Dreams & Nightmares

Have you ever dreamt about losing teeth? I mean, really losing teeth?!

For a number of years, I frequently experienced nightmares about losing lots of teeth all at the same time. It wasn’t just teeth simply falling out but looking at my face seeing bloody gums and teeth coming out in handfuls. Most of the time, it was like I had rows of teeth like sharks do; I would freak out in the dream watching these teeth falling into my hands. Those dreams are a big part of why I am creeped out when little kids lose their teeth. I am the kind of person who is disgusted seeing kids with big gaping holes where teeth should be. Blah. (My daughter’s only lost a few teeth but I am not looking forward to when she is missing two or three teeth in a row.)

After beginning my graduate degree in 2014, my dreams shifted. I started to experience nightmares around midterms and finals. This change started my first semester in graduate school and instead of teeth falling out, my nightmares focused on military service. I am not surprised. I was working full-time with active duty personnel, veterans, and their family members while studying issues tied to military and veteran communities. The last nightmare I recall occurred after graduating last spring. When I am particularly stressed though I still dream about being back in the Marine Corps.

Last night I had one of those dreams.

It wasn’t complicated or anything. I knew I was back in Iraq and I was showing a fellow Marine how to inspect her gas mask. The only “conversation” I remember is reminding her (like you have to do with people in general) that the gas mask carrier is not to meant to store other things (extra rounds, food, etc.). It may sound silly but people will do it. In the dream I was stressed knowing my daughter was missing me; she’s never been away from me for very long and it was difficult to know my departure caused her grief.

Today has been a difficult day as I’ve had on and off again chest pains. I find when I dream about being back in the Marine Corps, chest pains often become part of the daily packaged experience. I struggle at times to stay focused when the chest pains last for a long duration. Today the pains felt like someone kneeling repeatedly on my chest, like it “normally” does for longer episodes of chest pains. When I experience the shorter pains, it tends to feel like a stabbing pain. Those types of pains were more typical the first few years after my chest pains began. (The pain today didn’t dimish significantly until after lunch today and started shortly after 8 am.)

For the most part, I tend to listen to music to keep my focus when I know the chest pains aren’t going away. I like listening to music anyways while I am working so it’s nice to be in a position where I am not frowned upon to be “distracted.” I am also not interrupted in my work the way I was in my past student facing position so it’s becoming easier to listen to multiple playlists throughout my day. (Yeah!!!)

My musical tastes are somewhat sporadic and typically I’ll listen to some country, pop, and rock throughout the day. I’ll jump from country to pop to rock depending on what I’m feeling with the songs. If I need to calm down I’ll find some good country songs. When I need some energy I’ll listen to pop songs and when I need to feel like I can accomplish anything, I definitely listen to rock. Haha.

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Today’s songs included:

Last Call (LeAnn Womack)

The Way I Feel (12 Stones)

I Wonder (Kellie Pickler)

Room to Breathe (You Me At Six)

The Heart Won’t Lie (Reba McEntire and Vince Gill)

Angels Fall (Breaking Benjamin)

We Are Tonight (Billy Currington)

Erase My Scars (Evans Blue)

That Don’t Sound Like You (Lee Brice)

Stories (Trapt)

Beautiful Disaster (Kelly Clarkson)

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I know the likely source of my current stress is upcoming fireworks, namely consumer use of fireworks. Starting on June 24th, my fellow neighbors are permitted to use fireworks and can use them until July 6th, and I know from past experience plenty will use the illegal mortar tubes ones. The $1,000 possible fines are not enough of a deterrent to keep people from using them.

The good news is I have another coping tool in my toolbox this year. While I cannot determine when my neighbors will use fireworks, I now know when permitted public fireworks displays will occur in my local area. I didn’t know this notification was possible until I was startled by a public display in late May and reached out to the Town of Gilbert’s Fire Department on the matter. From there, I was connected with the main fireworks company so I could get on their notification list and the Fire Department notifies me when other companies have fireworks displays around my home.

I would encourage other veterans who experience anxiety and panic attacks as a result of fireworks displays to see if their municipality also offers a similar service.

Fingers crossed I don’t have any more chest pains tonight or dreams about being back in the Corps. That’s all I need for a good Friday night.

