Look, before I start this thread let me put it on the table that this thread is for me, not you.
The latest news of Vanessa Guillen is pulling up some feelings that I'd like to process!
I also would like to note that my experience and career in the Army is AGGRESSIVELY average.

If you talk to any woman who is serving or has served I'm 100% certain she's got stories of harassment or assault from her time, from her battle buddies.
Please, be kind.

I'm 20 years old. My boyfriend convinces me to take a semester of ROTC with him, for fun. I'm one of 2 women in my class. My male peers make jokes about Eiffel towers & women they know, and try to include me in the conversation

I don't want to earn a reputation for being a stick in the mud, since I'm already the new person in class. I feign laughter.

We find out our program is holding a Cadet Ball at the end of the semester. Our cadre builds a ball committee that is 100% female, "because yall like to plan parties and stuff."

I'm about to go on my first FTX. My peers who have done field stuff before encourage me to bring baby wipes so I don't start smelling like a fish market on day 2

On the FTX! I get told to move my sleep area away from my boyfriend's sleep area because "canoodling" isn't allowed in the field. He doesn't get the same talk.

I make friends in the ROTC program. A peer with more time in the program tells me to limit my makeup in uniform so I'm not one of "those" females

I am determined to not make waves. I want to be one of the guys. I stop wearing makeup in uniform.

We start learning tactics. All our instructors are male MS4 cadets despite there being multiple MS4 women. The MS4 women mostly hold down cadet staff positions. The MS4 males are mostly tactics lane walkers.

I get to go on my first ruck march! I am short as fuck. I don't know how to pack the weight correctly or pick up the ruck & none of the senior cadets help. My male peers make jokes about me being weak sauce. Our female MS4s are nowhere to be found.

My ruck's weight is off balance and causes issues immediately. I fall out a mile in, along with a male peer. Only the male peer gets yelled at.

We go on an ROTC battalion run! Our prior enlisted peers (mostly infantry) call cadence. All of the cadences are sexually explicit and degrading to women. Everyone laughs.

I start thinking about what branch I might want to choose for when I commission. My male peers tell me AG has a lot of women, I should consider it. No combat or field time, right?

I talk about going Engineer then maybe Sapper school, since my dad was a 12N and it'd be cool to keep it in the family. I get laughs. I'm told women who graduate from Sapper school have to (physically) be "borderline dudes" to stand a chance of passing

Jokes are made about the fuckability of women who are physically fit enough to pass schools like Sapper or Ranger. I grin and bear it. I don't want to be one of those women that can't take a joke. I can hang with the boys. I tell some jokes of my own. I hate myself for doing it.

I'm on my way to basic training, Fort Leonard Wood. At reception we get told we have to buy the $3 sports bras offered in the inprocessing store. I try to explain to my DS that the bras offered in the store won't appropriately support me if I go on a run.

He snorts derisively and tells me to figure it out, the only clothing we're authorized to wear from here forward is what we've been given at reception. No exceptions. After we change into PTs I overhear comments from the males about female trainee breasts & how saggy they are.

We are issued CamelBaks and told to keep the chest strap clipped at all times. The girl sitting next to me has a chest too large to allow the straps to clip. Argument ensues with the DS, everyone tries not to giggle.

Reception is complete! We are on the bus heading to our BCT companies. Each of us has 2 green duffels and a black civilian duffel. Jokes are made about how us females are going to get our bags to our platoon formations without help. I start to get nervous.

2 women in another platoon start working together to get their bags to the formation. They are surrounded by male DSs telling them to get their shit to formation on their own. 1 gives up and starts dragging her duffels 1 by 1 from the bus to her platoon.

My platoon is the only platoon without a female DS. When my battle buddy asks our DS if she can go to sick call because she's got horrendous stomach pain, he skeptically asks her if it's not just a normal woman issue

I'm battle-buddying a peer to the clinic. We link up with two male trainees from our company to wait to be picked up by our DS on duty. The DS roaming the clinic asks us if we're on a double date. He tells us it's not a good look to be too buddy-buddy with the opposite sex

One of my battle buddies is a very tiny female, maybe 5'0", 95lbs soaking wet. When our infantry DS finds out she's going 35F, he explodes. "They ALWAYS send infantry platoons HUMINT people that look like you! Wtf"

I'm 2 weeks from BCT graduation. I've completed all graduation requirements, but I have got some fucking PAIN in my pelvis. I go to sick call & eventually find out my femoral neck is fractured. My female DS rolls her eyes and informs me this is typical for female trainees.

