there was a guy that fired an RPG on the same side that--or the opposite side that I was oriented with my weapon. I had my weapon oriented this way and he was on the righthand side. So he barely missed, which is awesome because I'm here.BAK:Right.
AW:Then it was him and a couple other guys that had small arms that were firing
at the trucks in the back of the convoy that was behind us. So we just pressed through--we just moved fast through the fire--and then when we got to our next stop, everyone just jumps out. I'll never forget the look on the driver's face from the truck behind us. We hopped out of our gun truck, and he hopped out of the driver's seat, he runs up to me, his eyes are this big, he's like, "Do you realize you almost died!"I was like, "Yeah."
BAK:Oh, gosh.
AW:And I was like, "But I'm not, so it's okay." Anyway, I think he was more
freaked out than I was. I was just tired. I [unclear] sleep. Yeah, that was just--I don't know. I guess it was near miss. It wasn't that big of a deal.So then we stayed up all night because we had to still keep pushing up to BIAP.
And the thing that sucked the most about those trips is, like, you would drive all night to get up there. So that means you don't sleep because you have to get to the shops when they open so that you can get a good turnaround time, because then you have to hop back in the truck that night and drive back. So if you can sleep somewhere in between, good luck.BAK:Right.
AW:So yeah, we got up there, we took, like, an hour nap, got our equipment
turned around, came back, and at this point I was so exhausted. All that stuff happened. Like, moving the equipment itself, that was work, and I was just tired. And I dropped off the stuff that I had just picked up in the CP--the Command Post--and my first sergeant was really--he's really particular about a lot of things and he likes to yell at people, or, liked to yell at people, particularly me. [chuckles]So I dropped all this stuff off, and I wrote a big note on the whiteboard, I'm
like, "Hey, I just got in at this time." I'm like, "I am super tired. I'll be back later to take care of it," whatever.BAK:Right.
AW:"Hey, I know it's here; it's in the way. I'll get it later. I'm tired."
So he ends--Someone comes down to my room and wakes me up, like, two hours after
I fell asleep, and I was so mad. And she's--Her name was Meers[?]. Anyway, she was, like, this little lady. She's like, "Hey." And she knew I'd be angry. She's like, "Hey, first sergeant wants you."I'm like, "What does he want!" I start yelling and just being crazy.
She's like, "He just said come to the CP right now."
And I was like, "Ah." I knew exactly what was going to happen.
So I get up there, and I'm delusionally tired. Like, I probably have a crazy
face. And I was like, "Hey, first sergeant. I know this stuff's here."And he was like--I didn't even get a chance to say anything. He start's
screaming at me, telling me I'm incompetent and this stuff. And I'm like--I just gave him the--I don't know--I got away with it. Normally you can't do that to your first sergeant. I was like, "Anyway--" and I cut him off, and we started yelling at each other. And I explained to him what happened through a lot of yelling, because he wouldn't hear anything else.And then he stopped yelling at me. It was great. And he's like, "Okay, well, I
hear you." I guess he thought I was making it up. I don't know. Then once he realized, like, that all that stuff happened and--the other--he didn't mess with the guys. I don't know--he didn't get them up. He didn't wake them up and have them come in there and yell at them. It was just me.So yeah, I'm like, "Hey, if you don't believe me you can ask [unclear]; like,
they were there, they saw it, whatever. Pull up a little sit rep, whatever, it's there. Please leave me alone. I just want to sleep."He's like, "Hey, you know what? Don't worry about coming in today."
I was like, "Okay."
He never apologized, but his apology was, like, don't worry about coming in.
BAK:Is it because of the near miss or just how hard you--you were up for
seventy-two hours?AW:I think both. I think once he realized, like, on the way out that happened,
and then we didn't get any sleep, and then I still had to--we had to drive back, he didn't mess with us at that point. I don't think he understood the severity of the situation, and not even just with the near miss, but the whole process. And once I screamed that at him, he understood it. [chuckles]BAK:Right.
AW:He was like, "Okay, well, don't worry about coming in." So I think that was a
point that we both got to be at peace with each other, and then our working relationship was a lot smoother. [chuckles]BAK:Right.
AW:He kind of, like, left me alone and just let me do what I needed to do to get
stuff done.BAK:Okay. Now, where is FOB Hammer?
AW:It is southeast of Baghdad.
BAK:Okay.
AW:A few--You might even be able to look it up on Google Maps. I really don't know.
BAK:I probably [unclear].
AW:I don't know if that's a legit source.
BAK:Right.
AW:Yeah. And then, actually, that was on the news in--yeah, when it happened. So
we--I forgot about that too. Gee. We were under attack. Some guys set up a bunch of rockets outside of the walls, and launched and hit a lot of our space, and I lost some people.BAK:Oh, God. Were you on base then?
AW:Yeah. I wasn't anywhere near where the rockets landed, but it was in our
sleep tent area.BAK:Oh, gosh.
AW:And it was in the middle of the day, so, like, a lot of the nightshift people
were in there, and some of the people that had just whatever jobs were in there. We lost one of our generator mechanics who I worked with all the time because I was the maintenance person. And then another motor pool LT who ended up--he made it a little while and then he passed. Yeah, it was a rough day.BAK:Wow.
AW:That was on the news actually. It was just a blip, because during that time
everything was on the news; all these different attacks. I do remember that. And then shortly after that I did an interview--and I can't remember with who--but it was from West Virginia, like, somebody in Charleston was like, "Oh, we have a resident deployed now. Let's see if we can get an interview." And that worked out and it was terrible, because I was really nervous and I didn't know what to say. [chuckles] Yeah. And they were just trying to ask me all these hard questions, and I'm like, "It's a bad time." So yeah, I didn't handle it well. Yeah, so that happened.BAK:Wow.
AW:And I think at that point that was in the summer, that was when everyone just
started to get really beat down; like, exhausted from everything; just being there. And I scheduled my deployment leave right in the middle, which was nice. Except for on my way to [unclear]--it was, like, two weeks, and those two weeks went like that [snaps fingers], and then you find yourself back in the dirt and the dust.BAK:Where'd you go on leave?
AW:I went to Nebraska because I was dating a guy--
BAK:[chuckles]
AW:I know, right?
BAK:Just I didn't see that coming.
AW:No, right? [chuckles] I didn't either. I went to Nebraska with a guy that I
was, like, seriously dating at the time because he's from there, reluctantly so, because I had planned this elaborate Hawaii vacation before [unclear]. And then I bit the bullet and went to Nebraska. I kind of regret that now.Anyway, we went to Nebraska, and then we also spent, like, five days in [Las]
Vegas. So the Vegas part was really fun.BAK:Okay. So two weeks go by quickly.
AW:Yeah. And we got back, and the second half of the deployment I just remember
being really salty [to be angry or bitter], really exhausted, and just ready to leave. And that did not go by fast, but it worked out in the end, so.BAK:Were you attacked anymore after?
AW:We were, it just--I think the severity of the situation, the parts that I
remember most, are the rockets on the FOB and just my own experience. I mean, we continued to lose people throughout that deployment because we had other units just moving around the area all the time in vehicles. Those were the only ones that directly affected me, I guess, in that sense. But we were constantly having memorials and things like that. It was depressing. It's not a fun time.BAK:Right.
AW:And I think at a certain point, though, it's sad but you can't let it
compound so much that you crush, like, your soul. Because you still have a job to do at the end of the day, and you just, kind of, stuff it down, and then wait until you get out and become a hot emotional mess, when you have time to process it. [chuckles]So yeah, I just remember being there and like, "Okay, who are these guys across
the hall?" Oh, that was on the second half. We had some civil affairs guys that worked across from us--I skipped over that. So finally had buildings, and we moved into an actual office space, with floors and air conditioning; it was great.BAK:Right.
AW:So we had some civil affairs guys across from us, and I saw these guys in
civilian clothes all the time. I'm like, "They do army stuff. Who are these people?" Because I had no idea they existed, at all.Someone is like, "Oh, yeah, that's CA."
"What's CA? What does that mean?"
And they're like, "Oh, they wear civilian clothes and just do stuff with Afghans."
I'm like, "That sounds cool. I want to do that. I don't want to wear this stuff."
BAK:Right.
AW:So then I would continue to work in the motor pool, and I saw a mechanic down
there who worked with the CA guys. He's like, "Oh, yeah, man, they're awesome. [I want to be in a CA unit?]."I'm like, "Okay." So I started looking it up, and then I saw this thing, like,
Psychological Operations. I'm like, "That sounds even cooler." [both chuckle]BAK:Right.
AW:"I want to do something cool. Never mind this."
So you have to submit all of this--it's basically like applying for college; you
have to put all of this paperwork in to even apply to change over. So I submitted my packet for that months and months in advance. I ended being accepted there, and then once I did, you have to have a certain amount of time left in service or you have to reenlist. I ended up having to reenlist because I didn't have much time left. And I was like, "Alright, cool, Fort Bragg [North Carolina]. What's not to love? It's North Carolina. It's great. [chuckles] Nevermind the 82nd [Airborne Division]."I reenlisted over there and I came back. I went to Airborne School be--it worked
out because I was already stationed at Fort Benning, and to be Psychological Operations you have to be Airborne, so I'm like, "Sweet, I can just reenlist." Part of my reenlistment package was going to Airborne School once I get home, so I prepared a lot in advance this time. [chuckles] I went home, I went on sixty-three days of leave because I had so much leave built up, and I spent all summer driving around Florida and Georgia, having a blast at all the beaches, and that was the best sixty-three days ever.BAK:Did you travel with someone or did you go alone?
AW:My boyfriend at the time; the one from Nebraska.
BAK:Nebraska guy, okay.
AW:And then I drove home to get my little sister, who was fifteen or sixteen at
the time, who still was in West Virginia. I'm like, Hey, come spend the summer with me. We're going to drive all around Florida. We're going to go to the beach. It's going to be great."She's like, "Okay." She's like, "Sounds good." So we just spent June and July
driving around and hitting up all the beaches and just having a good time.And then I came back a few pounds heavier and then hit the gym really hard. Went
to Jump School. Passed no problem this time.BAK:How many pull-ups could you do by then?
