Jessica Scott

I’m sitting in JFK, waiting for my ungodly long layover to be over with. I’ve got internet and Starbucks (after an obscenely long wait and rude service) and I should be in a writer’s paradise, right? I mean, after all, I haven’t written anything on my WIP in two weeks and I’ve really only started thinking about my writing career the last few days to take my mind off leaving my kids once again.
So I should be thrilled, right? Peace and quiet. Chilling and writing?
Yeah, not so much.
My heart hurts. My youngest was up this morning at three when I was getting dressed (there was a lobster that was going to bite her) and she asked me to ‘nuggle with her. Each time I thought she was asleep and I’d try to extricate myself from her embrace, she’d tighten her arms around my neck. It just about killed me. My oldest didn’t wake up, but it was a close thing (you can hear a bug walking on Mom’s floor).
Finally made it out of the house for my brother to take us to Bangor Airport (the troop greeters were there, which is awesome). Did fine until a little guy on our flight was screaming. Most passengers were upset because the kid was crying. It worked me over pretty good because all I could imagine was my daughters getting themselves all worked up looking for Mommy and Daddy today.
God this sucks. I keep telling myself that it’s worth it to give up a year of my life to provide for my kids and in 18 years when my daughters have both of their college educations paid for that it will be worth it.
Right now, that’s a pretty cold comfort.

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As we’re getting ready to go, the normalcy of everything is striking. To include the urge to publicly pull a Kate and spank my kid. Surely not, you must think. What kind of parent is leaving for another five months to a combat zone loses her patience within the last twenty four hours of getting ready to go?

Me.

Initially, the girls were being fine. Just laughing and having a good time. But then the touching and the grabbing and the I wants kept going and going and going. They were like two little energizer bunnies and it stopped being funny after we sat in Dick’s Sporting Goods waiting for Daddy to pick out some fishing equipment (this takes longer than me in Saks on any day of the week, trust me on this one).

When they refused to stand still any longer, I was that crazy mom carrying one kid out of Sears under my arm and pulling the other one behind him.

They say kids acting out prior to parents deploying is normal. I’ve heard from other spouses that in the days before a deployment, the sniping and the bickering get to the point where both are relieved when the plane finally lifts off. The kids have both done something similar today and while at the moment, I would have been glad to get on a plane, that feeling only lasted about a second before the guilt started.

I told my husband that I felt bad for losing my patience with the kids. He said he understood but that it was more important for him to have fun before he left than to make them behave. Maybe he’s on to something. Maybe he’s not. But either way it goes, one of my precious fifteen days was spent arguing with my kids. I can’t get this day back but tonight at bedtime, I talked to my girls and asked that we try to make tomorrow as good as possible before we left.

So we’ll see how it goes. Wish me luck.

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The worst Night Ever

So we’re back at Grammy’s now and the girls are settled right back in. Leave has actually gone very well. The girls have had a blast and I for one, have been focused on letting go of rigid parenting (like normal bedtimes) and just enjoying my time with the girls. For the most part, the kids have done a fantastic job adjusting and slipping back into family mode

Or so I thought.

Tonight, mommy tried to get an hour of mommy time to visit with her long time high school friend. I figured I’d been nothing but Mommy from the minute I walked through the door and I had gladly enjoyed every single minute. But I also figured that being back at Grammy’s, the girls would relax a little and be a little less clingy.

Boy was that a mistake. Within a few minutes of me not being in the room, both girls were crying and screaming. By the time they’d cried it out, their little eyes were all puffy and red and I’ve won the worst parent in the world award.

My oldest wrapped her arms around my neck and said Mommy, things aren’t going to be the same without you here. Then it dawned on me. While we were in Delaware, the girls were having fun and pretending that we really were a family again. Now that we’re back at Grammy’s and not heading back to Texas, reality has struck both of them like the 18 wheeler Grammy drives: Mommy and Daddy are leaving again. Time is such an adult concept that my kids don’t have any way of really counting down other than to look forward to winter and some time around Christmas for us coming home.

