Jahaira Farias interview, April 12, 2019: transcript

i AN INTERVIEW WITH JAHAIRA FARIAS An Oral History Conducted by Monserrath Hernández Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada Oral History Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas ii ©Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2018 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV – University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Project Manager: Barbara Tabach Transcribers: Kristin Hicks, Maribel Estrada Calderón, Nathalie Martinez, Rodrigo Vazquez, Elsa Lopez Editors and Project Assistants: Laurents Bañuelos-Benitez, Maribel Estrada Calderón, Monserrath Hernández, Elsa Lopez, Nathalie Martinez, Marcela Rodriquez-Campo, Rodrigo Vazquez iii The recorded interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of a National Endowment for Humanities (NEH) Grant. The Oral History Research Center enables students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank University of Nevada Las Vegas for the support given that allowed an idea the opportunity to flourish. The transcript received minimal editing that includes the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader’s understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. In several cases photographic sources accompany the individual interviews with permission of the narrator. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada. Claytee D. White Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas iv PREFACE Jahaira Farias is a graduate of Western High School, a Marine Corps veteran, and a founder of a local chapter of the Women Marines Association. At the time of this oral history, Jahaira worked for US Congresswoman Susie Lee. Jahaira Farias was born in Las Vegas, Nevada, and grew up on the west side of town. She has summertime memories of her travels to Mexico, where she was able to connect with her family’s heritage and language. During her years at Western High School, she participated in varsity sports and was the armed drill team commander. After graduation, Jahaira enlisted into the Marine Corps, where she specialized as a transport operator and hazardous material transporter and served two deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. Her transition to civilian life included work in security at Caesars Palace. When she took a position with as district representative for Congresswoman Susie Lee, her focus was to assist v veterans and immigrants. She helped Rep. Lee develop community outreach towards the Latinx community and Veterans. Jahaira is the president of the Las Vegas NV-3 Sagebrush Marines chapter of the Women Marines Association, an organization she helped establish and rebuild. The WMA helps veterans find their footing again through mentoring and support, and conducts community engagement by fostering the same camaraderie found in the Corps. After surviving a motorcycle accident, Jahaira’s recovery is nothing short of miraculous, going from being in a wheelchair to competing in Tough Mudder. Now extremely active, Jahaira is an avid hiker and certified yoga instructor, specializing in trauma recovery. A polyglot, Jahaira formally studied Arabic and Russian, and speaks English, Spanish, and Pashto, and received an associate degree in Russian from the College of Southern Nevada. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Interview with Jahaira Farias April 30, 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Monserrath Hernández Preface…………………………………………………………………………………………..iv Jahaira talks about her family’s heritage in Mexico and growing up in Las Vegas, how her Marine Corps training helped her navigate through intense situations, and attending Vail Pittman Elementary School, Garside middle school and Western High School. Explains her decision to enlist in the Marine Corps after high school, attending basic training (bootcamp), and telling her parents her decision to enlisting. Mentions being part of Western’s ROTC program and being part of armed drill team…………………………………………………………………………1-5 Talks about commanding the all-boys armed drill team at Western, attending Marine basic training for women in South Carolina, her specialization as a transport operator, and leading cadence during marches. Mentions her heavy machinery training at Fort Leonard and working as a tow truck operator. …………………………………………………………………………..6-10 Elaborates on her training with hazardous materials and her deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Talks about the dangers of doing her job collecting vehicles hit by IEDs, the training that she used during her deployment, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in the Marine Corps. Recalls her experience as a woman in the Corps, her time in the Marine reserve at the 6th Motor Transport Battalion and working security at Caesars Palace…………………………11-15 Explains her transition back into civilian life, coming to terms of no longer being enlisted, dealing with PTSD, and seeking help for it. Talks about her involvement as president of the Women Marines Association (WMA) and their meetings at the Leatherneck Club and the community events they do……………………………………………………………………16-20 Talks about allocating the funds raised by the WMA to different causes, reading the narration for the cake-cutting ceremony during the Marine Birthday Ball Ceremony, and their involvement with various high schools in Las Vegas. Mentions some of the publicity done for the WMA, planning the 2022 Women Marines Association National Convention, and the camaraderie between women Marines…………………………………………………………………..