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I saw the ad on Craigslist announcing open tryouts for Another Kind Of Valor and I knew immediately I had to do it. It played to my strengths. Military experience would be helpful but not necessary. I was a decorated soldier, and had been acting in little theater since my discharge. I photographed well, had been in some demand as a model, and the future was looking bright. The auditions for Valor were a breeze. The part I was given was challenging. Improvisation was new to me but I was good at it. The words came easily. So did the silences.
My character worked in the morgue at a tented field hospital doing DNA testing on body parts. Identifying individuals who'd been blown to bits would bring closure to grieving families back home.
I worked with one other female. A bright, attractive African American soldier named Barika, and we got along great. The training to handle the paraphernalia came easily.
Barika's character had a husband who was a police detective back home, and they had a toddler whom she really missed. On camera we joked a lot, but it was clear there were trust issues between her and her husband. Then the producer-director told me that my character was being sexually harassed by a superior officer. I would have a scene revealing that to the chaplain and begging for his help. It would be intense. That really hit home. In fact all the issues rang true and I knew them all personally.
While in the military I had several sexual harassment experiences. One sergeant in particular made repeated attempts. I was an enlisted private and he was a platoon leader. For shooting the scene with the Chaplain I used my experience with that person and played out my memory of what took place one night in the company motor pool in Korea. I had a problem with a truck that I was working on and asked for assistance. The sergeant requested that I show him where the problem was. That required me to lean over the truck and reach down into an open area. I knew that made me vulnerable. And sure enough he quickly came behind me to see where I was pointing and he pinned me. I felt his weight on me… pressing… moving… suggestively. Helpless, my heart was jumping out of my chest, unsure of what would happen next. I was about to scream when he moved to the side and, with a smile, acted like nothing happened.
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Leading up to this there were times when he would find any excuse to touch me where his hands had no right to go. It didn't seem to matter to him at all that we were both married, or that I felt violated. He smiled as if he was only being playful.
When we filmed the scene with the chaplain, a wonderful actor who was one of the stars of Roots, I could not believe my intensity as I poured out my angst and humiliation. When the director whispered “Cut,” the chaplain complimented me first, then the cameraman and soundman followed with “Wonderful” and “Wow” and the director gave me a little hug and a kiss on the forehead as he whispered, “You are an actress now, soldier. Don't ever doubt it.”
Like my character in Valor, I was married and separated from my spouse for an extended period of time, stationed in South Korea for a year and a half while my husband served in Iraq. We struggled to pretend our lives were normal and that our love was strong enough to work through any problem. But when two people never see each other and rarely speak, and when they individually experience life-changing events, they become different and begin to think differently. Maybe that was the sergeant's motivation for his unwanted touching. I seemed fair game. Good God was I sending out that message?
When my husband and I finally were reunited we felt as if we no longer even knew each other, which created more problems. During his time in Iraq all he thought about was staying alive, his past life back home, how we were and how he wanted it to be exactly the same when he got back.
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I on the other hand thought about what I wanted to do with my life. I did not think about him in the same way he did me, or our past in the way he did. There were moments where I would try to forget about him because I would worry so much when I'd see daily news stories with soldiers blown to bits by IEDs. He was in the infantry involved in close contact fighting. There were times when he would be on secret patrols and I would not talk to him for weeks. I knew where he was going because he would tell me despite being ordered not to tell anyone. I would see in a news story that five Infantry soldiers were killed, and I would only be able to hope he was not one of them. While he was enduring life or death situations I was working a relatively normal office job just trying to be happy and distracted. For the most part I had weekends off where I could enjoy just about any leisurely activity and was able to travel like a tourist.
He got out of the military from Iraq and lived with me in South Korea for a month. It was difficult being intimate. We could not communicate effectively on the simplest levels, and there were issues concerning trust. He'd asked me many times if I had been faithful. But even my constant reassurance wasn't enough. And that made me question his faithfulness.
The pain of separation from a loved one, the loneliness and anxiety of not knowing if he is alive or dead were the most difficult things I have ever had to endure. Ultimately it led to our getting a divorce. He still suffers from post traumatic stress disorder, and only recently, years after getting out, has he sought counseling help. Our divorce has been difficult. I promised to always be there for him because I am one of a few people with whom he feels safe to open up about his war experiences. But communication became so difficult between us that finally I simply shut him out.
He thought about suicide a lot, he told me. Why endure the pain if he's
lost me? He's sought medical and psychological help for his temper
and the PTSD, and now he wishes he had done it months ago. Some of it works.
But
in my eyes he can tell… it's all too little too late… for us
at least.
I knew going into Another Kind of Valor how important the message was, and that veteran's stories need to be told, but I feel this even more intensely today as my own personal experiences continue to evolve.
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