~Cheryl

Posted on June 16, 2017June 17, 2017 by She_wears_dogtags 1

Pre- and Post-Deployment Health Assessments: Modern Deployment Exposures and Experiences From an Iraq Veteran Perspective

Last week, I heard back from the VA. Yet again, they don’t consider my chest pains to be service-connected. This reality kind of floored me. I actually opened up to them in my December 2016 claim and while it might sound silly to say such a thing, in 2007, I kept things simple.

I didn’t tell them about Captain Brock dying. I didn’t tell them about my kind of work. I didn’t emphasize my exposure to mortars, although that information was part of what I listed in my records about different types of exposures while in the Marine Corps. Back then, I was dealing with chest pains and I knew I didn’t have them before I served. They started at the tail end of my first deployment, continued after I returned, and remained a part of my life through separation. I just needed the VA to understand at my point of separation the chest pains were still ongoing and I felt they were related to my service in Iraq in OIF 2-2.

If I had realized what a miserable experience it is dealing with the VA on the disability compensation side of the house, I think I would have pushed harder to find the right medical support while I was in. For the few times I was willing to subject myself to medical about this condition, every person wrote ‘non cardiac origin’ for the pains but no one wrote in a diagnosis or suggested getting additional feedback on my situation. What’s more infuriating is the parts where it reads ‘exercise induced stitch.’ Seriously, in the twelve years I’ve dealt with these pains only the primary care provider I’ve dealt with most recently has delved further into this issue and offered different suggestions because the pains were getting to the point they were destroying my quality of life during waking hours and would interrupt my sleep.

For over a year now I’ve wanted to have a conversation with you all about the Pre-and Post-Deployment Health Assessments and I think with this other VA encounter, I have the right foundation for this discussion.

The VA does not know our deployments the way we do and part of the problem is also the way the system requires ticking off boxes, ineffectually asking and not asking the right questions. The forms we complete do not necessarily represent the types of situations we may encounter; let’s be honest here, the VA will never have records from the Marine Corps and/or the US government that 175 United States service members died during my deployment and these numbers best represent the information I was feed every day as part of my work in our operations center. I only know this information because I was determined to find a way to discuss my deployment, to shed light on other aspects of war no one seems to look closely at but is an important job all the same. I am only privileged to know this much of the extent of my deployment thanks to Military Times data.

In cases like mine my work was classified secret so how was I suppose to honestly fill out the forms? As well, even if I could be honest, there also is not a sense of privacy to complete the forms properly not that I would have trusted completely it in full disclosure. On my first deployment, I was the only woman on my team so I felt implied pressure to not be the “weak link” and during the second deployment a lot of stress from the first deployment crept up that I was not willing to discuss with my command. Nor was my situation helped by the fact my chest pains occurred on deployment and yet again, no real resolution came out of getting them checked out.

My apologies I currently do not have snapshots of my first deployment paperwork. eBenefits is being quite a disappointment and again not allowing me access to my military records. The next time it’s available, I’ll try to download all my copies so I can share those details with you. For now though, we can press forward using information from my second deployment documentation, the pre-and post-deployment health assessments.

FullSizeRender — This form was filled out on July 11, 2006

FullSizeRender (1) — It’s kind of funny I still had my maiden name on my pre-deployment health assessment. I was already married by then.

I’ve cut off segments of the documentation as my copies contain my Social Security Number but for greater clarity on this issue, below are fuller snapshots of the pre-deployment health assessment form that existed during my period of service.

Below is the updated version of the Pre-Deployment Health Assessment Form:

The revamp of the Post-Deployment Health Assessment is also of great concern to me, and I think all veterans of this era should consider how the inadequacies of the earlier form shape what sort of service/deployment experience is considered valuable, dangerous, and potentially traumatic. The forum in which service members were offered to complete their forms is equally as important. I can remember completing the first form in a classroom with a number of guys, classroom style as though we were taking an examination for a grade. It was really a matter of “everyone’s got to do it”. You fill out your form by hand and turn it back in. You don’t want to get called out for your answers and you just want to make it back home.

I don’t recall completing the Post-Deployment Health Assessment at the end of my second deployment but most of the handwriting is distinctly mine; there are only a few segments where the medical personnel filled in information. Coming home was very rushed that time. I can remember meeting my husband and his mother and sister at the Sheridan, Wyoming airport but I cannot remember who picked me up in California. I remember having issues with my military gear being stuck on the conveyer belt and an older gentlemen picking up my pack like it was nothing, hoisting it up so I could tuck my arms into the shoulder pads and settle it on my back. (To everyone who was part of my transition home, I do not make this statement about not remembering your support lightly. Coming home was that much of a blur. I didn’t have a moment to catch my breath and will still say that process didn’t start until I left 3rd MAW in late May 2007 for terminal leave.)

