RISE, A Modern Guide for the Purpose Driven Woman Winter 2014 | Page 26

I distinctly remember sitting there in a nearly empty barracks room, on a green wool blanket covered
mattress, next to my best friend. We were huddled next to each other, opposite a digital movie camera she had set up
minutes before. The topic of discussion was our upcoming completion of the United States Army Basic Airborne
Course at Fort Benning, Georgia. She and I had done this many times, talking to and at each other, posing questions
for our future selves, making predictions, voicing secrets and truths, immortalized in a digital state for later review.
I often found myself talking to myself in my head during these recording sessions, wondering what I should and
shouldn’t say to my future self. Now I span across the last 11-plus years, two divorces complete by me, one marriage in
progress for her; two children by me, none yet on the horizon for her. Countless months of separation and lack of contact never seems to affect the solidity of our friendship. I actually think of it more as a relationship; something almost
as a constant “aside” from whatever else is going on in our lives. Whenever things are really bad, or I need to make a really important decision, it is really important that I get to talk to her. Not because I will ask her for her advice on what
I’m doing. We may not even discuss the topic on hand, but more just to make that quick connection and gain a sense
of familiarity. Somehow it just helps to talk to someone who I know understands me no matter how far away we are.
These are the things that I gained from my time in the military for which I am grateful.

Female
Warriors
written by Lady 6

Sophia breaks the silence in the car
and asks “Mommy, would you ever kill
someone?” Adrian was in a constant
state of anxiousness about fielding
questions like these from her daughters. Sophia is only 5 years old, but
asks provocative questions, and her
sister Taylor, only 18 months younger,
will ask questions whose maturity
stops you dead in your tracks. After a
never-ending five second pause Adrian
responds “Would I ever kill someone
if they were threatening my life? Yes.”
Sophia seemed to not expect that
response, and thought about it for several seconds before asking if Mommy
meant she would kill someone for work
or outside of work or both? Adrian
spends the next 20 minutes of the
remaining car ride trying to explain to
a very smart 5-year old the principles
of right and wrong as applied to people
trying to kill you because of your race
and nationality in the circumstances
of war.

Adrian knows that a lot of it is lost on
the girls, but she wants to at least give
Sophia an answer as to why Mommy
said she would kill another human being. Adrian also wants them to understand that if anyone ever tried to hurt
Sophia or Taylor, Mommy would also
hurt that person to protect them. Sophia asks “Is that like what you do in
the Army? Protect people?” Adrian explains that sometimes there are people
that do not have the means with which
to defend themselves against an unjust
enemy. Sophia replies, “You mean like
when bad people killed Jesus?” Adrian
thinks to herself: what do you say
to that! So she said the most logical
thing, “Yes Sophia, it’s exactly like that,
except we try to stop the people that
want to do harm before it happens.”
Adrian hates that the precious little
time that she gets to spend with her
girls sometimes take shape of answering very difficult questions.

The stresses of being on active duty
in the Army, living a four-hour drive
away from her daughters and exhusband, coupled with the controversy
between friends, family and estranged
ex-in-laws over why the girls live with
their father instead of their mother.
After Adrian announced that her
ex-husband and her were separating,
and the girls were going to go with him
to live at first, many mutual friends,
individual friends and even family
members balked at the idea of the girls
being separated from their mother,
especi