Oral history interview with Nicolle M. Brossard, 2012-2014

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WOMEN VETERANS HISTORICAL PROJECT
ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION
INTERVIEWEE: Nicolle M. Brossard
INTERVIEWER: Therese Strohmer
DATE: May 29, 2012
[Begin Interview]
TS: Today is May 29th. This is Therese Strohmer, and I’m at the Jackson Library here with Nicolle Brossard in Greensboro, North Carolina to conduct an oral history interview for the Women Veterans Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Nicolle, could you state your name the way you’d like it to read on the collection?
NB: Nicolle M. Brossard.
TS: Okay. Nicolle, why don’t you start out by telling us when and where you were born?
NB: I was born in Portland, Oregon on June 3, 1983.
TS: 1983, so you have a birthday coming up?
NB: I sure do. Thank you for reminding me.
TS: You’re welcome. It’s a great birthday. What was it like growing up in—did you actually live in Portland?
NB: We lived in Sherwood, which is about thirty minutes south of Portland.
TS: Okay. Do you have any brothers or sisters?2
NB: I have two older half-brothers we didn’t grow up with, and one older full brother that I did grow up with, and now I have two younger step-brothers; we didn’t grow up with them either. So, it was just an older brother and myself and my parents.
TS: In your household?
NB: Yes.
TS: What did your parents do for a living?
NB: My dad worked repairing copiers for IBM [International Business Machines] and Kodak and then while he was going to school, and he’s now a mechanical engineer at Xerox. And my mom unfortunately was diagnosed with brain cancer when I was three years old. So, she went through treatment for that, was in remission for six years, and then the tumor grew again and she had several surgeries and radiation and stuff like that. Then the tumor ended up being in remission by the time I was, like, twelve or thirteen, but she’s pretty much changed and disabled after that.
TS: Yeah. Is she—did she survive—has she survived her—
NB: She survived for twenty-three years and she passed away in August 2009.
TS: Wow.
NB: Yes, sad.
TS: Yes. That must have been—how hard to grow up with that, knowing that she was so sick.
NB: It was challenging to grow up with, and different. You don’t really realize how different it is until, you know, you’re an adult, or the different things you go through, or different challenges you have. But looking back I think it made me a stronger person, and I think it really developed a deep level of compassion that I have today.
TS: Did you—So, what kind of things did you recognize, now, looking back?
NB: Just the—that I didn’t really have a mom to kind of bond with and I didn’t really have a lot of teaching about dating or make-up or, you know, those types of things. I missed out on that but luckily I had a lot of good women mentors and friends in the military, so I caught up with all the rest of that later.3
TS: Later? After you joined the army?
NB: Yes.
TS: Well, how about with your dad, then? Did he take on a lot of roles?
NB: He worked a lot and he also went to classes at night to try to just better his employment position and better—be a better caretaker for our family. So, he—I think that was hard for him, too, but he, you know, did the best that he could for our family.
TS: What was it like growing up in Sherwood? What kind of town was it?
NB: It was a small town. We have our Robin Hood Festival every second weekend of every July, and—
TS: What do you do at the Robin Hood Festival?
NB: We have dunk tanks and there’s some little jousting competitions and they have the Maid Marian pageants for the girls from elementary school to high school, and food and—
TS: Oh! Like Sherwood Forest. Okay!
NB: Forest, yes. [both laugh]
TS: Okay, that just struck me. I’m a little slow. That’s kind of neat.
NB: Yes. So, we have that and then there’s just—when I was growing up there was just one little elementary school, one junior high, one high school, but it’s definitely grown a lot since I became an adult. Very small town, everybody knew each other. Part, kind of, agricultural and part town. Even when I was in high school I was part of the Future Farmers of America, and so we had, luckily, a lot of different people in Sherwood involved in that program too.
TS: Did you—So, did you walk to school?
NB: Some days I would walk to school but mostly just took the bus.
TS: Yes?
NB: Yes.4
TS: Did you have, like, a neighborhood where kids played a lot and played games?
NB: Definitely, we had the neighborhood of riding bikes, playing hopscotch, playing outside, being home by the time the last streetlamp turned on, and—
TS: Oh, was that the rule?
NB: Yes, all the different stuff. Picking blackberries, and my mom would make blackberry cobbler. Going down to the little store to get a candy bar and a soda, the little Rainbow Market in Sherwood. So, lots of fun just normal kind of childhood things then.
TS: Rode your bike a lot?
NB: Yes.
TS: Now, did you say your brother that lived with your family was younger or older than you?
NB: He was older by three years.
TS: Older by three years. Okay. What kind of relationship did you have with him?
NB: We had the quarrelsome older brother younger sister relationship growing up, well, during our teenage years, but as we became older we had a very close relationship and did a lot of stuff together. My dad was also a Boy Scout master, and so I went on different Boy Scout trips, and —
TS: Oh, you did?
NB: Yes. And camping and learning, you know, how to tell north and south and east and west by the sun. Did stuff like that with my brother, but I was always, kind of, the annoying little sister [chuckles] that went on all the little trips.
TS: So, I guess the army—you were preparing for the army for that in some ways.
NB: Yes. Yes.
TS: What about school? Did you like school?5
NB: I liked school, but I didn’t do very well; certainly not like how I do now. Just—it was just hard with not having a mom really there. My dad was more absent from working and school. I didn’t have the passion to learn as much as I do now. I think that’s one thing the army kind of helped me with, is being more focused and stuff, so I did okay but not something I would tout now, that’s for sure.
TS: Well, for some—for some young people growing up, school is social; it’s more about the social environment rather than the academic.
NB: Yes.
TS: Was it more like that for you in some ways?
NB: I had some good friends there, and close friends, but it wasn’t as, probably, social as I would have liked or anything. It was just, I had a lot of hard stuff dealing with my mom’s illness and everything.
TS: Did you play any—You talked about the FHA? Or—
NB: FFA.
TS: FFA, right. Future Farmers, right, of America?
NB: Yes.
TS: Did you—were you involved in any other sports or anything like that?
NB: Nope. I didn’t do any other sports or anything before I joined the military or in high school.
TS: Well, what did you do in FFA?
NB: In FFA we did different competitions for our district, which I really enjoyed agricultural sales, agricultural speech, and debate teams. We also did soil judging and dairy judging and getting under there; looking at the udders, making sure they line up, and testing the milk, and—for soil, clay, or loamy, sandy soil. Just traveled around and did competitions for that.
We also had a greenhouse and we would sell plants to raise money for the FFA and what we were doing. Every year that was kind of a big deal in our town; like a plant sale. Then we also had two cows that we had raised; Ham and Burger. Not named by me. 6
But I remember going in, we’d feed and bottle feed them, and we dehorned them and castrated them. Just kind of did all the basic stuff for that. We had rabbits. We had some chickens and a rooster, until the local neighborhood complained about the rooster waking them up early.
TS: Was this out at the school?
NB: Yes, it was behind our school. One year we had a petting fair—petting zoo, and we brought in little animals from all over and had buses of kids come in to pet them and teach them about the different animals and stuff. We did that, and we also had leadership with officers there, so I was the secretary one year and then, I think, treasurer maybe. I forget. I know it was secretary and then I became the district secretary for our FFA district, which was kind of the north-eastern—north-western part of Oregon was our district there.
TS: That had to take some sort of organization to do that.
NB: Yes. Looking back you’re amazed at how much you did, or what you did, and you’re like, “Wow, I was pretty, you know—kind of did good there.” Yes, it took some organization for that, but it was really fun. We went to state conventions, district conventions. We were close to winning some state competitions, so we had competed and won, like, a lot of district competitions and stuff, too, for our debate team. Different stuff like that.
TS: How did you guys do?
NB: Well, we didn’t win state, but that’s all right. We felt really proud for what we did because nobody had done as good as we had.
TS: Up to that point?
NB: Up to that point.
TS: That’s really great.
NB: Yes. Yes.
TS: So, did you have a sense then as a young girl growing up in Sherwood, like, what your future might be like? Did you have any dreams about what you wanted to do?7
NB: I know that I loved my psychology class. We had a little mouse that we trained to choose between a triangle and a square and all this different stuff. It was for an AP [advanced placement] psychology course, and we had a great teacher. So, I liked psychology. When I was in high school I wanted to actually do genetic engineering of plants. I was thinking about that and then hadn’t really thought anything past that until the army opportunity came about.
TS: How did that come about?
NB: Because of my mom’s cancer, our trust funds for college were spent on healthcare and—which is very reasonable. I have no resentment or anything towards that. But we didn’t have really any money for college, and I had wanted to get my degree in psychology from Northwestern University. So, I had—my dad had taken me up there and we looked at it, but the tuition, I remember, was over $20,000 and we had no money for it. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was in the shower thinking; you know, some people great ideas come in the shower. I was thinking, you know, “What am I going to do? How am I going to pay for college?” Just a lot of, I think kind of, responsible thoughts for a seventeen year old to have to consider.
Then, just the idea about the military came in my mind, and I am the fourth generation in the military, and so my dad had mentioned different things about when he was in the army before. I was actually scared that he wouldn’t support it, or he wouldn’t like it. I think sometimes when we, kind of, tell war stories they sound bad or we don’t like it, but it’s really more of a badge of honor what you went through.
TS: When did your dad serve?
NB: He served during Vietnam; he was drafted.
TS: Did he go to Vietnam?
NB: He did not go to Vietnam. He ended up having an ulcer, and he had two young children, so he was discharged due to health conditions after he completed basic training and his advanced individual training.
TS: Then—what are the other generations?
NB: My great-grandfather served in World War I, and he served in Austria. I do have an enlist—a copy of his enlistment sheet, too, which I am going to try to bring in for the archives.8
TS: Neat.
NB: It’s just, like, can you ride a horse, your name, your enlistment number, and your address. It was pretty basic. Then, my grandfather drove trucks on the Burma-India Road during World War II.
TS: Oh, wow.
NB: Yes, so I have a proud lineage. And out of all my brothers I’m the only one in the military too, so I get total bragging rights for that.
TS: I guess you do. Sure you do.
NB: Yes.
TS: It that what made you think about the army? I mean, what brought it to your mind do you think?
NB: I didn’t really know any of that until—
TS: Oh, really?
NB: —after I had already joined. Other than my dad had kind of been in and that was it. So, I’m not really sure what brought it to my mind.
TS: Had there been recruiters at the high school?
NB: No.
TS: No?
NB: I just—No. I, kind of, believe in fate and I honestly do believe spiritually that God has a purpose for my life and has led me to the different places and things I’ve been doing, which are far better than I can honestly plan. So, I kind of feel it was a little divine intervention. And I thought about it and I thought about women in uniform, specifically the skirt, and how respected they were, and how neat that was. I even wrote in my diary about it, like, I wonder—I have this idea. I wonder what it would be like. I think it’s so neat, and I didn’t give it a second thought after that.
So, that was a Sunday and the next day I went to school. I was walking down the hallway to go to lunch in the cafeteria and I looked to my left and there were two 9
recruiters at a table there, and my heart sunk. I knew—I never knew nothing was so right in my entire life, and even to this point I still remember how strong that feeling was; that I have to go and talk to them. I went and I said, “Okay, what’s your spiel? Tell me your, kind of, selling points here.”