It really busted me up tonight taking even that small amount of time from them because every minute is so precious. In the long run, I know that when we get back to Texas, my kids are going to have an adjustment period and life will take a little longer to slip back into whatever normal is for our family. But for now, Mommy’s going to give them their bed time and whatever other time they want.

I’ve got three days left and it’s not nearly long enough.

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It’s funny but being in Iraq has been somewhat liberating as a woman. There are no mirrors there. At least, there aren’t that many. I spend all day at work and other than in the latrine or in our chu or the gym, there aren’t mirrors to speak of. I once was obsessed with my appearance. Now that I’m home, I still want to look and feel like a woman but I’m different now. I won’t lie and tell you that the two days I was home and had to wear my mom’s clothes and my husband’s sweats I wasn’t bothered with feelings of frumpiness. But, now that I have my own clothes, things are different

Before I would constantly check my makeup, my clothes or critically look at myself in the mirror. I would stress if my hair was a wreck or if I hadn’t covered a blemish.

Now, I get dressed, put on makeup and go. If a mirror shows up, I check but how I look is no longer a major time consuming thought. I picked up clothes that I like, that fit and that are comfortable and that’s it. I’m dressed, I’m made up and I’m going.

It’s kind of weird for me to be able to get dressed and truly go. I’m a former fat girl (and on my way there again if I don’t get my ass in the gym but that’s another story) but no matter what, I’ve always worried about how I look since I’ve been an adult. For me to be low maintenance in my head it a huge change and one that I’m grateful for. I won’t say that being in Iraq has been liberating because I think that’s the wrong word, but wearing nothing but ACUs and PTs for months on end has definitely changed my perspective on things.

And I think it’s for the better.

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It’s pretty sad that it took me going to Iraq to truly appreciate the one thing I can never get back: time. My two year old has changed so much since we’ve been gone. She talks up a storm now. When we left, she’d just had tubes put in her ears and was discovering her vocal talents. Now? Now she talks from the moment she gets up until she goes to sleep and she’s funny! I think 2 -3 is my favorite age. We loved our oldest at that age and our youngest is truly a character. Granted, there are challenges, such as a staunch refusal to potty train but that’s okay.

We walked down the beach today with the girls. They were picking up seashells and running through the waves (well one of them was, the other one was terrified of the water and spent much of the walk on mommy’s shoulders) and I was just there, in the moment. Nothing worried about anything else. We’d get where we were going when we got there. So my oldest got soaked. Oh well. I was just there, in the moment, enjoying watching my girls and that’s something that I haven’t truly been able to do in the past. I always had my mind going on something, worried about this or that.

Time is the one thing I can never get back. I won’t get this time back that I’ve spent in Iraq. This is a year of my daughter’s lives I’ll never get to live. It’s a part of the sacrifice that we make for our country and for our families. Knowing that we’re part of something bigger than ourselves, however, doesn’t make it any easier to hear your two year old say ‘I miss you very much, Mommy.’

I won’t ever get this time back, but I damn sure will make the most of every minute from now on.

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It’s amazing how quickly everyone falls back into the same old patterns. The honeymoon is over and just like that, both girls once more are just kids instead of the kids of deployed parents and I’m just a mom, instead of a soldier mom with a truckload of mommy guilt. I’ve discovered a lot hasn’t changed since I’ve been gone and some things I don’t think that ever will.

For instance, I’ve accepted the fact that I will never again be able to go to the bathroom by myself. There is no way my almost 3 year old is willing to let me out of her site. She might be attached to Mommy by a very short string but she doesn’t want anything to do with Daddy, hence Mommy is on call all day ever day. And since my four year old is not too old to go to the bathroom with daddy, it’s all mommy all the time. Which leads to some long lines in the ladies room and hopefully, other mom’s understand what’s taking so long (you can’t beat a 2 year old off the pottie with a stick if she’s determined to go poopieJ).

