Less than two years ago – December 2015 – the last barriers preventing women from accessing certain combat posts finally fell. Now, the new piece “Bullet Catchers” envisions the not-so-distant future where women and men officially serve together in the same infantry unit.
“It has been a 70-year journey for women to fully integrate into all branches, units and professions of the military,” said Lory Manning, who served in the Navy for 25 years, from late 1960s.
For Manning, the military offered a different avenue at a time when options were limited for women. “I didn’t want to be a schoolteacher and wanted to leave New Jersey,” she recalls over the phone. “The Navy seemed like a good opportunity – for travel in particular. ”
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She explained that lifting the restrictions was a piecemeal process. For example, in 1992, women were allowed to participate in combat aviation, said Manning, a member of the Service Women’s Action Network, known as SWAN. According to the organization’s website, there are “nearly 2.5 million military women in the United States.”
The nature of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the large number of women deployed during these two conflicts mean that women (and men) who were not in combat roles saw combat, he said. she declared.
Since September 11, 2001, more than “300,000 women have been deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq,” according to a SWAN report dated February 1, 2017. More than 1,000 women have been injured and 166 have been killed in the process. combat operations, the report notes.
“Now, even though they fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, they are officially allowed to fight,” Manning said.
Sandra W. Lee, who plays two roles in “Bullet Catchers”, has seen fighting in Iraq despite having been assigned to civil affairs, she told Chelsea Now in a telephone interview. Lee joined the military in response to 9/11, she said, and served from 2002 to 2010.
Civil affairs largely focus on rebuilding a country’s infrastructure, and in Iraq, Lee said she was working on rebuilding schools. Her unit trained in combat, and Lee said it teamed up with another division as it carried out security searches and raids and searched for weapon caches.
“We would fill a lot,” she recalls. “We’ve done a lot of assignments that weren’t in our job description. But being a soldier is in the job description.
Lee, who was in Iraq from 2003 to 2004, said while driving around the country, his convoy was hit four times by roadside bombs. She said she has brain damage as a result of these incidents. She was also diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, known as PSTD. Lee said she was raped by another soldier while deployed.
Her experiences explain how she plays Até, who in the play is the goddess of war and a warrior. Being a woman in the military, Lee explained, there is a perception that women are not good enough and “you have to prove yourself to join their ranks.”
Due to her brain injury, Lee was somewhat apprehensive about contributing to the writing of the play, but said she put her voice in Até, whose character was a “shell” when she joined the production in last december.
“The good thing about this process was a group effort,” she said.
Indeed, “Bullet Catchers” co-creators, Maggie Moore and Julia Sears, sought input from the cast for the play, which was a collaborative effort. “It felt like a writer’s play for a lot of the process,” Sears, who is also the play’s director, said over the phone.
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Actors were given writing assignments, Sears said, such as writing the fairytale version of their character’s arc in the play, or being challenged to write five minutes of theater in half an hour. . “They have so much ownership over what they do,” Sears said.
Moore and Sears were the last editors, but the actors helped shape their characters, like Lee with Até. Moore, who is also the play’s associate director, said the actors have found their voices as writers. While Moore and Sears were honored to be the leaders, she said, the piece belongs to the collective. “We all jumped off the cliff together,” Moore said over the phone.
Neither Moore nor Sears served in the military. The genesis of the project stems from when Moore was working at the Washington-based Truman National Security Project in early 2015, she explained. Sears and Moore have been friends since college and have followed the news that the latest restrictions on combat positions have been lifted. Sears thought the story of women fighting for battle reconnaissance would be a great story, Moore said.
Sears and Moore interviewed 35 current veterans and military personnel – a roughly equal mix of women and men. The veterans had fought in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, Sears said. The interview process lasted about three months, she said, listening to and then transcribing the interviews. From there, they started refining the stories and characters, Sears said.
A bullet catcher is “the army’s slang for an infantryman,” according to the coin’s website, and Moore said, “It’s kind of a badge of honor to be a bullet catcher. “.
Some women are currently in infantry training, she said, and “we see the movement to the world that we have built in the room become a reality.”
“Bullet Catchers” follows the journey of “the US Army’s first official mixed infantry unit, from training to deployment,” according to the coin’s website. Moore said it’s important to highlight a diversity of experiences and that the characters in the play range from a private to a lieutenant colonel.
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Jessica Vera plays Maya de los Santos, who in the play is a lieutenant colonel and the first female commander of a forward operating base, Vera said over the phone. Vera described Maya as a leader, someone who sees not only the opportunity available to her, but also the weight of that level of responsibility.
Although Vera has no military experience, her father was an Army Ranger, her older brother was in the Army Cavalry and currently serves in the Air Force. Growing up in a military family influenced the way she plays Maya, she said.
One of the first scenes in the play shows Maya picks up his wife, Jordan, a civilian, and brings her across the threshold after getting married. Lee, the veteran, also plays Jordan in the play and said Vera helped shape Jordan’s character. As the “don’t ask, don’t tell” military policy was officially abandoned, Lee said, “There is still a stigma. It depends on who your command is.
At the other end of the military spectrum is the character Joan Boudica, played by Emma Walton. Joan is a private and is brand new to the experience, Walton explained over the phone. Joan is part of the reserves and is randomly selected for special training and is deployed, she said. “It’s a coming-of-age story for her,” said Walton, who has no military experience.
Walton said women have been in the military for a long time – flying planes and protecting the country like men. “We are delighted to show it,” she said. “The rest of America thinks they’re nurses, they’re doing paperwork. This is simply not true.
Sears, the director, said she hopes the play will spark a myriad of conversations for audiences, including a broader discussion about women in leadership positions. “We hope that this story – as precise and nuanced [as it is] – may still have repercussions on women and all those who have tried to move the needle of gender mainstreaming in general, ”she said.
