My dad served as a medical officer in the U.S. Army from about 1995-2005. Mom and Dad both had doctorate level degrees so the standard of being a warrior, a scholar, and having a family while serving was my upbringing. My dad worked with women (who often outranked him) and often spoke highly of women in the workplace. These moments made me want to join the military. My dad eventually left the service, burnt out from a system that hadn't kept up with the demands of a 21st century family. I enlisted in the summer of 2007.
Bootcamp was all about uniform differences, segregated lifestyles and the subtle hints my drill instructors would drop about how to avoid being targeted or “groomed” by male NCO's and SNCO's when checking into our first units. It was a space that always stuck with me because of how painfully obvious it was that the USMC did not view women as an asset but rather as a forced requirement. I knew moving forward I would have to work harder to be taken seriously but I had no idea how the lack of and maltreatment of women and other underrepresented groups in the Marines had already set me up for failure before my first day on the job. In bootcamp, they mentioned the Lioness Program and I hoped I would get picked for it someday. It seemed like the only cool thing women were able to do in the Marines outside of being a Drill Instructor. The Lioness Program attaches female Marines to combat units to search Iraqi women and children who may be trying to smuggle money or weapons through security checkpoints in Iraq. The “lionesses” also train Iraqi women how to conduct proper searches on other women.
In 2009, I was selected in country for the program. I left my old unit to attach to a HQ unit and the grunts within our unit offered up their expertise/ additional training to prepare everyone who was chosen. They understood how we were excluded from professional development opportunities and actually cared if we came home. The unit I attached to as a Lioness slowly embraced me and a fellow Lioness Seabee. It was painful to watch the men not know how to treat us or what to say but eventually they warmed up to us and over the next month I found myself truly happy with my job, the people I worked with, and the Marine Corps as a whole. I actually came back a month later wanting to re-enlist. If Lioness could have been a full time gig, I would have taken it. For the first time I felt like an equal and a valued member of a team and felt briefly that my character superseded stereotypes of my perceived gender identity.
I came back from deployment to a completely different shop. Old leadership was gone, new leadership was in. I was given a week of leave after a 9 month deployment and told not to request more even though I had accumulated 30+ on the books. That was the first taste of what the next year would be: micromanagement and high burnout. The next year with that unit was difficult because the work environment was toxic for almost everyone, sexism began to impact both men and women in our shop, re-enlistment of talent was low and morale was discouraged. Divorces, substance abuse, and suicide attempts rose drastically within our platoon, a platoon that hadn't deployed together yet and was slated to do so within a year.
We worked under a constant fear of retaliation among those who dare speak up on behalf of a junior Marine or expressed concern about the way things were being done. Mid-level management embodied "Semper I" not "Semper Fi", there was little to no support for mentorship or professional development. We had a problem: Anything perceived as being "woman-ish", weak, or vulnerable was a reflection of the person being a problem vs. someone experiencing a hardship, injury, or just needing a mentor to confide in or gain professional development from.