My four year old is very much a daddy’s girl except when it comes to bed time. Then she wants Mommy snuggles. I can’t tell you how touched I was that both girls wanted me to ‘nuggle’ with them as they fall asleep at night and what’s funny is that I have nothing more important to do than nuggle until they fall asleep. I wouldn’t trade eight hours of uninterrupted sleep in Iraq for the fits and turns I get here with one ear always listening for the girls. Of course, I’ve also found the cure for insomnia: chasing two kids around non stop from 6 am til 8 pm (or thereabouts).

The biggest thing that has changed is that when my girls want my time, they get it. While it might feel like everything is back to normal with us, I know that it’s not. I have a very short amount of time with them right now and the only thing I can do to make the next five months easier on them is give them every bit of time that I can.

And that’s a change in me as Mommy that I think will get me a lot down the road with my relationship with my daughters.

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Is dreaming you’re already back in Iraq from R&R only to wake up and discover you have ten days left in the states with your kids.

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We’ve been home from Iraq for three days now. It’s incredible. The worries that I had about the kids being confused or my youngest being more attached to Grammy and not wanting anything to do with me were unfounded. I know it breaks my mom’s heart that the girls are utterly and completely reattached to us and it’s terrible how cruel an almost 3 year old can be. But the kids are doing great They’re happy and well adjusted and aren’t out of control little monsters (good job Mom, seriously). My youngest is a little cling on, which is doubly surprising for me because she’s always done her own thing. Now she walks up, Mommy I want you to pick me up. And she snuggles right up. Her vocabulary is incredible now. We’re talking full sentences and comprehension that’s just insane. My oldest is polite and considerate and shock: they both listen (for the most part). I’m sure it’s just a honey moon phase but I’m absolutely thrilled at how they’re doing.

I’m pretty sure my heart is going to shatter when I get ready to go back to Iraq. We’ve slipped right back into being a family so quickly that having to give all that up again for a few more months is going to beyond suck. But it will go by quickly as we get busy with redeployment and my oldest starts school. Christmas will be here before we know it and the year will have gone by in a blink.

I feel a lot better having seen how the kids are coping. My oldest has some anger issues and she cries at the slightest provocation but together we’ve figured out that she just needs to be held. It’s what both girls seem to want more than anything. Mommy snuggles. And that, in and of itself feels so incredibly good. They still love me, they haven’t forgotten me and they haven’t stopped loving me. The fact that I have to leave again is brutal but I’m relatively sure it’s going to be okay. We shall see how this experiment plays out in the long run but right now, it just feels so damn good to be home!

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We stopped in Ireland on the way home from Iraq. I walked around the airport, simply enjoying being back in civilization. Coffee and bars and duty free shopping. What’s funny is that the people around us looked at us like we were a spectacle. One lady asked us where we were coming from and where we were going. She was incredibly nice, her accent gentle and lilting. Another gentleman, we’re pretty sure he was American stopped and shook our hand and said thank you.
But all in all, Ireland was just a comma in my journey back to my kids. I saw a lady walking around the airprt with her two little girls. Both blond, both young. The little one was tiny and adorable. It’s funny how watching a small child drag a rolling suitcase will inspire tears in random adults but it did. The kids were so adorable and a longing I cannot fully describe began burning in my chest. When people say their hearts ache, do you know what they mean? The anticipation wraps around me and brings tears to my eyes.
Just a few more hours and I’ll be home. I’m not even there yet but the thought of coming back to Iraq is breaking my heart. So I do what I always do. I shut it down and turn it off and cling to the anticipation of seeing my babies. Of the fights and the hugs and the kisses and the laughter. My husband and I wonder if the cats are going to beat up the kids. If our recently adopted horse (aka Lily, the 100 pound yellow lab refugee who joined our family from a rescue shelter) is going to remember us. Have our cats gone feral living with my brother in law?
And what about the kids? Will they understand that mommy and daddy have to go again? Will they be angry and lash out, destroying their rooms and the story books I’ve made for them? Will they kick the dog because they don’ t know what to do with the hurt inside of them?
All I know is that our choice has been made and our kids have to live with the impact of our choices. I hope and pray that it’s the right choice and that in the long run, the girls will be okay and that in a few more months we’ll be a family again.
Notions of patriotism seem kind of far off when your daughter is wailing into the phone that she wants to go home. I hope she understands someday. Because hope and prayer are about all I’ve got to cling to.

