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Lisa Cordeiro Reviews For JOURNEY OF A WOMAN MARINE: LIFE, LOVE, AND TRAVELS DURING AND AFTER THE MARINE CORPS by Lisa Cordeiro “Like many other young Americans, Lisa Cordeiro entered the military looking for adventure and for a chance to discover herself. She survived Marine Corps boot camp, as recounted in her first book, and felt ready to take on the world. The prospect of deployment to Okinawa delighted her. She wanted to volunteer for sea duty. What couldn't she do, now that she'd become an honest-to-goodness United States Marine? The unfortunate answer to that is at this book's heart, and it tells a story of the modern U.S. military that every citizen should read. Lisa Cordeiro's Marine Corps journey takes her through profound disappointment, self-doubt, and betrayal at the hands of those she wants most to trust. With her enlistment cut short through no fault of her own, Lisa sets off on a different journey of self-discovery. She learns what every maturing young adult must - how to survive on her own. How to deal with being let down, and how to identify the things and the people that really matter in her life. This really is the "the rest of the story" that the author's
first book began, and I am very glad she decided to tell it with the
same unflinching honesty.” Sample Chapter For JOURNEY
OF A WOMAN MARINE: LIFE, LOVE, AND TRAVELS DURING AND AFTER THE MARINE
CORPS by Lisa Cordeiro
Twentynine Palms, California I was now a Marine. Fresh out of boot camp, I was still on my toes, convinced that drill instructors dotted the landscape like Big Brother, ready to attack me for the slightest infraction. But the drill instructors were gone. I was no longer a scumbag recruit, but Private First Class Minassian reporting to Communications and Electronics School in Twentynine Palms, California. Unfortunately, it was July in the Mohave Desert. In the Palm Springs airport, I bumped into Rawlings, who was in another platoon in boot camp. It was great to see a familiar face even though we’d never spoken before. A couple of Marines drove five of us newbies through the desert to the base at Twentynine Palms. Dressed in our spiffy Service Charlies that included a khaki blouse over an olive skirt, we asked around the barracks for the Sergeant we were to report to. “He’s in the Rec Hall.” We opened the door to the Rec Hall and I almost gasped. Guy, guy, guy, guy, guy. Where were the women? In boot camp, we trained in all-female platoons. Although we knew the Marines were ninety-five per cent men, it was overwhelming to witness it firsthand. Dozens of men stopped playing ping pong, pool, or whatever else they were doing, as if we walked into a bar when the music stops playing and all heads turn towards you. They stared, checking us out, not even inconspicuous about it. Welcome to the Marine Corps. Sergeant Jiminez, a slightly paunchy Marine with a dark mustache, brought us to his office to process us in. He introduced us to Sergeant Fernandez, a thinner Marine who also had a mustache, and a couple of Marines who were watching TV. Since we were trained separately from the guys in boot camp, this was our first real interaction with male Marines. “Great movie,” he said. “What is it?” I asked. “The Flying Leathernecks,” Sergeant Jiminez said, looking at me with suspicion. “You must have seen it.” “No.” Every Marine in the room turned to stare
at me with eyes wide and mouths half-open. “No,” I repeated. “John Wayne? “I’ve never seen a John Wayne movie.” They looked at me as if I just announced I was a double-agent. “How can you be a Marine and not watch John Wayne movies?” I shrugged. “Sit down,” the Sergeant said. “We have to break you in.” I sat down and watched for about five minutes, my mind wandering to everything else I should be doing. I didn’t think my first moments in the fleet would involve a forced induction into the John Wayne fan club. “I should probably unpack,” I said. How I could turn down the chance to watch John Wayne was obviously beyond them, but nevertheless, Sergeant Jiminez gave me a key to my room. Rawlings and I were assigned to a room together and I had to wonder if we were assigned by height. I’m only five feet tall and Rawlings was only an inch taller. What were we—the mini Marine club? Two other women—note they were of average height—were assigned to a room a few doors down. The other Marines in our class were men. We were in the Communications Center Operator course for the summer where we’d learn to transmit and receive classified messages. Classified messages. It sounded very mysterious. Maybe we’d be trained on James Bond-like more-than-meets-the-eye