I get to go home for 30 days on con leave before starting AIT. I decide to spend my last weekend back in my college town, crashing with ROTC buddies and painting the town red as a homecoming.

I go out with my friends and get whiskey drunk for my first time. I assess that I really need to go home, but I'm worried about being there alone. There have been break ins in my neighborhood and my boyfriend is still at OSUT. I ask an ROTC to sleep on my couch so I feel safe.

ROTC buddy**

ROTC buddy thinks I've basically sent him a "You up?" text. He's much bigger than me. He thinks I'm playing hard to get. I spend the night locked in my bathroom, hoping the door will hold up.

ROTC buddy sheepishly leaves the next morning thinking this was a bad hookup. I sit in the shower and cry.

I'm at AIT! Super stoked to compartmentalize and focus on Army things. My new 1SG jokes about how he always picks the tiniest female in the company to be his guidon bearer. This is very amusing to him.

I'm hella stoked that my AIT commander is a woman with a Sapper tab. I say as much to a PSG before chow. He scoffs and assures me she's the exception, not the rule.

I quickly learn that I am hellaaa talented at the tasks they have us learning at AIT, especially the hands on stuff. This infuriates my male peers, who are only okay being beat by women on the written tests.

I find out one of our AIT instructors, like me, speaks conversational German. I am stoked to find someone else to talk to in a language from home. He utters a sexually explicit limerick to test whether my German is legit. I laugh nervously.

We're nearing our last week of AIT. Trainees who have met certain gates are allowed an offpost pass in civilian clothes. The lone female AIT PSG sits us females down and tells us not to dress like sluts. We have to make sure we look respectable so people will take us seriously.

The next week, trainees who have met certain gates are permitted one offpost overnight pass. All of us have been dead sober for months and we make plans to get FUCKED UP. Remember, we are young and dumb.

I'm one of 3 females who qualifies for the overnight pass. The other 2 females are kind of introverted so they both turn in early. I stay up to make sure everyone is safe and gets back to their room. (In college I earned a reputation as group mom) one of our peers needs someone

...to walk him to his hotel. He keeps tripping into the street. I walk him to his hotel and come back to my room to sleep. In the morning I wake up hungover as FUCK and get myself back to base. I learn from my female peers that I've apparently fucked all the males who went

...on the overnight pass with us. My poor, loyal boyfriend. I am a slut. I am making it hard for the rest of the females trying to keep their noses clean and their heads down.

My male peer who I walked home privately thanks me for making sure he got back safely, but publicly he distances himself from me and doesn't deny to anyone that I fucked him. The males avoid me and the females begin to gossip about what a whore I am. My poor, poor boyfriend.

My boyfriend and his parents surprise me at my AIT graduation. I am so happy to see him, I cry. My 1SG tells me to stop being a fucking baby. My classmates whisper jokes about this dumb fuck coming to visit his girlfriend after she's cheated on him with her whole class.

I go back to college. I finally tell my boyfriend about what happened with ROTC buddy. He says he's going to kill him. I tell him I just want to forget about it. ROTC buddy is making a name for himself as a high speed kid with Ranger Challenge team potential. The cadre loves him.

ROTC buddy gets awarded a contract & scholarship. I have to stand in the horseshoe formation and watch as my CSM talks up how awesome this kid is & how the contract was well-deserved. I feel nauseated. I don't want someone like this leading Soldiers. I finally decide to report it

(Side note I was in the guard at the time and had literally no idea how to do the whole SHARP reporting stuff so I sat down with my ROTC instructor instead)

I relate the whole thing to my instructor. A day later I'm brought in to talk to my CSM & PMS. I have to relate the entire thing again. I am asked why I went out drinking without a SINGLE female friend. I am asked why I got drunk when there were only men around.

ROTC buddy remains in the program. I have no evidence. It's he said she said. He is told not to drink anymore, since he is underage. I am treated like a delicate flower for weeks. He shows up to a tailgate I'm at and I threaten him with a beer bottle and tell him to leave.

On Monday morning I am brought in to talk to my CSM & PMS again. I can't threaten bodily harm or slander someone with no proof. I mention that there was alcohol at the tailgate. ROTC buddy violated his counseling agreement. He's finally removed from the program.

