Soldier Girls Read Online Free PDF Page B

Company, 16th Ordnance Battalion, 61st Ordnance Brigade, and on the day she arrived, Michelle became the company’s fourth female. As they walked to the barracks, the other woman looked Michelle over, noticed her curvy figure, long blond hair, face still shining with innocence. “They are just going to love you,” she announced drily.
    The female soldier escorted Michelle down a hallway of white cinder block and white linoleum to the small room that she would now share with Julieta Mendoza, a Latina soldier from New Mexico. Mendozawould become Michelle’s closest friend at Aberdeen. Everybody went by their last names, and Michelle never learned the first names of the other women who lived on their hallway: Jackson, an African American soldier from Florida, and later Nguyen and Cordero, who were Vietnamese American and Native American, respectively. Soldiers arrived and departed from Aberdeen at staggered intervals, and over the thirteen weeks that Michelle spent there, the number of women in the company would rise to ten, but women would always remain a scarce commodity.
    The drill sergeants were vigilant and fearsome. They inspected rooms at all hours, and Michelle and Mendoza learned to keep theirs spotless. The most alarming drill sergeant was a woman who could veer with astonishing swiftness from likable into what Michelle called “bitch mode.” She ripped their rooms apart, even tossing the ceiling tiles to check for contraband cigarettes. The female soldiers took turns cleaning the bathroom and the hallway. Once a week, one of them would sweep and mop the white linoleum floor, and then polish the floor with an enormous buffing machine. When it was her turn, Michelle put on headphones and cranked up Incubus, her favorite band. At night, when they did CQ duty, sometimes Michelle could not resist putting her head down on her arms and closing her eyes, even though she knew she would pay a penalty if the drill sergeants caught her napping. There was a square white telephone on the desk that was only supposed to be used in an emergency, but bored soldiers often used the phone to order Chinese food or pizza, or to sneak phone calls to friends. Michelle had not reported her hip injury until she arrived at Aberdeen because she had feared being “recycled,” or having to start basic all over again. The drill sergeants at Aberdeen hassled her about being unfit, saying she shouldn’t be there at all, but they sent her to physical therapy and let her continue.
    The rest of the female soldiers in her company were studying welding or maintenance of military vehicles, and when her weapons classes began Michelle discovered that she was the only woman in the room. The other students were National Guard, regular army, marines—but all men. The instructors handed out manuals with yellow paper covers and mimeographed sheets. They began with the fundamentals, then worked their way through each one of the guns jointly used by the army and themarines. They started by studying the M16 assault rifle that Michelle had just learned to shoot, followed by the .50-caliber machine gun, and an automatic grenade launcher. Michelle memorized the parts of each gun and soon became fluent with the workings of trigger mechanisms and firing pins. She excelled on tests, which infuriated a highly competitive army soldier from Illinois who vied ferociously with her for top marks. Michelle often outscored the gung-ho soldier, but when it came time for the class elections, the other students voted him their leader. Michelle got it. She wasn’t part of the club—you had to be male to belong.
    In the classroom, Michelle could not earn full respect from the male soldiers, but outside of the classroom, she could not escape their attention. Even when she slouched around the barracks wearing a pair of baggy sweatpants and a gray T-shirt that said ARMY in block letters, male soldiers fell over each other to compete for her