We thought we would have some fun and reverse Anatomy of the Male Mind by having a woman do a post. I asked my friend (and Windy City RWA chapter sister) Teresa (Terri) Stone to share some of her military experiences with us. Terri is a frequent presenter at writers’ conferences and other venues. She has authored several articles on research techniques and the business of writing. Her knowledge about taxes and writers helped her survive the dreaded IRS audit process with positive results.
Her years of military experience, at a time when a woman in the military wasn’t so common, gives Terri a unique perspective on the male mind that many women cannot relate to.
Here’s Terri!
Why can’t men think more like a woman?
There’s a song I remember hearing when I was a kid growing up in California, “Why can’t a woman think (or be) more like a man.” Of course, none of us really want that. What we want is for the opposite sex just to understand where we’re coming from and to hear us.
When I joined the U.S. Army back in 1979 after graduating from UCLA and the Army ROTC program it was a very, very interesting time. It had only been a few years since the end of the Viet Nam war, but it was also less than a year after the military integrated women into the regular ranks with the men. Most young folks don’t realize that when women joined the military prior to 1978 they joined a separate military – pink for girls and blue for boys. For the army it was the WACs or the Women’s Army Corps. As a result, there were many jobs and assignments that were not available to women, something that took years to overcome even after the integration.
I was one of the very first female engineer officers in the army after the integration, having graduated from ROTC two years prior to the first female officers graduating from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. So, when I showed up for the Engineer Officer Basic Course at Fort Belvoir, VA in March of 1979 there were only two women in the class – I was one of them. The higher ups decided to put us in different training platoons, because heaven forbid two women should be in close proximity to each other. I guess they were afraid that we’d conspire to do something unfathomable like work well together, or teach the men to do the dishes — or, heaven forbid, get in touch with their feelings. Maybe they were afraid we’d both have PMS at the same time. Although, this was a time when men had a growing fascination watching women mud wrestle.
As the training progressed, I noticed that there were lots of senior officers observing our training sessions in the field, including some with stars. Now, it’s possible that these high-ranking officers would have been around anyway, but I suspected that was not the case. I sensed that they were there to make sure everything was going well because of the presence of women and the political and PR fall out there would have been had something terrible happened. You see the military had also gone all-volunteer and it was very difficult to convince men to join the military after all the negativity of the last years of the Viet Nam War. So, really, women helped save the day by joining and keeping units at minimum strength levels.
I became convinced that we had so many high-ranking observers because of the females when I was singled out to place explosives in an obstacle that the other platoon had built. The training Sergeant had a wry sense of humor by choosing me as it made the senior officers watching very nervous and he was a bit disgruntled that so many had shown up when in the past that wasn’t the case. The Sergeant whispered in my ear that all eyes were on me as I calculated how much C-4 (plastic explosives) to use. I showed him my calculations and he verified that they were correct and then he instructed me to use all the C-4 we had left, which was more than required. He told me that he didn’t want to do the paperwork to turn in any excess C-4 after we returned from the field exercise. Made sense to me. Apparently paperwork is equally disliked by both sexes. I smiled and packed the C-4 into the obstacle.
Then we moved a safe distance away, lit the det cord, and waited. The explosion was impressive and it felt great having made the earth move a little beneath such higher-ups’ feet. It was unclear if there was any doubt in their minds after this as to whether or not women could or could not do the job. Then I was selected to make a road crater, using nitroglycerin. The same senior officers showed up to watch the show, but this time they moved further away, clearly a bit nervous from the last experience of combining me and explosives. Once again, I made the earth move beneath their feet, but more than that, I communicated to them that I could relate to them on their terms. It was a blast on so many levels!
