And she's not afraid to tell me when she thinks I'm off base. I've learned over the years that when someone offers you criticism, your first assumption should be that they're right, which is easy to say and tough to do.
She's damned difficult to argue with. She's always got her ducks in line—she's always a couple of steps ahead, with a well-thought-out, cogent argument. I find that if I pick an argument with her, I really need to have my homework done. She's thorough.
She's insistent.
And boy, is she good.
But I also know that many guys in the Marine Corps have a problem with direct women. At this point in the story, I've watched her deal with that for eighteen years.
Oh, and that women are “moody” or “emotional” crap? That's a gender stereotype. All human beings are prone to emotion. When men express emotions like anger or frustration, it's acceptable and perceived as “strong.” It is more socially acceptable—especially in Marine Corps culture. If a woman expresses anger or is aggressive, she's seen as a bitch. Don't believe me? That's fine. There's thirty to forty years of research in the fields of human communication and behavior that supports this theory. It's called Language Expectancy Theory1 and the main takeaway is that men are equally persuasive whether they use strong language or gentle language, but women are only persuasive when they use nurturing language; and women are typically penalized if they use strong language.2
But even with evidence right in front of me, it took some time for both of us to see what was happening all throughout her career, because sexism is so normalized in the Marine Corps. Just one example: One time, when Kate was a captain and she was talking about her marathon-training regimen, a colonel interrupted to tell the group his strategy was, “to find the woman with the nicest ass at the start and follow her for 26.2 miles.” Everyone laughed—well, except two people. In any case, it's clear to me that, over two decades, she has had to navigate a very different Marine Corps, simply because she has two X chromosomes.
I regret not seeing it sooner or doing more sooner to address it with my peers.
Even when we were second lieutenants at Twentynine Palms in California, I was confused by my fellow lieutenants’ attitudes toward women when, just two years earlier, they had been in a gender-split fifty-fifty environment in college. Here's the thing. If you had sexist beliefs prior to joining the Marine Corps, those views were reinforced during your acculturalization through thirteen weeks of boot camp or ten weeks of Officer Candidates School. Both are transformative experiences. Neither are about building warriors so much as they are about breaking you down, indoctrinating you with cultural norms and expectations and history, and challenging you to consistently perform better. All the real combat training comes after.
When I went to OCS in 1995, I hadn't yet realized that the sexism in the Corps was baked in. Hold that thought. I'll get to that in a minute.
By the time we left OCS and the Basic School at Quantico, we all embraced the thought that civilians were sloppy and slovenly and that we were better and more disciplined, and it was clear to me that women weren't welcome or part of the team.
I told you I met Kate in 1997; this was when I was assigned to Echo Company, Second Battalion, Seventh Marines out at the Corps’ desert training center in Twentynine Palms—and, no, it wasn't as cool as the Led Zeppelin song.
We lovingly referred to that sunbaked, godforsaken base as “Twentynine Stumps.” To make the desolation worse, some genius put the sewage-treatment facility in line with the prevailing westerlies, so a constant aroma of poop emanated from Lake Bandini and floated over the base.
Female officers were rare back then at Twentynine Palms. I joke that when Kate would come to my company area, it was like a prairie dog town with Marines popping their heads out of their little holes, peering around corners and over HMMWVs (Humvees)—like they had never seen a woman before. I think she was one of about four female officers on the base at the time, so it was an issue. The Stumps was essentially man-land filled with infantry, armor, and artillery units. As a rule, male lieutenants would typically write off any woman on base as someone's wife, someone's daughter, or an enlisted female Marine, so they didn't bother to romantically pursue them.
So how did we meet? Believe it or not, I first saw her at the officers’ club pool on a Saturday in June 1997. I was there with my roommate, Lou Rhodes, and we saw two attractive women in bikinis there. They looked like they were our age. They were by themselves. I thought I was seeing a mirage. And then one of them appeared again, holding a baby. Yep. They're each somebody's wife. Forget about it.
The next Sunday I was bored, so I went to see Navy Chaplain Father Coyle's mass. He was a crusty, old combat-decorated Vietnam vet and former Marine. I'm a complete skeptic when it comes to religion—my parochial-school priest died in prison after being convicted of raping and murdering a nun in some crazy ritual—but Coyle was cool and made
