Staub Michael E. - Love my rifle more than you: young and female in the U.S. Army

S OMETIMES, EVEN NOW , I wake up before dawn and forget I am not a slut. The air is not quite dark, not quite light, and I lie absolutely still, trying to will myself to remember that that is not what I am. Sometimes, on better mornings, it comes to me right away. And then there are all those other times.

Slut.

The only other choice is bitch. If youre a woman and a soldier, those are the choices you get.

Im twenty-eight years old. Military Intelligence, five years, here and in Iraq. One of the 15 percent of the U.S. military thats female. And that whole 15 percent trying to get past an old joke. Whats the difference between a bitch and slut? A slut will fuck anyone, a bitch will fuck anyone but you. So if shes nice or friendly, outgoing or chattyshes a slut. If shes distant or reserved or professionalshes a bitch.

A woman soldier has to toughen herself up. Not just for the enemy, for battle, or for death. I mean toughen herself to spend months awash in a sea of nervy, hyped-up guys who, when theyre not thinking about getting killed, are thinking about getting laid. Their eyes on you all the time, your breasts, your asslike there is nothing else to watch, no sun, no river, no desert, no mortars at night.

Still, its more complicated than that. Because at the same time you soften yourself up. Their eyes, their hunger: yes, its shamingbut they also make you special. I dont like to say itit cuts you insidebut the attention, the admiration, the need : they make you powerful. If youre a woman in the Army, it doesnt matter so much about your looks. What counts is that you are female.

Wartime makes it worse. Theres the killing on the streets, the bombs at the checkpointsand the combat in the tents. Some women sleep around: lots of sex with lots of guys, in sleeping bags, in trucks, in sand, in America, in Iraq. Some women hold themselves back; they avoid sex like its some weapon of mass destruction. I know about both.

And I know about something else. How these same guys you want to piss on become your guys. Another girl enters your tent, and they look at her the way they looked at you, and what drove you crazy with anger suddenly drives you crazy with jealousy. Theyre yours. Fuck, you left your husband to be with them, you walked out on him for them. These guys, theyre your husband, theyre your father, your brother, your loveryour life.

I never thought I would feel this waynot about these guys, not about this war, not even about my country. I was a punk-kid rebel, and now Im part of the most authoritarian institution imaginable. I thought this war was probably wrong, didnt want to go. The lies that got us there, that killed some of us, that wounded and maimed more of us: Only the most messed-up-patriotic-head-up-his-ass-blind-faith-my-country-right-or-wrong soldier believed them.

But now I watch a cheesy commercial for Anheuser-Busch of civilians applauding troops returning from Iraq and I get all emotional. I also watch videos on the Internet, with combat footageLet the Bodies Hit the Floor and Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)and it chokes me up. Its scary to think about how much being in the Army has changed me. That experience couldnt leave even the strongest person the same. Everything I thought I knew about what it would be like turned out to be wrong. Not reality.

So I wanted to write a book to let people know what it feels like to be a woman soldier in peace and in war. I wanted to capture the terror, the mind-numbing tedium; and the joy and the honor. Not overlooking the suicidal periods, the anorexic impulses, the promiscuity; and the comradeship and the bravery. The times we were scared out of our minds. The times we were bored out of our minds, too. No one has ever written that bookabout what life is like for the 15 percent. Dont count Jessica Lynch. Her story meant nothing to us. The same goes for Lynndie England. Im not either of them, and neither are any of the real women I know in the service.

In a dress, away from the base, youd never guess I was a soldier. Always been a girl that catches a guys eyes. And yet I do fifty-five push-ups in under a minute. Tough, and proud to be tough. I love my M-4, the smell of it, of cleaning fluid, of gunpowder: the smell of strength. Gun in your hands, and youre in a special place. Ive come to look forward to that.

It can turn you, though. Women are no different from men in their corruptibility. Women are just as competentand just as incompetent.

As I write this in the early months of 2005, 91 percent of all Army career fields are now open to women, and 67 percent of Army positions can be filled by women. Women are currently authorized to sign up for 87 percent of all enlisted military occupational specialties (MOS). But isnt Congress keeping women out of combat? There are no women in artillery, no women in the infantry. We are not permitted to drive tanks. We cant be Rangers or Special Forces. There are also some teams we rarely go out with because the gear is considered too heavy for the average female to hump on her back.

So people conclude that girls dont do combat zones. That were somewhere else from where the action is. But thats bull-shit. We are Marines. We are Military Police. We are there as support to the infantry in almost every way you might imagine. We even act in support roles for the Special Forces. We carry weaponsand we use them. We may kick down doors when an Iraqi village gets cleared. We do crowd control. We are also often the soldiers who negotiate with the localsnearly one third of Military Intelligence (MI), where I work, is female.

Insurgents mortar attacks reach us, too. In fact, because insurgents strike supply routes so often, its frequently the non-infantry soldiers like uswith fewer up-armored vehicleswho end up getting hit and engaging in combat.

In Iraq, I cleaned blood from soldiers gear after a roadside bomb hit a convoy. I saw the bloodied bodies of localscivilians caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. I saw death. I speak Arabic, so I participated in interrogations. I had to deal with the tension between wanting to help the locals and having to do battle with them. I pointed my weapon at a child. Ive understood things and seen things I need to forget: Humiliation. Torture. It was not just Abu Ghraibit happened elsewhere, too.