AW:I think it was, like, twelve then. I just barely [unclear]. I can't do them.
BAK:No, pull-ups, I've tried once and that was like, "How does this even happen?"
AW:[chuckles] I know, like, "What am I doing wrong?"
BAK:Right.
AW:And yeah, I moved to Fort Bragg and--I don't know--I feel like the second
part of my life started at Fort Bragg.BAK:Okay.
AW:Because I spent most of my time there, or around the area. I got there in
October 2008, and at the time I was still dating this guy from Nebraska, and he reenlisted to go to Fort Bragg also. He didn't explicitly say it, and he'll probably deny it to this day, but he totally reenlisted for Fort Bragg just to go with me, even though he won't admit it.BAK:Okay.
AW:Everyone knows that. Anyway. [chuckles] So he did, and he got stationed just
down the street from "Swick," which is the--"Swick" for short is the JFK--what is it?--it's like this long--it's, like, the JFK Special Warfare Center something school [John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School] there. But if you're in school there we just call it "Swick," which is Special Warfare Center. It's a lot easier.BAK:Got it.
AW:So I got there, and then I was a holdover because I still needed to do WLC,
which used to be PLDC, which was the Primary Leadership Development Course, and then they changed the name to Warrior Leader Course.BAK:Okay.
AW:I don't know.
BAK:Alright.
AW:So I ended up having to go out to Camp MacKall, which is a special training
area out on Fort Bragg, for--what was it?--a couple weeks. It was a couple weeks out there. But it was me and ninety dudes, and they were SF candidate dudes, so that was not my favorite either, because--before--prior to this I was like, "Oh, SF guys are cool, right? Everyone loves SF." No.BAK:No? Why?
AW:Number one, being a female around those types of dudes, they just
automatically think they're super awesome. Not true. [both chuckle]BAK:Okay.
AW:They're cooler than thou, I can't--I don't like to be around that type of
attitude, and you're a female so they're like, "Automatically you're less than me."BAK:Right.
AW:And at this point, six years in the army, I get it, you think you're awesome,
but I know that on the inside you're a little boy so good luck.So I never did last in anything physical, which was terrible for those guys;
[chuckles] they finished after me in anything we did. And it was a great time for the instructors out there because they definitely let those guys know, like, "Why is this girl beating you?" So anyway, that was my first real experience around, like, Special Ops dudes, being a female.And I slept in the back of the supply room because I was--this wasn't intended
for women, basically, and that's--they made the back of the supply room, like, for the few females that went over there. That was over not quick enough.BAK:Just the title of it sounds like it's a Standard Leadership Course?
AW:It is. This is different. This one's different under the Special Operations
community. They have their own--They do their own thing, kind of. You can go to the big army one and I didn't, so because I didn't have that school I had to go to this one instead.BAK:Got it.
AW:So it was like a same credit, different--
BAK:Group of people.
AW:Yeah. I kind of wish I had gone to the other one.
BAK:Got it. Okay.
AW:Well, actually, I did go to that. Okay, I messed that up. I went to the PLDC,
the long version of it at Fort Benning. I skipped over that. I can't believe I forgot about that. But this was supposed to count also as BNOC [Basic Non-Commissioned Officer] Phase One, which is--this is a different title. It used to be BNOC, but now it's, like, "Something" Leader Course [U.S. Army Advanced Leader Course (ALC). They changed the name so many times I don't remember what's what, but.BAK:BNOC, whatever that is?
AW:Yeah, it's, like, BNCOC, but we just called it BNOC.
BAK:Okay.
AW:Yeah. So that's what that course was supposed to take care of; that
requirement for. And then--[chuckles]BAK:And this is a requirement for--
AW:Just as an NCO; as a Non-Commissioned Officer.
BAK:Okay.
AW:Because at this point I was a staff sergeant, and I didn't have--I was a
newly promoted staff sergeant, and because I was in route from one place to the next I just didn't have time to go to school, so I had to rely on this at Fort Bragg to go there.BAK:Okay.
AW:Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. That's not important.
BAK:Okay.
AW:We can skip over that.
BAK:Your choice. We can talk about it if you want.
AW:Well, I forgot about at Fort Benning, before I left I did go to the BNOC
course there, and that was also my second encounter with Rangers and it was a positive encounter with them. We had a couple that we were sprinkled out throughout our class because they didn't have the option of going to the cool guy version. [chuckles] They were just really great to work with because they were really competent in everything, and we have to be. So I was blown away. I'm like, "I didn't know that these types of people existed in the army. This is great. How do I work with these guys?"BAK:Right.
AW:So still in the back of my brain this is there. And then fast forward to Fort
Bragg, I'm out with these SF candidate guys, not the same caliber; just not.BAK:Okay.
AW:[chuckles] My personal opinion on their experiences may vary. But we did have
a couple of guys in there that came from regiment that wanted to go SF, and those few stood out very well because they were very competent in everything again, and they just put all of their guys to shame, so I was like, "Awesome. How do I work with these guys?"BAK:Got it. Okay.
AW:So, still, I'm like, "How do I do this?" And then fast forward through all
that, we get to the actual PSYOPS portion of the school, because this is all during a holdover period. We had to wait for the next class to start of, like, [unclear] class, because we just came at a weird time. Myself and others that came from other parts of the army.During that time was also important because I just met all of my friends that I
consider my Fort Bragg family, that I still spend all my days with, even though I've been out for four years. One of which just had a birthday the other night, and she came up to Raleigh to celebrate. We kind of met everyone there. That's where I met my husband.BAK:Oh, okay.
AW:We were holdovers at the same time, we had the same circle of friends. So
then we get through the course, and I kind of compare the PSYOP course to people's years in college because we went to class and we kind of did stuff, but really we just partied and hung out with each other all day. [chuckles] I feel like that was my golden year of the army. It was just a good time. Meeting people.BAK:What is partying?
AW:Just getting drunk, I guess.
BAK:Just in your room or going out?
AW:Well, we had different houses around, so whoever--we'd throw house parties.
You don't want to drink and drive. Like, that's not good.BAK:So it was just house parties?
AW:Yeah. It's was just a lot of house partying going on. I mean, we still went
out and stuff like that, too, but it's just always a better bet to stay at someone's house. So yeah.BAK:Was it dancingor just sitting around, video games?
AW:Yeah. There was a lot of everything, I guess. We had this awesome Hawaiian
party. We actually went out and bought a tiki bar stand. We put a lot of money into this. It was stupid, but it was fun. Yeah. Like, we'd have music, or we'd just have --we'd have parties where people would bring over tons of food. We'd just make different stuff, because we also loved food. And we would, like, try to have theme parties because it's--you can just drink to anything but why not dress up and be silly. It's more fun.BAK:Okay.
AW:I guess kind of like college kids, but you can legally drink and you're not
as broke so it all works out.BAK:Got it, okay.
AW:And yeah, just those same people I still consider like family to me today.
And I ended up--At that point I ended up breaking up with the guy that I was with before. He just started acting really weird, and--I don't know--"Are you seeing someone else, because you kind of make me think you are." And we just, kind of, mutually separated. I don't know what the deal was. I'm not even mad.From there I made the first--I think the worst decision of my life was to buy a
condo in Fayetteville. [chuckles]BAK:Okay.
AW:I moved down to Fayetteville from--at that time I was living in Wilmington,
which is in the middle of nowhere, north of Fort Bragg. And so, I moved into the condo, and things changed, kind of, for the better. Like, my friends that would go through a divorce, or get custody, lose custody of a kid, or whatever, I would always have a roommate. "Oh, you're out of a house? You can stay with me."BAK:Got it.
AW:So we joked and we called it the Staff Sergeant Halfway House; [both chuckle]
[unclear] Halfway House. And so, moving forward through Swick, my language assignment was Thai, so we--I was in language for six months learning Thai, which was a good time, except for I've forgotten all of it, except for, maybe, two sentences now. And yeah, we just went our separate ways once we graduated in November 2009; we went to different battalions. And even though it's different battalions, everyone in PSYOP is super close. It's such a small community. You see everyone all the time, again and again. And even on deployments. And same thing with Caroline, it's crazy, because she took over for me in Salerno, and then I get here and I'm like, "Oh, my God, it's a small world."BAK:Right.
AW:So yeah, we still continue to stay in touch once we all went our separate
ways. And I went to 8th Battalion outside of--or once I graduated school, and then I was there for only a few months. We deployed to Qatar. Deployed. It wasn't a combat zone. [chuckles] It's where people from Afghanistan and Iraq go for, like, a four-day R&R.BAK:Got it. Okay.
AW:Yeah.
BAK:So it's a sandy place.
AW:Yeah, it's hot, sandy, and you can wear civilian clothes half the time, so it
was--that was nice.BAK:What is PSYOPS? What does one do as a PSYOP? Or can you tell me?
AW:Yeah. [chuckles] It just depends. There are several different roles you could
consider. And they hate it, but it's like, "Oh, it's propaganda." It's not entirely true. It's like selling ideas rather than selling products.BAK:Got it. Okay. What were you trained to do, in Thai?
AW:I never actually got to apply my language. I'll get to that in, like, one
second. I turned down a rotation in Thailand to go back to Afghanistan. And it sounds insane.BAK:Okay. So we're jumping ahead, sorry.
AW:Yeah.
BAK:So you're in Qatar, then?
AW:Yeah. And out there I actually had an awesome job. I think that's--I don't
know if I can say that. Anyway, I was working with civilians, and they pretty much did all the work, but I was overseeing what they were doing. I don't know if I can talk about that. I think that's still an ongoing thing. It was awesome, though. I got to see a lot of really cool stuff and see some positive changes in the six months that we were there. Which, in that particular project, we didn't know what would happen, and--BAK:This is with civilians?
AW:Yeah.
BAK:In Qatar.
AW:And because I don't speak any language from that area at all, so I
couldn't--I was completely useless for that.BAK:You had a civilian interpreter?
