September 2002, upon completing basic training, my Company Commander shared the following with the women of Bavo Company 795. “In this world you will always be a ‘bitch’ or a ‘whore’ — decide now which you prefer they call you.” We’d just learned to maintain and fire M-16s effectively, but we've not yet been indoctrinated properly. And her words were preparing us for front-lines of a different kind.
Like February 2003, when I had not yet mastered tactical maneuvers after dinner and drinks, was ill-prepared for the blockading of “no” from my mouth. It wasn't forcefully. More like an apprehensive surrender. My exposed skin, white flag, soft target — I became easy prey to a Staff Sergeant who promised he’d square me away. This would later include $315, a drive to and from an abortion clinic, and a plea not to tell his wife about what we’d done.
June 2009, for refusing a [Depo-Provera Birth Control] shot strongly suggested to deploying female soldiers, a fellow squad member accused me of wanting to get pregnant. As if I had in mind an EPT Test “blue “+” sign to be my ticket home and early trip back from Iraq. As if my choice of birth control with anybody's business but my own he stated, “Well if bitches can't be counted on to keep their legs closed overseas, they damn sure can't be trusted to take a pill every day.” I would later hold convoy security alongside him, drive, gun, or at the same checkpoints he did, search women and children he couldn't, ensuring our safety. Once home, his wife thanked me for helping him to get back in one piece.
Today, planted along Capitol steps, a daisy chain of trip wires — Bills against women lie and await, rape redefined, the attempt to overturn of Roe v Wade, restrictions on birth control — politicians spew, “It is unpatriotic to use this phrase ‘War on Women.’” The phrase was somehow disrespectful to the millions of Americans who actually served in a real war. But each time they speak, they awake the 144 women who’ve died while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, spinning them over in graves and unearthing their sacrifice. Listen closely. You will hear a platoon of ghostly voices question, “What else should we call this, then, because war is a state of hostility, a struggle between opposing forces for a particular end, and this here is women against Right Wing so-called ‘Christian’ men. It’s a [Rush] Limbaugh or a [Donald] Trump verses ‘sluts’ or ‘prostitutes”’who are to to lay down, take it, roll over, beg like the good bitches they trained us to be — unable to make decisions concerning our own bodies, yet able to die unacknowledged for this country.”
It has always started with the name, bitch, whore, feminist, terrorist... And I fought enough wars to know labels, that strip us of our humanity, make mass murder easy.