I knuckle down and throw myself into prepping for LDAC. I'm going to get a E at camp and then tell everyone to SUCK my [metaphorical] DICK because women can be good at patrolling too. A peer informs me that there's a "girl curve" and it is easier for us to get high marks at camp

I say fuck that and start picking my infantryman boyfriend's brain to refine my tactics skills. I buy the Ranger Handbook and start reading milblogs about battle tactics. Our peers joke that my boyfriend is the reason I'm good at tactics.

I am appointed to be the Cadet Ops SGM. Besides the PAO, I'm the only woman in a battalion level leadership position.

Taking a mental break. Here is a cat.

Let me take this opportunity to say in NO UNCERTAIN TERMS that I have had GREAT LEADERS in my time, and I regret nothing. I love my job, I love what I do, and I love the Army family. But, like a real family, it can be exhausting.

Okay. Back to it, I guess.
I've been busting my fucking ASS to be as good as the males in my year group. I'm taking a full courseload in college. I'm drilling with my unit once a month.

My guard unit inprocesses another female cadet from my ROTC program. We become fast friends. We both earn a reputation of being intelligent, competent, and detail-oriented. Our PSG makes a spend one drill weekend unfucking the orderly room paperwork while all our peers learn

...how to operate some new equipment. I am fucking PISSED. I bring it up to our other NCO. He thinks we're being petulant about supporting the unit.

My female peer in my guard unit is a fucking badass. She brings her APFT card from AIT to inprocess and the NCOIC accuses her of pencil whipping a test. Next month they make her take an APFT and she scores a 370. Suck on that.

It's almost the end of the semester. LDAC is around the corner. I am a nervous wreck. I am assured that as long as I do better than my female nurse peers, I'll be fine.

At LDAC my dumb ass fails night land nav the first go-around, removing me from the possibility of earning an E at camp. I'm salty as FUCK but still determined to do a good job. When I'm PSG during patrolling, and tell my male peers to get back into security they tell me to relax.

I am done with LDAC. I am off to Ft. Riley to shadow an Engineer officer in a combat engineer company. I am stoked beyond belief. The LT who picks me up is surprised that my gender doesn't match my unisex-but-assumed-male first name. He looks a little disappointed.

Our final week of the shadowing program, we get to go out to the field to blow things up and shoot big guns. I'm stoked. I roll out my sleep system on the ground near the platoon I've been with the past 2 weeks. They tell me to go sleep in the HQ tent with the rest of the females

Back at college, my cadre get all our scores from LDAC. Our tactics instructor, a Ranger regiment NCO, tells me I fucking CRUSHED it. I am over the moon and hungry to get after my final year of college.

A huge number of my female peers aren't in our class this year because of the way nursing students' ROTC progressions are built. (I think it has something to do with their clinicals?) The male to female ratio is exacerbated.

I'm determined to leverage my solid reputation in the battalion & my leadership position to ensure that the female MS3 cadets get more mentorship than I did. The execution of this is a mixed bag. Despite my best efforts, I've internalized some of the sexist bullshit.

We're nearing the end of the year and my boyfriend and I are engaged. I begin to plan the wedding while I spearhead the planning efforts for our BN's culminating FTX & maintain a 4.0 in all my classes.

In conversation I mention being ambivalent about changing my name after the wedding. My mentor asks me how my boyfriend is going to feel about my commitment if I won't even take his name. Won't I confuse our theoretical kids?

He encourages me to do whatever I want but says HE'D never marry a woman unless she took his name. Also, apparently hyphenates are stupid?

We are on pins and needles awaiting our component, branch, and duty station assignments. The first sequestration & government shutdown is in full swing and we've heard rumors that the active duty slots were gutted. I regret majoring in philosophy instead of a STEM field (lol)

I find out I'm going to be an active duty transportation officer in the 101st. My fiancé is going to be a reserve transportation officer assigned to Fort Stewart. My friends assure me that he's not going to resent me for getting all his dream choices. I am uneasy but

...I have a wedding to finish planning. I compartmentalize. In a hectic 72 hours I take my final final exam, I commission, I get married, and I graduate. Never let anyone tell you that Army planning and resourcing can't be applied to real life

Legit yall, I basically built a sync matrix for that final week. It was the nerdiest shit.

Okay, so this is a good stopping point for now. I need sleep. I'll come back to this later

Here is another cat