AW:Yeah, we had civilian linguists, basically, working to do the actual work,
and then we designed all the--BAK:Stuff.
AW:Yeah. The stuff. It sounds so sketchy. [chuckles] But it was awesome to see
that. And then at the same time--yeah. The other things that were going on in there were just more like administrative, I think. I don't--That deployment to me was--except for my little office of people that were doing great things for America, I completely hated it. It was a huge waste of time. The things that we were doing in that location could have been done back here in the States, it could have been done in Africa, it doesn't matter. So for that reason I hated it. I did not want to be [unclear], but that's just the position I ended up going to after I graduated, which, I didn't have a choice in that.I don't know. It was--The best thing that happened on that deployment, to me,
was meeting my now best friend. We were--She worked in the intel section, and because we were same rank females they just randomly put us together in a room. Like, we didn't really know each other, so that could have been good or bad. But it worked out great, because we ended up being best friends, and still are. I'm actually going to see her in January, in Kansas.BAK:Okay.
AW:So yeah, that's the best thing that happened, I think, on the deployment.
BAK:How long was the deployment?
AW:Six months. It felt a lot longer than that to me.
BAK:Were you stationed at a big base, or you can't talk about--
AW:It was right outside of Doha. In Doha, Qatar. It's really hot. It's right in
the Peninsula there. It's--BAK:It's hot.
AW:Yeah. If you look on a map, Qatar is, like, [not?] big.
BAK:Got it.
AW:It's a very small country. It's very rich but it's tiny. The malls there are
nice. We got to go downtown to see this or that. We could drive there. Driving there is insane. People complain about driving here. No, it's way worse in Qatar I think. That's the most stressful driving I've ever experienced in my life.BAK:Got it.
AW:Yeah, it's just a free for all. There are rules, but not everyone pays attention.
BAK:I would imagine it's a conservative country.
AW:Islamic conservative or--
BAK:I don't actually know what I'm talking about. I don't know anything about
Qatar, I'll admit it.AW:No, it's a Muslim country. It's pretty conservative in that way. It's
conservative Islamic, I would say. Like, we went to--we went out to the mall one weekend, and my friend that I just mentioned before, she had a shirt that didn't completely cover over her waist. You sat at a table and part of her side was showing, and a man walked up and was like, "Hey, can you cover your--"And she's like, "Oh, sorry."
To us, it's just, Oh, it's my hip," but that's a big deal in that culture. She's
like, "Oh, my bad." I guess, yeah, it's conservative in that way. People--Women cover up there, they wear everything covered, and--it's funny though, because if you see them in the bathroom, if they take their hijab off, whatever, they have this full face of elaborate makeup, their hair is done. They look like MTV rock stars but they have all this stuff on, and you're like, "Oh, my God." So it's just kind of--it's mind-blowing, I think. But it was interesting to see that, because a lot of people that have opinions, here in America, about things they don't know about, it's just like, "Okay, got it." So yeah.Yeah, outside of that, that deployment to me was pretty non-eventful. And I was
just excited to get home. So I got back and--BAK:Two thousand ten.
AW:Yes, July 2010.
BAK:Alright.
AW:And then we get--and by "we" I mean females in the Special Operations
community--get this big survey pushed out: Hey, we're looking for females to work with these specialty units, blah blah, blah. And because I had just gotten home and I was so really salty about that deployment, I was like, "No, No, I don't want to go. I just want to be home for a little while." And then I ended up moving from 8th Battalion, which is a Central Command-- Central Command is, like, Iraq, Afghanistan, that area--over to Pacific Command, which is where my language would have been more appropriate.BAK:Right.
AW:Because I wanted to go to Thailand and work at the embassy there. And I
finally get to 5th Battalion, into a Pacific Command Battalion, I get to the company, and I was like, "Maybe I don't want this." I got cold feet immediately, I called up my friend, I said, "Hey, can I get that survey back? Can I fill it out right now?"BAK:When you say "cold feet," due to what?
AW:Well, our first sergeant there was--and he's still over, he's a sergeant
major now--he will explicitly tell you, like, "Women don't belong in the army. You guys are--" whatever. He's that guy.BAK:He's the cold feet.
AW:Yeah. I was like, "I don't want to be around you. You kind of pissed me off,
and you probably just suck at life, so I don't want to be here."BAK:Okay.
AW:So I got out of there ASAP [as soon as possible]. And on top of that, I also
have a friend--well, she was new to me at the time but we're good friends now--she--him and another sergeant first class in that company pretty much were--it was--they were saying really off--offline comments to her--to this chick--and she took them to--what is it, IG?--what's--I can't remember what that stands for.BAK:IG [Inspector General]? We'll look up IG.
AW:Yeah. I forgot. Oh, my God, I feel so embarrassed. She took him to IG, and
then also EO [Equal Opportunity], because she's Asian--she's Vietnamese and white, and--which is crazy because the other female that said this stuff is also Vietnamese. Anyway, they just made all these really offline comments to her; just really negative things and not appropriate. So I got to sit in--that was my first experience in this company.BAK:So it was a racial discrimination.
AW:It was just crazy. It was--He was sexist, racist, all those things.
BAK:Got it.
AW:Imagine, like--okay, not Donald Trump [45th President of the United States],
not that bad, but comparable.BAK:So this is, like, the first few days.
AW:Yeah. I'm like, "Oh, my God. What did I do?"
BAK:Right.
AW:"I made a mistake. Get me out of here." So yeah, I then immediately regretted
my decision, and jumped back on that survey. I was like, "Okay. Where do I sign? What do I do? Awesome." I went to debrief.BAK:This is for the CST?
AW:Yeah, the Cultural Support Team. And at the time I wasn't clear on what it
was, I just knew that it was a selection and I would potentially deploy ASAP, and that's all I needed to hear. [both chuckle] I just wanted out.BAK:Wow, okay. Alright.
AW:I was like, "Okay, let's do this." Well, that, and the other big thing was
one of my best friends--I volunteered to do this too, and she was like, "Do it with me."And I was like, "Okay. You don't even have to--That's it. I will do it with you
because I need to get out of here.BAK:That was your only out?
AW:It wasn't my only out but--
BAK:Because that's a pretty intense out.
AW:It's is, but it also was everything that I wanted, because I didn't know at
the time. It was like--they were looking for females to work with Rangers and SF, and I wasn't clear on that in the beginning. I just knew it was an out and I would be working with Joint Task Force units, which meant one of those groups. And I'm like, "That's great. I've wanted to do this for a long time now anyway.BAK:Okay.
AW:All those things; moon and stars.
BAK:Okay, it's a little bigger than, "I'll go anywhere."
AW:Yeah, that was just--I guess the wanting out was the straw that broke the
camel's back; like, that was it. I just couldn't be on a deployment where things were crazy; I wanted to be in a non-crazy environment.BAK:Calm. Right.
AW:Except for I jumped out of the hot water into the molten water.
BAK:Got it.
AW:And then into even more boiling water, to some degree. So I went through all
the paperwork, process, all that stuff, all the briefs, yada yada. And then I think sixty--fifty or sixty females ended up applying for that. So what they did is they pulled females from Special Ops units at Fort Bragg, but also females from Fort Hood, which doesn't make any sense to me. These are two very different groups of females. And the ones that--There were a lot of females also that came in there and not really even pass a PT test, which if you're going to work with these groups of people you really need to be very fit.BAK:So Fort Hood isn't as fit as Fort Bragg, is that what you're saying?
AW:Not necessarily. There are some awesome chicks that came from Fort Hood, but
also some not so much. So it was just a mix, and I think the ones that came from Fort Bragg were more in the ideal category, versus the ones that came from Fort Bragg [correction: Fort Hood] were just a wild mix of things.BAK:Hood, okay.
AW:Yeah. So it was just a lot of everything. So yeah, that was--
BAK:So there were sixty of you that came in to try out?
AW:I think so. I don't remember exact numbers. Fifty or sixty-ish.
BAK:When is this?
AW:When? This was October, November. I want to say October 2010.
BAK:Okay.
AW:Yeah. Yeah. And then after--I think we had to go through a few days selection
out at Camp MacKall, which is a training area out at Fort Bragg. The same one that we always go to when we [unclear].BAK:Right.
AW:And it was--Yeah, it was just, like--I don't know--typical stuff that we
would do anyway in PSYOP. It was kind of like the PSYOP course all over again except all females this time.BAK:Right. So you've already done the ruck march and the run and the pull-ups.
AW:Yeah. So that part was not a big deal, but the interactions with--that were
supposed to mimic interactions that we would be going into in the future, I think I kind of--that stuff hung me up a little bit more. I'll be honest, I'm not that great [chuckles] at those face to face interactions. Well, at that time I wasn't. I got better, thankfully, because that was my job.BAK:Face to face, in terms of the women there? Okay.
AW:Right. Yeah.
BAK:That you'd be directly--
AW:And it was frustrating to me because I'm like, "Oh, I see what they're doing
here. This is PSYOP." But, like, taking people that are not PSYOP and making them PSYOPs suddenly. I'm like, "We did these same scenarios but the role-players that are supposed to be people that you interact with--" I'm like, "This is so not real. This is not realistic, because, A, you're going to have an interpreter because, obviously, you don't speak the same language."BAK:Right.
AW:"B, this is going to be an Afghan woman, not even on the same level here." So
I was like, "Okay, I'll play the game."We went through days and days of that, and then at the end you have, like, a
psych eval, which you should [both chuckle] because you don't want some people going into this job. This is--You kind of need to be [unclear].BAK:Right.
AW:Not just to deal with the men that you're going to be attached to, but all
the other aspects of the whole deployment. So we lost some after that to--some people just had too much going on outside of that; like, "Hey, this is a bad time. Come back the next rotation," or whatever. And then just some that they were just like, "Hey, I don't think you're going to be physically able to cut it." I think that--After all that, I think we were around thirty at that point. And then we just proceeded to take six weeks of a lot of cultural training, and historical training, and that was a huge crash course but it was helpful. I mean, it could have been better for sure, but it was pilot program, so they--BAK:So you're the first group?