The attention remained focused on me as I progressed to my first assignment. Female engineer officers were very rare back then and I routinely had the opportunity for conversations with senior officers. The topic of women in combat was a frequent one and I found the attitudes very interesting. I remember one conversation with a Colonel about some of the jobs that were closed to women, which meant assignments and promotions were limited as well. A common answer was that the U.S. wasn’t ready for women to come home in body bags. My answer – “Oh really, sir, women end up in body bags on main street USA all the time due to domestic violence – we seem to be ready for that.” Another time, to a different officer my answer was, “So, I only have to worry about the bullets that are pink for girls and not the ones that are blue for boys.” I even had the nerve to ask one senior officer to give me a written guarantee that women wouldn’t die in combat because we weren’t ready, something he admitted he couldn’t do. My point of course was that there’s only so much control any of us have and to say we aren’t ready for something doesn’t mean it won’t happen. Fast forward to the Iraq war and we all know how true that is.
After serving as a platoon leader and company commander, I moved up to a staff officer position with our higher headquarters. One day I engaged in a lively conversation with one of the supply sergeants. It was Black History Month and as an African American he had concerns about how this was being approached. Since it was the early 1980′s and before the World Wide Web or before having more than a hundred channels available on television sets – including the History Channel, the approach really was limited. The Sergeant had just left the Group Commander’s office where he had pitched an idea about presenting an improved historical perspective during duty hours. The Group Commander said that the Sergeant could hold a session after duty hours but not during, something that made the Sergeant unhappy.
Now I had worked with this Sergeant extensively when I was a company commander and had great respect for him as a person and soldier so it was important to me that he not walk away so disgruntled or feeling left out. I offered up my assessment that at least the commander was offering him the use of the large briefing room and allowing him to invite the soldiers in. The Sergeant’s response was that it needed to be mandatory otherwise people would blow it off. I said I understood but countered that if I went into the commander’s office and asked for the same concession but regarding the history of women and all that they’ve contributed, I would get the same response from the commander. I then asked the Sergeant if he thought the troops would willingly sit through my presentation — thinking to myself they’d show up only if there were bikini-clad women pole dancing. This was before Women’s History Month was established.
The Sergeant calmed down a bit but was determined to share his thoughts so I listened. He talked about how most people just didn’t understand the racial history of the world and I agreed. He pointed out how most of the world depicted Jesus as a white man despite the fact that the area Jesus came from would not support this false image. Okay, so the talk was turning towards religion. If you think the communication between the sexes is bad, we all know that communication between major religious groups is even worse. I tried to get the Sergeant off the talk of religion but he went for the Holy Grail and asked me why white people always insisted that God is white. I looked him right in the eye and said, “Sergeant, I don’t care what color She is.”
The Sergeant walked away with an understanding smile and laughing, which was my objective all along.
You see – we all just want to be understood. We just have to listen to find the right words the other person will understand, regardless of gender or race. Humor often helps.
Thank you to Terri for being with us. I’d have loved to see you with that C-4! Terri is here to answer any questions we may have about working with men in a predominantly male environment so have it everyone.
Here is a little more about Terri:
She lives in the Chicago area with her daughter and musician Sarah Stone, and a stubborn West Highland Terrier named Rocky who just turned sixteen. Terri holds a Bachelors Degree in French from UCLA and Masters’ Degrees in Geography from UC Santa Barbara and Systems Management from the University of Southern California (USC). A former Army engineer, Terri taught Geography and Leadership at the prestigious United States Military Academy at West Point. She has served at Army facilities from coast to coast and along the Demilitarized Zone in South Korea and left the Army with the rank of Major. Terri devours both Mysteries and Romances and is a member of the board for the Love Is Murder Con (www.loveismurder.net) held every year in Chicago on the first weekend in February. She has completed a screenplay and her first romantic suspense fiction work. She can be reached at the Windy City RWA website (www.windycityrwa.org) or by e-mail at tvmstone@yahoo.com.
Be sure to check in on Friday when Tracey will have a great post by literary agent Donald Maass.
Kelsey's serving up bite-sized morsels for your noggin on her new 
Hey Terri!
Welcome to RU! At what point in your career were you finally accepted into the military (man’s) world? Were you ever?
Thanks!!
Posted by Tracey Devlyn | July 1, 2009, 5:34 amAcceptance is a moving target in the military – not only for women but for lots of groups of folks – think don’t ask don’t tell. Maybe because of my personality or maybe because I’m originally from Los Angeles where just about anything goes I think that I was more accepted than some because I was more accepting of other people as a rule.
