Joining the Marines as a woman

What is joining the Marines as a woman like? Jennifer decided to join the Marines after September 11th. She went from not knowing a lot about the military to deciding she had to join. She ended up reading the book, Marine Sniper and decided she wanted to be a Marine. She was only 16 but her path was set and she began preparing. A month before she turned 18 her parents finally signed the forms to allow her to enlist into the Marine Corps. She went to Basic and became a helicopter crew chief and door gunner. She served five years including a deployment to Iraq.

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Joining the Marines as a Woman

Jennifer felt prepared for Basic but still found it challenging. She was physically fit but still talked about how tired her arms were from carrying a rifle. At one point she thought her arms were going to fall off. But quitting was never an option. Instead, she thought about how the leaders would pick up her arms. She also mentioned that graduating from Basic is one of her proudest achievements. She worked so hard and now was a Marine.

After training, she went to school and began to learn her job as a helicopter crew chief and door gunner. She went from being surrounded by women to being the only woman in her training. But it felt natural to her. She focused on being a Marine and learning her job. She trained hard and when she failed at racking the 50 cal. Practiced over and over until she could do it easily and never had issues after that.

Deploying to Iraq

She deployed to Iraq in 2005-2006. It was a very kinetic environment and she shared about her first mission flying to pick up three wounded service members. On that mission, she had the realization of what dangers may face her over the next seven months. Not only was there a lot of information to process and ensure that the pilots and crew knew what was happening. It also was a gut-check reality moment for her. When she came home from Iraq she remembers being overwhelmed by all the noise. Her mom threw a welcome home party that she knows she attended but does not remember the event. She shut down. It took a few weeks to adjust back to being home. She said the Marine Corps and the work she had to do to keep her qualifications helped her transition back.

Life today

After coming home from her deployment she also started preparing to leave the military. She used tuition assistance to gain her degree and is now able to use her Post 9/11 GI Bill to get her doctorate in Business. Through the doctorate program, she is completing a research project about women veteran entrepreneurs. The challenge of being a woman in the military which is male-dominated while also discussing the challenges of being an entrepreneur another male-dominated career field. Besides going to school she is also a business owner and works as a subcontractor for various government contractors.