AW:Yeah, we were the first group that went through, which is why I'm
like--everyone's like, "Oh, Ashley's War[: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield].And I'm like, "I get that, but you guys think you're rock stars and you're the second group. [both chuckle] If it weren't for us being so unsuccessful you wouldn't be here."BAK:Right.
AW:So yeah. Anyway, so--
BAK:There were thirty of you?
AW:About thirty after--
BAK:In the whole program, who were on that final--
AW:Yeah, after the selection process, and then after the psych evals. And I
think we dropped a few more along the way just for whatever, I don't know what those reasons were, but I think by the time it came to actually deploy we lost several more. Because we still had to do six weeks of all this really intense--like, long days of training, and it's basically like sitting in a lecture hall for nine hours.BAK:Wow.
AW:With some Old Bob, which is a term I picked up here. Old Bob is an old white
man that's really academically inclined but has no real clue about real life situations.BAK:I like that. I've never heard that before.
AW:Yeah, I learned that here.
BAK:Okay. There you go.
AW:That's a new one. Yeah, we had lots of Old Bobs telling us about Afghan
women; it is what it is. And then I think we just were hit over the head so much with--"You know you're going in here and you're expected to fail. You can't--You have to be on your top--" whatever."We get it. It's important." So yeah, it's like, no pressure.
BAK:Seriously, wow.
AW:No pressure. And then being told over and over you're expected to fail, just
know that going in. "You're going to have to fight, you're going to have to sink or swim."And we're like, "Alright, cool, got it."
So then we finally get out and deploy to Afghanistan in 2--yeah, January 2011.
And at this point they've also split us into two groups. So there's one group that's 75th support, which is Rangers, and then the other group was SF support, like out on the ODA--or with ODA, the Operation Detachment something [Operational Detachment Alpha]. I should know this.BAK:ODA, okay.
AW:I'm sorry.
BAK:No, it's alright.
AW:I tried to brain dump a lot of this and it's worked, I guess. So yeah, they
split us into two groups at that point, and then once we got to Afghanistan we went to Bagram first, where we continued to go through more training.BAK:Which group were you in?
AW:I was in the Ranger group.
BAK:Okay. So you would go down on missions with Rangers?
AW:Yes.
BAK:Got it. Alright.
AW:And then, yeah, they split us off into two groups there, and we continued to
go through a lot of weapons training, which was--I saw some stuff that needed to happen; we needed lots of weapons training. We also had a lot of, like, interaction training with female interpreters that were Afghan, but American-Afghan, because realistically, a female in Afghanistan would never work--or even speak to an American man. Their culture is different. Muslim women in this particular region of Afghanistan--I can't speak for everybody, but this is what was reality for us--the whole reason we even came into existence is because you have these guys who [unclear] target, to clear and raid houses--get these men--these bad guys--and then when they get there they can't find the things that they need to actually put them behind bars or put them through legal prosecution, because they were dumping the stuff off onto the women because they know that the men won't touch the women because that's against their culture. As a man you can't--or an American man--you can't address or talk to or speak to a Muslim woman in the area; again, this is only here.So they were like, "Oh, we need females on target, because we need to search
them, we need to talk to them. We know they have this stuff. We can't do anything about it." That's why they even started this whole program.Because before us they would bring female MPs or Civil Affairs; chicks that were
just hanging out. Like, "Hey, we need you to come and target." So they saw a need, they put us into place. It was pretty successful. [chuckles] And yeah.So once we got that additional training there, they decided, "Hey, we'll send
you two out to location." And they paired us up in what they thought was a great combination, and then they sent us to locations they thought we would best fit, as far as personalities and whatever. Myself and my teammate, [unclear]--who I still keep in touch with and she's also awesome [chuckles]--we ended up going to [FOB] Salerno, and yeah--BAK:Salerno is a base?
AW:Yeah, it's a base in Afghanistan.
BAK:Okay. Because there's also Salerno, Italy.
AW:Yeah, exactly.
BAK:You threw me there for a second. I'm like, "Hmm." Okay, Salerno base.
AW:And so, we get there and there are two Ranger platoons there that we
supported. Well, we came in with another two females also, but they were only there for maybe a week, so that's why I kind of forgot.The first couple missions that were--they were horrible because they were the
first time. Like, we didn't--you can train all these ways, but until you're actually there you don't really know. Of course, the first couple nights out the guys were completely skeptical, like, really--you could tell from the moment we stepped foot in the door, they immediately were like, "We don't want you here, but we have to, so you're going to go with us." But even though they verbally and nonverbally communicated that, at least I can say that they were--they were still 100% helpful, they took care of all our radio needs, they brought us up to speed on their equipment, like what they expected, how they wanted their things set up. They took care of us so I will at least give them that credit. But the reception was not open arms. [chuckles]BAK:Got it.
AW:For sure. And I think they thought that we were just going to be
incredibly--I don't know--not capable of doing their job, because they're big strong men when they do their job.BAK:Right.
AW:After about the--yeah, the third night actually, that was--that was a huge
point for me because that was--things went crazy. The first two missions out were just, kind of, whatever, and we stumbled through everything, and we were still trying to figure out what we were doing, and how we would work together. And then the third night out--whew--just all hell broke loose. Long story short, the assault team went into a known compound of enemy. They knew what they were going into. Probably a firefight. So they did, they came into contact. We--and by "we" I mean the--our small headquarters [unclear], so that's, like, myself and my teammate, our interpreter, the platoon leader; all the people that are not assault force; so all the extras basically; the brains of the operation, per se.BAK:Right.
AW:And by "brains" I mean the platoon leader, not me. [both chuckle] Clearly. So
they were under fire for about two hours, and I remember it was cold. I'm like--You're standing, like, taking cover, listening to the radio, keeping an eye out. Like, oh, my God. Hopefully everything's okay. We weren't affected out there, but then once everything was clear, once the assault force cleared everything and called everything safe, then we roll in and there are bodies.BAK:Oh gosh.
AW:I think there was twelve guys that ran out of that compound, and I think they
got nine or ten of them. So there was all that going on. Which, I didn't know how I'd handle it, honestly. Like, "What am I going to do when I just see some exploded head." I really wasn't bothered. They shot us first.BAK:Right.
AW:No big deal. It's like in a movie. And then there was also a ton of women in
the compound because several families--The way the compounds are, they're, like--I say "compound" and they're mud walled. Like--Yeah. I don't want to say mud hut because it's not a hut, it's a huge walled in compound. The families kind of live together in large numbers in a lot of cases. So there's a ton of women in there, and children, and their relatives' dead bodies laying around. So you can imagine it's not a good situation for anyone. They're hysterical, clearly. And the guys were like, "Hey, you've got to get these women out of here, or move them out of this location. This is where you need to take them, go do your thing. Get out of our face. We've got to go clean this thing up, do our jobs out here.I'm like, "Okay, cool, got it." It was just really chaotic.
And then they were having an issue with one lady because she had, like, a kid in
her arms. She's like, "Hey, there's a girl in there! There's a girl in there!" This is all through an interpreter.The interpreter is trying to tell our guy, "Hey, there is a kid in there. She's
badly wounded, and they want to make sure they can get her out and you guys aren't going to kill her." They were concerned because--Yeah.BAK:Sure.
AW:She goes back in. Finally, it's like, "Yes, go with her. Get this kid. Get
everyone out." He was just mad because it was taking so long. Or it felt like it was but it probably wasn't.So she goes back in, pulls this girl out, and she brings this little girl out
under a blanket. This is January, by the way, so it's pretty cold still. Like, it was probably forty degrees outside. And she--this women brings this girl up to me and my partner, and she's like, "Help! Help!" through an interpreter.And we were like, "What do you need? Go over here. Go to this area. What do you need?"
And she lifts up the blanket, and the girl's head--half of her skull is gone.
She's not going to make it. What do you do? And we were, like--all I could think about was, "Oh, my God. What do we do with this?" Because this is my first time, too, so I'm trying not to freak out. I'm like, "Okay, let's go let them know," because I don't think the men knew yet. They didn't understand that this girl was about to die. They only knew about the men; the military age males.BAK:You said "men," you mean other Rangers?
AW:Yeah, so the other Rangers didn't know--
BAK:That's what you meant.
AW:Yeah, I'm sorry.
BAK:I didn't know if you meant local men.
AW:Yeah, they knew about the dead males, but the Rangers didn't know about the
girl. Okay, yeah. So yeah, she shows us that, and another woman's like, "Hey," and she pulls up her--they have these long flowing pants--she pulls up her pants and shows my partner [unclear], she's like, "Hey," and she's got bullet hole--or a wound--through and through. And luckily [unclear], she's a--worked in emergency care-type things before, so she was, like, boom, on it. Started patching her up, all this.And I take the lady, like, "Hey, let me let our--" I told her, "Hey, let me tell
our medic. Maybe he can do something. I'm going to try to help you." Because the first thing you want to do in that situation is at least show them you're paying attention and that you're caring enough to help them. Not just be like, "Oh, we're the bad guys."BAK:Right.
AW:I got their attention, and as soon--like, our flight medic, he's an older--he
was in awesome shape but he was an older guy, and he saw it in our face, like, "Oh, man." Like, you can't do anything with this. So he tried to tell the lady, "Hey, I'll give her something for pain and--" I don't know, I think shortly after that it was, like [unclear]. So that was really rough, because there's just so much going on. There's dead bodies. There's this little girl. There's these crazy hysterical women. And rightfully so. I mean, I would probably do the same thing.BAK:Right.
AW:At this point we're just trying to, like, kind of, assess all the different
elements of that, and then finally the guys get everything that they need out of the compound, and they call it clear, so we moved all the women back in there. And this in the middle of the night, by the way; we do all this stuff at night, that's when they strike, because the night is cover.BAK:You're doing all this with night vision?
AW:Yes. With all this junk on, and goggle--or night vision goggles and all this.
We get them back in there. The compound is a mess. Everything's blown up and shot up. And of course, they're women and that's their home.BAK:Right.