And Sergeant First Class Mendolovich was my recruiter and very, very nice, awesome recruiter. A lot of people say they don’t like the recruiter, but he was just awesome. He said, “Well, you know, let’s get together over coffee or whatever and we’ll talk more about it.”
So, okay, so a few days later we met for coffee and he did a little interview and found out what some of my interests were and what I had done and what I want to do. I told him about psychology and I want to travel. Then we told me about the mental health specialist job in the army, and that I would go to basic training, and then I would go to San Antonio, Texas. And I—Texas was probably my number one favorite state at that point that I wanted to travel to.
TS: Why was that?
NB: Just, kind of, big and country and, you know, I was in FFA and everything. So, I liked the thought of big open spaces and—so, he told me about that and money for college and it just answered everything for me. I thought about it, prayed about it, went home and had told my dad about it, and he was really supportive. I was surprised. He thought it was a great thing.
And now that I’m thinking about, I also remember my brother was going to enlist in the military, too. So, he—there was that exposure before. It’s coming to me now.
TS: It’s okay.
NB: He was going to be an intelligence analyst, or working something with intelligence before, and he was all set to go and very, very smart, but unfortunately he decided he didn’t really want to go. He’s made some other choices in his life which have led him down a worse path, with drug use and abuse and different stuff like that. So, there was some exposure about the military a few years before, because when he was seventeen, eighteen, he was thinking about it.
TS: I see.
NB: Yes.
TS: Why did you choose the army? Did you consider the other services?10
NB: I didn’t, no. [chuckles] I mean, I love the air force blue—
TS: So, you saw the green uniform walking down the hall, right, in school—
NB: Yes.
TS: —and that was it.
NB: I guess that because what I had seen before with my brother, and I didn’t know about the mental health opportunities. I have come to find out later that, like, for the navy you have to be a corpsman first and then you can go to the mental health school, and I just hate blood and body fluids so that wouldn’t have worked out for me. And the Marines don’t really have a mental health technician. Most of their assets they use from the navy. And then the air force, I think, has a few but it just wasn’t really anything I had considered.
TS: So, really, the army would have been the best; the most ideal.
NB: Yes, for sure. And I also thought, because this was in January, February 2001, you know, I’ll be medical. I’ll be far behind the front line. I’ll be in a hospital. If anything—if there was to be war, because you obviously have to consider that, we wouldn’t be close to where a lot of the action was happening, probably.
TS: What was it you liked about Sergeant First Class Mendolovich?
NB: He was so calm and very trustworthy. He was also very, very upfront about everything to me, and as I had said, I didn’t play sports or anything. I was a little overweight for the army standard, and he, you know, helped, kind of, teaching me a little bit about physical fitness and he helped teach me about the phonetic alphabet, about facing movements. He just invested in me. He was honest about everything, except for there is one thing he did not tell me and that was that when I go to MEPS, which is the Military Entrance Processing Station, they will give you a drug test, a urinalysis, and they will watch you very closely pee in a cup, with no privacy. [chuckles] Other than that, he told me everything.
So, he just really cared about me, and I even remember the day he took me—the morning to go, I was supposed to do my processing and then stay overnight and the next day leave for basic training. He knew I liked coffee, and I liked fufu [meaning fancy or complicated, probably] coffee, and he’s like, “Oh, you know, just get Seven-Eleven coffee,” or whatever, and no, he brought me a nice coffee. He really knew me, and I even found some letters from basic training a few days ago. He had wrote me a letter and just told me whatever I do, do the absolute best that I can in it and good things will happen for 11
me in life, and that, I realized, I adopted as a core value and have taken with me wherever I have gone. So, he was just very honest and trustworthy.
TS: That’s really neat. Have you ever stayed in touch with him?
NB: Once I came back from basic training I did. He ended up being a recruiter for military medical officers for the combat support hospital I became a part of. So, he just was proud of me and we talk once in a while, but then he retired.
TS: I see, okay. Well, so, you went through a delayed entry program, right?
NB: I did.
TS: So, you signed up in, was in January, February?
NB: February 2001, and my parents had to actually sign off for me to go.
TS: Because you were seventeen?
NB: Because I was seventeen. My mom was a little ambivalent, but she signed off on it because that’s what I wanted to do. My dad was supportive. Funny thing also, my dad’s a gun broker, so as soon as I signed up he went and bought an AR-15, and I think he thought, “If my daughter’s going to go to, you know, off to be in the army she’s going to at least know how to shoot.” And that’s so like my dad. He’s going to teach me the best way to do something to protect myself and in order to take care of myself.
TS: That’s the boy scout in him, right?
NB: Yes!
TS: So, did you—did he take you out and shoot on a range to learn how to—
NB: Yes.
TS: How’d you do?
NB: I did pretty good.
TS: Yes?12
NB: Yes. I did pretty good.
TS: Had you been shoot—shot any weapons before that?
NB: Maybe once or twice, but not really as much as practicing with the AR-15 before I left.
TS: I see. Did that help you then when you were in basic?
NB: It did, I think, yes, because I was already familiar with the weapon. I already knew how it operated. I knew about aiming. So, it definitely helped with that.
TS: Really neat.
NB: Yes, and he’s so proud. In fact, before I had—when I mobilized he had—I had shot my first, like, qualifying on the range for sighting in. I had shot my first six shots in very tight shot group, and so, and qualified and didn’t need any adjusting or, you know, didn’t need to work on getting tighter shot groups or anything and they said, “All right, you’re done; you’re off the range,” and [I] wanted to shoot more and they said, “No.” So, it’s one of his proudest stories; he takes credit for it.
TS: [chuckles] And probably he should.
NB: Yes.
TS: In some ways. That’s really neat. So, your mom wasn’t so sure about—it was such a great idea?
NB: Yes. I think that she just, you know, worried about me going off.
TS: And you’re leaving home, too.
NB: Yes.
TS: At the same time, right?
NB: Yes, but we weren’t very close at all and, like I said, for me I had the best mom from when I was three to ten, and that’s who she was. But due to all of the medical procedures and radiation, chemotherapy, everything, I think that in conjunction with depression and her just, kind of, making some choices to not really try to get help at all, really changed her. So, we weren’t very close at all after, or when I was leaving for the army.13
TS: I see. Well, what did your friends think about it?
NB: I remember one of my friend’s dad was like, “You know, you shouldn’t go. Are you sure you really want to do this?” And some of my friends, they were kind of supportive, but it was kind of scary for them, too. So, there was a few people, and like my psychology teacher, I think he had served in Vietnam, so he obviously knew what war was like and kind of would caution me. I remember that, and some of my other friends were just, like, “Okay, this is what you’re going to do,” and they wouldn’t do it but they were supportive of me.
TS: Supportive of you.
NB: Yes. Yes.
TS: And your choice.
NB: Yes.
TS: So, you signed up and then you graduate from high school.
NB: Yes.
TS: Then you have the summer.
NB: Yes.
TS: And then 9/11 happens.
NB: Yes.
TS: Do you remember that day?
NB: I do. From when I had enlisted for the delayed entry program, we can go and—we can go to the reserve unit and start doing our drill there. It’s kind of funny, the first time I went I had worn a dress [chuckles], and everybody who knows me remembers that from that day because, you know, silly girly girl wearing a dress to an army training. Anyways, so we had—you go there and we couldn’t fire our weapon and we couldn’t do other things, but we could participate in all the other training. So, I was doing that and I had a little uniform and everything and there was one person, Colonel Clarkson, who was the chief 14
nurse—or assistant chief nurse at the combat support hospital there, and she just really took me under her wing; called me Bubbles, and—
TS: Why did she call you Bubbles?
NB: Just for my effervescent personality. [chuckles] And taught me a lot about being in the military, gave me good advice, and she also put me to work doing stuff. So, we could come in for extra days, like, to paint the hallways of the unit, or to help with paperwork, or whatever; kind of come in in orders[?]. And so, I was doing some of that, and the weekend before September 11 we had had a—what we call a “dining out.” There’s either “dining ins” which we do on the base, or “dining outs” which we do some at, like, a restaurant or something in the civilian world. So, people dress up in their formal attire and it’s a nice dinner, and then there’s traditions. We had a bunch of extra toe tags left over from being in a combat support hospital. We made people’s name tags, you know, on the toe tags, and came up with funny little things of, oh, you know, why they died. Like for a motorcycle rider, you know, went out blazing fire on their motorcycle, and stuff like that. We had a grog, which is a whole bunch of different alcohol combined in a bedpan. [chuckles] Just—I just remember that so vividly because it was so fun but it was such tradition, and I just knew on September 11 that there was not going to be that anymore. There—That was the point, the line of departure, if you will, of where the fun army—you’re training, but it’s also a lot [of] focus on fun, also had changed.
On September 11 I woke up at home and I was getting ready to go in to Fort Vancouver [Vancouver, Washington] and work. I heard about the planes crashing, because I was on the west coast, so I remember driving to work at seven-thirty in the morning and they said a tower had fallen. I was so naive and sheltered I didn’t really know about the World Trade Center; what it was in New York or anything. I hadn’t really traveled outside of Oregon at that point. I do remember when we got to the unit we had radios on and there was still a plane flying in the air. We also knew that the President was flying, too, into Camp David, so we were kind of talking about where the President was going to be, what was going to be happening, you know, what it meant. Everybody knew it was a big deal and knew, obviously, we had been attacked, but nobody really knew what it meant going forward. At that time we didn’t really know who had done it or anything.
I also remember not seeing any of the imagery of the planes actually crashing. So, for me, I know September 11 was a very important and traumatic day in our history, but it didn’t have a lot of emotional anchorage because I was just working and helping out and we were just trying to go about as normal as we could.
TS: So, a lot of people have talked to you have said how they were just totally fixated on the T.V., but that’s not—wasn’t your experience? You didn’t watch any T.V.?15
NB: I didn’t watch any T.V. except for maybe five minutes of it in the afternoon. I do remember there was other people who had been to Desert Shield/Desert Storm, or deployed to Saudi Arabia. They were watching the T.V., like, our operations center was watching the T.V. all day long. I think they just had a better concept of what it meant, and I just didn’t.
But I loved to help out any way that I could, and so we had worked throughout the day and then at night we were at Fort Vancouver, so we had no idea where anything was going to be attacked, or by who or whatever, and we had planes grounded everywhere. But we have an air base in Portland just, kind of, over the river from us, so I remember the jets leaving every so often, patrolling our air space. We had to, kind of, pull security. It was twenty-four hour security now on every military installation, even though Fort Vancouver is a national historic reserve, whatever, we still have military people there. So, now it went to doors always being locked. That’s another thing that changed. Before we had doors open and you could come in. Then now it was everybody who wanted to get onto our little base had to show ID; they had to have a driver’s license. Nobody got on who wasn’t military or who worked there—didn’t work there.
TS: Did they put those cement concrete blocks at the entryway that they have pretty much everywhere now?
NB: They did after I had left. Initially, they had just put chain-link fence up as soon as they could have after the event; after September 11. Then they had put up the concrete blocks and blocked off certain roadways and stuff.
TS: So, you’re noticing this change in tone in the military?
NB: Yes.
TS: Like, more—going towards more military footing in some sense?
NB: Yes.
TS: More secure?
NB: Yes, noticing things are changing.