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After 2 days of travel, finally made it home to Maine. Kids are amazing and so different, it’s not even funny. Will post more when I’m not emotionally drained but wow, it’s good to be home. Everything smells so clean and fresh and good here. And I won’t even start on how much the girls have changed but will post more some other time. Thanks to everyone who wished us well! More soon!

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So I’m leaving on R&R in the next few days and this will probably be the last post I make for a while. Given that I’m going to one of the only houses in the US that does not have Internet access, unplugging will probably be painful but good.

In honor of my vacation from the sandbox, I have accomplished a grand total of nothing tonight. Couldn’t concentrate on the new book. Couldn’t sleep. Really did nothing but drink water in prep for the 1ac20 degree heat in Kuwait.

But, I thought I’d leave you with a few of the things I’m NOT going to miss about Iraq for the next few weeks. Not sure if I’ll get to ten or not but here goes.

10. Showering alone. There’s nothing more disconcerting than walking to the shower and discovering that your favorite shower stall (the one that actually drains right, is not covered in mold and has decent water pressure) is taken. And you’re late for work. Then you have to explain why you’re waiting for a single stall when others are taken and looking like a weirdo.

9. Waiting for my favorite shower stall. Now, I’ll only have to share my shower with my children, who I’m sure can’t wait to get in the shower with me. Yay, naked baby buns!!

8. Walking to the shower. In flip flops. In the dark. Hoping that the denial about camel spiders and cobras will continue without you a, stepping on one or b, having one jump on you.

7. Being in uniform. I love the army. I love my uniform and completely respect what it stands for. But damn! I’m ready for girlie clothes and makeup and feeling like a woman instead of looking like a hot ass mess (for you Tamara)

6. Not feeling like a skank for putting makeup on. Yes, I’m going ultimate girl when I go home and I’m going to glam it up. Course, when I come back to Iraq, it will be back to no makeup and under eye circles galore.

5. Porta Potties. Nothing says deployment like the smell of a porta pottie in 110 degree heat. And then finding that there’s no toilet paper. Good times.

4.  Eye protection. Yes, I’m wearing cute sunglasses when I get home, not the military grade ballistic eyewear that will keep me safe and looking like I’m wearing my grandfather’s driving glasses.

3.  The Chowhall. I really don’t think this is going to require clarification.

2.  Body armor. It’s safe. It’s heavy. And it adds 20 degrees to your core body temperature.

1.  Briefings. Useless briefings where we read the slides and tell everyone information they already know. Yes. The only reading/briefings I’m doing when I go home is to my kids. I’m going to enjoy the heck out of my time in the states and come back ready to redeploy.

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Which kind of character is more compelling to you? The tormented, tortured hero or the well adjusted, confident male? Is it better to read about a heroine who’s got it all and finds something more or do you enjoy seeing characters who have some emotional baggage to check before they can truly be happy?

I laughed when Smart Bitches, in doing their analysis of romance novel heroes in Beyond Heaving Bosoms, called Vampires “more EMO than you”. But that got me thinking. Why were vampires invariably tortured? Did you ever meet a vampire hero who was cool with what he did? Who had no problems killing and feeding to sustain himself? If you did meet that hero, would he be less compelling or more than the vampire who hates having to take another life just so he can live?  Would you want to read about a hero who was completely okay with killing and would the resolution of his story have him becoming not okay with it?

I recently read a book (not paranormal) who had a female killing two guys who were trying to kill her. I applauded but then was disappointed because she had angst over killing them. In the romance world, it almost seems the norm that our males can have angst over killing but they’ll get over it but our females can’t kill without major emotional issues and then get permission (more or less) from their significant other for the killing to be okay.

