🚨TRIGGER WARNING: This is my account of events from 9/11 as well as a discussion of military sexual harassment and assault. Please be advised.
Today is Veteran’s Day: November 11, 2024. When this holiday comes around, there is always a complex whirlpool of emotions that swirls inside my body and mind. I feel this duality of pride for my service and also great pain and grief from so much of me that I lost while serving. I feel a sense of accomplishment and joy for my service, but I also feel the weight of those years that I spent working and living in such a patriarchal space.
Whether you've served in the military or not, I hope you find the threads that bind our experiences together as women living in the darkest moments of a patriarchal society.
The Call to Serve
I remember sitting on my couch on September 11, 2001. I was a junior in high school, and I just so happened to be home that day because other grades were testing. I was playing Sims on the computer when my stepdad called my mom and told her to turn on the TV. We both sat and watched as the second tower was hit, and my young heart shattered.
All those lives lost.
All that hatred.
All those people... gone.
I was mad. I was scared. I was devastated. And it fueled my passion to want to be a part of something bigger than myself.
Two years later, I enlisted in the United States Navy and left for boot camp 10 months after that. I knew only a handful of my classmates who joined right out of high school… and they were all guys.
My dad was thrilled. My mom was crushed. I just wanted the fuck out of Indiana and to protect my family from being attacked again.
Oh, but I didn't know what I was signing up for. I knew that I'd have to follow orders and wear a uniform, but I didn't know the soul-crushing price I'd have to pay with my body, mind, and heart. The Navy gave me opportunities to grow and explore that I NEVER would have had otherwise, but it was a price I could only pay for a decade.
Once my daughter came into the picture, I no longer was willing to pay, and I took my Chief anchors and walked away from my dreams of becoming a Master Chief.
The Duality of a Woman's Experience in the Navy
I am so proud of that brave 19-year-old girl who raised her hand and said, “I will support and defend.” She was so full of life, so wonderfully naïve, and so beautiful with her bubbly personality, ginormous heart, curvaceous body, and creative spunk.
She grew up when she joined the Navy. She took on so much responsibility at such a young age, and she was happy because she wanted to serve her country and protect those she loved.
She left her country and lived overseas as her first duty station. She launched a volunteer project for her fellow junior sailors, soldiers, and airmen. She won Junior Intelligence Specialist of the Year for the Navy for her exceptional insight and support during her tenure on the European Command’s Intelligence watch floor. She wrote countless reports and articles that no one outside her community would see because they were all classified.
She led 14 sailors on a combat deployment, taking on a role designed for someone with a higher rank and more experience. She was the only one who made First Class Petty Officer (E-6) in 2010 on her ship of 900 people. She took on leadership role after leadership role, eventually being selected to Chief Petty Officer one month before her 9th enlistment anniversary. They said she was going to be a Master Chief someday. At one point, she thought so, too.
But there is a price for being a successful woman in the military. It was a hefty price that women paid but everyone seemed to ignore it, even me.
I was first exposed to the price of being a woman in service while I was in the Delayed Entry Program, waiting to go to boot camp. I had just turned 19. A Marine recruiter and Staff Sergeant (E-6) who was probably at least 30-35 years old, decided to take advantage of a cute, naïve Navy recruit. He used his good looks, fancy Mustang Cobra, and smashing uniform to get what he wanted from her: her body.
My body was the one thing that wasn't issued to me in my seabag that would be the most talked about, used, and thrown away possession I had.
See, a woman’s body is a big problem in the military. It’s tempting for all the boys who have gone out to sea without sex. A woman’s body can get pregnant, and that’s not good for military business, so they make sure you take birth control. Those hormones and periods and health stuff are too messy and chaotic in a world of order and discipline. Boobs and ass and thighs and curves also make uniforms look frumpy or ill-fitting... or so they say.
It wasn't uncommon to be on the smoke deck and hear the words "slut," "whore," or "meat curtains" over a cigarette. After a while of that kind of talk, a woman's body is not a woman, it becomes an object to be looked at, poked, talked about, judged, or used.
It did not matter where I went, my body was ALWAYS a subject of conversation, mostly my boobs. I am rather well-endowed, and it became clear to me that my tits were open for conversation at any time. “Tiggo Bitties,” “Sweater Tigers,” or calls like “Watch out! Skaggs/Ricord/Kovacs will knock your eyes out!” while running. When the movie Anchorman came out, I was automatically dubbed “Tits McGee.” And those were just the ones I heard.
If I spoke up about it making me uncomfortable, I suddenly “had a stick up my ass” or was being “a pussy.” Instead of fighting it, I just joined in. It was easier to go along with the harassment than to fight against it and be called a prude.
And then there were the serious conversations. I was pulled aside and told by a senior enlisted man to get a bigger uniform because my body was “too distracting on the watch floor.” Or the talks before deployment that said you better make sure you don’t get knocked up because you’ll fuck up your career.
You think this was bad? This was the light stuff. This stuff was a walk in the park.
I’ve not told you about the time my Chief fed me drinks at the base club and took me back to his house, had sex with me while I was intoxicated, and told me that he’d “take care of me” during the next evaluations if I didn’t say anything.
I've not discussed the time I nearly got punched in the face in a room full of Sailors because the man-boy-lawyer-turned-sailor was mad that I scored higher on the test than him while in Intel school. No one said a word.
I haven’t even spoken about the dozens of times I’ve been grabbed or groped while walking down a p-way (a hallway) on the ship.
I didn't tell you about the several senior officers and chiefs who flexed their power muscles to try to get into my pants.
I’ve not mentioned the time I was pinned by another sailor in his shop when I went to deliver a package. Terrified and frozen and sure that I would have been assaulted had another sailor not walked in unexpectedly.
