Teresa Fazio - Fidelis: A Memoir

This powerful, haunting story by a former Marine officer deployed to Iraq is about being a woman in a traditionally male world, about war and peace and love and death, and about the heat of the desert and the coldness of loss. This is a heart-racing read, full of surprises, with a knock-out messagewomen, listen up!

Susan Cheever, author of Drinking in America and Home Before Dark

A startlingly frank discussion of both a combat deployment and the fallout from an affair, Teresa Fazios Fidelis is an incisive, fascinating, and thankfully unromantic account of love and war.

Phil Klay, author of Redeployment, winner of the National Book Award

Fidelis is an achingly good book about love, war, and returnthat rarest of memoirs that manages to be both true to the experience and genuine art at the same time. Teresa Fazio establishes herself as a first-rate writer with this accomplishment. Know her name and this courageous, fierce story too.

Matt Gallagher, author of Empire City and Youngblood

Teresa Fazios candid and compelling memoir of family trauma and war sheds new light on the nature of moral injury. Fidelis explores the deeply human need to be connected to others and loved unconditionally, in war and at home. An essential read for those seeking to understand the challenges and questions young women face while serving in the armed forces.

Jerri Bell, coeditor of Its My Country Too: Womens Military Stories from the American Revolution to Afghanistan

Fidelis is a tender, intimate coming-of-age story from a wonderful writer. Teresa Fazio perfectly re-creates the fumbling anxiety of early adulthood, masterfully capturing how the pressures of the Marine Corps honor code, Catholic tenets, and childhood memories combined to complicate her growth into womanhood. For anyone seeking to understand who serves in todays military, this is a must-read book.

Kayla Williams, author of Plenty of Time When We Get Home: Love and Recovery in the Aftermath of War

Teresa Fazio

Potomac Books

An imprint of the University of Nebraska Press

2020 by Teresa Fazio

Cover designed by University of Nebraska Press; cover image: iStockphoto / rose: heibaihui; insignia: mj0007.

Author photo courtesy of the author.

Acknowledgments for the use of copyrighted material appear in , which constitutes an extension of the copyright page.

All rights reserved. Potomac Books is an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Fazio, Teresa, author.

Title: Fidelis: a memoir / Teresa Fazio.

Description: [Lincoln]: Potomac Books, an imprint of the University of Nebraska Press, [2020]

Identifiers: LCCN 2020007564

ISBN 9781640123557 (hardback)

ISBN 9781640124004 (epub)

ISBN 9781640124011 (mobi)

ISBN 9781640124028 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH : Fazio, Teresa. | Iraq War, 20032011Personal narratives, American. | United States. Marine CorpsOfficersBiography. | Women marinesBiography. | Women and the militaryUnited States.

Classification: LCC DS 79.766. F 39 A 3 2020 | DDC 956.7044/34092 [B]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020007564

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

For my family, and for those Marines who felt like family

There are so many people without whom this book would not have come to fruition. For their commentary on early manuscript drafts, I would like to thank April Darcy, Adam Dalva, Brian Castner, Georgia Pollak, Marissa Unger, and Phil Klay, as well as incredibly supportive writing instructors Kerry Cohen, Sue Shapiro, Kara Krauze, Matt Gallagher, Mark Slouka, Peter Trachtenberg, Askold Melnyczuk, and Susan Cheever. I am grateful for not only Tracy Crows editing advice, but her crucial introduction to Potomac Books. I also appreciated early feedback from the students and instructors at the NYU Veterans Writing Workshop, Voices from War, Words after War, and the Bennington Writing Seminars. Many thanks to Jim Dao at the New York Times for taking a chance on my first article, which inspired this entire project, and to the Corporation of Yaddo, which awarded me a residency at a crucial point in this books journey. Thanks also to Tom Swanson of Potomac Books for seeing potential in Fidelis, and to his colleagues Leif Milliken, Rosemary Sekora, Emily Wendell, Elizabeth Zaleski, and Patty Beutler for helping this book come to life.

Humble thanks and Semper Fi to the Marines I knew on active duty and while deployed, especially those whose experiences are incorporated here. I was privileged to work alongside incredible people. For my tribe of dear friends and family, both civilian and military, who witnessed me living this story and then writing about it (and sometimes about them)thank you for all you have said, done, and held over the past sixteen years. Your efforts to listen, empathize, and offer support have been invaluable. I would like to extend thanks and compassion to my mother, father, and stepfather, and deep thanks to Mike, Chris, and Josh: the best brothers in the world. Finally, heartfelt thanks to Boyan, who may not even know how much hes stoked my courage.

Names and certain identifying details have been changed. Conversations and quotes have been reconstructed from memory to the best of my ability.

I sleep four hours on the tailgate of a roofless Humvee. My watch alarm beeps as the battalion lurches into activity. We load up, slam the armored doors, and trundle off in convoy. Before daybreak, we cross the line of departure. A spray-painted cardboard sign points an arrow: Iraq. Fuck. Im in Iraq. Im holding a rifle. A loaded pistols strapped to my jacket. Fuck. I think of Ms. Hopper, my old band director, the chest-high striped pants, my glinting clarinet. College physics exams nearly flunked despite fancy ROTC -financed schooling. Lot of good that does against roadside bombs. My clumsy midshipman antics, spilling brass polish on the first day of indoctrination. Fuck. I am an idiot. What would my high-school math teacher say to this? He taught me trigonometry on the back of a pizza box. And for what? So I could be a rolling target for anyone hiding under the bridges of this cloverleaf? The cosine of 2 isfuck. We crash through a pothole, and my gut leaps through my gullet. Really? My last thoughts might be freshman-year math problems? I should be having deep, profound insights if I could die any minute. Instead Im hungry. How many calories are in the jalapeno cheese spread? Short palm trees line a path in the distance. I keep my weapon pointed outboard, fingers straight and off the trigger, safety on. Small children sprint from a mud hut to greet us, precious collateral damage. The sun rises in an overcast sky. My A-Driver tears open a bag of Skittles, yawns, rattles them into his mouth. He seems unconcerned. He was here last summer.

A month and a half earlier, when I checked into Communications Company, Camp Pendletons breezes carried mown grass, salt air, and the paint-and-industrial-cleaner aroma of decades-old warehouses. Gold butterbars shone on my green service dress uniform, along with sharpshooter rifle and expert pistol badges, and a yellow-and-red national service ribbonthe pizza stain. My shiny oxfords clicked from the asphalt parking lot onto a cement breezeway; the company offices thin brown carpet lay beyond a glass door. I took a deep breath and went in.