My chest pains are the only thing I shared with the VA as a serious issue in 2007 and again, I am making the choice to share so much personal information because I don’t necessarily see our system getting better if there is a significant gap between what people expect their service to be like and the reality of the experience. I hope by cracking open an issue like poorly constructed pre-and post-deployment health assessments provides a lenses for organizations like the VA to understand where they must also take a step back and learn from veterans what deployments are like. I also hope current service members look at their needs before the needs of the organization they serve; at some point, we all leave the service and our personal health cannot take a back seat because we didn’t want to look like malingers/didn’t want to lose camaraderie/didn’t want to let down the team when a medical issue should have prevented us from deploying.

When I also decided to share with the VA this go around the fact I’ve dealt with tinnitus in the last few years and for a shorter duration, moments of hearing loss, I expected to have them listen. I thought it was fairly reasonable to be ‘heard’ since I have recorded mortar exposure in my records but never sought treatment because I didn’t notice anything wrong at the time.

Right now my hearing is not to the point where I’ve lost full functionality and I sincerely hope it doesn’t degrade further but the hearing loss does scare me. (The tinnitus, on the other, is mostly annoying and only occasionally causes pain.) These issues make me realize I cannot continue to take my hearing for granted and I should plan more for down the road if it degrades to the point where hearing aids might be needed. For now though, I am pretty good about asking people to repeat themselves when I need them to and I remind my daughter to come into the same room if she wants to talk to me. (She tries to yell from upstairs but I’m going to miss a lot of what she’s jabbering about so I make her come down and talk to me anyways.)

I am already past my bedtime (Seriously, it’s 10:45 pm!!!) but in closing, take a moment to look at the October 2015 form. It is much more inclusive. (Please excuse the fact I cannot obtain a good snapshot that shows on each page the form is not to be handwritten.)

I will continue my saga with the VA another day.

Posted on April 27, 2017April 27, 2017 by She_wears_dogtags 0

America in Times of Conflict: She Went to War

Good afternoon, everyone. The video for the Chandler Public Library’s America in Times of Conflict: She Went to War panel I served on March 11th is now posted. I consider myself still somewhat of a beginner when it comes to public speaking and as such, have not watched the video yet. I think if I do and see how nervous I was, I might not be willing to share it with you all today. (I love written storytelling but I am dipping my toe into the territory of oral histories.)

I agreed to be a panelist to show support for my dear friend, Nancy Dallett. She is the Assistant Director of the Office of Veteran and Military Academic Engagement at Arizona State University and she is quite passionate about oral histories. She knew a past misstep with another oral history project left me somewhat reluctant to take on another but the way this project was shaped is what changed my opinion on the matter. What I do like about a panel is the interpretative distance the moderator plays with the panelists. She directs the conversation and keeps it in check, but her influence on what is stated via certain questions is tempered by the panelists.

I am quite proud of the types of questions asked of my fellow panelists and I. Often times, I feel it is hard for us as women to be asked truly valuable questions outside the context of victimization. I get stuck with questions that tiptoe around or center on the issues of sexual harassment and sexual assault within the military service branches and while I think it is important not to minimize those social problems, I think it is quite valuable our society continues to also see the professional opportunities for women in military service and the opportunities they can have post-servicing to enhance their lives and their family legacies. Situations like the recent nude photo sharing being discussed in the news can impact the willingness of women to join and/or to have their families’ support when considering service in one of our military branches. (The ‘Marines United’ nude photo sharing scandal came up as one of the questions asked by our audience.) As a female veteran, I want people who hear and participate in these conversations to understand any person (man, woman, or child) can be victimized at any point in his or her lifetime; it is more imperative we look for ways to make our society safer through education and awareness for everyone, not just groups of people or individual persons, and to instill appropriate punishments on the perpetrators so as to give the best measure of justice to the victim(s) of heinous deviant acts like this photo scandal.

Again, I want to reiterate the questions asked were quite considerate so as to not give you the wrong impression the panel was skewed far to the victimization spectrum of women’s issues. General themes included our motivations for service, expectations of what Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam were prior to serving overseas, the reality of our living/working situations abroad, and concern over whether we thought our service had a positive impact in our lives.

