Blog Post Humans of NY

 The Humans of New York article that I chose to read was about a woman who was a soldier overseas for a period of time. It is about how she felt out of place despite characterizing herself as being the tough tomboy her whole childhood. She claims that she wasn't an easy soldier to deal with in the eyes of her superiors. She states that at one point, after being punished for arriving late and drunk to an event, she wrote a speech about how her commanding sergeant didn't represent American values in the way that she had hoped. It was a ballsy move, but one that she seems to look back on as an example of being a strong female. She goes on to discuss how many of the soldiers around her loved their purpose in the military. They enjoyed the fighting, and the killing, and particularly the cool war stories they'd have to bring back home. But for her, she didn't wanna boast about her time spend at war. She thought she was going to be working in field hospitals, not escaping whizzing bullets and sometimes even friendly fire. 

She tells the interviewer, "What happened to being a good person?".

After returning to America from her deployment, she decided that she didn't want to be caught in the alcoholic veteran pipeline. So, she begin signing up for every wellbeing practice there was; acupuncture, meditation, therapy, etc. She was going to heal her trauma head on. But what she found most helpful was directing her focus to femininity. As mentioned, she was never the girly type. However, she has discovered that building her relationships with other women and being surrounded by a supportive group with similar ideologies has offered her another chance at happiness. 

I really liked how the story isn't necessarily about any one event. It is just an overall look at a female veteran and her experiences. It isn't even just about fighting like one would think from reading the series prompt. I enjoyed the fact that it took a turn to look at what women can do to uplift each other, despite different journeys. The little details about how she wears more skirts and dresses to channel her femininity was so heartfelt to read. And honestly, was relatable even though her desire to do this comes from a completely different place than my own.