technology… Whatever stereotypes I had about how a Marine should look and act were quickly dispelled. The Marines were all shapes and sizes, with all sorts of personalities. Tall, short, overweight, skinny, outgoing, shy, sweet, mean, rude, polite—they were all there. My first weekend there, one guy lived nearby in Oceanside and he invited a few of us to his apartment. The only things in our sand pit were a bowling alley and movie theater that only showed one film for days at a time. There was no way I’d stay on the base when I didn’t have to. We spent the days walking around Oceanside where I was shocked to see so many Marines and sailors in town. Then we spent the nights in the clubs. Even though we were underage—I was twenty—we were able to buy beer and wine as we were military. “I can buy!” I gloated to my friends back home where we were always on search for a buyer in Harvard Square. Back at the base, we spent the next week or two doing shit jobs while we waited for our classmates to show up. We also waited for the rest of our uniforms since we could only bring a seabag and garment bag with a couple of cammies with us on the plane. Since you only had two pairs of cammies, you had to hope you didn’t sweat too much in the desert sun as you could only do laundry so often. Since there was not much else to do, some guys had a running tally on how many days Marines wore their cammies in a row. How can you tell them apart, you ask, since they all look the same? They each have a somewhat distinctive pattern and they all wear out differently so you can tell your cammies from one another. Plus, they each get their own feel. One worn-in pair is your most comfortable; another heavily starched pair is good for inspections. Most days we walked under the blazing sun picking up trash around the barracks and in the desert, daydreaming about anywhere we’d rather be. Where was all this excitement I thought I had enlisted for? Whenever they asked for volunteers, I raised my hand. I would do anything other than mindlessly pick up trash. One day I offered to help with drug testing. Now we’re getting somewhere—I’d be doing something other than pick up nasty cigarette butts. I don’t know why these Marines were incapable of putting their cigarettes out in the ashtrays around the barracks, but they insisted on flicking them into the desert sand so that you couldn’t take a step without crushing one. My drug testing job wasn’t exactly glamorous. All I did was collect urine samples from Marines. There was nothing so awkward as when a officer handed you a cup of his urine, both of you giving each other sheepish looks. I mean what could you really say—“Thanks for not spilling, sir”? Talk about a piss job. While picking up garbage for yet another day, a few guys who were on duty with me were taking a breather, sitting on a stairwell. “Minassian, sit down. Take a break.” I sat down for a minute, but was hesitant. Some all-knowing drill instructor would find us and chew us out. After a few restless minutes, I jumped up. “I can’t do it,” I said, going back towards the endless butt pick up duty. “Nobody’s going to care,” one Marine said with a laugh. “They’re just trying to keep us busy.” “Yeah, maybe you’re right.” I tried to loosen up. They were right; this wasn’t boot camp anymore. I was a Marine now. It was still hard to shake off that recruit mentality where we were treated like scum. So we sat around shooting the shit, talking about where we’re from, what boot camp was like, and so on. But, we screwed up and were a few minutes late for formation. Sergeant Fernandez chewed us out, but nothing like a drill instructor would have. Our punishment: clean the office and head. I’ve never been so happy to receive a punishment before. If they thought they were reprimanding me, they were wrong. At least I was picking up butts. I didn’t care if I had to clean toilets, at least it killed time. Hey, I should be late all the time. I shouldn’t have jinxed it as I was late once more. Besides cleaning toilets, Sergeant Jiminez marched me down to the PX. “Follow me,” he said. We walked towards the jewelry counter and he picked up a watch. “Buy it.” After I paid for it, he said, “Put it on.” Hey, my first watch! I never wore watches. It was kind of funny that my first, and I think only, watch was one that I was forced to buy and wear by a Marine sergeant. Although I was warned “never volunteer for anything” in the Marine Corps, I volunteered for every job they had. I would do anything to avoid the mind-numbing existence of waiting for something to do, when every Marine is so bored they ask the same question—“Where are you from?” Besides