Why is that? Why do we (and I’m including myself in this) write heroes who can be tortured but in the end give themselves permission to be okay with it but we write heroines who almost need permission to have done what they did.

I guess what I’m asking is can we love characters who have killed and who are okay with that killing? Can you read about a hero who is not tortured by what he’s done? Or a heroine who is okay with killing but who has other issues. Do our characters have to be tortured in order for us to care about them? And if that character is tortured, does it feel like a cheat when they get their HEA by linking up with their soul mate or should there be more to the issue resolution than just the ‘magic hoo hoo’?

So tell me: do you crave tortured characters or ones that just have issues? Who are your favorite tortured characters? Why? Who are your favorite relatively well adjusted characters? How do you torture your characters? What issues are most poignant to you as a reader?

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As you may have noticed, I’ve spent the last week since I officially landed my agent doing everything BUT writing. I went back through a class taught online at the PASIC chapter of the RWA. Allison Brennan taught quite possibly one of the best classes I’ve attended through an RWA chapter and was one of the most informative classes on the publishing industry I’ve seen yet.

Anyway, as the class drew to a close, she talked about time. Managing it, finding it and keeping track of it. The biggest thing she pointed out was that no matter what you do, it’s always about the book. Which really helped drag me back into focus. I’ve been messing around between projects instead of taking the time to buckle down. I won’t have this kind of time when I get home from Iraq. There will be laundry to do, groceries to buy, lunches to pack, children to bathe. All of this, plus my job as an army officer and oh by the way, I’m planning on two books a year.

Nothing says I need a plan more than writing it all out but ultimately, if I want to write full time in 8 years when I retire, I have to make time for the writing. Even if I’m exhausted, it will be too easy to fall into the trap of not writing tonight and then the next night and the night after that and the night after that.

So I’m buckled down. I want to have my latest book halfway done in 6 days before I go on leave. That means 3K words per day until I fly, which I can do, easily. For the last 18 months since I decided to pursue publication, I wrote obsessively. I had to keep going because I refused to admit failure. Now that I’ve landed an agent, I feel like whew, the hard part is over.

It’s not. Now it’s about the time. While I have it now, I won’t have it when I get home and get back into the swing of full time working mom. And while I won’t take time away from my kids or my family, I’m wondering just where the time is going to come from.

Can you relate? What are your secrets for finding the time to write? Do you work and write?

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Every romance author should read Beyond Heaving Bosoms by the gals at Smart Bitches, but especially new writers, like myself who stopped reading romance for about a decade, then decided to write one, complete with cliches galore. Why on earth would I recommend a book based on a website called Smarth Bitches who love Trashy Books? Read on oh fearless one.

Despite the snark and because of the plagiarism outing, these gals have something to say about what we write and read and love. BHB was hysterical but there was also valid social commentary. I mean have you ever read anything about the issue of rape in romance novels in the 70s and 80s? While they cite academic and popular sources, I’d never even given that a thought except that for a while – around the mid 90s, I stopped reading romance novels. I’d read several of the books they mentioned as examples of rape in earlier novels and I remembered those ‘forced seductions’ well but I’d never really looked at the social context of the topic and it was fascinating.

In addition to the rape issue, which is given excellent discussion as to the what’s, the why’s and the justifications, SB also discusses clichés inside the romance genre in hysterical detail. The book cover mullet nearly had me falling off the stair master, I was laughing so hard.  And, while I don’t want to spoil the thrill of reading it for yourself, their discussion of the clichés, over crowded genres and other tantalizing tidbits make the book beyond worth reading. Had I read it before I started writing my first novel, I might have had a much better idea of things to avoid and which were truly character clichés.

Read Beyond Heaving Bosoms. It’s funny and I can almost guarantee you’ll learn something about the genre we write, read, and love.