There were challenges like when one male officer point blank told me that he’d rather see me dead than in an army uniform and I looked him in the eye and reminded him that I too had access to the arms room and weapons. Didn’t have a problem with him after that.
Posted by Terri | July 1, 2009, 12:32 pmHi Terri and welcome!
What a a great read – thanks! Did you ever get in trouble for any of your pithy comments ie “So, I only have to worry about the bullets that are pink for girls and not the ones that are blue for boys.” That was a good one btw…lol. Did you get disciplined the same way men did at that time or do you think they treated women the same way as men in that respect?
With so many stories nowadays, focusing on the Alpha Male, do you think the average writer has it right? Or are we really toning it down for the books? You had to have been surrounded by Alpha Males!
thanks!
carrie
Posted by carrie | July 1, 2009, 8:25 amI was shocked that I made Major because I was so mouth but I’d always smile and I think because I often left some of the senior officers speechless they just rather walk away than engage.
Since I was an officer I actually dished out discipline and in my troop assignments (platoon leader, company commander) I took a stance with my troops that I was the one they had to worry about if they messed up but I also made sure that nobody else messed with them. So, it was a two-way street on loyalty, and it worked fairly well.
I grew up rough and tough in L.A. with gangs and a whole bunch of violence and my mother ran an unauthorized day-care business so I’d seen and experienced a whole bunch of stuff before I ever went into the military. The military was in many ways a relief after how I grew up. I appreciated the structure and discipline for the most part but I also wasn’t reserved about taking certain risks. Some risks I didn’t too so well with – but that’s another story.
Ah, the Alpha Male. Sometimes reality is more boring than fiction and I think as writers our job is to deliver a believable story but also one that is entertaining and meets the needs of the readers. So, it just depends on the story and how the characters are developed as to how well the Alpha Male role plays out. It’s kind of like special effects. We’ve all seen movies where the special effects are so well balanced with the telling of the story that we are awed on both levels. I put the Star Wars triology in that cateogry. And then we’ve been to movies where the special effects are the only thing going for the movie and we’re left unsatisfied because we couldn’t relate to the characters and the plot wasn’t believeable. I shoved those out of my mind so can’t give you an example off the top of my head.
Posted by Terri | July 1, 2009, 12:48 pmI really enjoyed this Terri, thanks! (I try to tell my husband all the time that God a woman and so he should worship me.
)
My questions: with the women’s movement and the acceptance of women in areas that were traditionally male only, have the way men and women communicate/understand each other changed? If so, how? Do you think women and men understand each other more or less now?
Posted by T. H. Caldwell | July 1, 2009, 9:03 amI think men will always be from Mars and women from Venus!
I think the biggest mistake we make is not relating to each others as humans first and gender second. I was in high school in the early 1970′s when the women’s movement started really picking up and one day when a friend of mine and I were walking along the beach in Venice, California we were approached by two college-aged young women handing out flyers to attend one of the first bra-burning events in the area. My response was that since bras cost so much money why would I ever want to burn mine? and that my mother would kill me for wasting money – we were very poor. I didn’t see bra-burning as the road to equality in life, only to future sagging boobs.
It just seemed to me that if we wanted to be taken seriously in a man’s world we needed to act humanely and NOT give up our status as women. One of the challenges is that some women fall into the rut of acting like a man all the time to be taken seriously by men and I completely understand this and have had to do this myself but I usually based it on the situation. Sometimes using my femine ways like smiling and batting my eyelashes got me the results I wanted. It was all dependent on the situation. When I was stationed in South Korea I worked with not only american military but South Korean civilians as well. So, sometimes the language of a feminine smile was the best way to communicate. Of course, I was prepared to use my Tae Kwon Do skills if things went too far.
I’ve lots more to say on this subject but will leave this alone for now. I often wished I had studied for a degree in sociology while I was in the service. It was like living in a human lab experiment most of the time.
