Military Missive: Part One

I’ve been in two unlikely places this week–Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. That’s right, I’ve left behind my Brooklyn coffee shops and my MLK books for an adventure in military culture.
The Media & the Military Workshop, a collaboration between the University of Kansas Journalism School and the Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, is in its second year (funded by the McCormick Foundation). It is an attempt to help journalists understand the military better, and visa versa. A group of about 25 of us have been learning about the military, meeting new soldiers, and even experiencing a bit of life inside (I did “PT,” aka physical training, at 4:30am yesterday with a group of soldiers!).
It’s been thrilling to have the experience to really learn firsthand about an institution that I have such complex feelings about.
As some of you may know, I’ve become increasingly interested in veterans’ affairs over the last few years because my dear cousin Lang was in the Marines and served two tours of duty in Iraq, and also because I wrote an in-depth profile of Maricela Guzman, an amazing veteran activist who co-founded the Service Women’s Action Network. This led me to write frequent columns on the topics of military sexual assault, veterans’ benefits etc. While I’ve learned a lot from my interviews, and even a trip to a Congressional Round Table of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee in DC, I felt like I was lacking in very basic knowledge about how the military works, and how those involved in it relate to their work.
I’m particularly interested in–shocker, I know–the intersections of gender and class in the military and military culture, more generally. Stay tuned for Part Two to hear some of my insights after a few days in the trenches…