AW:They're really angry about that; the bodies and all this stuff. So it was
just insane to have a huge group of women, and screaming and crying and cursing you out, and who knows what they're calling you; nothing good. [chuckles]BAK:Right.
AW:So it was just a lot. And then we're like, "Hey, we understand, trust me. We
didn't do this." And I was like--By "we" I mean [unclear].BAK:You and--
AW:The interpreter and my partner are like, "Hey, please know that we're here to
help with you, I get it, but you can't be screaming. It's going to make them mad and I don't know what they're going to do."We had to kind of do that too; like, play off of each other.
BAK:Yeah, good cop, bad cop?
AW:Yeah, it was--I don't know--it makes me feel bad. Yeah, so after that night I
was like, "Why did I want to do this?" [chuckles]BAK:Right. Seriously.
AW:Like, "Why did I want this? This is not--"
Everyone's like, "I want to do a cool guy job," and then you actually see what
happens. It's like, "This really isn't cool." It was pretty terrible.BAK:Right.
AW:I mean, I didn't fall apart. I didn't know if I would or not. I took--I was
kind of shocked for a second there. Like, "Hey, get this taken care of!" Like, "Oh, yeah, okay." I had to put my work-face back on. But yeah, after we got that cleared up--and we didn't leave until, probably, 8:00 a.m. the next day. Like, you have to stay there all night to--there's a ton of reports and things like that. You can't just wreck a place and then leave. That's just not legal. So once all that was taken care of and we left, yeah, that was just a huge learning curve for me.No other missions were that intense. I mean, there were casualties on their
side--their Afghan casualties--and following missions, but there were no more that our guys were hit or injured, from my team. In other locations there were, but nothing that crazy, thank God. It just was unfortunate that it was right up front when I had no idea what I was really doing. But after that, everything was a lot easier because the hardest part was done, and I didn't know that, but I didn't know to expect that for eight months, or to expect just a really easy night where everyone's nice and compliant, and they laugh and joke with you and give you tea; that happened a couple times too. It was just you never knew what you were going to get into. Every target was similar but it was very different in its own way.So yeah, we ended up--well, I ended up going on a hundred and thirteen in eight months.
BAK:Oh my gosh.
AW:And yeah. And that was another thing too. So these guys do three month
rotations. They're there for three months and then they leave. We saw all three battalions, and I used to get so mad because they're like, "Oh, why are you sleeping all day?"I'm like, "I've been here twice as long as you and you're fresh. Don't talk to me."
BAK:Right.
AW:In the beginning I was kind of timid and--I'm so mad at myself now--but I got
over that really fast, and if you talk to them like you're a man and they treat you that way, so that's kind of like don't show weakness, I guess--that stupid cliché--but it's true. And I think the ice breaker, too, after that--this is such a random story--we had laundry bags. I don't know if you've seen the laundry bag. It's pretty simple. Just a green laundry bag.BAK:Yes.
AW:Well, we had a little laundry room on our compound there, and--this was after
that crazy mission, by the way--this is maybe a week later--and because they were so not okay with having females, like, just in their space--they still were not huge fans at that point but they were slowly warming up. So I'd taken my stuff in, I washed my laundry, you set your laundry bag on top to let people know your stuff's in there. So I go, I put it in the dryer, I left, whatever, I came back to get my stuff, and there was a huge dick on my laundry bag. Someone took a pen--not a huge one, actually; I made jokes about this later--they drew, like, a little pee-pee on my bag.BAK:Huh.
AW:I'm like, Okay, that's cute." So I was like--I wasn't even mad. I just--I
reversed it. I went into the ops center, where the first sergeant, the commander, all the people that matter are, because that's where my little spot was, too, and I was loudly telling my other [unclear], "Man, you know what's crazy? I got my stuff out of--I was putting my things out of the dryer and I noticed someone drew a dick on my laundry bag. That's crazy." And then other people were, like, laughing under their breath because they heard it, and I intended them to. And I'm like, "But here's the sad part. They drew a really small one, so it makes me feel bad for them." [both laugh] I'm just like, "We need to do a handwriting test to see who this guy is, because this is not okay."BAK:Right. Wow.
AW:The first sergeant heard that, he was like, "What did you say?" He was like,
"Who did what to your laundry bag?"And I was like, "Oh, do you want to see it? I have it." And he got mad but I
think he was embarrassed, too, a little bit.BAK:Sure.
AW:I don't know what. And then I was like, "Anyway, I'm going to get food so
I'll see you guys later." I don't know what happened in there after that, but--I don't know. People started being less stand-offish, I guess, because I wasn't making a big deal of like, "Oh, you drew dicks on my laundry bag." I was like, "I see what you did there. I'm sorry that it's like this. That's the best you can do?" So anyway.After that, things got a little--they, like, kind of softened up a little bit
and things were less tense, I guess, between us versus them--like, females in the male space--and everyone was a little bit cooler. So that was helpful, even though it was really kind of awkward. [chuckles]And then once--That was 2nd Battalion. Second Battalion is just a weird
battalion. There's three; there's 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. They were only there for the first few weeks, and then they were rotating out, so then 3rd Battalion took over for them, and they're the ones from Fort Benning so they were really a hundred percent by the book everything; like, super "I'm going to be in the gym all day, even when I'm not on mission." It was just--It was a different whole--it was a different beast to work with. But they were very professional all the time, and they were awesome to work with. They were very on point with their tactics. Like, I knew exactly what to expect on and off target because they went by the same book every time, so that was really relieving, because it's a standard that you can expect, and they don't deviate.Professionally, I liked that battalion most. I think their battalion was just
easier to work with, to some degree. They were a little more, like, macho men, like, "I'm man, hear me roar" type dudes; like, alpha males. And then they left I was kind of sad because they were awesome to work with, and I didn't know what 1st Battalion would be like. They came in, they were fu--they were fun dudes, like, they were really nice and jokey-type people, but they were still great on target, [chuckles] but they were not--you didn't really know what to expect sometimes. So to me that was frustrating because I had built this--I had spent months and months establishing my space, like, "This is what I do. This is how it works. Let me--Help me help you," kind of deal. Because at the end of the day, we're the attachments and this is their circus.BAK:Right.
AW:We're just another player in the game and--yeah, I missed 3rd Battalion when
they left. First Battalion was good to work with, but I definitely liked the standardization of 3rd Battalion. Sorry if you're in 1st Battalion listening to this. [both chuckle]BAK:Got it.
AW:They were nicer though. They were more personable people.
BAK:Interesting. Where were you? What camp?
AW:This was on Salerno.
BAK:Salerno, right, okay. So you were just in Salerno the whole time.
AW:Yeah, the entire time. And then--We also--I also lucked out because I
had--well, I don't know--I think things changed when I left, or so Caroline told me. I had--I was lucky enough to have a female interpreter who was--[unclear] we called her "Halfghan;" she was half white and half Afghan. [chuckles]BAK:That's hilarious.
AW:So we called her "Halfghan." She spoke the language perfectly. She's also a
reservist, and she's an interrogator in the Reserves, so it was perfect. I got really lucky. But she's also real pushy and likes to take over anywhere with things, so in the beginning I was kind of like, "Dude, whatever. If that's your actual job, I'm not even--" So she--I kind of looked at her less like an interpreter and more like a teammate because I feel like a lot of times--a lot of people treat interpreters like they were already doing something wrong just because they're, like, not American. And I think that's messed up because how do you expect them to act like part of the team if you're not treating them like part of the team? Anyway. That's a whole other story. But she ended up working out really well. And then towards the end the platoon sergeants half the time would just come steal her [unclear], because they would use her to go question the men; the ones that they would have captured or whatever.BAK:Right.
AW:So yeah, outside of that, that was the hardest--that was the best, worst
deployment ever. It was really hard physically. I leapt out of--I mean, my knees are still--they're done.BAK:From repelling out of the copters?
AW:I didn't actually do any of that, which is good because that scared the
daylights out of me. [chuckles] We did practice that and I was not the best so I'm glad we didn't have any of that. No, it was just the amount of--because we did a lot of offsets, and an offset is where you arrive several kilometers or more--however far that they deem tactfully necessary, and then you walk in.BAK:Got it. That makes sense.
AW:So 3rd Battalion loved to walk far, so we did a lot of walking with them.
First Battalion, they wanted to be as close as possible all the time. [chuckles] So it just depends.BAK:That's interesting.
AW:Yeah, it--
BAK:So that's what kind of messed your knees: walking all that, carrying all
that stuff?AW:Yeah. My gear, on any given day, was no less than fifty-fifty pounds, and in
the beginning I was like, "Oh, my God." It took me a couple weeks to get used to carrying that much weight. But after a while it's was just, like, throw it on and go. My gear smelled so horrible by the end, and I tried so hard to clean it. That smell was not coming out. [chuckling]BAK:Got it.
AW:And I used to shower before going out, with the idea that, "Man, if I take a
shower now, when I sweat it won't smell as bad."BAK:That's not true?
AW:I didn't think so, but, I mean, my gear might suggest otherwise.
BAK:Got it, okay.
AW:And yeah. So we--I don't know--we had some good missions and some bad ones. I
do remember the last one--one of the last ones I went on before I left. It was a huge--It was, like, a two platoon--a big collaborative mission because they were after a really high value target and he had been in and out of--I don't know--their ability to capture for a while, and they were like, "Hey, think we finally got this guy. We're going to go get him."So yeah, that was a long--that was a long night/morning, but it was awesome
because they ended up getting the guy, and it was by chance, because he was way up in the mountains, in some obscure location, in some random, hard to see cave. Like, he knew--He knew we were coming. [chuckles] So we stormed the mountains and all this stuff. And we found some people living in a tent--and I forgot what the name of that tribe is. It'll come back to me at some point. Anyway, we questioned everybody. Nothing to see here. We were like, "Okay, we've searched all these different little tribes around the mountains. I guess he's not here," and as we were looking to [unclear], one of our snipers scanned the mountain and saw this random guy standing up there, and he was like--So they sent a team up and, sure enough, that was him. He was like, "You got me." [chuckles]BAK:Wow.