Posted by Terri | July 1, 2009, 1:04 pmTerri -
Welcome! In the romance genre, we see a lot of military heroes and a few military heroines paired with those military heroes.
If a writer wants to create a military heroine and pair her with a non-military hero, what are your suggestions for making a somewhat realistic match in terms of the hero’s personality, profession, etc.?
Thanks much!
Kelsey
Posted by KelseyBrowning | July 1, 2009, 10:01 amThis is actually a very good question. The military is an extremely diverse population despite all the common uniforms, color designations and training to make us less individual. The most obvious divisions are between the major military branches — Army, Navy (Marines), Air Force, and Coast Guard. The Coast Guard is under the Department of Transportation except during times of war. Check the branches websites for more info on this. DId you know that the Air Force was originally the Army Air Corps and many of the pilots in WWII were actually in the Army Air Corps? The Navy also had pilots.
I think an obvious match could be a returning soldier form the middle east who’s having trouble adjusting and has to go see a VA Hospital therapist. The army has started some new initiatives throught the VA Hospitals to help retuning soldiers adjust. So, the heroine could be the returning vet and the VA Therapist the hero, who maybe as a young child watched his father return from Viet Nam and have difficulties adjusting.
Also, Grey’s Anatomy has a storyline going with a returning MASH surgeon pitted against Christina’s strong personality. So that’s an example, just have to reverse the gender roles.
How about a returning veteran returns to his small town and the heroine is in law enforcement or politics – or vice versa? The National Guard (which has been deployed a lot in the Iraq War) is made up of many folks from small towns/rural areas so this wouldn’t be a stretch at all.
Since I was an engineer and female engineer officers are graduating from West Point in higher numbers, there’s an opportunty here with say a hero who is in construction or who owns a construction company and the returning heroine is now working for a civilian government agency and during building inspections discovers some sort of sabotage or a dead body or shipshod contracting and the hero and heroine get pulled into solving the murder….
Pilots – more and more females are helicopter and jet pilots so what about a civilian pilot who’s a bit of a daredevil or works for law enforcement trying to “weed” out drug dealers either in the US or over the waters?
Everyone in the military is designated not only by rank but also by their Military Occupational Speciality – or MOS – so if you go to the websites for the branches and search on the many MOS’s you will find descriptins and duties that will help you brainstorm ideas.
Okay – I really like this question. Remember, though, that the military is made up of people from all walks of life and they bring that with them to their service experience. Also, remember that the US military serves with military personnel from other nations and there’s lots of potential for stories there. South Korea is still considered a United Nations assignment in certain areas so it isn’t just Americans serving there.
Great question – hope I’ve given some insights on the topic.
Posted by Terri | July 1, 2009, 1:30 pmTerri -
Fantastic answer! Thank you. It made me want to run out and start a new story
. I think one of the things that intimidates me about writing military characters is the research involved to “get it right.”
You’re an incredible brainstormer! I’d love to sit down and pick your brain sometime.
Thanks so much,
K-
Posted by KelseyBrowning | July 1, 2009, 1:46 pmTwo shows I really like in terms of protraying women as multi-faceted beings are The Closer (I just love the Brenda Lee Johnson character and how Kyra Sedgwick portrays her) and NCIS. I also like Detective Benson on Law and Order – SVU. There are others as well but The Closer and NCIS are just so well written and acted.
Posted by Terri | July 1, 2009, 2:06 pmAdd the cable program In Plain Sight – yet another well-written and acted show. The characters have dimension and I think most people can relate to them and their lives.
Posted by Terri | July 1, 2009, 9:27 pmTerri,
I’m in total agreement. This was a fantastic post, then again I knew it would be. Carrie asked a great question that I’m curious about also. Were women disciplined the same as men?
Dyanne
Posted by Dyanne | July 1, 2009, 10:28 amYes and no. Everything was dependent on so many variables such as when a woman joined, which branch she was in (not only Army, Navy (Marines), Air Force, Coast Guard – but also the sub branches in the branch of service), if she was an officer versus enlisted, her life experience, and so much more. The military has always been challenged by social changes to include not only gender issues but racial and regional issues as well. In some ways the military has been an incredible social equalizer and I will say that my military experience allowed me opportunities I don’t think I would have otherwise. I’ve talked with African Americans – both male and female – who feel the same.