And I’ve not even spoken about the time I was drunk and asleep on a friend’s couch when I was drug to the floor and raped by one of the Sailors who worked for me because I had “gotten him in trouble” a couple of months prior.
Guess how many incidents I reported? NONE.
Want to know why I didn't report? Because I was afraid I was going to be the one to get into trouble.
Want to know why I didn't report? Because I was afraid I was going to be the one to get into trouble.
THAT is the ultimate power that patriarchy has over women. The Power to Silence. And it’s so painfully obvious in the military, yet, it’s rarely addressed.
Were there plenty of consenting sexual encounters? Absolutely. I had a lot of self-esteem issues during my time in the military, and I used the attention of the boys and sex as ways to boost my fragile sense of self. I wonder, though, had the environment been more supportive for the young women serving, things would have been different. If I would have acted differently.
There is so much more I could say. There are so many more stories to tell, ones that have so much nuance that you might miss the gravity of them.
There is another element at play in any male-dominated patriarchal environment: POWER.
There is a nuance here that cannot be denied. There is another element at play in any male-dominated patriarchal environment: POWER. And when women are outnumbered 10 or 20 to 1, the power is lopsided. When women's bodies become the butt of every joke and the object of every gaze, they become playthings, not people. When the vast majority of leaders in any organization are unconscious men, women become levers to be pulled to forward an agenda.
And unhealed, unconscious boys like to play with toys, especially when they aren't theirs.
The Patriarchal Power Culture happens when hundreds or thousands of men are paired with less than a hundred women at sea for months at a time. It happens when a boardroom is full of Sleeping Men and Women. For the most part, the women just want to do their job, but it's nearly impossible to focus when they are trying to make it through another harassing joke or worse.
To cope, women close themselves up. I closed myself up. I stopped shining because my brain told me that if I was my normal loud, bubbly self, I would get NOTICED. And being noticed on a ship or anywhere else means that you could get hurt.
Yes, I am proud of being a Woman Veteran. And also, I paid a hefty price tag for that pride. This is the dual nature of being a woman in the military. Or being a woman living in today's world, period.
This isn’t to say that men don’t also pay a heavy price. Oh, they do, for sure. You’d be hard-pressed to find any person without something they had to cut out of themselves to survive. And I hope they open up and share their stories. And that one day we can come together and talk about the way that we created these cultures together, so we can repair them.
But for now, this is the patriarchal society that we've created. And the military serves as a mirror for the world at large.
The Real Price of Freedom
It’s taken years to open myself up again, to trust my voice, and to speak with enthusiasm and joy. Military sexual trauma didn’t affect my sex life, it affected my LIFE life. And not in this obvious PTSD, depression, panic attack kind of way. It's way more subtle, and sneaky, but no less devastating.
It shows up in the hateful ways I sometimes talk about my body.
It shows up in ways I don't speak up for myself and set boundaries.
It shows up in the ways I’m terrified to share my emotions as a leader.
It shows up in keeping myself small and hidden so I don’t get noticed.
It shows up in the physical weight I put on to use as a shield so men don’t look at me.
And it sometimes keeps me from living my most brilliant, vibrant, turned-on bright life.
But I’m working on it, and my light is getting brighter and brighter every time I speak my truth.
They ask you at the Veteran’s Affairs (VA) hospitals if you experienced sexual trauma while in the military and if you suffer from PTSD from it. And I always say yes to the first and no to the second… and that’s as far as the conversation goes.
I’m glad the VA helps those women and the few men who experience military sexual assault that deeply affects their relationships, ability to work, and self-identity. At the same time, I feel like there is a large number of us who don’t experience the classic “Big T Trauma” from the Dark Side of our military experience. It’s more like a thousand “little t traumas” that create this undercurrent of self-doubt, self-loathing, and self-deprecation.
This is the heart of the work I do with women. It's not just about their health (although I care about that very much), it's about helping them work through all this junk that they've experienced as a woman living in a patriarchal society. It's about setting boundaries and allowing for our bodies to be cared for and protected and loved and respected.
Moving On this Veterans Day
Maybe you were in the military, maybe you weren’t. My guess is that you’ve experienced something that has made you think that your Light is the reason that people hurt you. So you shut it down, turned it off, and kept yourself small so you couldn’t get hurt anymore.
The world is so dark right now, Sister. I don't think I need to tell you that for you to see it. And the only way it’s going to get light again is if we step into courage and Shine once more.
We must Shine that beautiful, big, spunky, creative, compassionate Light that lives in our hearts. I refuse to let those stupid boys in the military keep me small anymore. I’m taking my power back.
My Light isn't why people hurt me, they hurt me because they couldn't remember their own Light. They've forgotten that I am their Sister, their Mother, their Wife, their Daughter. They've forgotten that hurting me won't fix the pain inside their heart. Only their own Light can heal that part.
The more I shine my Light, the more others will remember theirs. As I shine, it gives permission to others to shine, too. My Light helps others to remember Who They Are and that we are ALL connected. And so does yours, friend.
We can't do this alone anymore. We HAVE to start shining together, reminding each other of the Light that wants to burst from our hearts. Women have to start supporting each other, holding up mirrors for each other and saying, "Sis, you've got a light inside of you, too."
My Light isn't why people hurt me, they hurt me because they couldn't remember their own Light.
I'm on to you, Patriarchy. You aren't going to keep me dim anymore.
This little Light of mine
I'm gonna let it shine.
How about you, Sis? Are you ready to take your power back and shine like the freaking Superstar you are?!? Shoot me a message at hello@koriraewellness.com, I'd love to hear from you. Because when we share our stories and shine our light together, we become a constellation of Big, Beautiful Lights. And if you need some support in getting that Light turned back on, I'm here to help.✨
💋Kori Rae - Formerly known as ISC(SW/AW/IDW) Kovacs, USN