…21-25 Describes working with Marines compared to civilians and how she became district representative for Congresswoman Susie Lee. Talks about work she did with Lee, her family celebrating Cinco de May, her quinceañera, learning to play the drums through Vida, a Latinx percussion band, and her the activities she was involved with in high school……………….26-30 vii Explains her family’s origin and her parents meeting in Las Vegas, her mother’s work as a seamstress and a housekeeper at the Luxor, her father’s work as an engineer at the Aria, being bilingual in English and Spanish and receiving her associate’s degree in Russian, and learning Pashto. Talks about learning Arabic and Russian at CSN and describes her motorcycle accident ………………………..………………………………………………………………………31-35 Recalls how her accident broke the right side of her body, the physical trauma it caused her, the ambulance getting there, her ride to the hospital, and her time in the ICU. Talks about being scared before going into surgery, her coworkers and bikers coming to visit her the hospital, and the motorcycle scene in Las Vegas.…………………………………………………………36-40 Explains how she always wanted to ride a motorcycle and finally learning to ride, and how the injuries from her accident still cause her pain. Talks about how she became active again during her recovery, how yoga helped her heal, and what makes Las Vegas home to her. Recalls summer trips to Jalisco, Mexico, her parents’ life in Mexico, and her relationship with her sister. ………………………………………………………………………………………………..41-45 Describes her name, how when she was younger she went by Jazz, and reclaiming her name as she grew older. Shares her thoughts on the term Latinx and her evolving feelings around identity, her family’s American patriotism, fútbol, and the thoughts on the Latinx Project. Recalls boot camp stories and doing the physical fitness test………………………………………...……46-50 Talks about her tattoos and the meanings and motives behind them…………………...……51-54 viii 1 Hello. My name is Monserrath Hernandez. Today is April 30, 2019. We are in the Oral History Research Center and I am with… Barbara Tabach. Elsa Lopez. And today with us is…Jahaira? Jahaira Farias. How do you spell that? J-A-H-A-I-R-A. And then F-A-R-I-A-S. So, Jahaira, first question: How do you identify yourself? I identify myself as a Latina and American as well. My parents were born and raised in Mexico, in Jalisco. My dad was from Zapotiltic and my mom was from a little town called El Aserradero. I was born and raised here in Las Vegas, Nevada. What part of Las Vegas? The northwest side of town. My parents live on Washington and Rainbow. What was that area like when you were growing up? It wasn’t the greatest neighborhood, I would say, because there was some shootings; there was some gang violence. I remember a couple of times that SWAT was on our street and they had to come out and kind of close down or do quarantine on a house because of drugs in the area, and there were a couple of times me and my little sister were outside playing in the street and the neighbors would have to pull us in because there was gunshots. I would say it was a poor neighborhood and I would say that there was a lot of violence in the area. Yes, there was a situation where a man was running from the cops and he ended up in my parents’ backyard and he shot at the cops first, at the officer, and so then they shot him in our backyard while we were 2 inside the house. Yes, it was a pretty intense time. There were other instances where a couple of things happened that were probably not typical or normal of a neighborhood. I don’t know how much detail you want me to go into on that. BARBARA: I would be curious how you describe the impact of that on you. I would say that at the time when that happened I was more prepared than I would have ever been in my life to handle something like that because it happened after I had already been in the Marine Corps; I had done my time in the Marine Corps. I was still in, actually. I had just gotten back from Iraq. I was visiting my family. I didn’t panic, I guess. I guess internally maybe I did, but I kind of was on autopilot. I was standing next to the window and I saw the helicopter lights and I kind of just thought, it’s a helicopter; they’re looking for someone. I happened to be near the window and when the lights shined, I noticed that there was a man with a gun jumping over the brick fence into my parents’ backyard, and so I just dropped to the ground because I didn’t want him to see me. My mom was lying on the bed because she was having issues with her stomach, with her pancreas. I dropped to the ground and I had my cell phone, and so I called 9-1-1 right away and then I yelled for my dad and my sister who were in the living room to not move and to drop to the ground. I told them that there was someone with a gun in our backyard. My mom was sick and lying in bed and I told her not to move, but she was freaking out. I was on the phone at the same time, talking to the operator and telling her, “There is a man with a gun in the backyard.” Then at the same time there is so much going on because outside the cops and the helicopter, they