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What All This Website Angst has Taught Me About: Me

Okay so by now you’re seriously tired of hearing about this website. I am too. I’m tired of obsessing over the shade of brown, about the graphics and about the content.

But I learned a really big lesson about myself in the process (this also assumes the process is over). First a new promise to my readers: I’m marking it on my calendar and I’m setting a reminder: no changes to the site for a week and no posts/tweets/blogs about it for a week after that (basically until I come back from R&R). If I don’t force this on myself, I will surely go insane. I’m considering locking away the Macbook just to keep ilife away from myself (who am I kidding, I’m addicted to this little sucker).

First, I have OCD. I literally have obsessed over this thing since 30 May when I found out I had an agent. Now, I’d been changing things before now, but since last week, yeah, serious obsession time.

Second, there is a huge difference between what I want people to see in me versus what I really am. I LOVE that black and gold and brown graphic. Love. It. So what’s the problem? Why the short lifespan of that little sucker, even shorter than the black faux paper one a couple of weeks ago?

It’s not me. Not really. No matter how much I wanted to make that sucker fit me, it wouldn’t. The logo was off and I got some wonderful guidance from Frauke at Croco Designs that clued me in as to what was really off. All the pretty writing and gold colors said NOTHING about me as an author. What my platform was, what I wrote. Not there in the first thing you see. And she was absolutely right one.

So I stopped what I was doing and pulled up websites of female authors I really liked. Allison Brennan’s is the height of form and function. It says suspense writer. Tami Hoag’s is another one I really liked, though the really great banner is way beyond my current capabilities and budget. I also pulled up Kresley Cole’s, who I’ll be honest, was my gold standard for form, function and looks. I liked it. It’s clean and simple and said here I am as a writer. Julia London’s is the fourth of the bunch I pulled up. Chic and glamorous, leaving you no doubt as to what kind of books Julia writes.

Then I went to sleep. I wanted to keep my gold banner. I really did but smooth and pretty aren’t what I write. I also don’t write romantic suspense (yet) military heroes, so I didn’t want to go with camo or dog tags (though I thought about, I really did). The thing I did not want to be most of all was a clichéd site and if you look at the above examples, not a cliche in the bunch. Then I thought about what I liked for style. Jeans and t-shirts. Maybe dressy t-shirts and really nice makeup but essentially, I’m a casual kind of girl. Why the obsession with the elegant site?

Because I wanted my first impression to be elegant and if I’d stayed with that, I would have been misleading my (future) readers. So I went back to basics. Torn paper, vintage looks, block lettering. I kept the tag line in frilly letters but I made them red, to give a hint to the emotions running through my stories.

I think, out of all the sites I’ve designed over the last few weeks (and by my count I’m up to a full 6 at this point but I could be way off the mark), this one is the truest expression of me, both as a writer and as a person. I’m rough around the edges. I like dark colors (sorry but brown really does it for me) and I really get a kick out of the little kevlar and book graphic I made up when I couldn’t find what I wanted.

So I really hope this little sucker sticks b/c I like it. It says military writer, which is what I’m basing my platform on.

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Apparently, I have a genetic predisposition to worry incessantly about something. The constant redesign of my website comes from two things: one, I want it to look like a typical writer’s website and two, I don’t want it to look like a typical writer’s website. So I continue to worry and stress. I almost had a damn panic attack about this foolish thing before I went to sleep this morning (yes, that means a new site is up).
Several weeks ago, my husband went out in sector with the brigade CSM. I told myself he was going to be fine and I was not going to worry. Yeah, right. I got to my CHU and started imagining getting woken up by The Knock. The worry that I’d open the door and see the chaplain standing there. It got so big in my head, I had to force myself to go to sleep. And when he came in and woke me up to tell me he was back, the relief that crawled across my heart was insane.
You’d think that now that I had an agent, things would settle down in my head, right? Wrong. I keep thinking that this is all a dream and that Kim is going to email me one day and so oh, so sorry but you misunderstood me. Seriously, this is the new thing I’m worried about. I mean, come on, she’s got fantastic clients like Julie Kenner, Brenda Novak and Allison Brennan.
So the neuroses continue on the writing front. Julie Kenner swears it never goes away and I’m starting to think she’s absolutely right.
On the home front, my hubby and I are going on R&R next week and I’m starting to get wound up about that. Not the going home part. Not that first hug at the airport or the constant Mommy I want your attention part. It’s the leaving part. I haven’t even gone yet and I’m upset about having to come back.
Really? Is this normal? Or am I just going quietly crazy over here, finding things to worry about to keep my mind busy?
Right now, it’s 230 in the morning. I’m going to file my nightly report and then sit down in front of my Macbook and write. I’m hopefully going to channel all this insanity into a character that will be stressed out but sympathetic and hopefully not crazy. You’ll have to tell me what you think of her, if she ever gets published.

