Life as a female in the U.S. Army...

I know growing up was hard but making choices as a teenager and growing in life day to day were two different things. I was guided in the right direction by both of my parents even though they were divorced. I went into the military to help pay for school as it was my only option back then as I decided to go back to school late after high school let out. I went thru the toughest mind altering, ego breaking, emotional hardening time of my life for 7 months, Military Police back in 1989, at Ft. McClellan, AL. With in a year later I was notified that I was needed in the Persian Gulf, during Desert Shield which eventually within months turned into Desert Storm. I had comradry within the guys in the unit that I served with, but life with the harassment among ones that I served and stood with side by side and other nationalities that I served with side by side in Saudi Arabia, were astounding. They can prepare you mentally for war, the hardness and strength is within the nature of the soldier you are there portraying but the sexual harassment as a young impressinable person even a women, is unbearable as you face it from all sides. They say equal opportunity but I assure you it's not like that at all. I went thru a hell of a time in life to young growing in ways a 19 year old shouldn't but then again my father and his father before him had done in two wars themselves but things were different now, I was not male, I was not turning away, the very first war that females were allowed behind the front lines. Life was not easy as it just started back then and daily I learned much from nothing and strengths that would either make or break me. I have loved and lost since then and then was just the beginning.