AW:Basically. From what I heard from our interrogation team, they're like, "The
CIA is going to use this case in particular for training."I'm like, "That's awesome. I got to be here to see it happen."
BAK:Wow.
AW:That was--I don't know--really good experience. And then--I don't know--also
just really enjoy going on the offsets because I think in the beginning, especially with 1st Battalion, like, "Oh, it's a long offset. Are you going to be okay?"[chuckles] Like, "Are you kidding? Who looks like they've been eating more or
less here? I'm just going to see[?]."It was nice to part of those nights where all these dudes--who didn't even have
that much equipment--would just fall back or slow down. I'm like, "Come on, let's pick it up." Those nights were small wins for me, just being a female, because you just get tired of hearing that over and over, like, "Oh, you're going to be able to hang," like, "You can't make it," blah, blah, blah. I'm like, "I'm having zero problem, but looking at your face right now I'm wondering if you are." [chuckles] Yeah.BAK:You feel you changed their tune, any of these guys, especially by the time
you were--AW:I hope so. I mean, I'm not going to say I was a model citizen for nine years
of my life, because I definitely made some really bad choices. But I also worked really hard, and I think at the end of the day, even though can you do moronic things, as long as you're putting in the work and doing your job, I think people overlook that in some sense, so.I did have one--one of the squad leaders was like, "Hey, I just wanted to give
you this before we leave because I think you earned it," and he gave me one of his Ranger scrolls, which is the little flag with the Air 75th on there. Which is kind of a big deal because there's this thing in the army--especially with guys--it's like, there's a difference between a guy that wears a Ranger tab versus a Ranger scroll. The tab is just that you went to school. The scroll is, like, you served in 75th Ranger Regiment.BAK:Wow, that is big.
AW:So there was a big difference, yeah. So he handed it to me and I was like,
"Oh, man, that just melted my little icy heart."BAK:Right, right, right. Wow.
AW:I thought it was pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. Even--Those guys are awesome to
work with, even doing paperwork, they're just good at it. [chuckles]BAK:Wow.
AW:Even stupid stuff you would think, "Oh, man, that takes anyone forever."
They're like, "Pff. Done."
And it was always really well written. I'm like, "Okay. I have a newfound
respect for all that you guys do and I will not talk smack anymore." [chuckles]I don't know if that's the same experience for the ladies that worked with SF.
I've heard a lot of mixed reviews over there.BAK:Really? Okay.
AW:I heard all sorts of things, but who knows? I wasn't there so I can't--I
don't know.And then after that deployment I came home. I was physically and mentally
broken, and I just wanted to be left alone. I came back to my company and we still had that same first sergeant--the really sexist, racist one--and I was trying to put my leave in, and he's like, "What do you need to go on leave for?"I'm like, "I need out of here. If you don't sign this leave form I'm going to
flip out and it's going to be a bad day. I don't care. I don't care. I'm ATSing[?]. What are you going to do to me?"So he was like, "Okay, okay."
I went on leave, I came back, and I made it glaringly obviously that I was there
to do the least amount possible but still get paid and transition out of the army, because I did my time, it's someone else's turn.BAK:So you went back and there was no extra respect because you were out there
with the Rangers?AW:No.
BAK:Wow.
AW:And that's fine, because I know about--a little bit about that guy's history
too, so it's cool. I'm not--I was salty for a long time, and I'm like, "You know what? I'm over it."And people are like, "Oh, why don't you--Do you do stuff with veterans now?"
And I'm like, "Not really. I'm not opposed to it, but I'm just kind of,
like--I'm over it and I just want to move forward and be a college student.BAK:Right.
AW:I don't--I'm proud of what I did, and I think that the best thing I ever did
was drop out of college and join the army. And then the second best thing I ever did was leave the army and go back to college.BAK:That makes sense.
AW:Yeah.
BAK:Did you have any off time, I'm guessing, when you--
AW:On the last deployment?
BAK:Yeah.
AW:I did. We worked nights mostly, which it's kind of hard to sleep during the
day when the sun's out, but. We would always--We'd joke. One of our jokes was, like, "It's green in the bowl," and what that meant was the weather is fine and you get the green light to fly. If the aircraft can't fly, you can't go out because--just the mountainous terrain. So we'd always joke and say, "Oh, it's green in the bowl," but there was always bad weather, there was always--something was not right. But they'd put us out anyway, and it got to a point where the missions became such a joke for a while, we were like, "Oh, my God." We would say, "Who are we going after? A thirteen-year-old that sold drugs on the street?"BAK:Wow. Okay.
AW:Well, it was just lack of solid evidence or intel, and really just somebody
trying to make the next rank. It was kind of [unclear].BAK:That sucks.
AW:Yeah. But, I mean, it's all good, and everyone there came home, so.
BAK:That's huge. Were you in communications with your family or friends at all,
or you just off--AW:I was. I mean, you could still--They were pretty particular about social
media, and for a good reason, but at that point I really wasn't--I was like, whatever, about Facebook. I would email back and forth, or we could call, too, so I would call home or call other friends that were also out and about deployed and talk with them. But I feel like I spent a lot of time just trying to sleep on the deployment. [chuckles]BAK:Yeah, seriously.
AW:Because you'd get back when the sun came up, and you are physically tired,
but once the sun's already out you suddenly have energy. I don't know, I feel like I just spent a lot of time trying to sleep.BAK:Got it. Did you communicate with you family and friends?
AW:I did. I would call. I wasn't a huge--I'm still--I'm terrible at keeping
touch. I would call every once in a while, or if it was an extra crazy night and I just felt like, "Oh, man, what if I don't come back tomorrow? I should probably call today."BAK:Right.
AW:Other than that--Yeah. And it's crazy. I had never felt--Minus that one
night, I never ever felt, like, in severe danger. Because I'm like, "I have a platoon of Rangers. You couldn't be in a safer place."BAK:Right.
AW:With these guys.
BAK:Right. The hardest thing emotionally you felt like you to do?
AW:Be a female, with a bunch of dudes, that was--Honestly, that was the biggest
reason I got out of the army. I just got tired of, like, having to defend myself as a woman. Like, "I'm tired of having to work three times harder and get half of the respect, or half of the credit, like, I'm over it." And I still--I realize that all of that still exists outside of the army. [chuckles]BAK:Yeah.
AW:To a lesser degree, but it's still there. It's really just that; it's too
much testosterone; not enough willingness to listen; and it was just exhausting. To me that was emotionally exhausting, and I'm totally okay with being around a bunch of really liberal college kids now. [chuckling]BAK:It is different, yeah.
AW:That is fine with me.
BAK:Got it. What about the most rewarding, would you say?
AW:Same thing, kind of. Like, those small wins when I was always put in a
position, or I would be an only female, or expected to fail like they told us, then I'd just come out moderately glorious.BAK:Okay.
AW:Those were hugely fulfilling to me, and--also on Target Square, we would go
into a place and there would be nothing there because they got bad intel or something, and then I would have the opportunity to communicate with the women and say, like, "Hey. We're not here to harm you. We're here routine searching," or whatever they would tell us for the day.And they were like, "Oh, that's okay. Would you like some tea?"
BAK:Got it.
AW:So seeing that and having a positive relation with--even if it's only with
the women and kids, versus, I'm sure, the men that live in those compounds, and have a good experience.BAK:Right.
AW:That was fulfilling also, just knowing that it wasn't only our guys that came
kicking in a door, tying some guy up, probably--I don't know--rough--I don't know. I didn't go mess with that. I had my own little circus of ladies. [chuckles]BAK:Right.
AW:That was fulfilling to have that positive impact, versus, just, all negative.
BAK:Okay. Just sort of a complete change here, in terms of cultural stuff. Did
you have any heroes or heroines during your time in the army, or people that you admired?AW:Yeah. My platoon sergeant [unclear], a long time ago, I feel like. He was
really inspiring to me. He was just a good guy, and he didn't always play by the book, but it was always with the best intentions, and it always ended well, so I think that was--BAK:That's Cletis[?]?
AW:Yeah. [Cletis Trotter?].
BAK:Yeah.
AW:He's one. I also had--I really liked working for--I think he's still at
Bragg--for Sergeant Major Kondrosky[?]. He's the one that helped get me from 8th to 5th, the battalion that I actually regretted immediately going to. [chuckles]BAK:Right.
AW:Company, rather. And--I don't know. He always helped me out. A lot of people
have different opinions, but he was nice to me, and I just asked for help and guidance at times, and he was always willing to give it. To me that was inspiring, because you don't always get that in the army. You don't always get a leader that's legitimately there to help you and has your best interest; that's not the case a lot of times.BAK:Got it.
AW:Just the men that I worked with, even the ones that were not the best to be
around, just seeing all those guys be so well at so many things, that blew me away, and I just wished that that was more of the world.BAK:Right. [unclear] could be a Ranger.
AW:Yeah.
BAK:What about your impression of the political and military leadership at the
time: Presidents and the heads of the service and Department of Defense.AW:That's kind of rough.
BAK:I mean, you might not have an opinion. I just didn't know if you--
AW:Yeah, I guess--I mean, I didn't really, because at the end of the day--and I
think a lot--I don't know, I'm guessing--a lot of people look at what directly impacts them in their day to day life, and for me it was, like, "That's great whatever's going on up there, but at this level I don't really have much of an impact on that, so as long as I make best of what I have and the people around me, then everything will be okay. Because me complaining about it is not going to change it."BAK:Got it. Okay. What are your memories of 9/11?
[The September 11, 2001 attacks, or 9/11, was a series of four coordinated
terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda on the United States on the morning of 11 September 2001. The attacks killed 2,996 people and injured over 6,000 others]AW:This is embarrassing. I was a senior in high school, and I was, like, in a
communications class or something. And this is in West Virginia, by the way; like, going back to that scenario. So I'm in class, and I ha--like, I was asleep. I deliberately put my head on my desk and I just went to sleep, because it was the first class in the morning and for whatever reason I just decided it was a good time to do that.BAK:Okay.
