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DONNA TRUSSEL, WOMAN UP
It started with a picture -- 2nd. Lt. Emily J.T. Perez. In her United States Military Academy photograph, she holds her feathered hat, grips her sword and smiles.
Perez had a lot to smile about. She was the first minority female command sergeant in West Point history.
And she was the first combat death from the class of 2005, also known as the class of 9/11. In 2006, a roadside bomb south of Baghdad killed her.
Then there was a PBS special I watched. The program was titled, simply, "The Marines."
It was a 90-minute program that seemed more like a recruiting film than
a documentary. And I wasn't the only one who thought so, as many of the
critics who wrote to the PBS ombudsman made clear.
Still, it was instructive to someone like me, who has no grounding in military culture beyond relatives who served in World War II.
In the show's most poignant moment, a Marine began talking of what military life meant to him. As he was speaking, his voice grew more emotional, and then suddenly he stiffened and lapsed into what sounded like a sentence from a canned speech on honor and virtue.
He had to, I suspect. In an instant I saw past the military trappings to what makes a soldier enlist and fight. They fight for each other, of course, but they also fight for ideas.
And for loved ones back home. On the news, I saw one mother speak of her dead son. She said that she cried before he deployed, fretting that she could no longer protect him. Her son replied that he was grown now, and it was time for him to protect her.
It's not just men who feel drawn to a path more dangerous, but perhaps more meaningful, than civilian life. Women do too.
Still, it was instructive to someone like me, who has no grounding in military culture beyond relatives who served in World War II.
In the show's most poignant moment, a Marine began talking of what military life meant to him. As he was speaking, his voice grew more emotional, and then suddenly he stiffened and lapsed into what sounded like a sentence from a canned speech on honor and virtue.
He had to, I suspect. In an instant I saw past the military trappings to what makes a soldier enlist and fight. They fight for each other, of course, but they also fight for ideas.
And for loved ones back home. On the news, I saw one mother speak of her dead son. She said that she cried before he deployed, fretting that she could no longer protect him. Her son replied that he was grown now, and it was time for him to protect her.
It's not just men who feel drawn to a path more dangerous, but perhaps more meaningful, than civilian life. Women do too.
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