I have recently ETS'd from the Army on June 18th 2005. I was in the Army for over 7 years and left with the rank of Staff Sergeant (SSG). I joined the Army for the same reasons everyone else does; see the world, family tradition, and to get out of a small town where I would have gone no where. In my first years as a private all the way to specialist I enjoyed it, the camaraderie, the importance of my job, and our country.
When 9/11 took place I was stationed in Germany at the time, and was devastated, you see I am from a small town in North Jersey that is so close to New York City, I could spit and it would land in downtown Manhattan. Many of my friends and family worked and lived in New York, and I was outraged by the attack. I felt that I needed to get home, to do something, but I was needed elsewhere. I was all for going to Afghanistan to hunt down Osama Bin Laden, hell, I would have went myself, a one woman Army, if need be.
Around February of 2002 I came down on orders to Fort Hood Texas, which I was willing to go. I knew being in the 1st Cavalry Division would hav enabled me to go to Afghanistan. Granted, I did not believe in war, I was not raised that way, my mother lost her brother and cousin in Vietnam, so I always had the mentality of not believing in the romanticism of war. But this attack was so close to home, literally, that I was all for it. I remember the talks on the news and all the press conferences of Iraq having a hand in it and such, but at this time I was gearing up for a deployment to Kuwait, in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. I was part of a mass chemical company that would have been used to find Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) if any where found.
During the start of what is now known as Operation Iraqi Freedom, the majority of the Army's chemical command were in theater, leaving about a company or two left behind in the States. I redeployed back to Texas in June of 2003, after being in Kuwait for 4 months. In December of 2004, my unit , again , received orders to deploy to Iraq, with the division this time. Because there were no chemical weapons found, my company 68th Chemical Company were attached to different units. My platoon was attached to 1-8 CAV a tank unit.
For the year I was in Iraq, I conducted, raids, patrols, and any other combat missions that were handed down to us. I was one of three females that were assigned to this unit and we completed the same tasks as the men in this unit. We were ambushed with RPG's, IED's, as well as rockets, mortars and VBIED's. I was not a female solider on the camp, or working as a convoy escort, I was a combat soldier.
With all of this I could have gone far in the ranks of the Army, probably all the way to Sergeant Major, but I made a decision once our president waged war on Iraq, that if he was re-elected I would get out of the Army. And I lived up to my promise, I am now out of the Army after 7 years, I joined right out of high school, and I am now 26 years old. I have seen the world, in both capacities, both as leisure and as work. I have seen
the atrocities of war as well as the compassion of those it affected. I have lost friends needlessly, both Americans and Iraqis. I do not believe in this war as a whole. I do feel that the people of Iraq needed something, but say it was war was not the answer.
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From a small town outside New York City, Marissa was ready to be a "one woman army" after September 11th. But her experiences conducting raids in Iraq gave her a new perspective.
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