Ashley's War (6 page)

Jason had always supported her. He had pushed her throughout her time at ROTC, urging her to take on the toughest challenges and to speak up when she disagreed with what she saw or experienced. Debbie said it was Jason who had made Ashley “sparkle.” For proof, she pointed to her family photo albums, which showed that until she met Jason, Ashley rarely smiled in pictures, too self-conscious to let her real self show. But with Jason she would grin with abandon come photo time.

By the time she rang Jason that Saturday from Guard drills, Ashley had not only prevailed against her formidable father, she felt ready to compete with the best women the Army had to offer no matter that she was just a second lieutenant in the National Guard. Her husband had made it possible.

“Hey, I want to tell you about this new program,” she said when he picked up the phone in their bright yellow kitchen that Saturday morning.

From the sound of his voice she had a feeling that persuading “Mr. Sexypants,” as she lovingly called him, was going to be an even bigger challenge than getting her father to agree to ROTC.

3

The Landmark Inn

* * *

F
our weeks later, Ashley was filling her cup from a hotel coffee urn, about to begin the first day of the very first all-Army “Assessment and Selection” for the new CST program. She pulled a lever on an industrial-size milk machine and watched the white stuff pour into her coffee. She would definitely need caffeine to begin this day. It was March 2011, and this was the initial round of what would be two separate selections: the Guard and Reserves first, then, two months later, active-duty soldiers.

Gripping her cup she leaned against the Formica counter and watched as a swarm of high-octane women assembled in the breakfast room of the Landmark Inn, a hotel located on the grounds of Fort Bragg dedicated to serving soldiers, their families, and civilian guests. It was quite a sight: dozens of sweat-suit-clad Army Guard and Reservists, many of them with flushed cheeks and disheveled ponytails fresh from working out, were milling around the dining room. The high-backed chairs at the large, round tables were covered in a durable fabric designed to disguise spills of everything from maple syrup to ketchup. An arrangement of bright orange silk flowers sat at the center of each table, the only burst of cheer in an otherwise drab setting. Ashley grabbed an apple—part of a limited offering of healthy fare in this land of waffles and pancakes—and quietly observed the scene.

The women came from every region of the country, from cities,
farms, and suburbs, and they came in a variety of heights and builds: some were lanky and lean, others were squat, compact, and broad across the shoulders. These girls look like they lift some serious weight, Ashley thought. They also ranged in age: some, like Ashley, had barely crossed into their twenties. Others looked nearly two decades older, but, amazingly, were no less fit. An uninformed observer would have thought he had stumbled across either a championship softball team or a women’s soccer league. But it was unusual for another reason: rarely did Army women gather in large groups. Aside from the Army Nurse Corps—none of whom were permitted to participate in that CST selection—there usually weren’t enough women in the same place at the same time to fill a conference table, let alone a hotel dining room. Women may have been serving in most Army roles by 2011, but they still accounted for just around 15 percent of all active-duty soldiers and a bit more for National Guard and Reservists. Those small numbers meant that women rarely found themselves surrounded by other women.

And then there was the alpha thing. The female soldiers who had come to take part in this CST selection had genuine swagger. Ashley spotted a trim woman whose sculpted muscles were bulging beneath a gray Army T-shirt. Thick veins lined her strong arms. Another had a book propped up against her oatmeal bowl:
Get Selected for Special Forces: How to Successfully Train for and Complete Special Forces Assessment & Selection
.

A buzz filled the room, even as the women tried to hide their amazement at seeing so many people just like themselves. Ashley had never before seen anything like it. She guessed that neither had anyone else who was there that morning.

Ashley didn’t know what to expect at the Landmark Inn, but she knew she would be doing a lot of paperwork—“in-processing,” in Army terms. Then at some point they would move to Camp Mackall, the World War II–era site nearby used for Special Forces selection and training. This was where the real test of the soldiers
would begin. In the meantime, the CST hopefuls talked loudly and acted tough over their morning coffee. Gazing around the room, it occurred to Ashley that not a single person here looked like she had ever endured a moment of self-doubt in her entire life. More than the muscles, shoulders, and popping veins, this thought intimidated her. Ashley knew how to put on a game face—childhood gymnastics and then ROTC had taught her that—but she wondered whether she really fit in with these women, some of whom looked like they could bench-press five times their body weight and strode around like female John Waynes.