TS: Yes.16
NB: Yes, and I guess at that point it doesn’t really matter that it’s changed because you’ve signed up; you’ve committed. This is what you’re going to do, and—
TS: You’re kind of new to it anyhow.
NB: Yes. Yes. So, you know, it’s like going to college and you get your first job; your dream job. That’s the best way I can relate to people in the military. I think with going to war it’s kind of like you’re going to do what you’ve trained to do. You get to serve your country. You get to protect your nation. So, I think in some ways there’s that aspect, but like I said, for those operations guys who are watching the T.V., who had deployed before, for them they’re the last ones who want to go to war because they know the cost of it. They know the seriousness of it. So us naive, gung-ho soldiers, you know, we kind of, “Let’s do this.”
TS: What was it like, I mean, when you—so, you didn’t take the summer before you actually had to go in. You’re already working.
NB: Yes.
TS: Why did you do that? Why didn’t you, like, say, “Oh, this is my last summer free before I—”
NB: I didn’t really have anything else to do.
TS: Yes?
NB: Yes, and it was great because I learned how the army reserve really was. I learned already how to salute and how to stand in formation and how to do a lot of the basic soldiering skills and tasks, we call it. So, when I went to basic training I had more of an idea of what to expect, and I knew that basic training was not what an entire army career was going to be like.
TS: Right.
NB: Yes. And I was, kind of, working and earning money and—
TS: Where did you—yes, I was going to ask you that, too. So, you went in the reserve and you’re thinking, okay, this is, like, a part time gig,—
NB: Yes.17
TS: —you’re going to get money for college.
NB: Yes.
TS: So, what other career path were you thinking about taking at that time?
NB: Well, at that time we have—my initial contract was six years long of active reserve, which meant I would go, you know, once a month—two days a months, or one weekend a month, and then two weeks out of the year. I was seventeen, so I would have been out by the time I was twenty-five, and then we have two years of—it’s called Inactive Ready Reserve, or IRR. That’s where—it’s like in between the reserve and the draft, so you don’t have to actively drill every weekend, or, you know, the one weekend a month, but you can be mobilized and deployed if the country needs you.
So, I thought, “Okay, this is great. I’ll go to basic training. I’ll get my skills. I’ll come back. I’ll go to college. I’ll get my degree in psychology. I’ll get married and probably be ready to have children by time I’m twenty-five, and my enlistment contract is up.”
TS: That’s a pretty good plan.
NB: Yes! Great plan.
TS: Didn’t work out quite that way?
NB: No, it did not. [chuckles]
TS: Well, nothing ever works out quite the way you want it.
NB: No. But you know what? I love the way it’s turned out. Yes. It’s far better than I could have ever imagined.
TS: So, when you finally went to basic training you’d been learning. You’d fired the, what is it called again, the—
NB: AR-15.
TS: AR-15, thank you.
NB: Yes.18
TS: So, you’re prepared that way, you’d learned the rules of the army, right?
NB: Yes.
TS: Rank, and how to salute, and how to—military bearing, I’m sure, right?
NB: Yes. Yes.
TS: What were you feeling about this? How was this—was this, like, were you comfortable with this?
NB: I loved it. I just loved it. It was fun. It was adventurous. It was new. It was honorable. It was, just, awesome. I really liked it.
TS: Did you take a certain pride in being in the military after 9/11?
NB: Definitely. I took a pride being in the military in general. I remember the first day I wore my uniform, and, you know, people obviously noticed that. After September 11 I took a pride in wearing it, but I was also a little more fearful of being targeted, too, by wearing it. So, I really only had one drill between September 11 and going to basic training.
TS: Tell me about basic training, then. You finally get to go to Texas.
NB: Or, to—Yes, we went to Fort Jackson, South Carolina first.
TS: Okay, Jackson, right.
NB: First, basic training.
TS: How was that?
NB: It was great. I cried when I left. I know people think I am crazy for it, but we left. We have—What you do is, your recruiter picks you up early in the morning and you go to your processing station, and you just get, kind of, final height and weight and drug test and medical; make sure everything is okay to go. Then you stay a night in a hotel, so my parents came to see me; we had dinner. Then you get up the next morning, you get on your plane to basic training. We flew into Atlanta and we’re picked up, and then we had a bus ride throughout the night. It’s just kind of funny because I have always been very much willing to follow authority. So, they say, “All right, if cause any trouble there’s 19
going to be drill sergeants waiting for you when we get there, and you sit every other seat, and no talking, and no this, no that.”
It’s just, kind, of, like, “Whoa, okay. Serious,” you know. So, we had our bus ride and then we got off and they had—there weren’t drill sergeants, but there were people, like sergeants, at reception, it’s called. So, you’re—they fed us and you’re at reception for a few days where you get all your uniforms, you get all your shots, you get your dog tags. You have to do, like, a basic—a few push-ups and sit-ups and run, like, a mile or so just to, kind of, make sure you’re physically fit enough to go into basic training. Then the drill sergeants came and picked us up, and you take your bags and you get on a bus, and they don’t really say anything to you. I remember thinking, “This is probably—this feels like,” you know, “the ship’s going into the beaches of Normandy,” right, that—from Saving Private Ryan [motion picture]. That’s what I was imagining; as close as I’m going to come to this.
Then, the buses pull up. The drill sergeants are yelling, “Get off my bus!” And they are, just, trying to make mass confusion for you. So, you take all your bags, you throw them in a pile. You’re running around in circles and they’re yelling at you to run faster, and then they tell you, “Go get your bags! You have thirty seconds to get your bags!” So, they set you up for this impossible task, and then you fail, so then you have to do push-ups. Then they try again and then you fail and you have to do push-ups. And so, you know, it just, kind of like, “You’ll listen to us. Failure is not okay,” and you just get smoked, we call it.
Then we went and we got our bunks set up, and since my last name is Brossard, I was one of the first people. So, my bunk was all the way in the front of a bay, which is a big, like, large room, and on two sides of it they have bunk beds; just running along the side of it. It would be all the females from first platoon and all the females from second platoon of our company, were in this bay.
Then myself and this other woman who was there, we were—her last name started with “B” too, so we were the first two chosen to be on guard duty. So, then we stood out there, I think with, like, a flashlight or something, and just, [chuckles] out in front. Not really knowing what’s going on or—we just stood there, and then ended up coming back and they shook down our bags to make sure we didn’t have anything we weren’t supposed to. Then we put our civilian clothes we traveled in, and everything, into a big room and locked it.
The next morning we woke up and it was Thanksgiving Day, and so, that was kind of a blessing because I feel like they went a little bit lighter on us that day. We still got smoked a little bit and we got gear issued to us, but for Thanksgiving dinner there were all these officers serving us our Thanksgiving dinner, so—
TS: You don’t see that every day in basic training.20
NB: [both chuckle] No! But I think about it every year I am with my family on Thanksgiving. I think about how grateful I am for that, to be with them now, and for the opportunity of military service and stuff.
From then on we had just basic things, like, how to wear a uniform. We had classes about ethics. Just different classes about the law of war, and then we went and we did, like, victory tower, we call it, where we rappelled off of this tower. We did rope climbs, and then we would work on marching, and went to do first aid and learned how to do that; learned how to do map reading. So, we did those different tasks and, just, soldiering skills. I remember with, like, the land nav[igation], the map reading, though, I had gotten really, really sick, like, a 104 degree temperature. So, I had to go into the hospital for a few days and missed land nav and, still to this day, it is not my strength. But we had that and then one of the scariest parts of basic training for me was the gas chamber. I just dreaded it, and I even thought about hiding out in the porta-potty until everybody had gone through. But you know, I was like, no, it’s not the right thing to do, and when we get issued our gas masks and you try them on, you can feel the CS gas [commonly known as “tear gas”] tingle your skin a little bit. It’s just [makes noise indicating unpleasantness], it’s just, like, maybe a sunburn, you know. And so—and they make a big deal about it, like the green mile, and, you know, the last [chuckles]—last area you’re going before your death sentence. I, again, I take that stuff so seriously. I always—Throughout my entire military career, I know that I am not intuitively—these soldier tasks don’t intuitively come to me, so I’ve always paid attention and used the asset that I do have, of knowledge and learning, to pay attention; to listen to what they say; to really think about it and memorize it, so when they are harassing us with that I take it seriously. And you go in and they have CS gas, which it makes your nose run and your eyes water and it makes you cough, and produces a lot of respiratory fluids. You take off your gas mask and you say your name and your social security number, and then you put it back on and you clear it and breathe out. So, it’s supposed to, kind of, help you build faith that your gas mask works. That’s what, at least, they told us. I would have believed them without testing it, but [chuckles] some people, I guess, just have to learn the hard way.
Then you have to take your gas mask off; in groups of five they have you take your gas mask off, and they make you breathe in the gas and just, kind of, feel it, and you have to yell. They tell you when you’re running out you need to run in place and flap your arms to get all the CS particles off of you. So, I’m already doing that. I’m ready to go. [laughing] Just ready to go. Then they finally open the door and let us out, and you’re just coughing and drooling and snot running everywhere. We even had one girl who threw up on the back of the other girl. And they have it on Chili Mac Road, so they give you this big lunch of chili mac first on Chili Mac Road before. I mean, they just loved this stuff. But it’s funny, it’s like a badge of honor, you know? So, that shoots any hopes 21
of ever having any romantic interest with any of the guys there, obviously. [Therese laughs]
So, I remember the gas chamber. Another thing I’m grateful for, even though it was over the holidays, we had a two week break to go home for Christmas. You kind of got a little break in between basic training—
TS: Which you don’t normally get?
NB: Which you don’t normally get; very much appreciated. I got to go home and see my family, and really enjoyed that. Then went back to basic training, and we would do FTXs, which were field training exercises.
Also [unclear] overnight, so another vivid memory I have is, we would go to an overnight training, or like, staying overnight. We, kind of, put our tents all up in a circle so you have a perimeter of an area, kind of guard, and it was so cold that night. The tents they give you, we call them pup tents. So, what you do when you get there is, you get issued, like, a piece of cloth with snaps on it, and you have to go around and find somebody who—your snaps match their snaps, and you know, obviously another female for me, and that’s who you’re going to be your battle buddy with. [chuckles] And so—it was so cold though, and we had to get up, my battle buddy and I, had to get up and do our little guard for half an hour, whatever, in the middle of the night, and then go back to sleep. Our canteens were frozen; it was like ten degrees that night. Then they say, “Okay, when you get in your sleeping bags—” the drill sergeants would say, “—just take off your clothes and just sleep in your tee-shirt and underwear because your body heat will heat up your sleeping bag. Well, our sleeping bags you’d kind of get a lump of stuffing here and a lump of stuffing there. They’re not as nice as we have now. It was just freezing, freezing, freezing and you just—it was my first lesson and you do what you have to do to survive, and so my battle buddy and I got in the same sleeping bag and pulled the other one over us; had to keep our body heat just to stay warm.
TS: To keep warm.