already know where this man is; they’re trying to get in. I’m on the phone, the cops are pounding on the front door, and now my sister and my dad are freaking out because I just told them there is someone with a gun and they don’t know and they don’t want to open the 3 door and they’re pounding on the door because they’re like, “Open the door.” They’re trying to get to this guy. This is all happening all at once and all of a sudden we hear shots. My dad and my sister let them in. they rushed to the back. My sister was just crying; her and my mom were just crying. I was still on the phone while all this is going on. Yes, that guy, later we found out he shot at the cops, and so they shot him and he died in our backyard. The cops survived, luckily. I think he managed to shoot two of the cops in the backyard, but they survived. But that man died. I would say that I kind of just blocked that out for a while, but I dealt with it better because I was a Marine, because I was trained. But I think that for my family it was a very traumatic experience; I know it was; it was a very traumatic experience. It’s something that was really hard for all of us, but it was a lot harder for them to deal with. What year was that? I was in Iraq in 2009, and so this had to have been shortly after that unless my timeline is off and it was when we came back from Afghanistan in 2011. There is an article and it comes up when you look up my name, unfortunately, to my dismay. The news and the reporters, they wouldn’t leave my family alone during that time, and so I finally gave in and said, “Yes, I’ll give you an interview if you guys stop after this.” So I gave an interview, and so that’s out there on Google when you Google my name, about the incident and stuff. I’m sorry I don’t remember the correct timeline. We can add it in later. What schools did you go to when you were growing up here? I went to Vail Pittman Elementary School and then I went to Garside Middle School for part of sixth grade and then to Gibson Middle School for the rest of my middle school timeframe. Then I went to Western High School. 4 Were you in magnet? No. Western didn’t have a magnet school back then. It was a zoned school? Yes, I was zoned to go to Western, yes. After high school what did you do? After high school I joined the Marine Corps. What led you to that? I think it was just knowing—or being scared, I guess, thinking that I wouldn’t have anywhere else to go after graduating high school, not knowing if I wanted to go to college, not wanting to make my parents pay for my college. We grew up pretty poor, and so I knew that my parents were going to want to try to put us through school. But I think a big part of it was that I knew that the Marine Corps would offer to pay for college as well. What made my decision in wanting to join the Marine Corps was that it was the hardest branch; if I was going to join the military, I was going to go all for it and join the hardest branch and then hope that that would alleviate some of the financial stress on my parents so they could pay for my little sister to go to college. I wanted to be independent. I wanted to do something with my life, and I honestly didn’t know if I was going to if I didn’t join the military. When did you leave for boot camp? In 2006, July tenth of 2006. What was that like? Hard, both physically and mentally; it was really hard. I knew that Marine Corps boot camp was going to be hard in general, but I had never actually been away from my family for that long, and being away from them for three months and with no contact, only one phone call where I 5 actually got to talk to them, and no TV, no radio, it was really hard and difficult. I remember at night I would lay in bed and I would hear crying at night, so I wasn’t the only one that was crying myself to sleep in boot camp. But you get used to it and quickly it builds you up and it makes you stronger. What did your parents think when you told them, I’m joining the Marines? Oh my gosh, they didn’t understand it. My mom didn’t want me to. My dad didn’t really want me to, either. It was something really different for my family because I come from a Hispanic, Mexican family, Roman Catholic, and back then the women didn’t do stuff like this. For me to join not just the military, but the Marine Corps, they didn’t like it; they didn’t want me to. But ultimately it was my decision, and so I did and they were supportive in their own way. ELSA: When you described to your parents that you were going to join, how did you explain what it was, or were they already aware that you would be going to Iraq? I did have a little bit of background prior to joining the Marine Corps in a military-type setting because Western High School had an ROTC program, the Air Force ROTC, and I joined that. I think early on I already had the idea that I wanted some kind of structure in my life like that, and so I did; it was my choice to go into the ROTC program. They were aware of some of what the military was like because they would come to my ROTC events and I was the armed drill team commander. The armed drill team commander? Yes. It was my senior year; that’s when I became the armed drill team commander for Air Force ROTC. That’s awesome. Were there a lot of girls in your armed drill team? 6 No, I was the only one. I was the only female. I was the armed drill team commander for my senior