talking about where we’re from, we talked about where we’d rather be, because nobody in their right mind would choose to live in the desert in summertime. You often heard a Marine mutter, “I signed on that dotted line for this?” When they asked for volunteers in the mail room, I jumped up. This sounded especially alluring as I still obsessed over mail from boot camp when the highlight of my day was mail call. I would be helping letters get from sender to recipient—a noble job indeed—one that Cliff Clavin was proud of. It turned out to be four thousand degrees inside the mailroom and sorting mail wasn’t as glamorous as I envisioned. But soon, I would be trained to be a Communications Center Operator. Now that sounded cool. Goodbye to the shitty mess hall duty of boot camp, goodbye to the deliriously boring trash picking detail, and hello to my up and coming top secret clearance. Ooh rah! * * * * Rawlings and I had come to California after ten short days of leave after graduating Marine Corps boot camp. It wasn’t long enough. After three months of hell on Parris Island, I treasured the comforts of home with a new appreciation. Oh, how I wish I could’ve lingered there. I wanted to stay up to watch Letterman, after finding the trusty box of Cheez-Its I insisted my mom hide from me. I wanted to sleep until 9 a.m. in my cozy waterbed covered with velvety pillows rather than wake up at 4:30 on a “rack” with a scratchy wool blanket that we had to smooth all wrinkles from. Some Marines were permanently affected by boot camp and made their bed to perfection daily. I was not one of these Marines and defiantly left my bed a wrinkled mess, snuggling under the warm comforter to revel in the sensation. No more of this lying-on-top-of-the-wool-blanket crap so as not to disturb the crisp hospital corners. My mother sighed in exasperation. “A tiger never changes its stripes.” There were so many things I now treasured about home. How I could leisurely wake up to have a cup of tea with my mom and little sister, Tina, rather than scramble to get into my hideous olive green running shorts to go for our daily run. How I could pick Tina up after school and watch Pee Wee’s Big Adventure with her. When I sat on my bed and let my gaze wander over the title of every book on my bookshelf, each one promised escape into a different world than that hell I’d been living in. Reading. How long had it been since I was able to sit down and read a book? I wanted to spend more time with my family, time I took so much for granted before I went away. And I wanted to see my friends, whom by their constant letters told me they were friends for life, no matter where in the world I ended up in during my enlistment. At the same time, I was anxious to move on, get to my new assignment in Twentynine Palms, California. I couldn’t wait to see what it was like “in the fleet,” as the drill instructors called it, referring to the Fleet Marine Force. I loved being home, but also wanted to move on. This part of my life was over. No longer was I Lisa, a party girl who had no idea what she wanted to do with her life; I was Private First Class Lisa Minassian, United States Marine, on to the California desert for training and then off to Okinawa, Japan to work in a classified communications center. For days after leaving boot camp, I was mesmerized by the color yellow. Boot camp was a world of Marine Corps green. Now everything looked different, especially people. After three months of looking up to drill instructors and living with Marine recruits, what the drill instructors called “nasty civilians” looked just that—nasty. They were fat and out of shape and lazy. Where was their honor, their discipline? Why wouldn’t they help each other out? I suppose it’s what three months of getting up at the crack of dawn to hard days of training and labor does to you. Since it was so bloody hot in South Carolina in May, we wore our Service Charlies instead of our Dress Blues at graduation that morning. Service Charlies had a short-sleeve khaki blouse and dark green wool skirt. In an airport restroom, I changed into my Dress Blues while my mother protested, “Come on, we have to get to the gate.” She didn’t know that Dress Blues are the uniform, if you ask any Marine. For women, it consisted of a tailored navy blue blazer and skirt, white blouse, and black collar. It took thirteen weeks of hell to earn the right to wear it. If I was going home in any uniform, it would be in my brand-spanking new, tailored dress blues. When I came back to Boston from Parris Island, my relatives were waiting at my house to welcome me home. My little brother Jeff greeted me with his modus