NB: Yes. It was just crazy to me though that they had us out there for training, but now I look back and you think—basic training is a form of stress inoculation. If you cannot handle different stressful situations, or I think if our army doesn’t put soldiers in a situation where they can experience stress and they can learn ways to cope and deal with it, then they are doing them a disservice when it comes to actually having to go to war. So, the ideal is that basic training will, kind of, be part of the worst experiences of your entire army career; that nothing can be really as stressful as that. It’s not necessarily true, but I think it’s pretty close, and it does kind of inoculate you, you know, against future stress.22
So, I remember that and then we’d gone back and we did a lot of weapons training, lots of marching again. And I had struggled with PT, physical training. Every morning I would fall out of the runs. I hated running with a bunch of people, you know, who haven’t really brushed their teeth or anything in the morning anyways and very close formation. So—But I definitely struggled with that. Like, my very first run in the military was twenty-two minutes for two miles, and that isn’t passing. I needed to be, like, eighteen minutes, I think. My drill sergeant had put me in a group that ran faster than what my time is, because if you have a certain window of times you’re supposed to be in this run group. I was like, you know, kind of angry, like, “Why did you put me in this group?”
He’s like, “Well, you need to be pushed.”
I’m like, “Okay.” So, I feel like he set me up for failure, but he really, you know, had pushed me more and wanted me to be set up for success in the end.
He’s like, “People who are in that lower run group where you’re in, they will not pass, and you know, it’s just—you’re not going to pass if you stay there.” And I really appreciated—I felt like that was—like he really cared. And he did.
Then we—so, going back, you know, we had weapons training, and our final three day exercise, field exercise, we marched out to a field site and we put up our little tents, our pup tents. We—no showers or anything for three days, and you’re sweaty. We just practiced doing, like, digging a fox hole. So, we dug a fox hole and practiced going out on little missions, and protecting and pulling security [duty]. And sometimes they would pull the little CS gas canisters, like, you know, we were really getting attacked from gas, and it was just a culmination of everything.
Then we also did this one exercise where you’re low crawling and then—through this dirty field at night, so everything is kind of disorienting, and they have speakers out there, like, grenades going off. They also have—they’re firing over your head, like tracer rounds. You don’t ever really know how far up they are or not, or—it’s a little scary. A lot of trust you have to have that, you know, they’re not going to just—one’s not going to go down or whatever. That was pretty scary to me, and serious. So, we’d done that and that went well, and obviously it had to have been safe and approved, I guess, now if they went through it, and marched back. Then we were—we were done, so, with basic training and I had taken my PT test, and I had passed everything; I had done really well. I remember my drill sergeant came up and was like, “You know, you did really good.”
And I was like, “Thank you. Thank you. You know, you really helped me. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
He’s like, “You know why you passed?”
And it’s like—“Because I worked?”
He’s like, “Because you wanted to. You wanted it.” And that sticks with me too. There’s, like, so many words of wisdom. 23
TS: Was it a co-ed?
NB: It was co-ed.
TS: Just you slept in different quarters?
NB: Yes.
TS: But other than that you did everything together?
NB: Yes. We slept, showered, and had latrines in different quarters, but other than that everything else was together.
TS: How was that, I mean, for—because you hear in the external outside world that, you know, women and men shouldn’t be doing this together, sometimes.
NB: Yes. I have—I can see both sides of that. I think it’s unrealistic for—okay, let me back up. For our MOSs that were at Fort Jackson, typically they‘re more combat support, so medical, administrative; different MOSs like that. For infantry, if you’re going to be infantry you’re going to go and you’re just going to be infantry with men only. So, I think it’s good that we—that they do have that separation. I think it was good that we have co-ed training because when you’re in the day to day life of the army, men and women have to work together. We don’t go and fight a women’s war and then we go and fight a men’s war, we fight the same war all together.
I know that there’s always been conflict, or controversy, over women in combat. Even recently some of the political candidates have said that they don’t think women should be in combat. But women are in combat, and whether there is a piece of paper that says we are there or not doesn’t really matter, because there are plenty of women who have lost their lives. There are plenty of women who have been on convoys and hit by IEDs [improvised explosive devices], and that have flown attack helicopters, that have done just a lot of different things. And I’m [at] no less a risk of dying as is a man, and I think that we should have the same training, and so—and there are plenty of great women I have seen that have earned the faith and trust of the men below them. So, I think that, you know, it should start out in basic training; you have to work together.
And if there are to be men leaders there are certain issues you have to deal with with women, too. Like, you have to deal with, for the most part, separate restrooms were allowed. During deployment was that possible for some of the FOBs [forward operating base] we went to? No. There was only one restroom and one shower. Or there’s different issues with, maybe, women to become pregnant or sexual assault or sexual harassment or 24
equal opportunity; different stuff like that. So, you have to have that training and integration.
Kind of on the other hand of that, during deployment I have never experienced a more chivalrous environment. The guys, almost all of them, were so awesome. Opening doors, want to carry my bags, want to help me. We went to a restroom—we went to a FOB where there’s only one latrine and one shower. They would clear it out for us, and they would stand guard in there until we told them not to. On patrols and missions, they would tell us everything that was going on and what to do, and which one would be there to help me if something happened; if we were hit by an IED. But with that, like that situation, I fully realize that I could be a liability for that platoon, or for that truck even. Because if you have to have one guy that’s helping me, even though I may or may not need it, I feel that it is most of men’s nature to protect the female. And that’s one person you’re taking out of the fight; to kind of divert some of their attention, if that makes sense.
Also, we did have a female casualty on my deployment, and the way it affected men emotionally who weren’t even—she had died in a helicopter crash, but her body had come back to our forward surgical team for, you know, resuscitation and to be declared dead at that point. That’s kind of the only point where you have the first doctor declare that. So, even the men who had just taken her body off the helicopter to the aid station there, or the different men on the FOB who heard about it, they were so emotionally impacted by it and really bothered by it. It just blew my mind, because to me my life if no more precious than anybody else, but for them it’s the fact that women can give life, and that women are the mother of their children, that they feel they need to protect us. It’s just, kind of, an innate sense, and that’s how they have described it to me, so—
TS: How did you personally deal with that?
NB: The loss of the woman?
TS: Yes.
NB: I dealt with it the same way I dealt with every other death we had during deployment. Every death is hard. It was, just, interesting and different. It was fascinating. Again, I love to learn so it was just fascinating how they thought about it, and that it was different. I got such an inside understanding of men and respect for them. I mean, I just—it was amazing to get to know them and it was amazing that they trusted me with that, but beyond that, it was another death and another trauma.
TS: Did the men try to confide in you at all, like, talk to you about it?25
NB: Yes.
TS: How they felt, in that way?
NB: They did. Some of them did.
TS: Do you think that they might have been more comfortable talking to you than one of their buddies about, you know, their vulnerability in that?
NB: I do. I don’t know what I don’t know, so if there are men that don’t, you know, felt that way, but there have been men who have come to our combat stress clinic who have said, “You know, it’s nice to talk to a woman,” or—you know, kind of another way I think about it is, I am not in their unit so I kind of have an unbiased perspective. So, I think that that probably—probably was an asset that I used during deployment.
TS: Yes?
NB: Yes. And I’m not going to lie, I fake cried sometimes to try to get them to talk to me about whatever was going on, because they wouldn’t. So, if I could—it’s so bad, but if I could, kind of, psychologically exploit that weakness of them wanting to try to comfort a crying woman, then I did that because it opened them up talking, but it also showed them that I’m vulnerable too. And I have those feelings too.
TS: So they weren’t just out there on their own with those feelings too?
NB: Yes.
TS: Isolated with their emotional reaction.
NB: Like, one guy shut himself up in a toolshed for a whole day and wouldn’t leave at all. So, I tried talking to him and I tried, you know, asking him different feelings. I tried sharing with him my personal [unclear]. Nothing was working, so, you know, I did feel that emotion too, but most of the time I would close off my own emotions and tears. But I did allow myself to cry and show that to him to try to get to a deeper emotional level, maybe. And I know that this guy really—it was so out of character for him, because he had lost, really, kind of like, a father figure during deployment. I asked him—you know, I said, “Well, I don’t really know if I should walk all the way across the FOB by myself,” and you know, “Can you walk me over to the other side of the FOB because I just wouldn’t want anything to happen to me,” even though I’m carrying a knife and an M-16. He still 26
left the toolshed to walk me out, and got him out of that toolshed for the entire day. So, that was, kind of—
TS: So it worked?
NB: Mission successful for me, yes.
TS: What about the part where you said that sometimes you felt like a liability.
NB: Right.
TS: How did you deal with that?
NB: I sometimes felt like that, but then I would remind myself of the other things I’ve been through in the military, and then I know I can handle myself. Honestly, there’s nothing I can do about it because if something’s going to happen then I’m going to do the best that I can, and I can’t change how somebody else is going to feels towards me or what they are going to do. So, —And according to the Geneva Convention [treaties and protocols that established the standards of international law for the humanitarian treatment of victims of war], because I am in the medical field, I cannot have an offensive role. So, I cannot fire a fifty caliber machine gun, and I can only fire if fired upon, or to protect myself or my patients or our base. That kind of helped with some of that, like—
TS: So, you can be more protected by others in that sense.
NB: Yes. Like, I wasn’t expected to have an offensive position. And they had to trust me too, and had to trust that I would do what they told me to do. So, I think if I was in their position I would want to know that whatever I’m going to tell somebody to do, they’re going to do. And that’s part of leadership and understanding, kind of, who’s running that show at that time.
TS: Well, let’s back up a little—
NB: Okay.
TS: —because we jumped kind of forward there, —
NB: We did.27
TS: —but that was very interesting. You did a good job talking about your basic training, and so, you’re—you’re all in, right? You’re in the reserve, but you’re all in.
NB: Yes.
TS: I mean, you’re really enjoying this.
NB: Yes.
TS: And at what point—Did you ever think, you know, “I maybe should go active”?
NB: No.
TS: Why not?
NB: Because I guess I just—never crossed my mind, and I always, kind of, had my plan of coming back and going to school, and was in the reserves, so—
TS: What was your job outside the reserve?
NB: Outside the reserve? I had worked doing retail and worked at a mortgage company doing secretarial work; little stuff like that. So, no real job.
TS: You’re sticking to your plan of—
NB: Yes.
TS: —being able to get to college and all that.
NB: Yes.
TS: Okay.
NB: So, from basic training—do you want me to go on from there?
TS: Yes, let’s go on from there.
NB: Okay. So, we have basic training and we had finished basic training and graduated, and then from there we had—I remember my drill sergeant, because we were going to San Antonio for medical training. He said, “I almost lost my wife in San Antonio.”28
And I thought, “Oh no, what happened?” Like, bad neighborhood, car accident? No. From going out too much, partying, and who knows what else.
TS: She almost left him, is what he meant?
NB: Yes. Yes.
TS: I see.
NB: It’s kind of funny because throughout—you’re getting your military training, right? You’re learning how to fire; you’re learning how to march. But you’re also learning the culture of the military. Part of being coed, too, is that, you know, some things are talked about with infidelity. Like, some people have an agreement that if you’re deployed you do what you need to do to meet your needs, a.k.a., you can have a sexual relationship, or whatever, but when you—you don’t bring it back home and you don’t talk about it. Some people are like, no, if you’re away, you’re away, and you’re faithful and that’s it. So, it’s just kind of interesting because that was another part of the cultural indoctrination of it, and it was a funny thing to me. Again, so naïve and not really knowing with that.
