pathetic excuse for an article

A friend of mine shared a link with me that I feel like I MUST talk about. The link was to an article written about an interview Glamour Magazine did on a woman that was recently a LT in the Air Force and deployed to Afghanistan. The theme of the article was how the girl had changed from her deployment and how she now suffered from a mild form of PTSD and doesn`t know how to manage her life now that she's out of the service. 

It's disguisting. 

 The girl talks about how traumatizing her "combat experience" was. Do you know what examples she uses about the horrors of combat? She explains about having to live off of 'dry meat and soggy vegetables' for 9 months, living in fear of sexual assault because she was 'pretty' and because of the male-dominated career SHE PURSUED and the vulgar language she heard, having to carry around an m4 and an m9, having to wear heavy gear with 270 rounds of ammunition, working long hours and having horrible living conditions. 

Before I tear her apart I want to explain something- this girl was a public affairs officer in the Air Force. That means that she was stationed at one of the largest bases in which ever region she was in, she was in a solid building with a strong and reliable internet connection, and she was almost certainly at a high echelon which means she was probably in a nice, secure building with running water.

This girl used a girly and uneducated magazine to twist her experiences to get her 15 minutes of fame. Her job is to take pictures of local events, and post pictures and articles on social media. It's obvious that she never left her base and she probably never even interacted with any of the men and women that did. She sat in her comfortable rolly chair in her air conditioned office and played on facebook, twitter and other social media sites. As for having to supposedly carry around 2 weapons and all of her gear and ammunition, I call bullsh**. If she had an m9 (handgun), the m4 she was issued was secured in her units arms room and on a daily bases she walked around in her uniform with her weapon and one magazine. The only time she would ever even wear the gear that SHE SIGNED UP TO WEAR, would be if there was some sort of attack or threat of attack in her area. 

As for the trauma of eating dry meat and soggy veggies and living in horrid conditions; she needs to climb out of her ivory tower and look at what the troops that actually do something to defend our country eat and where they sleep. 

You have all heard me complain from time to time about my room and the less than desirable food that they have out here, but it is absolutely beyond belief that someone who has it as good as I have (or better) would claim that the experience gave her PTSD! Not once in the article did it even come close to mentioning an attack. This girl didn't fear for her life or the lives of her friends, she was experiencing culture shock. 

People like that give all women in the military a bad name, and quite frankly she makes the Air Force look pretty bad too. 

Like I mentioned, I complain- everyone complains but I would never, ever tell anyone that what I've been through is traumatic. Doing that would just be ruining the credibility of PTSD for those Soldiers and Marines that really did live through hell and really were affected. It is deplorable to misuse an illness like that for personal gain. 

I won't rant any further about the article, and I won't post the link because I don't think that the media source deserves to have boosted numbers for publishing such a piss-poor article. If you do stumble upon it though, I encourage you to comment and ask them to take it down and put up an article about a real Hero or someone with valid combat experience in its place.