JEN HOGG

WHEN WORDS FAIL

A recent Washington Post article reports on the case of 1st Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside, a LT who on all accounts was a soldiers' soldier, who attempted to take her own life while in Iraq – a young soldier recently and abruptly discharged from the Army, who later took her own life.

There is something to be said about the emotions that would lead you to that end. There is even more to be said when those emotions come from experiences you have while serving in a war compiled with the frustration of being a woman who is being discriminated against on that very basis when you work so hard to excel.

I don't even have the words to describe the feeling it gave me finding out about this story and in particular the young soldier who the LT befriended. I didn't know the young soldier in the Post story but it hit me like a ton of bricks. I think the last time I really felt like that was when I found out my unit was being deployed to Iraq.

My unit ended up being broken up so I wasn't deployed to Iraq but when I found out my unit was deploying, and at that time I assumed everyone was going, I couldn't even say to anyone for at least a week what I had found out, let alone what I was thinking about it.

There are times when we can't find the words to explain and can't cry the tears to let it go. So many of us who have served in the military keep things bottled up inside, male and female alike.

I hope we as a country stop pretending everything is alright.

Because it isn't.

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JEN HOGG