But then we went to San Antonio and went to the Fort Sam Houston, and they have the AMEDD [Army Medical Department Center and School] Academy. So, that’s where we did our MOS [military occupational specialty] training. For me that was a 68 X-ray [68X], which was a mental health specialist. And it was a really great post, because when I had gotten there I kind of fell in this gap, because we were the first class that didn’t do this, but normally every class would go and they would spend two months at this other part of the base. Everybody was going to become a medic first. So, a basic, you know, medic, then you go up to get your other specialized training.
Well, they had just done away with that, so we went through just two weeks of a medical course. But when you went down to the other part for the medic, is when things were tighter and you, kind of—excuse me, you kind of earned your freedom. But—and then when you came up more to this other area of the base, you had more freedom to go out and—you know, passes and stuff.
So, when we got there they didn’t really have any rules for that, and there was a lot more freedom. It was a little more party-like, but for the first few weeks they had this—where we would have to go—we had to go to, like, four of these, kind of, services. It was like, kind of, a church service, but it was also a—I want to say a mental, spiritual fitness type thing—
TS: Okay.29
NB: —we had to go to. So, you could go to, like, four of those. You could do three and like a prayer breakfast or whatever, and then some days you got a one day pass or an eight hour pass to go out in our Class B uniform. Once you had completed that, you could go out every night until ten, or—and you could go out from Friday when class is done and you’re released until Sunday night.
I remember one—I had gone to a prayer breakfast and there was a former prisoner of war speaking there, and he was actually a prisoner of war with John McCain [former Republican presidential nominee who was a prisoner of war for six years during the Vietnam War]. And he had talked about how—just sharing their religious beliefs, kind of, through a crack in the wall, and some of those different experiences. I just—you know, that stuck with me, and I really remembered that.
Then when we got there it was three people, four people to a room. So, we had these nice rooms. They had a little microwave and a refrigerator in them, and bunk beds, and it’s kind of the life. Then we had class, so we would go to—it was just, like, a block away. We would go to this academy, which is a really big building, and there they have everything from physician assistant school, occupational therapy school to every kind of these specialized, like, pharmacy technician, x-ray technician, dental technician; all these different little medical trainings there.
So, our schedule would be, we’d get up in the morning, we’d do PT, come back, have breakfast, shower and change, go to class until about four, and then come back and get our mail, get our little lecture for the day, and whatever we needed to do. Make sure our rooms were clean, do our homework. Sometimes we went out for dinner. We went out to do whatever; go see a movie. Then we would have bed check at—I think it was either nine or ten we had to be in bed by. [chuckles] I just think that’s so funny. The drill sergeants come around and make sure we’re in bed and this and that. That’s kind of one of the funny things about basic training, too, is we were in this big room—big rectangular room with all these bunk beds. So, at night you line up and you toe the line, which means you put your toe on the line that’s painted on the ground. Then we’d sing the national anthem, “Star-Spangled Banner”, and do the Pledge of Allegiance, every night. Talk about a star-spangled heart we would have. Then the drill sergeant would give the command, “Prepare to mount.”
So, you run back and you flip back the covers on your bunk, and then you run back to toe the line; the position of attention. Then he’d say, “Mount.”
And then you’d run up, climb up in your bunk, lay down at the position of attention, and he would say, “Goodnight,” and all these girls say, [using a feminine voice] “Goodnight, drill sergeant.” Off he goes, you kick off your shoes, and you go to sleep. It was just—nobody thinks about, “Who does that?”, you know?30
TS: Right, go to sleep. Go—Jump into your bed with your shoes on, at attention.
NB: At the position of attention, yes.
TS: Did you usually leave your shoes in your bed?
NB: No, we would just kick them off onto the ground, and pick them up in the morning, you know?
TS: Gotcha.
NB: So, yes. We would have our little bed checks. A funny story from that, too, is we had cockroaches in San Antonio. I had never seen a cockroach till I went to Fort Jackson, and I had KP [kitchen patrol], and they were frozen in the ice machine. So, I never ever had ice again. Yes, and everywhere. And then in San Antonio we had cockroaches everywhere, and they were just so gross. So, we made a little bunk bed and we put on our little name tag on our door, you know, PFC Roach. [chuckles] Our drill sergeant came in and was like, “Where’s PFC Roach at?”
We’re like, “Um, we don’t know Drill Sergeant. He’ll come out in a little bit.”
“He? He? What is this he? Are you cohabitating in here?” [chuckles] So, then we all had to get out of bed and do push-ups for cohabitating with a male in our room.
TS: That’s funny.
NB: But it was just, like, I—to me, I take away that you make the best out of everything, and if a drill sergeant can kid-around with you, you know, then you can do the same as a leader, too. It’s not always just marching orders all the time, but it really is a relationship of trust that you build in getting to know the person, you know.
TS: Well, was there anything particularly difficult at your training; the training that you were doing for your MOS?
NB: The only thing that was kind of hard for me was PT, again. I had failed a PT test—the standard was up a little bit more, so I would have remedial PT. After class I had to do PT until I could pass a PT test, so that was for a few weeks. Other than that, there wasn’t anything very difficult. I loved the classes and the way they break things down, and you just—whereas, in college you take, maybe, four classes of different topics, everything’s integrated and you move at a faster pace because the army’s going to take what’s most important for that job and that position, and they’re going to give you more skill based than a lot of the theory behind things.31
TS: Right, the knowledge base.
NB: Yes.
TS: So, you had said earlier, like, school wasn’t really your thing?
NB: Right.
TS: How—So, you’re doing a ton of learning.
NB: Right.
TS: How are you feeling about all of that?
NB: Loved it.
TS: Yes?
NB: Loved it all.
TS: What do you think was the difference?
NB: I think that I had discipline from the military. I think I had something I loved doing. I think that, probably, a big part of it was, I was away from home, and coming home from school to maybe not the best family environment. And also, because of my family’s financial situation, I had worked since I was sixteen. So, I already had a job a week before I turned sixteen at a retail store, and you know, if I needed school clothes or lunch money or whatever, I worked for that. Here, I didn’t have to work after class every day.
TS: You got, kind of, a break?
NB: Yes.
TS: In some sense.
NB: Yes. Sometimes I say that the army is America’s best welfare system. Well, the military in general. Because you can take pretty much anybody, you give them a job, you give them clothes, you give them food, you give them a place to live, medical care for themselves and their family, social support system with—you have friends or you have 32
people around you all the time, and you have pride in what you’re doing, and you learn an amazing set of skills and a diverse amount of knowledge. Everything from first aid to weaponry to what your job is to, even, cleaning. And so, I guess, in that way I think I am a little bit of the American dream; going from hardship to something really good in life.
TS: When you mention the—you know, that you had this discipline and, maybe, a structure—
NB: Yes?
TS: —what was it about that, that you embraced so much?
NB: I just—I embraced the predictability of what was going to be going on, and knowing what the schedule was, knowing what expectations were. You say, “Jump” I say, “How high?” You tell me, I will do it. So, I really liked that.
TS: Some women have said, you know, that you know the rules.
NB: Yes.
TS: It’s not—like you say, it’s more predictable, I guess, in some sense.
NB: Right.
TS: And, I guess, that’s something that some people in the military, when they get out, find much more chaotic.
NB: Oh yes, for sure. Yes. So, in college, if I don’t have a clear syllabus, clear deadlines for homework, clear expectations, it’s very frustrating to me, because I don’t know what to do or what to expect, and I can guess, but it’s taxing to me to have to try to guess somebody I don’t know and how they are going to grade and what they are going to want. I mean, you learn after your first assignment or test, but I like to know in the very beginning so I can be successful.
That’s one thing I do for my soldiers coming in, too, is I give them—or if I take over a new platoon or I get soldiers for my clinic or whatever. We have counseling statements that we use a lot, and it’s an initial counseling, and I tell them, “Here’s what I expect. Here’s what I will not tolerate.” And I also, kind of, let them know my pet peeves, like, “You know, this may not be big for somebody else, and I really don’t care if you, you know, want some more down time, or you need a day off, where somebody else might, but I cannot tolerate—I don’t know. I don’t tolerate you saying you’re going to do something and you don’t have it to me by your deadline.”33
So, there’s just those certain different things, and I think even in psychology that has been proven; that people feel the best when they have predictable outcomes.
TS: And the expectations are clear.
NB: Yes.
TS: That’s interesting. Well, what was it about your training that you really enjoyed?
NB: I loved—I loved learning. I loved the friends that I had there, because I really—I had good friends, but it wasn’t anything like how it was in the military. They don’t really, or they didn’t really ID a lot in San Antonio, so. [laughs]
TS: You’re eighteen, now, probably?
NB: Eighteen, yes. So, we went out, had a good time.
TS: What’s the drinking age there, twenty-one?
NB: Twenty-one, yes.
TS: Okay.
NB: So, we went out and—you know, it’s a city, it wasn’t Sherwood, and it was really fun. I had, kind of, my first boyfriend when I was there. That was great, and then in the—at the end of our training, we had one month of clinicals. So, we wore civilian clothes every day and we went to a few different sites around San Antonio, and I went to an adolescent center. They had, you know, anger management, or—I guess they had, predominately, kids with disciplinary and behavior issues, so you used your training that we’ve been working on there. And it’s kind of funny, because you’re just, like, listening to this stuff and asking people how they feel. You’re like, “No way, that’s never going to work.” Then it really does work and you’re like, “Wow!” So, that was pretty exciting, too.
TS: Is that where you got interested in the adolescent obesity, too, or is that some place later?
NB: No, some place later.
TS: Later? Okay.
NB: Yes.34
TS: So, you enjoyed—you’re enjoying the learning? You’re acclimated pretty well, looks like, to the army. Your social life is going well.
NB: Yes. Kind of a coming of age, for sure.
TS: Yes?
NB: Yes.
TS: Did you—you talked earlier, too, when September 11th happened, you weren’t really—didn’t have a world awareness of political, maybe—was that developing at all, or are you still in your, like, “eighteen year old, this is my little space”?
NB: Yes.
TS: Was much penetrating it?
NB: Not really, since we were so sheltered from—in basic training we didn’t—I didn’t see a TV the entire time I was in basic training. So, sometimes we’d get news from the outside, like, if somebody went to the doctor, like the hospital, you know, they’d bring back news. So, no, I really had no idea, much, of what was going on in the world. Even, kind of, today, I don’t really have any idea, other than I know we had an extensive bombing campaign in October, and other than that, I really had no idea what was going on.
Same thing with in San Antonio, we couldn’t have TVs or anything, but it was, just, we weren’t so much at war then, I think, as what came about after Iraq.
TS: In 2003?
NB: Yes, and that could just be my, you know, ignorance to it.
TS: Or just your perception of—
NB: Yes.
TS: —what you were having to deal with, too. So, you—we talked about—you answer so many questions so I don’t have to ask. How was your relationships with, like, your superiors?
NB: Yes.35
TS: How was that? Is there a male/female dynamic, at all, that’s different?
NB: We had—in basic training we had two male drill sergeants for my platoon. We had one female but she wasn’t in our platoon, and so we didn’t really see her. Then when we left at the end, like, the last few weeks, we had a female come in. She wasn’t very strong, but she developed more strength of character over the few weeks she was there. So, that was kind of interesting to see her develop that and hold her ground, you know. With the male drill sergeants, I never had any problems with them. They were just respectful and caring and really great for basic training.