operandi: hiding behind a door or piece of furniture and jumping out to scare me. “I don’t care if you’re a Marine. I’m still going to kick your ass,” he said. It was good to be home. My sister Lenna and I even embraced. For months before I left for boot camp, we weren’t speaking over some stupid fight that originated over a sweater or something petty like that. We begrudgingly hugged before I walked out the door to leave for Parris Island. While in boot camp, I realized how pointless holding on to the anger and stupid pride was and we reconciled. Maybe we were just different. She was blond and blue-eyed while I had dark-hair and eyes. I was attracted to the literary world while she claimed to hate reading and gravitated towards math and engineering. She was popular in school where I was more of a misfit or simply invisible. She spent many years growing up competing with me so I teased her, saying she suffered from Jan Brady syndrome. However different we were, we were still sisters. And since I’d moved far away from home, I realized no matter our superficial differences, we had a lot in common. We had a lot of similar personality traits, quirks, and beliefs. We shared similar childhood experiences and both strived to make our own way in the world, even if it wasn’t a traditional women’s path. And most of all, I missed her. How strange yet comforting it was that they all looked the same, seemed the same, but I was so different. It was also great to be referred to as Lisa again, not recruit, or Minassian, or whatever ramshackle version of Minassian the drill instructors felt like shouting at me that day. We partied Armenian-style, which meant being accosted with plates of food from all directions. Lamejune, bereg, and sarma were just a few of the highlights. Bereg, cheese bereg—my favorite. Although my mother is English, she makes the best Armenian food. Nobody can make cheese bereg like she can. When we have a gathering, she makes enough for us to eat leftovers all week. After three months of salivating and reminiscing about real food while I existed on a diet of peanut butter in boot camp, the food tasted better than I imagined, as if my taste buds were finally reawakened from a long Sleeping Beauty-like slumber. Hours later when we were all fat and happy, my friends, Amber, Hilary, Zepure, and ex-boyfriend Mike came over. Amber took the two-hour bus ride from UMass Amherst to welcome me home and I was touched. “You’re probably dying for one of these.” Amber handed me a forty-ounce of Private Stock beer. “Welcome home, Lis McLis.” “Welcome home,” they all said, raising their forties in a toast. At first, I hesitated. Do I really want to fall into old habits? Drinking forties every night? Don’t I want to leave that drunk Lisa at CB Park behind? Then I thought, Screw it, I’m only home for ten days. How much damage could I possibly do? Maybe I shouldn’t have jinxed it… “What are you wearing?” Amber asked as she examined my uniform with suspicion. Amber wasn’t crazy about the idea about me enlisting as her dad was a Marine who served in Vietnam. She often warned that they’d brainwash me. In some ways, I suppose she was right. They definitely did change my way of thinking, although I don’t know if I’d call it brainwashing. She supported me, despite her misgivings about my decision, and her support meant a lot. Mike said, “Dude, I can’t believe you’re wearing that uniform. I can’t believe you’re a Marine.” Yes, he called me dude. I used to say, “I’m your girlfriend, not a dude.” Mike stared at me with wistful eyes that made me uncomfortable. We had a tumultuous relationship filled with jealousy and crazy fights on and off for the past four years, but it was over. Our dating years consisted mostly of going to heavy metal concerts back when I had big, blond, teased heavy metal hair and wore leopard spandex, stiletto boots, and my beloved black suede tassel jacket. Come on—it was the late 80s. Now I was back to a brunette, gave up the Rave death-grip hairspray, and instead of wearing ripped-up Metallica T-shirts, I was wearing my spanking new Marine Corps Dress Blues. “Come on,” Hilary said. “I’m sure you want to go to Harvard.” We’d become friends hanging out in Harvard Square. They were all smart, beautiful, free spirits, and we were attracted to a wilder scene than the town we grew up in bordering Boston and Cambridge. Amber and I became friends taking the bus to Harvard Square to meet up with other misfits who hung out in the Pit. I admired how outgoing she was, something I wasn’t. She was never intimidated by social situations and would talk to anyone. She was a master at infiltrating the scene, finding out