By the time I qualified with my pistol again, I was a bona fide, shaking-at-the-knees wreck. So for seventeen years, I walked around with the marksman badge for my rifle, but also a marksman badge for my pistol. Double-cheese, please.
In the Marine Corps, we judge new Marines checking into their units on what they look like in their Service Alphas (dress uniforms), with their ribbons and badges. Wearing these two badges was humiliating. No matter what else I achieved in my career, whether running a perfect PT test or being selected for top jobs, the first impression when I arrived at my new unit was always, “Huh…another woman with double pizza boxes.”
I realized that if I wanted to hold the recruits at Parris Island accountable for shooting well, and I wanted to hold the drill instructors accountable for training them, I needed to start with myself.
Because the first thing any good Marine will do is call you on your BS.
I was nervous and embarrassed, but I had to ask for help. As it turned out, Colonel Gerry Leonard and his Marines at the Weapons and Field Training Battalion, which ran the ranges, were fantastic. I think Colonel Leonard was concerned about the poor performance of the women, and he was enthusiastic that I cared too. He was eager to have his Marines help me change the status quo.
I started going to the pistol electronic range—ISMET—in late October. You've probably done something similar at the county fair or an arcade, if you're old enough to remember arcades. Chuck E. Cheese? At ISMET, you basically pretend like you're shooting a rifle or pistol, using a weapon that's essentially the same as what you would use at the range, including the recoil, but you don't use real bullets. That way, you can shoot as many times as you'd like, but it saves the Marine Corps a mint in ammunition. It saves a lot of time, too.
This one, of course, isn't set up to ensure you don't win the big fluffy bunny, like at Chuck E. Cheese. Instead, you work on your breathing: Breathe in. Breathe out. Hold perfectly still. Gently squeeze the trigger. Caress it, really.
You practice over, and over, and over until the muscle memory's there and the weapon feels like a part of you—rather than a scary, loud thing that recoils and makes everything from your shoulders to your eyeballs clench up.
Because it's the Marine Corps, we even have an acronym for how to do this: BRASS. Breathe, Relax, Aim, Slack, Squeeze.
Every single week from late October until my pistol-qualification week in January, I drove my little golf cart to the range, checked on my recruits on the firing line, and then spent an hour practicing my shooting fundamentals. I made it clear to my Marines and recruits that I was going to shoot expert. And, thanks to the amazing coaches, especially the range chief and his company commander, I got so comfortable shooting at the ISMET that we often competed against each other at the end of my sessions. I shot and shot and shot until I got to the point where I felt confident that I had the fundamentals down.
And then, lo and behold, I shot expert on the pistol for the first time in my life.
If I had stayed for the next year, I would have had the opportunity to try again with the rifle, too. My coaches at the ISMET were going to set it up for me, and it would have been a huge confidence boost.
The best part? Colonel Leonard's willingness to partner with me to improve the scores of my female recruits and drill instructors made it possible to start changing the minds of the male coaches about what women could achieve on the range. I wanted so much to pass on to my Marines not only what I learned from Colonel Leonard and his Marines but also how they made me feel. They expected me to do well, and I didn't want to let them down. And, man, I felt CONFIDENT—like a badass, really.
When we began focusing on improving the performance of my recruits at the range, I said, “Hey. I started with me.” I told them I was the worst shot on the planet—that I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn—and I tried to be self-deprecating. I told them I used to spend my time at the range praying that someone else would shoot at my target.
I told them I make mistakes every day. I hoped they would understand that screwing up is part of being human, but so is improving.
The funny thing is, when I got canned, the trolls looked at my official command photo and went absolutely nuts because of my badges. Two pizza boxes. I never had my photo retaken after I got my expert, because it wasn't a big deal to me. I didn't have anything to prove to anyone else—I needed to do it for me and for my Marines and soon-to-be Marines. As long as my Marines knew how hard I had worked for that expert pistol badge, I knew my drill instructors would be more motivated to ensure their recruits did well.
After I was fired, the comments from the online trolls about my command photo made me angry. I would have liked to defend myself.
But my Marines and recruits know. And I know. That's what matters.
I knew about the Marine Corps Integrated Task Force study—the study looking at how well men and women performed when they trained together in ground-combat settings—when I arrived at Parris Island. It was designed to determine whether women should be allowed in the infantry.
Strike that: It was designed to show women shouldn't be allowed in the infantry.
I desperately wanted to be a part of it, to show that my female recruits and Marines could, in fact, perform at higher levels. And I wanted