Fair warning, the video is lengthy. At almost two hours, you might want to set aside time to listen to it in its entirety or skip around for shorter conversations. My daughter asked a question of me near the tail end of the audience Q& A section (proud Momma moment here!) so I hope you her piece of the presentation. I didn’t expect she would actually have something to ask although she did ask before the panel began if it was necessary.

Take care and enjoy.

(If you have any tips on how to improve my presence as a panelist, I’d love to hear back from you.)

Posted on April 4, 2017 by She_wears_dogtags 0

July 2016

What a month! It’s not over yet but it has been busier and more stressful, complete with more opportunities and challenges. My nervousness over how fireworks would make me feel morphed into a bigger stress response than I imagined. As a result, I have logged my chest pains to keep track of them for an upcoming appointment with a cardiologist. Looking back, the 14 days of chest pains just gets exhausting. Thankfully, they are not all day long but once I do have an episode I do worry if I’ll have another attack during that day. While I have been extremely reluctant to seek medical assistance/further diagnosis about my chest pains the reality is after eleven years of suffering through them, sometimes I cannot manage them effectively on my own. I do find it difficult to carve out sufficient exercise time which keeps them in check. Separately, the sensation of these pains has changed over the years and I know that issue alone is pretty significant to go back to seek medical advice and assistance.

During the Fourth of July, I found it possible to avoid most of the fireworks. My husband and I went to the Keg for a late dinner and walked over to the movie theater in the San Tan mall. Unfortunately, some very overzealous individuals started shooting off fireworks before it was even 9 o’clock. I had some high hopes we could miss the fireworks that night in its entirety but not so much. Although I will be flattening the conversation significantly, being around fireworks does not upset me so much because it reminds me of the constant danger I was in while serving in Iraq. That sucks but it wasn’t the worst thing. It is a struggle because it is a reminder of the worst mortar attack we had which killed my officer. The sound of that attack is something that is seared in my memory more than any other one event. It is a struggle because I know I survived that attack and while so many of us knew Captain Brock we couldn’t save him. The Quick Response Force couldn’t save him. The Medevac crew couldn’t save him. We all–his Marine family–were powerless against an indirect weapon and the rest of us came home.

My daughter asked me recently why I didn’t die in Iraq. She asked this question of me after seeing the Eyes of Freedom memorial while I attended the WAVES conference (Western Association of Veterans Education Specialists) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I had no answer for her other than that I was fortunate. Even then, it’s not a full answer. I was moved to the night shift in December of 2004. As such, I was at my barracks the day Captain Brock was hit outside our work. That day, it could have been almost anyone who worked in that building or it could have been no one. I was at my home talking to my grandmother on the phone and the blast was something that was easily felt from my location. It made the most terrifying sound of all the mortar impacts we took.

I know other war veterans understand why carrying survivors’ guilt is hard. We have the rest of our lives to carry the burden of those who didn’t make it home. Our existence, our homecoming, is tinged with the reminder we were granted years deprived of our peers. We will think of the accomplishments they didn’t get to enjoy; we will think of the children they didn’t have; and we will think of the fact their families will never be the same.

Posted on July 21, 2016 by She_wears_dogtags 0

June: PTSD Awareness Month & A Brief Look Back

Please don’t take my extended absence from writing as a sign that I am not interested in continuing my veteran (and more specifically, female veteran) awareness efforts. During my recent absence I have attended to moving into my recently purchased home. You can read about that journey–should you be interested–at my other blog, Builder Grade and Reclaimed. The other large factor contributing to my absence has been my concern over the increasing violence in Fallujah and knowing that while I served in Iraq and Fallujah was in our area of operations there is nothing I can truly say as an American that speaks fully to the horror Iraqi citizens currently face on a daily basis. It is also hard not to feel a bit ashamed that I am quite privileged–enjoying the fruits and discussing the frustrations of homeownership for the first time–in the midst of such chaos, particularly when I see the large number of affected children.

In doing what I can given my current status as an amateur writer I wish to speak to you all about the fact June is PTSD Awareness Month. In the most recent couple of months I’ve begun to notice more articles that discuss the mental toll war takes on refugees and their disjointed access to support services. As a veteran, I cannot help but notice the focus on PTSD as it relates to war veterans and the stigma associated with treatment. Furthermore, the more recent shooting at Pulse in Orlando adds another layer to how violence plants the seeds for lifelong hurt in the community. I was stunned when I read about how first responders were dealing with the constant ringing of cellphones as they conducted their work at the crime scene and I realized I,too, need to broaden my perception of who is affected by violence locally (city, state), regionally, nationally, and globally. We do not always know the victims firsthand but we may know friends or family members of the victim or feel our shared identity allows us to empathize with their situation, perhaps it even brings up the hardships in our own past.