year. Prior to that I think there had only been one at Western who was an armed drill team commander who was a female. My parents had come out and seen that a little bit, so they kind of knew a little bit how I liked the military. It wasn’t too much of a surprise to them. I joined the Devil Pups program my senior year, too—maybe not Devil Pups, but it was where you sign up your senior year with a recruiter. My parents had to sign off, too, saying that she’s signing up now into this program. At the end of this program at the end of my senior year, then they’re going to sign me up and I’m going to go to boot camp. You were doing the physical training aspect of it? Yes, they physical training, so we do PT sessions and we trained with the recruiters, and it counted towards not my active time, but my inactive reserve time; that year I did with the recruiters, it ended up counting later on towards my inactive reserve time. What was the armed drill team experience like because I know it’s really hard for girls to get on the team? How was that experience? I don’t think it’s hard for girls to get on the team. I think a lot of girls and women back then just were not interested or maybe they thought they couldn’t. It’s not that it’s hard; it’s just training like anything else, like a sports program. You’re just training and practice. I’m sorry, what was the question? I lost track. What was your experience like in armed drill team? Especially as the captain. Yes, the commander of an all-boys’ team. 7 My experience…I loved it. I was enamored by just watching them and that’s what made me want to join the armed drill team, because I watched the boys do it and I didn’t think anything of it. I’ve always felt that I could do what the boys did, so I was like, I want to do that. Beforehand I joined and I went out and I would practice and I marched and I learned how to throw all the rifles in the air and spin them in the different ways. It was M1 Garand is what we had and they were filled with lead, so you can’t shoot them, but it made them almost fifteen pounds. They range from thirteen to fifteen pounds and we were throwing them in the air, like twisting them and doing helicopter and catching them. That was fun. Were you all bruised up? Oh yes, I have scars from where the tip of the rifle hit me. These are scars on my hands from back then where it hit me, but I loved it. That was so much fun to me. I wanted to do that. I wanted to join. I wanted to do what the guys did. When they did tryouts, I don’t think there were too many ROTC cadets who wanted to try out for armed drill team, but I tried out and, surprisingly enough, I became the armed drill team commander and got to march my team around in some of the ROTC ceremonies and got to do a rifle twirl off competition, which I did not win because you get disqualified if you drop your rifle and I started my routine and I was doing good and then I threw it up in the air and I didn’t catch it; I missed it. Oh, that was devastating for me, I mean devastating. I finished out professionally; I grabbed my rifle and I exited out. As soon as I turned around and got away from the people, I started bawling and I just couldn’t…It was a huge disappointment in my life. I was disappointed in myself. I was embarrassed. It was…Sorry, just thinking about that. It was a great time in my life. BARBARA: Did the guys ever give you a bad time? We gave each other bad times, but not about that. I think they knew… 8 About anything. Yes, we all gave each other—I don’t know if I’m allowed to cuss—we gave each other shit. It’s your oral history. It was a team. We were brothers and sisters and it was great. We trained together. We helped each other and prepared each other and studied together and practiced and we went through this competition together. Even though we lost—I think we did win a marching exhibition. Yes, I think we did win that. It’s been so long now. It’s so funny that I still get emotional over that because it’s been such a long time, but it just brought back all those memories. Where did you go to boot camp? What base? I went to South Carolina, Parris Island. Right now all of the women, and even back then, all of the women go into Parris Island for boot camp because we’re such a small amount of women that do join the Marine Corps, so Parris Island is the one location for the female drill instructors and the female boot camp although I do think now it’s starting to change and they’re trying to integrate. Boot camp was all women? Yes, it was all women with female drill instructors for me. But we did do our training the same as the males and sometimes we would even be doing the same kind of training at the same time while the males were also. For example, when we were doing the shooting range, the males would be out there with their drill instructors. Yes, we did the same type of training. We did the crucible, the same one that the guys do, so the training was still the same, but, yes, we had female drill instructors. What was the hardest part of boot camp? 9 Man, I’m trying to think what was the hardest. I think it’s being away from my family; that was the hardest part. I want to say the drill instructors yelling at you, but that didn’t really bother me. I think I was kind of used to it from my dad. [Laughing] I was a tomboy growing up. I joined the armed drill team. I was a tomboy. I was tough. The yelling didn’t