AW:And someone came in--actually, I remember the chick--this chick came in and
she was like, "Oh, my God! Oh, my God! You need to see this on the news right now!" And she turns on the TV, and I lifted my head up for, like, thirty seconds, and I was just like, "No. I want to go back to sleep."BAK:Wow.
AW:That's awful to admit, and I was just a little punk kid and--yeah, it's
embarrassing now. That's why I hear things that these kids say and I'm like, "You know what? I said some really stupid stuff, and I did some stupid stuff, so I get it."BAK:Got it.
AW:This is a great example.
BAK:Okay.
AW:I was a little teenager, I don''t know better and this is just me being me,
and ignorant, so.BAK:Got it. Your reaction to the Fort Hood shooting in 2009? Do you remember?
[On 5 November 2009, Nidal Hasan, a U.S. Army major and psychiatrist, fatally
shot thirteen people and injured more than thirty others during a mass shooting at Fort Hood, a military base near Killeen, Texas]AW:Was that the--
BAK:Major Hasan.
AW:Yes. Oh, God. That was--I guess my reaction was just, like, "Hey, how could
someone not have seen that coming?" That was--I guess it's hard to say that, but that was my reaction; like, "How could no one notice this," or, "How could anyone think that this would come out of the blue?" I guess it's like with suicides; you think "Oh, how did no one see that?" It's like, "How did no one see this? Did he always have this, like, happy face? Like, "I love this. I love everything about it."BAK:Right.
AW:Or was it he was great at hiding his intentions. I didn't--I don't know, I
guess my reaction was just, "How could someone not have known this was going to happen?"BAK:Right.
AW:And just sadness for the families. It not an easy thing, especially if it's
back home and you lose someone.BAK:Right. Your thoughts on the repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy?
["Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was the official U.S. policy on military service by
gays, bisexuals, and lesbians. The policy prohibited military personnel from discriminating against or harassing closeted homosexual or bisexual service members, while barring openly gay, lesbian, and bisexual person from military service. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was repealed 20 September 2011]AW:I've always been in favor of, if you want to do something, if you love
someone, that's great. As long as it's not affecting me, or just having a negative impact outside of that, I don't care. I'm not bothered by it. I actually miss my gay best friend. I wish he would move down to North Carolina, but he won't. So I don't--it doesn't bother me. It's--Whether or not it's legal or frowned upon or not, it's there, and that's fine. It doesn't change anyone as a person.BAK:Okay. So Leon Panetta [Secretary of Defense] decided to remove restrictions
from women in combat arms. In 2013 they--this year--all restrictions removed. Now our new president-elect might put them back. Do you have any thoughts about the removing the--AW:That's--I have both opinions at the same time, for a lot of reasons, on both sides.
BAK:Okay. I mean, you lived it, so.
AW:Yeah. I mean--And again, without outright saying anything--I was not the best
judge of many of the things that I did either. I think that allowing that is great for professional reasons, for women that want to pursue that, but also, you can't overlook that there is a dynamic there, and that was always experienced any time you're an only female or--whatever. It's there, and it sucks, and--I don't know. I feel both ways. I think it's great for women that can do it, and that are physically able to, and emotionally strong enough to handle that, but at the same time, I've also seen and been in that situation; like, it's going to potentially cause an issue somewhere at some point.BAK:And this would be infantry, submarines, everything like that?
AW:Right.
BAK:Or just different for--
AW:I think either way. I mean, I think it takes a really--a very specific type
of female to hold up in those situations, perform well, and still have a cohesive team dynamic, because there is so much--there's so many factors there that it really--I get the psychological screening now; looking back, it makes total sense. [chuckles] I think maybe if they had tweaked that assessment and find those strong-willed women, that'd be great, but I don't think the job's for everybody, and if they can, awesome, and if not, then maybe they should just be happy with what they're good at and moving on to that, because it's not for everybody. And that is also going to directly impact the guys, too, I think. It's a lot to deal with, I'm going to be honest. Like, I didn't want to do it anymore; it's just a lot. I don't know. I have feelings both sides, I guess.BAK:Okay.
AW:I don't think it's--I think it's a case by case basis. If you apply it one
way or another, then you're ruling out groups of good or bad.BAK:What about the draft?
AW:As far as making women serve?
BAK:Yes.
AW:I think that's fair game, because that doesn't mean you're going to be
drafted and go be an infantryman. That means you should have to serve time in the military. I think it does anyone well. And women, too, because you could go be a supply clerk, you could go be a chef or a cook, or you could become [unclear].BAK:Right.
AW:So I think that being put into a rough situation where you're outside of your
comfort zone, you're working with people from all walks of life, all cultures, things that you would not even known existed before, now you're a better person because you've experienced it, you're at least aware of it, and you can, hopefully, better communicate and work alongside these same people, because you're going to need to do that in the real world anyway.BAK:Right.
AW:That's why I like UNC so much, because it's such--so many different things
and people going on. I'm like, "This is cool." It's kind of like the army all over again, except not the army. [chuckles]BAK:Right. How about music or movies or television that you get a chance to--Are
there certain ones you liked? You didn't have that kind of time?AW:Yeah, we watched a lot--especially on that last deployment, we just
watched--my partner and I--a lot of Jersey Shore [American reality television series] because it's great trash TV. Kind of embarrassing admitting that now. Trailer Park Boys [Canadian mockumentary television series] was another one we watched a lot of. Let's see. Spartacus [American television series]. I went back and tried to watch it recently and I just can't. It's--I don't know--Not in that mindset anymore, but at the time I thought it was awesome.BAK:Is this a movie? I know it's a move, but is it a series?
AW:A TV show, yes. It's very gory, and at the time I'm like, "Oh, no big deal,"
but now I'm like, "I don't really--"BAK:Got it. That's interesting.
AW:Yeah. So about the movies, I don't know if it's just me. I used to really be
into gory, violent stuff, and--I don't know, I got out and I can't do it. I don't want to see that. I just don't. It's not funny anymore. I guess, to me, I'm like, "Oh, it's whatever," and now I'm like--once you actually watch someone die I think it kind of takes it away. I don't know if it's just me being a sensitive lady or whatever.BAK:No, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, violence in film is for entertainment purposes.
AW:Yeah, until it's real, and then it's not fun anymore; it's not entertaining,
I guess, to me. I mean, I'm sure tons of people--tons of dudes in the army are still into that stuff, and good for them because they do it so I don't have to. [chuckles]BAK:Got it. Music? Were you into certain music at all?
AW:I like all kinds of music except for country because I grew up in West
Virginia. I just don't care for it, except for Johnny Cash [American singer-songwriter]. That's the only exception I make to country. So anything outside of that I like; I will probably listen to.BAK:So you decided that you were getting out in 2012.
AW:Yes.
BAK:Did you know what you wanted to do when you got out, or you're just like,
"Get me out and I'll figure it out?"AW:It's so random. So I wanted to be a massage therapist, like, even before that
last deployment, because--I was like, "What can I do--What kind of job can I do where it is exactly the opposite of the army? Something that's helpful, and something that's not stressful, and something that's just me working one on one with a person on their terms? I'm like, "Oh, massage. This makes sense."So I spent a lot of my free time on my last deployment researching massage
schools. I ended up going to Siler City, to BTI [Body Therapy Institute], right after. So I came off this crazy deployment, was always like--all the testosterone everywhere, violence, crazy killing stuff, to a really liberal, like, hippies in the middle of the forest massage school.BAK:This is BTI?
AW:BTI, Body Therapy Institute.
BAK:Okay, got it. Yeah. That'd be very different.
AW:I--Oh, man. I felt--I am not that person anymore, and I just was still really
angry at a lot of things and--I don't know--I was not in a good place.BAK:Right.
AW:And--But it's what I needed. I think it kind of helped. I went from one very
extreme to another, but it kind of put me somewhere in the middle.BAK:Yeah.
AW:So I think I needed it, and--yeah. It was rough--it was a rough
transition--I'm won't even lie, but it needed to happen, and I think a lot more good came out of it than any negative thing that I could ever say. I used a lot of the things that I learned in school there every day of my life since. Just interpersonal skills, being mindful with people, just knowing that, "Hey, I'm not breathing. I'm noticing that in my body. Breathe."BAK:Right.
AW:So yeah, I think that that's--that was a really huge positive impact after
getting out, and I knew that I wanted to do that so it made it more fulfilling again. And then once I finished school and started working, I worked with athletes--because my husband, we were just marines at the time--but he was a CrossFit coach, so I just worked with CrossFit athletes, and it was awesome because you get to help someone out of pain, or help them move better. And the look on their face, or to see them move differently and easier, it's just--I don't know, it's really rewarding and I can't say that about the army. [chuckles] It's like instant gratification, so.[CrossFit is a branded fitness regimen created by Greg Glassman. Promoted as
both a physical exercise philosophy and also as a competitive fitness sport, CrossFit workouts incorporate elements from high-intensity interval training, Olympic weightlifting, plyometrics, powerlifting, gymnastics, girevoy sport, calisthenics, strongman, and other exercises]BAK:Where was this?
AW:What school, or gym?
BAK:No.
AW:Oh, sorry.
BAK:Where you were working.
AW:Oh, this was at CrossFit Ferus in Fayetteville.
BAK:Oh, so you're in Fayetteville?
AW:Yeah.
BAK:You did that for--
AW:Two, three years.
BAK:Okay.
AW:And then I went--I decided, "Oh, well, I still kind of want to do physical
therapy. Let me just go back to school again." [chuckles]BAK:Okay.
AW:And then I started working on pre-reqs [prerequisites] to get in the physical
therapy program at Fayetteville Tech [Fayetteville Technical Community College], and I'm like, "Well, by the time I do this I could just have an associate of science, so why don't I do that?" Because then doing that I was like, "Oh, I love biology. Why don't I do that?" [chuckles] I feel like I'm never-ending with careers.So I'm here now for exercise science, which is still taking me back into working
with just moving in a body, and I think that I need that, because if I don't have a job or am physically doing something, I'd just go crazy. Like, sitting at a desk, makes me feel terrible.BAK:Got it. Well, it's a good thing to know that.