The older I get the more I realize it’s ok to talk about my own struggles with anxiety as it relates to fireworks and veteran deaths. The two issues are markedly similar to my first deployment experiences of frequent mortar fire and daily deaths of service members. I can tell you daily life is not always a challenge for me the way it is for other survivors (war, sexual assault, weather-related catastrophe, domestic violence, mass shootings, and so forth). The research I invested earlier this year crafting my applied project took a significant emotional toll on me but it’s coming close to that time of year where the celebratory use of fireworks by others makes me cringe.

After experiencing fireworks last year in my old Gilbert neighborhood on the 4th of July and then again for New Year’s the trepidation for the upcoming Fourth of July has been building and for that reason I decided to open up about my issues. I don’t know what my new neighbors are like and if they will shoot off fireworks from our shared driveway the way the former neighbors did. I don’t know if individuals in this neighborhood and the neighborhoods surrounding us will subject me to a marathon four-hour ‘celebration’ on New Years that will bring on a series of chest pains and hours of anguish. I cannot imagine what the Fourth looks like but I am nervous already about potentially losing a whole night’s sleep and still needing to go into work the next day.

I am exceptionally aware of the fireworks season when it crops up: local vendors set up stands on their vehicles on the side of local roadways and local stores clean floorspace for variety packs of fireworks for nearly every budget. While others plan fun for themselves, I’m counting down the days until I suffer through a particular hell I never imagined I’d be back in. In war after a mortar attack, I had a purpose and so I trudged through my tasks because my work helped keep people alive. A daily mortar attack here and there became normal and I adopted a casual brush off of this experience. So long as we looked around and everyone was ‘ok’ things were normal.

Looking back on my past, I am now rather grateful fireworks were–and are–such a rare exposure. I lived in the barracks for most of my Marine Corps career and so I did not encounter fireworks there. When I moved off base–residing in Oceanside–fireworks weren’t a concern either. From the alley of our home in Cody, Wyoming I could see the large public fireworks display off in the distance which I find enjoyable but none of my neighbors lit fireworks down the street. (To be honest, I also don’t know if it was permitted either but I am grateful my exposure was limited.) During the time I lived with my in-laws in Mesa and later in ASU’s family housing I also did not contend with fireworks.

So please know for the duration of June 24th to July 6th–the time period in which the use of fireworks is permitted here–I will be more on edge as I wait to see with what frequency my neighbors use fireworks.

In also addressing the 2006 versus 2016 comparison I’ve promised you, below is one of my previous entries from 2006. I know I am off a day but I didn’t write as much in 2006 as I thought I did. However, this time period of entries is a good one because it gets close to when I left for my second deployment with 3rd MAW, serving on the deployment under MAG-16.

Screen Shot 2016-06-18 at 6.21.48 PM

Posted on June 18, 2016June 18, 2016 by She_wears_dogtags 0

The Final Reveal: An Alternative View of Operation Iraqi Freedom

I am very proud to say my applied project is complete. Revisiting the American casualty information, the most painful part of the research process, took nearly the whole semester. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I had to step back from the process. Before building this applied project, I never spent a substantial amount of time looking at the narratives of my fallen comrades. Given my past work on activity reports for our area of operation, I spent 12 hours a day, 7 days a week viewing data on killed and wounded personnel (friendly forces, civilian, and enemy). While I’ve previously talked to you all about Captain Brock I forced myself to sort through the data for the total 553 American military personnel killed from August 13, 2004 to February 25, 2005. The images below are courtesy of MilitaryTimes Honor the Fallen. One of the hardest stories to learn, when I investigated the issue further was the death of Corporal Paul Holter because he died by the thoughtless actions of a fellow Marine.