When I went to AIT [advanced individual training] we had more instructors, and we had one female instructor. She wasn’t really, like, for our cycle, because we had some overlap of cycles, but she did come in to lay out, you know, females will keep their hair like this, and your uniform like this, and your nails like this, and was very adamant about—girls aren’t going to—or, women, whatever—females aren’t going to slide and bend the rules with uniform, and stuff like that. The males were good instructors, again, no real issues at all for me, then.
TS: Did—Were there issues with dating?
NB: No.
TS: That was allowed, at that time?
NB: Yes. Some people—we call them AIT romances. They would be, kind of like engaged at the end. It’s just weird because you’re in this intense environment where you’re with somebody every single day, and so, you find somebody you can relate to, and you, I guess, really bond with them. So, some people, like I said, had gotten married or were getting married or whatever, so they could try to be at the same duty station, and stuff, together. Most of the time they didn’t really pan out.
TS: No?
NB: No.
TS: So, then, you were there—you’re in training through July of 2002?
NB: Yes.
TS: Then you go back to Fort Vancouver?36
NB: Vancouver, yes. Back home.
TS: Back to your home. So, what—that’s when you did your one day a month, or two days a month.
NB: Yes.
TS: And then two weeks a year.
NB: Yes.
TS: You did that for—not that long, looks like, maybe. Then we’re gearing up for the Iraq war, I guess.
NB: Yes. So, I came back home, and then went to college at Portland State University, and—while still doing my drill and a few extra weeks of duty here and there, where I could, you know, be put on orders and stuff. Then, yes, we have the lead up to the Iraq war, and that, I was a little bit more engaged in, with the weapons of mass destruction and blah blah blah.
College was hard, because I was in the military. I do remember being in one class and we had small groups afterwards, like discussion groups, and one of the girls was like, “Okay, you’re in the military, so you’re going to say why we should go to war, and we’re going to debate why we should go to war or not.” So, that really rubbed me the wrong way, and I did feel offended by that.
TS: Why?
NB: Because, just because I’m in the military doesn’t mean I want to go to war. Because now, I’ve learned a little bit more about the seriousness of war and experiences, and was like, “You know what? We’re, kind of, the last people that really want to go to war.” That’s when I adopted more of that later feeling, like I said. You know, you want to go because you want to do your training and you want to do this and this. But then you start to realize the reality of how serious it is, and you realize that we bear the biggest burden; we bear the biggest scars of war. So, the soldier is, kind of, the last one who wants to go, I think. Especially ones who have been to war before. And I just didn’t think—it’s a misperception that because you are in the military, you support war. It’s kind of like saying that because you are a police officer, you support firearms, or—you know what I mean? Different things like that. Or you support the death penalty. Because it’s not—it’s a generalization.37
So then, we had, like, the fall term I was at PSU, and we had Christmas, and the kind of going into the beginning of January and the winter term, there—things started gearing up a little bit more for our unit.
TS: This was in 2003?
NB: In 2003; January 2003. They put is in what we call—we’re in the “box” now. So, being in the box means that you can’t—nobody can transfer out of a unit. You know, you’re on your warning to go and to deploy. So, getting your paperwork ready; stuff like that. And I had worked up the unit more, too, with just helping out with whatever different administrative stuff. I was out of classes more, and then we got the—we got the order to go, and—that we were leaving.
We got it on a Saturday, and I believe our report date was the twenty-seventh. So, I think we got it on, like, the twenty-second or twenty-third. We had three days to get together three hundred and sixty people to deploy. Three days to say good-bye, pack up my apartment, maybe see my family for the last time, get my legal stuff in order, decide what I’m going to bring to combat with me. It was insane do to that.
And, they had stop-loss then, too. Like I said, in the box, nobody can retire, nobody can transfer. So, some people, that was their retirement date. And women who had had babies two months before had to go, even though they’re still, like, breast-feeding.
We had those three days, and I remember I just went, went, went and was working with the unit, and then also trying to get my apartment stuff packed up. Then, my dad had gotten ulcers, or like, bleeding ulcers. So, he went to the hospital, and I had said good-bye to him when he was in a hospital room. I think it just, kind of, stressed him out, too. That was, you know, a different kind of memory; vivid memory.
Then we left. We got on buses, we had a bag-piper, and we also had a few people who were conscientious objectors and didn’t go. We went to Fort Lewis.
TS: Well, on the conscientious objectors, how did your unit feel about them?
NB: I think it was—I’m not really sure how they felt about them. I—If I were in that position, I would think that it’s, kind of like—kind of another hassle you have to deal with in the midst of everything, and I think, at that time, it was fair if you decided you were a conscientious objector, because you may have joined during peace time. Although, I personally think, when those metal things come up that look like people and you’re supposed to shoot at them, that’s the time you need to decide if you’re a conscientious objector or not; in basic training.
And I dealt with some of that with mental health evals [evaluations], you know, later on when we went to Fort McCoy. So, I understand that now. I understand if you 38
deployed and you had to kill somebody, and you may have mixed feelings afterwards about that and you become a conscientious objector then. I do not understand enlisting in the military, serving two or three years, and getting benefits, and then not deploying and saying you’re a conscientious objector then. Like, if you enlisted in 2005 and then in 2008 you decided you are, because the whole time we are in war time, so.
TS: Right.
NB: Granted, you know, you can have children, you can have life altering experiences to change that, but it’s still a little bit hard for me. So, I understood that, and them, and at that point, you know, it’s like when the rubber hits the road, you feel different.
Then we went to Fort Lewis, and we were told, you know, “Don’t really unpack. Don’t get comfortable, because we’re leaving in two weeks.” We had to pack up our entire hospital, so all of the tentage. And we just don’t have a tent that we put up. We have a tent, we have the framework, we have the inner shell, we have two layers of flooring, we have heating and air conditioning, we have generators, we have big metal containers of x-rays and operating rooms. So, it’s—it’s like taking a diva on vacation; you don’t go easily, you know? [laughs] So, we had every—I mean, people just worked twenty-four hours around the clock, packing this stuff up and loading it, then sending it on a ship with a few people.
And our original war strategy, from what I understand, it was that our combat stress hospital—or combat support hospital was to be supporting the fourth infantry division out of Fort Hood, moving into Turkey, and from Turkey we were going to be moving south. We were also going to have about two-thirds of the troops—or three-quarters of the troops from Kuwait moving north, and we were going to, kind of, marry up in the middle.
So, our hospital floated off Turkey for a long time, and we had air force that were, you know, paving the area to put our hospital and stuff, but we never—it’s when more political things were coming up with the United Nations and other countries, and from my understanding, Turkey came under pressure from Russia and France and some other countries, and did not allow us to use that as a projection platform. So, we sat and we waited.
TS: Back in Washington?
NB: In Washington, in World War II barracks. And see, my dad I told you, was in, you know, enlisted. He did basic training and lived in those same barracks, there, in Fort Lewis, Washington. He’d tell me about the movie theater; it cost a nickel for movies, a dime for new releases, and this and that. You know, same area. So, it was kind of funny and, like, you know, taking on that history.39
TS: Sure.
NB: But that was difficult because there was no certainty on what we were going to be doing, where were we going to be going, and just, like, “Send us home. Send us anywhere. Send us to Afghanistan.” So, you know, we did different training, like, obviously, firing and field training, we got all of our immunizations, and those kind of things.
TS: How long were you there?
NB: From the end of January until the end of May, so—
TS: It’s a lot more than two weeks.
NB: Four months. Yes. Four months. [unclear] We made those barracks so comfortable with rugs and drapes and kitchens and cookouts, and some people even went to Rent-A-Center and got a big TV and recliners and paid monthly. We—You know, groups of people would go and do paintball or deep sea fishing or this or that there. It was just crazy. Or we had margarita Wednesdays and Thursday formation was an hour later, you know? So, it was just interesting and different.
TS: Very surreal in some ways, that you’re waiting for war and you’re doing all these different things.
NB: Yes.
TS: Where did—So, in May where did you end up going?
NB: At the end of May we went to—well, I was going to say, also Fort Lewis, my dad came up to visit me a few times. The hardest part emotionally of that, other than the lack of control, was that every time you said goodbye, you didn’t really know if it was the last time or not. So, there’s some uncertainty with that.
TS: Right.
NB: Also, I know that I had felt that we were going into Iraq, there wasn’t a lot of things established for bases, security, stuff like that, and so, I thought, what happened if I was raped there? And I started on birth control, because at least if I was raped, there wouldn’t be a pregnancy out of it.40
TS: Is that something other women do, too? Is that something you had talked with other people about?
NB: Yes. There is a few other ladies we had talked about with it, so. It’s a shocking statement and feeling, but it’s very realistic, I think, because you just don’t know. And you hear stories and you hear things, and so, you’re going to do whatever you can to protect yourself.
TS: What was your fear of rape—from who?
NB: I was afraid from enemy; from enemy, so—because I didn’t—
TS: Getting captured, and—
NB: Right.
TS: I see.
NB: Something like that, yes. Because nothing had really been established at all then.
TS: So, you did start to have some fear about what might happen?
NB: Yes, for sure.
TS: You had a lot of time to think about it, too.
NB: Yes. Four months of down time. And I had cut off all my hair. I have long hair now, but I had cut it off, because with the, kind of, chemical weapons, if I had to put my gas mask quickly, I didn’t want to have to worry about adjusting my bun, or if I braided my hair, or whatever. I just wanted it short, easy to wash, and easy to put gas mask on. So, yes. Then—so, those are some prominent thoughts on that.
And then we finally got, kind of, a mission for the States. They took a lot of our people and divided us up across thirteen different sites across the country. There was Fort Polk, Louisiana; Fort Knox, Kentucky; Fort Dix, I believe, in New Jersey; all those different sites. I went to Fort McCoy, Wisconsin. And then they sent some other people—individually went with units to Iraq. Then the rest of the people they demobilized and sent home. So, we went to Wisconsin, and we had—when was it? We went there and got in-processed in our, like, group of ten or fifteen people, augmented a unit. I think it was the 7228th, 26th, from Missouri, and they were a medical support unit. 41
So, Fort McCoy was usually base use only for reservists during the summer, but it had become a site, now, where they were mobilizing soldiers in and out of, and deploying soldiers in and out of. They had, like, medical stations, you know, where you’re processing people; their legal paperwork, their medical paperwork, immunization, blood draw, vision, family support. All these different areas you have to make sure are okay. And they’re doing their weapons qualification and their training; all that different stuff to get ready to deploy there. So, usually units would usually come there for about a month, and then from there they would fly out there to go overseas.
TS: I see.
NB: So, we got there to augment that unit, and there was a TMC, which is a troop medical clinic, and then there’s an SRP, which was a soldier readiness processing. Those were two buildings across the street from each other, and half the people worked the SRP and half the people worked at the TMC.
I had worked there a little but doing just the, like—the in processing when people would come in for—to see a doctor for medical equipment, or whatever. Then we had Major Pipler, and he was the, kind of, chief of physicians there. He knew myself and another soldier were mental health specialists. So, there was another person to—Major Vassar, who came through, and she was supposed to deploy with the MP [military police] company, but she ended up not going.