Now, going back to the male officer who told me he’d rather see me dead than in an army uniform. He clearly had a very narrow view of women in general and I was grateful that he wasn’t in my chain-of-command so it was easier to mess with his mind by replying as I did about having access to weapons. Oh, and I also reminded him that he had to sleep at some point. I really wanted to bring home to him that everyone has their weaknesses and vulnerabilities – not just women. One of my all-time favorite scenes in a movie is when Indiana Jones is up against the big, bad guy with the very big scythe-like sword. Everyone’s first reaction is that Indy is doomed because he’s smaller and less mean-looking. Then Indy says what the hell and pulls out his gun and shoots the guy.
I think overall that women and other “minorities” are disciplined differently because they walk in and have to contend with preconceived notions about how they should our could behave. I left the US Army in 1992 and I sure hope that newer generations have figured this out a little better than we had. But I will tell you this. Sometimes I actually got away with more than a male would have but other times I was also held to a higher standard of expectations so I didn’t have as much wiggle room to make mistakes. Agian, it just depends on so many variables and I suspect you would get all kinds of responses on this topic from those who’ve served.
As a commander I worked with something called the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) as well as a number of administrative punishments I could hand out. So, to that extent all commanders were bound to certain levels of discipline by military code and law. But just like parenting, we all know the variation is great in how each parent deals with and disciplines their children. Some go way too far and some don’t go far enough.
Posted by Terri | July 1, 2009, 1:56 pmThanks for being with us today Terri. Sorry I’m so late tuning in, but I really enjoyed all the questions and your answers. Great info!
Posted by Adrienne Giordano | July 1, 2009, 6:47 pmThis was a lot of fun and boy (or girl) did it bring back memories. FYI I am a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and the American Legion. One of my goals in life is to get more veterans – men and women – to tell and document their experiences because everyone’s story matters. Right now we’re losing WWII veterans at an alarming rate and there’s still so much we could learn from them. I applaud anyone supporting the recording of these veteran’s lives and hope to contribute to that effort in the near future with a couple of projects I’m trying to initiate.
Thanks Romance University for inviting me to be part of this wonderful experience today.
Posted by Terri | July 1, 2009, 9:23 pmTerri,
You bring up some good points but I feel that people are people and if we have human rights then we don’t need sub categories of rights (women’s, black’s, hispanic’s rights) If a person can do the job they should have it, if not there is no way they should get it.
I would much prefer a purple ape to back me up if it could do the job than someone who could not and then I die. No thanks.
The military gets this, I think, but just has no idea how to implement it without screams of discrimination. Or at least the military wishes it were so. That is just my personal opinion.
I think as writers we can do a lot toward altering attitudes. Maybe someday the world will be a perfect place but not in my lifetime.
I love that you are documenting verteran’s lives. I too am reaching out to those in my family for info on WWII. It will be interesting to see what happens.
Thanks again for your great info.
Posted by Nina Johnson | July 2, 2009, 7:19 pmTerri,
I found this a fascinating interview. You came up with some excellent lines in real life. I can only imagine the dialogue you must put into your fiction when you have a little more time to prepare.
You would make a great fiction character.
I can’t think of a question (which is rare for me since I’m a reporter) but just wanted to say I really enjoyed the interview and it was inspiring. I think it took a special kind of courage and self-confidence to deal with things the way you did. You made me realize that sometimes heroes can come from people living their daily lives authentically. That seems so rare at times.
Thanks for your service to this great country and happy July 4th.
Posted by Cathy S. | July 2, 2009, 10:09 pmI’ll say one thing… this is one post that opened my eyes to both sides!!! It gives you something to really chew on, and a top question: “are women as disciplined as men?” Hmmn… Great read!!
Posted by Wayne | August 2, 2009, 10:23 pm