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I intentionally looked for information on individuals who died specifically within the Al Anbar Province; units would have sent us this casualty data along with the number of wounded persons in the same incident. For this reason, the American service member casualties represents the most accurate reality of the deployment because I could sort through each narrative to find the right dates and province. Eight individuals who were wounded in the Al Anbar province died outside this area (one passed away in Baghdad, 2 passed away in Germany, and 5 passed away stateside) and so were not included in my applied project. There are a number of deaths that read as potential suicides although the cause of death is not stated as such. While I do not mean to come across as insensitive to the families, there is such a struggle maintaining intra- and intercultural conversations regarding suicide and each time we hide the circumstances surrounding our loved ones’ passing, we further exacerbate the social stigma. For the most part I did not label any service member’s death by circumstance in my presentation because many simply state ‘enemy action’ as the cause of death, particularly for the Marine Corps, whereas more of the Army narratives list a specific weapon type. I do not know how to make any useful connection (or know if there is one) about this difference.

It was equally as important to look for information on wounded American service members. While I don’t know what types of injuries qualified for record purposes, I did not make an analysis about that lacking data in my applied project write up. Once again, in providing the human toll of war, my purpose was to align the numbers that might represent what we would have “seen” coming across our desks. For this reason, the data is incomplete for my purposes but provides greater context because it is not limited by day or province. However, I reigned the numbers back in by only showing Army and Marine Corps data since these branches made up the majority of our area of responsibility. iCasualties.org provided the necessary data for this segment of the applied project. Unlike the American deaths, it was not a struggle to collect this information.

The more I moved away from American data and my experiences, the easier it was to review the hard data. Iraqbodycount.org provided the second most substantial amount of data and also the second most accurate representation of that deployment reality. However, I have more work to do in understanding the individuals who made such a site possible. We all carry our own biases and while I may question who is listed as a civilian, their assessment–from the construction of the site and language utilized–lends itself more to who do we count as our enemy? From this site, I gathered information that was only specific by month and year. For this reason, my applied project included more data than I had planned for but I could not break it down into daily numbers as was available for the MilitaryTimes casualty information. I wasn’t able to find Iraqi civilians wounded from the same time period through Iraqbodycount.org. I think it’s very important that Iraqbodycount.org acknowledges why this issue is complex. A 2003 article on their site, Adding Indifference to Injuries, is just one such online article that addresses this problem. Outside of my research for this project, I do know there are many others trying to undo this marginalization, like the Costs of War Project.

The gaps in piecing together the data cannot be overlooked but they can be explained. None of the numbers alone on any side though reflects accurately on the war. The connections between social systems, the breakdown of such systems, and learning another culture’s values on the fly shape our perceptions of war and incidents of all scales and frequency happen out of emotional responses and intentionality. (I would say this statement is true of all matters not just war.) These are not the only intersecting factors, but as narratives become known, these issues are more visible. I would highly recommend the HBO mini-series Generation Kill as a good representation of pulling these issues together. There are not a lot of war genre shows or movies that I can tolerate about Iraq; however, this one shows aspects of Marine Corps culture that I appreciate. Additionally, I appreciate how concern for Iraqi civilians is represented and how those individuals who do not express concern for Iraqi civilians is also represented. We must be willing to acknowledge that both types of individuals exist not only in our military but also in our nation.

It is also important to mention I am not pro-War or anti-War. I think to say something as controversial as war is 100% right or wrong in all situations is not an educated statement. While it is not my place to tell others what opinions to have, I will work to respect both sides of the spectrum so long as individuals throughout the spectrum understand a difference of opinion is a difference of opinion. Opinions are neither right or wrong.

One of the last pieces of information which was the most difficult to find was that for insurgent forces killed and wounded. Again, like the data for American wounded, Iraqi civilians killed and wounded, I am confronted with the reality none of this data is transparent enough for me to correlate it with my deployment. For this reason, it is impossible to say I’ve truly given my audience the knowledge they need to understand the enormity of the situations specific to the deployment. Instead, I’ve given the next available answers. From a 2007 USAToday article, I found this last piece of the deployment puzzle. A 2007 Stars and Stripes article shows this information broken down more clearly. I would recommend checking out the latter article as I’ve had trouble on numerous occasions with getting the USAToday article to display properly.

My journal entries which are significant to understanding the deployment are embedded throughout the applied project. I do apologize for the fact the ones at the latter part of the presentation might seem exceedingly long. I was concerned the longer entries might be hard to read if they were shown for a shorter period of time but several individuals mentioned they could read faster than the pace of the presentation. While I won’t make every entry I’ve ever written public, there are strong conversations from my past that will always be worth remembering. The journal entries I shared were carefully chosen for what they mention about the violence in Iraq with respect to my work and the indirect fire we experienced on base; my positive and negative responses to the dangers; and my feelings about my friends, family, and my place in the Marine Corps.

