Love My Rifle More Than You

I spent the weekend reading Kayla Williams' memoir Love My Rifle More Than You.

While John Crawford's memoir, The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell, left me in tears (sobbing actually), Williams' book sometimes made me laugh, but never actually surprised me.

I have already heard about some of the sexual harassment and assault that female soldiers encounter. That did not surprise me. It has seemed clear to me for a while that a female soldier could expect to be groped, verbally harassed, assaulted and possibly raped. My ex/partner experienced many of those things before she was deployed.

Williams also emphasized that in the military a woman could only be either a bitch or a slut. Williams was often labeled a slut. Though the stakes are higher in the military and the situation is more intense, the bitch/slut dichotomy is a lot like civilian life. Been labeled both things myself at one point or another. Actually, so had Williams as a civilian.

Unlike Crawford, Willimas did witness what any one of us would call prisoner abuse. And my guess is that my ex/partner did too. I know my ex/partner visited EPW camps. Perhaps I am too cynical, but even with new regulations about interrogating prisoners, the scene couldn't be a good one.

I read both of these books to get a clearer sense of what my ex/partner might be going through as a soldier in this war, but also to try to gain insight into the mental and emotional life of a soldier. I got both.

Even though Williams' book didn't surprise me, it did serve as a reminder of what daily life might be like for my ex/partner, and even more than that, what the consequences of living like that might be.

Both Williams and Crawford had a difficult time readjusting to civilian life. Both certainly wanted to spend time around people who understood what they had been through. I suppose it is difficult to be patient with civilians who always ask "What was it like?" but I still can't figure out what the right question to ask might be.

Both of these books made the same thing clear to me, though in different ways, no matter how prepared I might have been for being a Military Wife, no matter how prepared she might have been for going to this war--no preparation was enough to change what was going to happen. Knowing about the patterns, the emotional stages of deployment, what to do and not do for a soldier--none of those things keep people from succumbing to the patterns, the emotional stages, etc.

Even if I had done everything wrong--stopped writing or never sent a package instead of sending thoughtful notes, detailed letters, funny homemade family newsletters every month and huge packages more than once a week; if I had cried like a baby every time we were on the phone or complained instead of being happy happy happy all of the time and struggled alone with the daily crap of life; even if I had done everything wrong, I couldn't have changed this. And I don't think that doing everything wrong would have felt any better either. This just plain sucked--no matter how it would have been handled. Damn it, I actually thought it could be a livable and survivable situation. I really really thought that if I did everything right, I could help to pull both of us through this.

And no, it is not a matter of a soldier having made a choice to join the military or to go to this war. As Kayla Williams noted in her memoir "In the Army you are given choices that aren't really choices." Once you are there, and the reasons people get there are too common, you lose choice. And since the reason that soldiers get there often has to do with a lack of better choices, there is a bigger picture to examine here.