Do You Have Any Chapstick? But This Reintegration Process Hurts Real Bad!

Aside from the old Lioness pic of mine getting circulated, I recall the time when I started showing photos of Iraq to other people. When I showed it to a class on war and violence at UNF in Jacksonville, the only questions I got were whether or not I was wearing makeup. Really. It wasn't about the collage of dead Saudi bodies, the hungry children begging for food, or the apocalyptic crisis that was Iraq's Anbar Province in 2005. No, the important thing both male and female students thought to ask was if I was wearing lipstick or chapstick in my photos. Yeah, my desire not to have chapped lips in a fucking desert is way more interesting than thousands of people dying, a country being dissolved into nothingness, and intense urban warfare.

I could have been standing on the bludgeoned carcass of the Kraken from "Clash of the Titans" while holding the cure for cancer in one hand, and the recipe to Colonel Sanders' chicken in the other, and people would still find a way to put me down, negate my service, and continue to make the US female veteran reintegration experience a negative one.

The fact of the matter is, people in the United States - mostly men, but a few women who are embracing internalized oppression with pizzazz - have an easy time tearing women down when they're appearing to be strong, then posting women half-naked holding rifles and screaming 'Murica. As a result, women veterans face additional discrimination or complete barriers in accessing deserved benefits while being openly, and sometimes publicly, humiliated for their service and having two X chromosomes. Thank you, America. No one says "welcome home, soldier" better than you...unless you're a woman, minority, LGBTQ or anything else not fitting the straight Aryan male mold. Thanks.