So, she ended up staying there, and she was a social worker, and she took the other girl and myself and we were—became a mental health clinic. We started from nothing, because before, people would have a mental health problem, it would have to be pretty serious, like, a suicide issue or if they did have something they would talk to the doctor, or they would mostly be sent—like, it’s thirty minutes out, was the closest hospital. So, they would go to the hospital.
TS: Like a private hospital?
NB: Yes.
TS: Or community hospital.
NB: Yes, community hospital.
TS: Not military.
NB: Yes, non-military. And so—and it’s just kind of funny because this girl who I was with, we hated each other. We were just, you know, oil and vinegar. And we’d gotten in little 42
fights; we were immature. So, they—our Captain, or Major Vassar, she got promoted while we were there, was just like, “Look. We are a family. You two will get along. You won’t be stealing each other’s boyfriends. You won’t be doing this. You won’t be doing that. We are all we have here, and we will watch each other’s backs, and this is how we’re going to run the clinic, and we’re going to do this.” She was just awesome. She came in and was like, “You know, these are going to be our hours.” And when people would try to, kind of, tell us we need to work on Sundays and stuff, she was like, “No. There’s no emergencies, you know, there’s no—we don’t have any units coming in. We don’t need to be there.” She would protect us, too. So, it was a very strong woman, and—who, you know, was hard on us, but she was good on us, and good to us, and taught us a lot, and she also protected us. It was really cool because it was, like, the first time we really did our job.
So, she was there, and we had to stay there—we were going to go home in October, and then it was January, and then it got pushed back to July of 2004. Then you could decide to extend another six months if you wanted to. So, I decided to stay another six months.
TS: Why?
NB: It was good money. I loved the experience. It was going to be more educational benefits for me, and I just liked it. Some of my other friends were staying, too, and so, I decided to stay. But my friend who was there—well, we ended up becoming friends, because often—
TS: The two of you that didn’t get along so well at first?
NB: Yes.
TS: Okay.
NB: What the military likes to do with two people who don’t like each other, is put them together. [laughs] So—
TS: Work it out.
NB: Yes. So, we ended up—when we first got there, we stayed in a hotel. So, I’ve had a very Private Benjamin [1980 comedy film about an American woman who joins the army] army career, right? I stay in a hotel, I have my own hotel room, I have people come clean it, come make my bed, whatever. So, we stayed in a hotel for the first five months, and 43
then we moved on base, and her and I still—we weren’t very good friends, but we were getting along, you know, but we would still talk behind each other’s backs, or whatever.
Then we had to share a bathroom, right. Oh my gosh, end of the world; sharing a bathroom. But, you know, we became good friends, and we really learned, like, I’m more book smart and she was more street smart, and we really learned to balance each other out. We really learned to take from each other the different good qualities, and help each other with our weaknesses, and it really worked out well in our mental health clinic, too.
TS: Excellent.
NB: Yes, it was good. And her and I, we call each other sisters to this day, because Major Vassar was like, “We are family.” So, to this day we still call each other sister, you know.
TS: That’s really terrific.
NB: Almost ten years later, yes. That’s—Those bonds you get, you don’t get that in the civilian world.
TS: Were you disappointed that you didn’t deploy to Iraq, or overseas, during that period?
NB: Yes, that’s a great question. I was. I wanted to go. Then, as I learned about the casualties and what was happening, I was grateful I didn’t go. I felt, kind of like, in God’s favor, in that.
TS: Did you feel a little guilty?
NB: No.
TS: No?
NB: Because I felt like we had a good purpose. I just felt more, like, gratitude for being spared, I guess.
TS: Well, in this clinic you set up, what kind of patients did you see, I guess?
NB: We saw soldiers before they deployed, or if they were sent back from deployment in the middle of the tour, or once they came back. So, you know, by May 2003, May, June, July, I would say, everything was still pretty exciting, from what I remember. You know, we were being successful, we were taking down the statue of Saddam [Hussein, former President of Iraq], we were doing this, we were doing that; everything was good.44
But then, towards the end of that year, you know, they started having IEDs [improvised explosive device] more, and I remember learning about them, and you know, taking casualties, and going through—traumatic experiences soldiers were going through. So, initially when units were deploying to go, some of them still had that three day notice, or they only had a few weeks’ notice, and that’s very, very stressful. But we would see—I would see soldiers who would come in and say, “You know what? This isn’t what I signed up for. I didn’t sign up to deploy. I thought I would just be in the National Guard, and helping out in case of floods or emergencies.” And so, that’s kind of difficult because, again, you get those training with those silhouettes, and we’re now at war, and I think it—it was just—it’s not like how it is today where you expect to deploy.
So, some people, it was just, kind of, working through with them about deploying, and finding out what that major concern is. Is it that you’re afraid to lose your life? Is it afraid for your family? Is it that you don’t feel prepared to go? There were also a lot of cross-unit transfers. So, were you the only person in your unit that, you know, is here? Do you feel isolated?
Some cases that stick out in my mind was that, we had one soldier who had served during Vietnam, and was in combat, and he had been in the army and stuff. When he—they went to the range to qualify, he had actually wet himself, because, I think of, previous trauma. So, in situations like that you can either just say, “All right, well, we’re not going to deploy you,” or you can help them make their own decision that they probably shouldn’t go. Sometimes command referred people, sometimes people came in on their own.
Also, we had a case with a gentleman who had grown up in Syria, and had family in Iraq and Turkey, and he had joined the army. He loved America, loved his country, but wasn’t expecting to war with his homeland. And his nametag, obviously, has a name, and the name is more of a family name, and it’s easier to recognize groups of families with the name. So, he was very concerned, because he was going to be an amazing asset to this unit, because he knew the cultural customs, he knew the language. He could be a translator. He could really help the unit, but he felt so torn, because he was—he felt like he was putting his family in jeopardy, that was still in Turkey, still in Syria, because if somebody there had recognized him, and then went to go and threaten his family, so, he was very concerned about that.
That’s a hard position, as a counselor, too, that’s, you know—I’m not here to make decisions for people, but it’s—I mean, you can appreciate his circumstance.
TS: Sure. Sure.
NB: So, he ended up deciding to go, and deployed with them. And sometimes for people, they just have to work through it, or you get stuck. They just need somebody unbiased, or to listen, or to help ask questions, and you know, help them to make decisions. So, —45
TS: Well, do you—with all the people that you counseled, you know, you don’t have, really, a connection with them later. Do you wonder about how they turned out, if they survived; all those things? I mean, do those things go through your mind at all?
NB: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I do. I—There’s, kind of, a difference in people from who I saw in Wisconsin to the people I saw on deployment. Because the people on deployment, I lived with them, ate with them. So, some of their units I’ve kept in contact with; we’ve gotten back to see how they’re doing.
TS: You mean when you were in Afghanistan?
NB: When I was in Afghanistan. As far as Wisconsin, I really didn’t hear back from very many people at all, but I do wonder how they are doing, because they’re such personal, deep experiences they’ve had.
TS: You’re sharing some intimacy, too, when you’re doing this.
NB: Yes.
TS: I would think that would be difficult, to just, you know, have a release from that somehow. I don’t know.
NB: Yes, definitely. So, it’s—you know, I had my friend and I had my captain, and stuff like that, to talk to. I want to make another point, though, about the people who came in and thought that they, you know, just signed up to help out in floods or emergencies.
TS: Sure.
NB: I think why it’s such a strong emotional point for me, because I am in mental health, I feel like I am here to provide a service to everybody in the military. So, I always try to do a good job about being professional, and about trying to be unbiased, and about trying to make sure that, you know, even if you never need me, you know I’m here and I’m open and I’m available. One of the hardest things I struggle with is that, here am I, away from my family. Even though it’s not deployment, I’m here away from my family. I’m serving my country. I have answered the call. And I’m looking at somebody else who is trying to get out of doing that. So, it’s—
TS: Hard to check those biases?46
NB: Yes, it’s hard in that position to really have sympathy. Do I do my job and I do it to the absolute best ability? Yes. Do I still provide them good services? Yes. Do I still try to help them see, you know, like I said, isolate what it is for why they don’t want to deploy? They have family issues? “Absolutely, that makes sense. Let’s look at what we can do for your family that you may not have been aware of, so that you can feel better going forward.”
But for the people who just come in and are like, “Well, this isn’t what I signed up for, and I don’t really want to leave home for a year.” It’s—I’ve got to dig deep for some sympathy for that one. And that is such an interesting dynamic with mental health, because, you know, you’re treating those that you are. So, I think, yes, it’s an interesting dynamic.
You had asked about the other people we saw in mental health. So, we saw people pre-deployment. Also, for people being chaptered out, certain chapters for personality disorders, or at that time, homosexuality, had to have a mental health interview completed—
TS: Oh, really?
NB: —by a psychologist, psychiatrist, PhD level provider. So, that was kind of interesting to me, too. I don’t really know if it’s because—find out if somebody’s really lying or not, or just trying to get out of deployment or not, or because you’re really verifying this, or because you’re attaching a mental health stigma to being a gay, lesbian, transgendered, you know, the whole alphabet soup of the acronym now, LBGTQQ [lesbian, bi-sexual, gay, transgender, queer, questioning] for it. But it was just an interesting other part of that mental health umbrella.
TS: Were the ones that came—that came through for that, for homosexuality, were they self-identified or were some of them outed? Or was it a mixture?
NB: It was all self-identified.
TS: All self-identified.
NB: And it was only two or three. So, yes, I think one person I know, I think the stress of being gay and being in such intimate quarters on deployment for a year, the thought of that and possible retaliation, whether there was or not I don’t know, but I think that was very stressful for them. So, yes, there’s that.
We also saw people when they were in the middle of their deployment, so, if they had a suicide attempt or gesture. One person was on lithium and was deployed. So, the danger in that is that, in a hot environment, lithium is a salt, so if you’re dehydrated the 47
levels can rise. Also, they have to be constantly monitored for damage to other internal organs, and so, this person had actually started hallucinating because of the medication imbalance. So, they came back. Good. Rightfully so.
Some people actually had problems related to the malaria drugs that were given at the time. And that’s been another, kind of, thing that’s been—that was in the media at the time. Then, some people had family—very severe family issues, or loss of life, or something like that and they came back. So, then we would, you know, just help them and make sure they have the support services they needed as they went home.
Then, we saw soldiers when they came back from deployment. Initially we didn’t do this, but as we started to realize, kind of, the effects of war, we would give debriefings for every unit that came back, about mental health services. At that time they also had the—what was called the Fort Bragg killings, where soldiers from Fort Bragg were killing their spouses. There was, like, three or four cases of it. So, this was very alarming.
So, we gave, kind of, post-debriefings; created them. And then for certain units that we knew had seen combat—a lot of combat, or war transportation units, we would do one on ones with them, like, five to fifteen minutes. They all had questionnaires to fill out; like, are you experiencing nightmares? Did you see death? Was it coalition? Was it enemy? You know, have you ever had thoughts about harming yourself? There was about six questions with that.