get to me so much. It was more so being away from my family; yes that was definitely the hardest, and the lack of communication. Were there many Latinas in your boot camp? There was a few, yes. There was a few that I can remember. We had a variety of different ethnic groups. There was quite a few. When you came back what specialized trainings did you do? When I came back—my job was 3533; at the time it was motor transport operator; it was a truck driver for the Marine Corps. I went to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri for my job training. I got the chance to be in front of the platoon a couple of times; my staff sergeant let me march the platoon, I think because I told him I had done it in ROTC. They were always looking for someone to march the platoon, and so when they asked for volunteers, I said, “Sure, I’ll do it.” He would let me. There was this cadence that I used to do because I heard my drill instructor do it when she would march us around. I would get everyone in formation. “Fall in.” Everyone would fall in at attention. Then I’d start the command to march them, and I’d say, “Forward, march.” Then everyone starts marching and I do the cadence. I don’t know if you guys want to hear it. I attribute this to my drill instructor. She had a great voice and when she marched us around, she would do this. It went, “Left to right, left. Left, right, left, right. Right, left, right, left. Left to right, left. Right, left. Left, right, left, right. Left, right, left, right. Left to right. Left, right, left, right.” Oh man, it was so much better before. My voice is faltering right now. 10 It’s beautiful. Was that the first time they had heard that cadence? I’m not sure. But you know what? My staff sergeant’s eyes were like saucers when I’d do that because it was pretty impressive back then and I guess I didn’t realize it, but even for them to see a female Marine step up and get up there and march the platoon when some of the males wouldn’t even do it. Such a strong voice. Yes, I think it was probably the first time they might have had a woman who got up and done that. There were a lot of other strong women in the Marine Corps when I was in. But that I can recall, in MOS school I hadn’t seen another woman do that; get up there and march the platoon. That’s awesome. Now so many are stepping it up and doing that. But I had a lot of fun. It was hard, but it was great learning my job to be Motor T driving all these different huge trucks for the Marine Corps. I loved the training. We trained in Fort Leonard, Missouri. While we were there we had an ice storm and there were icicles forming from the trees and stuff. We had an ice storm. We had all different weathers. From there I went to my unit. When I got to my unit, I was a truck driver, but I wanted to go back and get my wrecker license. I think they asked for volunteers, but nobody volunteered and I wanted to, so I volunteered to go back to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, after I had already come back to my unit, to go and get my wrecker license, which was like the tow truck vehicle for the Marine Corps. I got a chance to go back to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri and do training on this huge seven-ton with all the wrecker…It has the crane. It has all the pins. It has all these 11 compartments for towing a vehicle, like a tow bar, all these compartments. I got to train and learn how to tow vehicles out of dirt, out of water, out of sand and all that. That’s awesome. Yes. That was quite an experience and that was really fun for me. Then I also got my HAZMAT [hazardous materials] license while I was at my reserve unit here in Las Vegas. I got my HAZMAT license, so I got to drive around vehicles with explosives on it, too. I really, really liked my job in the Marine Corps. It was fun for me. I loved being a truck driver, I did. I loved that part of it, definitely. When was your first deployment? In 2009. In 2009 we were set to go for my first deployment to Iraq. We were stationed in Al-Taqaddum; we called it TQ. We went on convoys kind of all over the province in that area. We would be doing transportation, so we would transport weapons, food, ammunition, or other personnel. I was a refueler a couple of times, too, because I had my HAZMAT license. I would refuel the vehicles in the convoy sometimes. But more often than not, I was either a driver, and driving a specific vehicle, hauling whatever supplies they wanted us to put on the back of our trucks, or I was a wrecker operator and I would go and pick up vehicles that were stuck. Later on, when I went to Afghanistan, I would pick up vehicles that had hit IEDs, improvised explosive devices. They had hit like a homemade bomb, and so I would go into what we called the kill zone. I would get out of my truck and hurry up and hook up my vehicle, the wrecker, to the downed vehicle, hook it up fast and get it out of the kill zone and get back on the convoy and get it moving. Would you be doing that by yourself, or would you have a fellow Marine with you? 12 No, I always had a fellow Marine with me in the truck. They usually fit two people. There is usually room for a third, but in most of the trucks I was in it was two people, myself, the driver, and then the VC, which is the vehicle commander or the one that’s manning the radio. As a wrecker operator, we usually travel