Hey, she commanded herself. Get your mind in it, Ashley. Focus.

To do that, she took herself back four years to Ranger Challenge, where teams of the best ROTC cadets from each school competed against other colleges in the region. For years prior to Ashley’s arrival at Kent State, the Ranger Challenge team had consisted solely of men. They trained at a facility with a long military history, the Ravenna Arsenal, where more than fourteen thousand Ohioans had produced weapons during World War II. Most of the men were surprised to learn that this quiet blonde who didn’t even reach five foot three wanted to join the big boys in the competition. They couldn’t believe that “Little White” could keep up with their long strides, and throughout the training sessions they waited for Ashley to fall out of formation. But every morning the determined sophomore cadet showed up at the Arsenal to march the morning’s miles, and every morning she kept up, even when they moved the start time to 5 a.m. They were required to add first twenty, then thirty pounds of gear to weigh down their rucksacks in preparation for the actual competition. Every time team leader Jason Stumpf turned around, he expected to see Ashley way back in the rear, but there she was, right behind him in the formation, keeping pace with the guys.

The biggest test aside from rucking was the rope bridge. Cadets would string a line of knotted rope between two wooden posts and clamber across it upside down, belly up, legs straddling the rope and
propelling the body to the other end. Arm over arm they raced, with fully packed rucksacks and rifles slung across their backs. Time was critical—and so was teamwork. Small and fast, Ashley had learned as a girl on the uneven parallel bars to use her stomach muscles to force her body into one line and make her weight lighter on her arms. That training meant she could zip across the rope faster than anyone could imagine.

It was Jason, then a senior and already her boyfriend, who had put her on the Ranger Challenge team, with support from Sergeant First Class Stewart McGeahy, the NCO who oversaw the ROTC cadets. McGeahy was a veteran of the Army’s bloody fight in Fallujah, an armored cavalry guy who had seen combat close and fierce in Iraq. He recognized warriors when he saw them, even if this one—the quiet little blonde—didn’t look like any he had ever met before.

It was Jason’s job to make the final selection for the Ranger Challenge team, and he sought out McGeahy’s advice. “You don’t see that kind of heart very often,” the older veteran observed. “I’d like to see you take her.”

During the Ranger Challenge competition, Ashley had proven to be a real asset to the team with her physical endurance, her land navigation and rope bridge skills, and her ability to keep cool under pressure. The sweetest moment came toward the end of the final event, a ruck march with more than thirty pounds of gear. Ashley stayed in the middle of her team’s pack, not setting the pace, but not slowing it, either. And then her group passed their bigger and better-funded rival, Ohio State.

“Oh, fuck,” one guy bellowed as Kent State passed. “We’re screwed. Pick it up!” And then, a moment later: “Holy shit, they got a
female
. And they are fucking passing us.
Pick it up!
”

“I’m trying, dude, I can’t go any faster,” one guy huffed to his teammate. “Man, I’m hurting all over.”

“What the fuck? Are you kidding me?” the first cadet answered. “That girl’s not complaining. Step it up.
Now!
”

Jason laughed. “See you at the finish line, boys!”

Ashley slogged along and remained expressionless. One foot after the other. Eyes straight ahead. No way she was reacting to that nonsense. As she had learned from her father as a girl, she would let her actions show what she was made of. Forget them, just focus and move on. Ashley had mastered the art of silently pushing herself onward, and she was tougher on herself than anyone else could be.

Now, as the much more competitive CST selection process was set to begin, Ashley would channel that dedication. She had fought hard to be here, not only against the wishes of her beloved father and role model, but initially against Jason, too. Ever since her first year in ROTC he had been her biggest champion and most devoted ally. Sitting in the motel dining room surrounded by some of the Army’s toughest female warriors, she reflected back on the conversation that Saturday night after she first learned about the CST program. It was one of the most heated they had ever had.