where the party was. If it wasn’t for her, our nights would have been a lot less exciting. Hilary and I were friends in elementary school, but didn’t really hang out much until we starting hanging out in the Pit. She was always so genuine and fun to be with, especially with her twisted sense of humor, which sometimes only she gets. She has a great deal of empathy for people, which I find admirable. Zep and I talked in Junior High and we later connected through Amber in Harvard Square. We had much in common and grew very close in high school. I envied her family life as her mother was an artist and always had an international crowd of talented artists, writers, and musicians, frequenting her house. There was an abundance of wine and cheese and I crashed there whenever I could. What could I offer in return? Well, she was impressed with my family’s cereal cabinet, which was stocked with all kinds of sugary cereals her health-conscious mother would never buy. When Amber went to UMass, Zep and I often met up after our college courses—she was at Emerson and I was at Boston University—to meet up in Harvard Square. We transferred to UMass Amherst and in a college of thousands of people, ended up two doors down from Amber and Tara on the thirteenth floor. It had to be fate. Tara and I laughed when we realized we had identical rooms back home: basement rooms with waterbeds decorated in bright red décor. We grew close at UMass realizing how much we had in common besides our freakishly matching bedrooms. In between classes and studying, we had much fun sitting around in cheesy lounging mode watching The Golden Girls or wreaking havoc at parties. Part of what drew us together was that we were attracted to a seedier side of life, with parties, freaky people, and rock ’n roll dives. It was far more exciting to be out and among weirdoes in a crazy world than hiding from it. Then suddenly, I enlisted in the Marine Corps and they were all shocked. “Where did that come from?” they asked. I’d wanted something more from life. I’d been lost in the college party scene and drifting along in Harvard Square. It was time to make a drastic change. * * * * “Please get out of that uniform. I can’t take it any more,” Amber said, shaking her head. “I don’t know who I’m looking at. That’s not the Lisa I know.” “Okay, okay,” I said. “Let me find something to wear.” When I tried on some jeans, they were too big. Where’s my signature booty? Nothing fit. It was like I’d created a new body in boot camp and every part of it seemed hard, thin, and muscled. I stared at my biceps in sheer amazement. And triceps. Who knew I had them until I went to Parris Island? I only lost six pounds, but whatever I lost was replaced by a completely new body. It felt as if I was a new person. That’s it, tomorrow I’m going to buy that hot one-piece gray workout outfit I thought I could never wear. Finally, I’ll pull it off! Since I worked my ass off for this new body, and it would no longer remain hidden under baggy camouflage. Finally, I found something in my closet to wear and Hilary drove us to Harvard Square. Mike continued to stare at me in the back seat. The more he did it, the more I thought about what I realized in boot camp: We were too different. I had outgrown him, as my mother had been saying for months. Although I was crazy about him in high school, he often disappointed me by never doing what he’d say he’d do and not getting his act together. I felt like I was taking care of him and had started to resent it. I wanted a man who could take care of himself. I still cared about him, but more as a friend. We were broken up when I enlisted, but in the eight long months it took to finally go to boot camp, we got back together, said we’d get married, and he said he’d follow me around in the Marines. A part of me realized that if we ever got married, we’d end up divorced. Besides, I wanted to join the Marines alone; not have a guy waiting for me at home. I said I wanted to see other people and dated Matt, a former Marine reservist, for a few months. Mike had gone to jail for dealing drugs in Harvard Square a few years back and he had a bounty on his head by one of the guys he ended up testifying against. Mike said he’d wait for us up Mass. Ave. We hung out in the Pit for a few minutes and talked to people we knew while Amber and Hilary told my news. “Lisa just got out of boot camp this morning. Can you believe it—she’s a Marine.” Then we went back to get Mike. We drove around, but couldn’t find him. While we were stopped looking for Mike, Matt jumped into the car. Holy crap! Two exes in one night. Brain overload. After all, I was in Parris Island with drill