(3/3) “I know guys who look back on the war as the best time in...

(3/3) “I know guys who look back on the war as the best time in their lives. They’d love to go back. They only see themselves as a soldier and I want more for them than that. I want them to be OK with being home and finding new and better ways to be themselves. What happened to being a good person? Or being the best version of yourself? I think at the end of the day, everyone just wants to feel good about what they did. And so do I. But I don’t. I don’t want to wave the flag and say we killed those motherfuckers. I don’t want to be thanked for my service. I don’t think it made anything better and I don’t think we won any hearts or minds. For a long time after I got back, I isolated myself in a cabin and drank all the time. Then at one point I decided that I was going to try everything possible to feel better. I was going to try acupuncture, chiropracty, therapy, and if nothing worked, I was going to kill myself. Recently I’ve been experimenting with femininity. I’ve never been feminine. My father put me in mixed martial arts when I was nine. I became a blackbelt and a kickboxer. I was always the tough chick. Now I’m trying to go in the opposite direction. I’m being very cliche about it. I’m doing yoga. I’m wearing dresses everyday. I’m wearing make-up. I even joined a woman’s group. Every month we have a sacred circle on the new moon and do guided meditations, set intentions, and eat chocolate. God, this is harder to talk about then bombs.”