As this blog progresses further, I will continue to provide you all with comparisons between 2006 and 2016 and 2007 and 2017 to show how my life has changed as my Marine Corps career ended and my current life looks now. I cannot promise a lot other than a continued interest exploring and discussing today’s military culture, especially as the role of women changes. I am equally interesting in conducting more research about the broader implications of Operation Iraqi Freedom and sharing my finds with you all. Lastly, because my schedule has opened up significantly, I am looking to read more academic articles and popular books about our military.

I want to thank you all for following along on this journey so far and I look forward to sharing more again soon. If you are interested in looking at some of the articles I used for toward the applied project, they are listed below. All were accessed through ASU’s libraries using JSTOR.

Tina Mai Chen’s (2004) Introduction: Thinking Through Embeddedness: Globalization, Culture, and the Popular

Liam Corley’s (2012) “Brave Words”: Rehabilitating the Veteran-Writer

Liam Kennedy’s (2009) Soldier Photography: Visualising the War in Iraq

Sincerely,

Cheryl

Posted on May 8, 2016May 8, 2016 by She_wears_dogtags 3

Welcome to 2016!

As 2015 drew to a close, I anticipated fireworks. Seriously, I expected something on par or less than what occurred in our neighborhood for the Fourth of July. Once again, I want to reiterate I like fireworks. I do. I think they are beautiful to look at and can be enjoyable. On December 31st though, they were not enjoyable for me in the slightest.

Neighbors of all sorts went all out and it seems quite a few bought the biggest (and loudest) fireworks they could find. This time as well, we had neighbors launching fireworks at the end of the shared driveway. With the exception of our old neighbor who moved a few months ago, the people that live near us do not know I served in Iraq or that I lived on a base that was frequently mortared for the duration of that seven month tour. The fireworks they find enjoyable, in such close proximity, cause me a great deal of anxiety. I like my fireworks safely from a substantial distance.

The festivities my neighbors (and those in the neighborhood over, it seemed) enjoyed lasted approximately from 9pm until 12:20 am. The noise was unbearable for me and when I did manage to fall asleep sometime before eleven, I was startled awake around eleven-thirty. The evening was like having seven months of being mortared cramped into almost four and a half hours.

Miserable does not aptly describe what New Year’s Eve felt like for me. There are only a few people close to me that probably understand what I’m talking about here. (For those that have not lived through mortar attacks, I am sure you can find various videos on YouTube, which will give some you a partial understanding.) I am seriously grateful New Year’s Eve is over and I won’t encounter large explosions again until the Fourth of July. I think for the next occasion, I’ll throw some headphones in to get somewhat of a reprieve.

Listening to music helps calm me down in stressful situations. Luke Bryan’s music has been among my favorites for 2015. I LOVE his Kill the Lights cd. It was a lot of fun when I was in Nashville a few months ago to see some of his things in the Country Music Hall of Fame.

I had a great time seeing the Luke Bryan display in October…love, love, love his music.

For now, I’m setting up 2016 to be a great year in other ways.

Completing my final semester of my Master’s program in May.
Sending congratulations to all my friends when their new babies arrive. (Right now, it’s mostly first and third borns due).
Taking our daughter on her first summer vacation to Disneyland.
Finding 30 minutes a day 5-6 days a week for “me” time. I’ve dearly missed my exercise time.
Getting my watercolor tattoo in October.
Writing on a more consistent basis, hopefully once a week. Maybe no more than two week stretches.

Ok, so none of those are resolutions, just objectives to tackle. I don’t want to quite on my goals once we roll into February, like I do with resolutions. I’ll keep you all posted.

Warm wishes for the new year, by the way.

~Cheryl

Posted on January 3, 2016January 3, 2016 by She_wears_dogtags 0

She Wears Dogtags

Reflections on Military Service and Society

She Wears Dogtags

Category: stress

Dreams & Nightmares

Pre- and Post-Deployment Health Assessments: Modern Deployment Exposures and Experiences From an Iraq Veteran Perspective

America in Times of Conflict: She Went to War

July 2016

June: PTSD Awareness Month & A Brief Look Back

The Final Reveal: An Alternative View of Operation Iraqi Freedom

Welcome to 2016!

Reflections on Military Service and Society

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