instructors that very morning. I hadn’t seen men for months besides the occasional lashing out of a screaming Marine drill instructor, or worse the drill instructors who spoke with that nasal monotone. Matt was very excited to see me and kept whispering how he missed me, he couldn’t wait until we were alone, how he was so excited to be with a Woman Marine… “Come on,” he said. “I know you must be dyin’ after three months without gettin’ any. I know I was.” “No, not really,” I said, brushing him off. That was the last thing on my mind. Boot camp drained all sensuality out of me. Besides, I’d written him off since he only wrote me once while I was away, after I wrote three times. My real friends wrote me constantly, and if anyone should have known how important mail was in boot camp, it should have been him. Maybe it was harsh, but I was trying to start a new life; that meant learning from my past and moving on. * * * * When I came home later that night, my mother said that Mike had called. He couldn’t find us in Harvard Square so he took the T home. Enough already! No men for three months and in my first night back, there was already drama. My past was in my past. I made it clear when I left for Parris Island that I was leaving for four long years so I didn’t owe them anything. I avoided Mike and Matt for the rest of my leave. Instead, I hung out with my family during the day and went out with my friends at night. It was the same old thing—hanging out in Harvard Square, CB Park, the House of Pain, Marty’s apartment, or sneaking in to swim in pools or ponds late at night. It was comforting to be back in my world, but I was also looking forward to moving on to my next duty station. * * * * My dad had taken a ton of photos of my boot camp graduation. After he picked up the photos, I looked through them. It was photo after photo of the front of the Fourth Battalion graduates, focusing on a girl in the other platoon. “You took pictures of the wrong girl,” I said. “We figured it out by the end,” my mom said. “You didn’t realize that we were arranged by height?” I asked. “Did you forget how short I am?” “Keep going. There’s a couple of you before we ran out of film.” * * * * One night I drove a carload of us out to Walden Pond to go swimming. I hadn’t driven since before boot camp and drove so erratically that we were pulled over. We looked suspicious enough to have them search the car. The cops found pot on two of them. To make it look even more incriminating, one of my friends had a scale. “What are you doing with a scale?” I whispered in horror while the cops were out of earshot. “It’s not mine. I’m holding it for Rick.” That sounded like the excuse I gave my mother when she caught me with cigarettes, but I didn’t really think that she’d started selling drugs while I was in boot camp. I never liked pot and ironically, I’d be busted for driving around with it unknowingly. Plus, since I had three months of being completely straight and being yelled at for the slightest infractions on a daily basis, I was completely horrified. The cops said we’d all be arrested. Holy crap! I wasn’t even out of boot camp a week yet and now I’d be arrested for the first time in my life. You idiot, IDIOT! I thought, wanting to bang my head off the steering wheel. Didn’t I learn anything over the past three months? Didn’t I go in the military to escape all this? When the cops asked for my license, they saw my military ID. “You’re in the Marines?” “Yes,” I answered sheepishly. “I just graduated from boot camp.” “Get out of here,” he said. “I was in the Navy. How was Parris Island?” “Tough,” I answered. My heart was about to leap through my rib cage. “Tell you what. We don’t want you to ruin your military career so early on, so just drive safely, will you?” Were they serious? “Okay,” I said. “Semper fi,” he said. That was a close one! It wasn’t over yet, however. The cops left me alone, but now they accosted the guys in the back seat. They made them bury the weed and say things like, “Marijuana makes me stupid.” After they let us go, we drove away in silence. There really were some benefits to being a Marine! Since I was given a second chance, I wasn’t going to blow it. So I stayed out of trouble for the rest of my short leave. Saying goodbye to my family and friends again so soon was tough, but I’d be back at the end of the summer. Besides, I could even call home, not like in boot camp when we were cut off from civilization. Going for training in California for three months didn’t seem remotely as dreadful as to Parris Island for three months, but I was still anxious for what lay ahead. It would be my first duty station as a Marine. |