with mechanics, and so usually it was a mechanic that was with me in the wrecker vehicle, who would get out with me, help me hook up to the other vehicle, and then we’d get it out of the kill zone. Did you ever see anything scary or alarming while you did that? I would say Iraq, my first deployment, I was a lot more scared than Afghanistan. For Afghanistan, I volunteered to go back because it was just part of my job by then, so it didn’t seem so scary for the second deployment. The first deployment I want to say I didn’t really see anything scary—I guess it depends on your definition of scary—at the time. What I was scared of, and what a lot of other Marines were scared of, was getting out of the trucks and stepping on an IED and getting a limb blown off. That was a little traumatic at first, being on edge and also thinking always that someone is going to kill you, but that’s a part of being a Marine. They train us for that; they train us to look out for that stuff; they train us to learn how to defend ourselves, to shoot to kill; they train us to be riflemen. I was very fortunate and lucky that I didn’t have to experience any of my friends losing their limbs and we were very fortunate that everyone came back alive from both my deployments, so we’re fortunate for that. In regards to that, no, I didn’t have to see anything like that. But we were under direct fire from the enemy. Our trucks would hit IEDs and we were very lucky that the Marines inside were alive. A few Marines were injured and they came back with traumatic brain injury. It just happens from either a back blast or a serious head injury. When I was doing vehicle recoveries, sometimes I would be getting shot at by someone nearby, a 13 sniper or just an insurgent in one of the towns. They were always shooting at us; when we would go by towns, they would be shooting at us. If they could see them, our gunners would shoot back. But, thankfully, I never got shot and, thankfully, I was still able to do my job while under pressure. ELSA: All of this is very high stress and you said that they provided training. Did they provide any sort of emotional training so that you guys could continue to do the work that you do? No, no, not back then. I’m sure things are changing now with so many veterans coming back with PTSD. I’m sure maybe now they provide something. If they did I think we didn’t really know about, or maybe our chaplain was probably what they thought that would be for us. They would tell us to talk to our chaplain and see the chaplain. But even that…As Marines, the culture was very different; we were hard and we were not emotional. I don’t want to say that we weren’t supposed to ask for help, but we felt like we weren’t supposed to. We just didn’t want to; we didn’t want to ask for help and we didn’t want to talk about our feelings. It was a whole different when you’re in the Marine Corps and especially—not just the men—but especially as a woman, being in an organization like this, in the Marine Corps, where there are men that are constantly judging you and criticizing you because you’re a woman, thinking that you don’t belong there, thinking that you shouldn’t be there, you have to be tough and you have to do more and push yourself more and go above and beyond what’s expected of you in order to get respect. Even then, some of the men still look at you like you shouldn’t be there and you have no business being there. Can you describe a moment where that that happened, where a man made you feel that you didn’t belong? 14 That’s a good one. Describe a moment…It’s really hard to focus on a specific moment. I know that I felt that no matter what, I was always being looked at as weak—maybe not no matter what. I know that I worked really hard to not be perceived as that, and so I didn’t complain, I did my job, I worked hard, I tried to do as much as possible with going back and volunteering for my wrecker license and getting my HAZMAT license. I didn’t complain. There were specific instances where I felt that there was inappropriate things said. There was sexual harassment. Yes, I would say that there was sexual harassment, inappropriate comments that were made that made me feel like that; that they thought maybe I shouldn’t be there or I didn’t belong. I didn’t want to be treated differently. I wanted to be treated like another male Marine. When that happens it kind of does bring you down a little bit and it makes you feel like, oh great, no matter what I do, no matter how hard I work, they’re always going to look at me like I’m just a woman. But that was here and there and certain instances; it wasn’t necessarily all the time and it wasn’t necessarily everyone in the Marine Corps. There are a few bad seeds. With that being said, what are your thoughts on how you said that people are planning on integrating the two genders? I joined the Marine Corps with the thought that I wanted to be equal to a man and I felt that I could do everything that a man could do, and so for me I’m all for it. I’m all for it if everyone is on equal terms and we’re all doing the same training and the women are also passing the same kind of training and they’re able to do the job. I think, why not? I was out there; I was deployed twice to combat deployments and I was able to do it. I think women are just as good as men for Marines, for riflemen, for truck drivers, for whatever jobs are out