So, we would go through the questionnaire, and certain people that we saw, you know, had experienced, maybe, more combat, more trauma, more family stresses while they were gone, would, kind of, do a follow up with us one on one in our clinic. Then, we didn’t want to keep them at Fort McCoy because that’s not—you know, it’s punitive to keep them back—from going back home. But we needed to make sure they had the services they needed. So, I would call whatever VA, Vet Center was in their area, and set them up with an appointment—an initial appointment, before they left my office, so that way there was a continuity of care for them. That, I think, is something that Captain—Major Vassar had that was very—she had terrific foresight into the need for that. Because now, it’s standard and it’s required and, kind of, every base does that, but at the time it wasn’t.
TS: It was—That was new?
NB: Yes.
TS: Wow. I was thinking, too, about how—how many skill sets you have, and all this that you’re juggling, with the different types of patients that you’re getting coming through.
NB: Yes.48
TS: I don’t know if you call them patients.
NB: We usually call them clients, or service members.
TS: Clients.
NB: Yes.
TS: So, the clients that you have—that are coming through, whether, you know, like a suicide or homosexuality or serious mental condition, you’re juggling all sorts of different personalities, but also, like, I’m sure, family issues, that you talked about. So, I’m thinking at the same time now, you had said you started school.
NB: Yes.
TS: What happened with that; for yourself personally? I mean, did you have to withdraw then, and—was that—emotionally, how did you feel about what was happening in your own life for things like that?
NB: I had to withdraw from school when we went—when we left in January. I had the option—I could have taken classes if I wanted to, like some of my friends did, but I didn’t. I just never thought about it. But I did a lot of other, like, hobbies. I had taken a few martial arts classes, and I had—let’s see, what else had I done? Fitness classes, travel to Chicago, to Madison, to the Mall of America. I’d have an ice bucket to cool down my charge cards in between stores. [chuckles]
TS: I guess. [laughs]
NB: Yes. You know, I went kayaking for the first time. Really had a lot of different experiences, and stuff, there. I bought my first car. So, for me, I was fine. I was good. I had friends, I had—that’s, kind of, when I learned probably a lot more about clothes, make-up, and more about being a women.
TS: Yes?
NB: You know, dating, and stuff like that. So, I really—to the point of how it was impacting my later deployment, it was very miniscule. What I did realize, though, how this job affected me, was that it’s very serious, and these are real people, real lives, real things happening. When I went back to school, after coming back from all this, I took every class seriously. That’s probably when the major shift happened, because even though 49
what I was learning in the psychology class may not apply to me personally, or for another student that didn’t have those experiences, they didn’t see how what they were learning applied to what they were going to do. They maybe didn’t have that foresight. I already had the experiences. I already saw how important it is to know what you’re doing, how important it is that you are knowledgeable, because you’re dealing with very serious things; with people’s emotions, with their lives, with the worst experience they probably will go through in their life. So, if I could give them something, or help them in a way, then I took that as a very serious responsibility to do that. And therefore, that translated into me taking school very, very seriously, because I never knew when I would need something, and call upon what I had learned.
TS: You’re like twenty now, right?
NB: Yes. Twenty. Big change from eighteen to twenty. [chuckles] I was going to say for soldiers coming back, some of the experiences, or things we dealt with, was—soldiers units where they were told they were going to be there nine months, they were extended to twelve months, and then from twelve months they were extended to fifteen months. Or they were told twelve months—they were in Kuwait, they had their trucks washed, they were getting them on the plane two days later, and they said, “Nope, you have three more months. Go back up.” And then they lost three casualties—or they took three casualties.
So, the anger at that. That if you would’ve left then, if we wouldn’t have been extended, and just a lot of frustration with people feeling like their lives were just, kind of, toyed with, and no predictability. I think that was very stressful. There’s a lot of mistakes that we’ve obviously learned from the beginning of the war, and extending people and extending people, I think, was a big one, psychologically. So, frustration at that.
Stories, like—for medics who had people die in their arms. One person I remember said, “You know, here are my boots. My boots still have their blood on it.” Because now we have suede boots. Black leather boots, polished, easy to clean blood off of. Suede boots; blood stains the suede. I don’t know why they haven’t changed that, or thought about that at all, because it’s almost impossible to get blood out suede boots. It’s like, “What am I going to do with these?”
So, then it’s kind of like, you know, memorialization, that’s probably where—a good example to use that. Memorialization is one of the largest parts of coping past the tragedy; is the never forgetting that person. And I think naturally we would do that, and you would, kind of, just some ways—in a kind of guilt, not forget them or what happened. But honoring them in a good way, and honoring their sacrifice, is a very important part to overcoming that.
So, you know, there’s the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and there was World War II Memorial, but where was the place, kind of, for us coming back, dealing with our 50
tragedy? I think that that person was going to leave the boots, either at the Vietnam Veterans wall, or there was an exhibit at the Women and Memorial Service [The Women In Military Service For America Memorial in Arlington, Virginia] building, with pictures of the casualties up to that point. I think that they were going to leave them there, too. So, that’s kind of hard and I wish I could take away all that pain for them, but I couldn’t, and I could only be there to help them process and educate, and help that continuity of care. But I also think it was healing and therapeutic for people to work through this stuff, and try to dump some of it at Fort McCoy, before they went home.
Also dealt with a case of a soldier in a transportation company; transportation company was ambushed, or hit by an IED, and then ambushed. And this soldier’s responsibility as the rear vehicle, was to clear all the rest of the vehicles; go up and clear all the rest of the vehicles, and then pull forward, because different—we had different rules of what to do when you’re ambushed from an IED. At that time it was, you know, leave the vehicle and pull forward out of, like, the kill zone, we call it. So, you know—because if they daisy chained them, or whatever—so, you’re going to pull forward.
So, this soldier had cleared the vehicles, and went on, later to find that there was another soldier and a civilian contractor in the vehicles. Civilian contractor became a prisoner, and then he ended up escaping a few days later. And the soldier became a prisoner of war and was killed, and his remains weren’t returned home for another few years. They didn’t find him. There was a video of him being killed, and I’m not sure if that was released or not, or all the rest of the details, but I do remember the day that they announced on the news that they had found his remains and brought them home. I just cried, because it was final closure.
One of the things about being a soldier is that you know if you are missing in action, or a prisoner of war, that everybody will do everything that they can to return you to your home. And so, it was beautiful in that sense, but it was also beautiful in the sense—you asked do I keep in contact with the soldiers after they come back. No, but I could only hope that he got some type of peace knowing that, and the homecoming. So, in that situation, you know, I had to play through fifty different scenarios, well, and help them try to see the different faucets [sic, facets] of the pictures. Could it be that, maybe, they were hiding and bent down in the vehicle because they were being ambushed, and you couldn’t see them because of that? Could it be that they had gotten out of the vehicle and were hiding underground where you didn’t know to check? You know, could it be this, could it be that? See, there’s all these different scenarios.
And what happens in a trauma like that, in every trauma is, it’s called an amplification effect. So, you have the trauma, but the decisions circling that trauma immediately before and immediately after, are amplified and are given far more credit than I believe they deserve, because you can make a decision to turn down this road or turn down this road; made the decision of clearing the vehicles. Says, “Why didn’t I see him? Why didn’t I see him? Maybe I should have done this. Maybe I should have done 51
that. Maybe I should have done this other thing.” So, they get far more credit, even though he was doing the best he could in that time.
TS: He probably did fifty other things in that short span of time, that he made decisions about, that were great.
NB: Yes. Exactly. And so, part of this counseling is playing through the whole scenario again, taking time to go through it all, taking time to look at what could have been different, what couldn’t have been different, what you did right, you know. And again, memorializing them. So, there wasn’t really too much I could do for this soldier in my office other than that, and other than just try to be a support and somebody there to comfort them at this time, and to listen. Of course, I sent him up with services to return home, but how good does it feel to be this person who comes home, and you feel responsible for the fact that one of your buddies is still out on the battlefield. So, you know, it’s—these are very real situations that people are dealing with.
TS: Right. Well, let me ask you about—yesterday was Memorial Day.
NB: Right.
TS: How do you feel about how it’s celebrated, I guess is the word?
NB: Well, it never bothered me until my deployment to Afghanistan, and coming back. But I’m not a fan of the fact that we have school in that day, and I have voiced my opinion as such, and it is my understanding that in the future Memorial Day will be a day off. But I do understand there’s only so many days they can have as holidays, and designate that to try to benefit the most of the student population. So, that’s for UNCG [The University of North Carolina at Greensboro]. As far as everything else, it’s—I had people thanking me; “Thank you for your service and your sacrifice.”
And that’s hard because I—some people I responded I just said, “Okay, thanks.” And some people I corrected. I think they might have gotten a little, kind of, not understanding, and so I just stopped, but I said, “You know, today isn’t about me. I have Veterans Day. Today is about the people who have died, and honoring them.”
You know, so, they say, “Happy Memorial Day,” it’s like, “Happy funeral.” And—but then, all I can do, like, with the Student Veterans Association here is, we had a Prisoner of War/Missing in Action table, that has many different symbolic aspects of it, out at a barbecue that they had for the students.
So, you know, all I can do is try to educate people, and try to understand that the freedoms that I have promised my life to defend of our country; we have the freedom to barbecue, we have the freedom to go camping, we have the freedom to be on the beach, 52
and so, you know, that’s what people have died for, and what people have said they will give their life for. I just have to look at it like that, and that’s a coping mechanism, because if I really expressed how frustrated [I am] and how ignorant I think people are, then it won’t turn out good. But really, in some ways, I can’t blame other people because they just don’t know.
TS: I guess the one thing, and I don’t normally put my own on here, but the—
NB: Yes, please, do.
TS: —the idea of a Memorial Day sale—
NB: Yes.
TS: —doesn’t sit really well with me.
NB: Right.
TS: I just wondered, you know, from everything you’ve experienced, when you see that in the paper, you see that in a store.
NB: Well, I did get a good deal on some tires this past weekend [both laugh] because of the Memorial Day sale.
TS: There you go.
NB: So, you know, I—
TS: Mixed feelings then.
NB: It is mixed, but I look at what I can change, what I can affect. There’s a lot of things I can’t change.
TS: It’s our culture.
NB: It’s the culture. It’s the way people are. And this war, I think, is so removed from people’s forefront that, you know, it’s not really memorized. So, people who have lost somebody spend that Memorial Day, and they do memorialize them and stuff, and that’s good, and I say, you know, Memorial Day is for the rest of America, because I remember 53
every day. I don’t need a day to remember. There’s nothing I can change and affect with it, so I’m not going to spend my energy and time—
TS: On that?
NB: —being frustrated. It does anger me, but I just do what I can to change what I can.
TS: Well, let’s see. You originally signed up for six years—
NB: Yes.
TS: —in the active reserve.
NB: Yes.
TS: And then—so that would have put you—let’s see, you went to Wisconsin, you got out of there in 2005, January? And then you went back to your reserve unit in Vancouver.
NB: Yes.
TS: So, you’re getting close to cutting your ties with the—
NB: Military.
TS: —military.
NB: Yes.
TS: So, tell me the process from there, when you went back and—
NB: We went back and had just worked.
TS: Did you go back to school?
NB: Not initially. I went—I worked for a while as an assistant manager at an apartment complex, and I ended up—one of my friends became—from Wisconsin, her and I moved in together and—
TS: Is this the one you weren’t getting along with or somebody different?End of Part One.
Interview continues in Part Two.