Over a dinner of broiled chicken she had prepared after returning home from Guard drills at the armory, Ashley gently pressed her case. Ten years of war meant that nearly everyone who served in the Guard had done at least one tour in Iraq or Afghanistan. Young officers like her who had no “combat stripes”—the gold “Overseas Service Bars” on their uniforms indicating they had served at least six months at war overseas—were noticed by others. And not in a positive way.

“I have to do this,” Ashley said. “People at the Guard unit are making fun of me—you know I have to get this deployment out of the way. My regular unit won’t be deploying for Kuwait until 2013, and that will be a whole year of us apart. If I do this CST program, it’s just six or seven months, and it’s
now
. We can begin a family all the sooner.”

Jason listened, stone-faced.

“Listen, Jason, this is
special operations
,” Ashley said. “You’re the one who said they’re the best of all the guys you saw in Afghanistan.
You know I’ll be working with a top-notch, professional community. I’ll knock the deployment out and come home and then we can move forward with our lives.”

Jason reminded himself to breathe. He had just returned from a year as a field artillery officer in eastern Afghanistan, where he had seen firsthand the war’s dangers—what it was like on the battlefield and what it did to the people who made it back home. The absolute last thing he wanted was Ashley going over there. It was only now—two months after his own tour ended—that he had finally gotten used to normal life again, and that was because of Ashley. She hadn’t pressured him to talk about Afghanistan or smothered him with attention once he got home; instead, she gave him space and let him get accustomed once more to life’s daily rhythms.

J
ason had served at a particularly grueling time in the long war. The surge that was announced in December 2009 was in full swing, and he provided artillery support to both conventional and special operations units operating in the field. Insurgents regularly attacked his NATO base, lovingly referred to as “Rocket City” by the soldiers who lived there. Enemy fighters even managed to breach the base’s wire one night, sending him running to his position ready to shoot artillery if needed. Fortunately the attack ended in short order with no one on his side dead or injured, but the enemy had literally brought the fight to him, and it was sobering.

For Jason the rules of engagement were frustrating. He understood that protecting civilians was critical to the war effort, but he knew the enemy followed no such rules and that counterinsurgency’s reluctance to use artillery firepower—for fear of civilian casualties—meant that American soldiers now had to fight without the full arsenal of the United States Army at their side. He also witnessed internal turf wars and political battles he hadn’t expected to see in wartime play out before his eyes. He still loved the Army and his men, and he remained committed to serving his country. But he
returned home questioning America’s chances of success given the years of commitment the mission would require.

Worse, he was unable to forget what he had seen in the southeastern province of Khost: one of his men twitching in a morphine coma, his leg torn apart by rocket fire, another soldier severely injured, with a pint of Jason’s blood helping keep him alive. He relived it every night when he first returned home and he sure as hell didn’t want that for Ashley. Afghanistan changed everyone it touched, and his wife would be no different. He couldn’t bear to think of the nightmares that would accompany her back to North Carolina from whatever remote outpost would be her home for the better part of a year. Right before he deployed they had a secret wedding in a minister’s office, sealing the ceremony with a temporary ring from Walmart. This way Jason could be certain that Ashley would get his survivor benefits if something happened to him overseas. Their “real” nuptials—the big, white dress, huge party, proper Catholic mass—were planned for May, just two months away.

And now that Jason had made it back safely
she
wanted to go to Afghanistan and upend their lives once more? He struggled to get his mind around this.

“Ash, this is Afghanistan,” he finally replied. He wrapped his hands around a glass of Jack Daniel’s and Coke and worked to keep his voice steady. “These are the people who successfully fought Alexander the Great, the British, the Russians, and now they are fighting us. This is no joke. People are getting hit all the time now. Do you have
any
idea what you’d be getting yourself into? You don’t need to deploy now—I just got back. Let’s think about this for a while, find you a good medical deployment you can do another time, once we’ve had our wedding and honeymoon and some actual time together.” Ashley had studied sports medicine in college—often with Jason serving as her test patient—and trained as a medic at Fort Sam Houston during her ROTC years. Jason saw no reason why she couldn’t deploy as a medical officer—and one who stayed on base.