AW:Yeah. I actually am looking forward to working on people, because I still
work on friends, like, massage. I don't have a space so I'm not currently practicing. Everything's still valid, my licenses are still good, but just school fulltime here is a whole other ballgame. [chuckles]BAK:Right.
AW:Like, I barely have time to sleep.
BAK:Right. So you graduate in two years, or a year and a half?
AW:Two and half. Yeah. My initial goal coming in here, after I realized that
biology was just not in my stars right now [chuckles] was helping to further the massage therapy profession along by way of research so that's more quantitative data to help support, like, the positives of massage. I think that's a little lacking, and people want to see data, they want to see numbers. They don't want to hear, "Oh, it feels good." But why. "Tell me why with science. Why does it--Why is it helpful? How is it beneficial? Why should I pay you sixty dollars?"BAK:Right. Right.
AW:That was my most recent project, which is why I took this research class that
I came from, because I'm like, "Okay, well, how do I do that? What does research look like here. What is the process. Do people even care?"BAK:Right.
AW:I have all these questions that I'm trying to get to the bottom of for a
start point, to get--BAK:Okay. That's interesting. Alright, just a few more. I know we've been here a
while. Do you consider yourself a trailblazer because of what you've done?AW:Not really. There have been women serving in support roles in wars for long
before I ever rolled [unclear].BAK:Okay.
AW:I think--I don't know--it was a good experience for me personally, I wouldn't
say trailblazing, per se. I mean--BAK:You were in the first group of CSTs though.
AW:Well, on paper, for that group, yes, but because other females that were not--
BAK:Officially.
AW:Yeah, officially in that position did that before and they said, "Oh, this
works. Let's just have more."BAK:Okay.
AW:I mean, I guess in that way I don't really feel like one, but.
BAK:Have you had experiences with the VA; Veterans Administration?
AW:[chuckles] How do you convey eye rolls on audio?
BAK:Yeah, there was a big eye roll. That's how you convey it on audio.
AW:Yeah. I broke my ankle after getting out of the army.
BAK:Right.
AW:After all this wild stuff--jumping out of helicopters and planes--and I broke
it so well that I needed a plate and screws in my ankle; that was all done through the Durham [North Carolina] VA. It was horrible. And the only reason I say that is because my experience with the ortho [orthopedist] was a young female who had zero--I'm sure she had stellar rate--she's a Duke [University] lady, and I'm sure she's incredibly intelligent--good for her. Her ability to just be with another person was horrible. She wouldn't talk to me directly, like, she would talk past me. And she talked down to me, like I didn't understand what she was saying. And I'm like, "I actually know exactly what you're saying because, by the way, I had to take a lot of anatomy."And then when she took part of the cast off, like, poked around at my ankle,
which was still fresh, by the way, she was, like, jabbing me directly in the wound.BAK:Oh, my God.
AW:Yeah, so that was horrible. And that's all I remember. And that was the most
painful thing I've ever experienced in life.BAK:Wow, you've probably gone through some pain.
AW:Oh, man, yeah, my whole tolerance for pain completely changed after that,
and--I don't know--I'm sick because I do not want to go to a doctor. [chuckles]BAK:Wow.
AW:That's why I'm stuffy, because I--
BAK:Do you want me to take you to a doctor after we leave because--
AW:Actually, I have good health coverage now because my husband works at Red
Hat, so we have awesome coverage. I just--Doctors, I just have this death fear, because I'm like, "I don't want to drink more water. I don't want Motrin [pain reliever]. That's not going to do it."BAK:Right.
AW:So I guess my previous experience with medical care has not been the greatest
and I just expect that that's normal.BAK:It's not.
AW:Okay.
BAK:Alright. What about PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder]? You feel you have
any PTSD?AW:Not--I have a diagnosis, and I have good days and bad days like anybody else,
and--I don't know--I don't want to sit behind that title. Like, it's a phrase on paper; that doesn't mean that that's me. I know that I'm capable of doing things, and maybe my brain doesn't function quite the same anymore, but I know that it can be better and it will be, if I put the effort in.That's a hard one because my husband and I both have wanted to work with
veterans in the past, but you can't help someone that doesn't want to help themselves. And I think a lot of veterans are in this, like, downward spiral mindset of, "Oh, man, my soul is crushed, my life is ruined. I have PTSD. Something's wrong with me. I'm messed up. I can't be better." And that's not true. There are so many people out there willing to help you, and by "you" I mean veterans with PTSD.BAK:Right.
AW:Or a diagnosis. And I think if you allow yourself to sit and simmer in that
"dark place"--that's what we call it, the "dark place"--like, when everything's gloomy and dark--absolutely you'll stay there. I know the things that trigger and upset me, and I know what not to do, so I think part of battling that is knowing what those are, and then setting yourself up to be in positions where that doesn't affect you as much. And that doesn't mean, like, building walls around your house and not hearing about things. That whole--that nonsense with the fireworks drive me crazy; "A veteran lives here. Be careful with fireworks." So does that mean you don't want freedom in America for Fourth of July, or does that mean you just want to cry about not--you want people to respect you but you don't want to help yourself.Yeah, I just wish that people that legitimately have those problems would
understand that there's always a way out, and reach out for that help, because in the army--and this is such a huge thing--in the army you're already forced into a community--like, you have a community of friends--you didn't choose them, you have to be there. But amongst that group of people, there are at least one or two, maybe more, that you bond with and you have a great connection with, and that's your support system, even if your family life is awful. So when you get out and you're not sure what you're going to do with your life, or your marriage failed, or you got a divorce, or you're just in your apartment alone and broke, you don't have that support system anymore. We're humans, we're communal people, we need each other, and as much as--especially men--want to refuse that--like, "Oh, that's not true. I'll make it on my own. I'm fine"--"No, you won't, dude."BAK:Right.
AW:No one ever gets to the top without help from someone else. That's just not
how it works. And I think that to mitigate the effects of PTSD, the best thing anyone can do is just find that community of people, and that means you have to go outside of your comfort zone again, you have to find those groups, you have to--go join a gym, something. Just getting back into a community setting will always pull you out of that a lot faster than if you sit at home and you drink and you think about the good days. That's not going to help you. Sorry, I just got on my soapbox.BAK:No.
AW:It's so upsetting and frustrating to me, though, when people--and I've had
friends, too, like, they'd get out and they just fall apart. And it makes me sad, and I'll text and call, like, "Hey man, what's up? How are you today?""Oh, you know." And it's just like the same sob story.
"What did you do? Did you go--did you go to the gym? Did you go check out this,
that? What are you doing? You can't sit at home and drink all day and think that you're going to feel great. That doesn't work out."BAK:Alright. Would you recommend the service to young people?
AW:I would.
BAK:You would?
AW:Yeah. There's a sacrifice with that, just like many other things I think, and
some more severe than others. But I definitely think that it was beneficial to me. I think I learned a lot of really hard lessons really fast. And I'm grateful for that because I--being on this campus, when you hear kids talking about all the stuff, and they think they're so educated and cultured, and I'm like, "Okay. That's great." [chuckles] So yeah, it's--I would recommend it. And three years and get out, that's no big--that's only three years. I don't know what's going to happen in those three years, it may vary for you, but I would say yes, for sure.BAK:Okay. What does the word patriotism mean to you?
AW:That's a good question. That's a hard question, just because I don't--when I
think of patriotism, that doesn't mean, like, Abe Lincoln riding a bear with an American flag. [chuckles] It's not my--what I see. I don't know. I guess to me patriotism is just being proud of where you're from, and that can be your town, your state, your country, and just--I don't know--supporting that and promoting that, and not in a violent or disrespectful way, because I think sometimes it's lost in people's idea of patriotism. Like, wow, too much.BAK:Okay. Is there anything in particular you would want a civilian to know or
understand about what it is like to serve in the military that they might not understand or appreciate?AW:That's a good question. These are hard questions.
BAK:That's why we wait until three hours and then we hit you with the hard ones.
AW:I'm sorry, I talk a lot, I know.
BAK:No, no, no, no, this is great. This is wonderful.
AW:Can you repeat the question?
BAK:Sure. Is there anything you would want a civilian to understand, to know,
what it's like to serve in the military that they might not understand or appreciate?AW:I think there are several things, the most important would be this idea that
because a person was in the military that they have PTSD and they're unstable. That's not--I get that; that applies to, like, a small percentage of people. But I've seen and heard a lot of cases of that [unclear] "They're better. I don't know."I'm like, "No, man, that's not true."
That would be my first thing. And the second one would be that--I would say in
language, because the army is so--it's such a--it's its own beast, and there are a lot of uneducated people, and by that--and there are a lot of very brilliant people too. Don't get me wrong--and it's a young crowd. So the type of language that we use to communicate is not always the most intelligent, it's not always the most polished. And I think--And I do have friends that are still going through this--As far as trying to go out of the military and then go get a job, they haven't quite grasped the idea of, "Oh, I need to meet them on their terms," and that means not [unclear].BAK:Got it.
AW:So I think the communication--there is a communication barrier, and it's a
different language, almost literally. But it takes understanding from both sides, so maybe being patient, I guess. And knowing that just because they're not very articulate, or very well versed in their vocabulary, does not mean that they're not smart or hardworking.BAK:Got it.
AW:That would be my only--
BAK:Okay. You used the word "salty" a lot. How would you define the word "salty?"
AW:Oh, I use that all the time.
BAK:It's a great word.
AW:Salty's like bitter; it's like flavor[?] [unclear].
BAK:Okay. AW:Salty is when you're bitter at something, or you're just not--being
salty at my first sergeant, I'm just annoyed by him or--yeah, annoyed and bitter I think are the best, definitely, synonyms for that.BAK:Well, believe it or not, that's all of my formal questions. Is there
anything that you might want to add?AW:I think that's a ton of tape, and I appreciate your willingness to sit and listen.
BAK:No, this has been wonderful, Amanda. Thank you.
AW:Thank you for [unclear].
BAK:Well, alright, that's the end of our formal talk here. Thank you.
[End of Interview]