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We in the army like to pretend we don’t have a problem with men and women working together. We also like to pretend that a group of young twenty something co-eds, a stressful, isolated environment and boredom WON’T lead to compromising positions (no pun intended). We also like to pretend that civilian folks over here have no impact whatsoever on the military folks and female civilian contractors can where whatever they want without getting ‘sexually harassed.’

So, here’s my sarcastic take on how to pretty much guarantee you’re going to get sexually harassed in Iraq and drag the rest of us down with us.  At the very least, you will be a joke among your male counterparts and will struggle to be taken seriously. Ever again.

10. Wear makeup. Not a little I just want to feel like a girl eyeliner but I’m talking foundation, blush, concealer, lip liner and oh, about sixteen coats of mascara. This will guarantee you turn heads in the chowhall.

9. Smell good. Not just hey, that wasn’t the smell of a Ranger who hasn’t showered in six days, light residue from shower gel. I’m talking layer upon layer of lotion, body spray and what the hell, a little perfume, too.

8. Uniforms that leave nothing to the imagination. The Army Combat Uniform aka ACU, is meant to be loose. As in we can’t see the crack of your ass loose. If you have to peel that sucker off to go to the latrine, odds are, it’s too tight. Don’t complain when guys are checking out your ass.

7. Do your hair. I don’t mean pull it back and keep it out of the way. I mean spend at least 45 minutes every morning blow drying, styling, and pinning your hair in the latest prom do that is in no way appropriate for a combat zone.

6. Flirty body language. When you walk like your hips are on a swivel, guys are going to notice. Also take note of the too close stance, the casual touching and the preening. 

5. Inappropriate use of anything near your mouth. Ladies, you’re in a combat zone. Don’t suck on lolli pops, pen caps or the end of your sunglasses unless you want to be some random guy’s wack off fantasy.

4. Wear a low cut t-shirt in the gym with sparkly words on your boobs. You wanted guys to look. They’re looking. Congratulations, you just got half a Ranger regiment horny.

3. Dancing in the toc. This should go without saying but getting any good news in the TOC (tactical operations center) and doing a booty shake, happy dance or in any way drawing attention to yourself is a bad idea.

2. Push up bras. Yes, guys can tell you’re wearing them under your uniform. If you’re wearing PTs and a  push up bra, you might as well be naked. And even if you aren’t wearing them, you might be thought of as wearing them. 

1. Taking your wedding band off to reveal a paler strip of skin where the band used to go. Yes. this happens. And most guys are going to be perfectly happy to accept whatever explanation you offer as to why you’re not wearing it. If you weren’t divorced before, you will be shortly.

These are just a few things that I’ve observed around the FOB that we as women and female soldiers tend to do to draw attention to ourselves. If you want it, good for you but please remember that there are those of us who would like to go to the gym and not feel like we’re at some guy’s private pants party. For every one of you that likes the attention, there are a dozen or so more of us who just want to be a soldier and do our jobs.

So please remember, we’re all in this together and the next time you want to set the makeup gun to whore in 110 degree heat, just think about how that affects your sisters around you.

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