Tina never kissed a boy
through all her high school years
She preferred auto shop
got greasy and learned to strip gears
And she played the bass drum
in the marching band
Now her last day of high school
is close at hand

She has a yearning for travel
and a thirst for knowledge
But she doesn’t have the grades
or the money for college
When you don’t have many options
you can surely use a mentor
Tina found hers
at the local recruitment center

He told her she could make
Mechanic 1st class
If she made it through basic
and worked her ass
So Tina enlisted and got her orders
she bunked down in the army training barracks
and made fast friends
among the whites, blacks, asians and hispanics

Give them a gun
teach them to shoot straight
and how to clear the buildings
of people filled with hate
Bind their hands behind the back
and interrogate
Throw the terrorists in the Stryker
behind the iron grates

Now with her best friends ever
Tina braves the mean streets of Iraq
Serving her country
but barely armored for flak
When the real bullets start to fly
she wonders how she will react
Patrolling the mean streets in the searing heat
her convoy comes under attack

Lightweight Humvee
stopped by a RPG
Then it’s blown to bits
by an IED

From uncleared buildings bullets rain down
Tina runs from the safety of the Stryker
To pull her bloody dismembered friends
from the devastation of the blast crater   

With an honorable discharge
back in the states
Tina has trouble
just thinking straight

RPG
IED
how do you prove …
PTSD?

Give them a gun
teach them to shoot straight
If you can’t clear the buildings
of people filled with hate
Blow them to bloody hell
call in the bombers
There won’t be many left
after they drop the 2000 pounders

~

Mental toll of war hitting female servicemembers – USA Today.com

Photo dated 13 June 2003 a female US soldier manning a machine gun on a vehicle during clashes in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. The war in Iraq, which has killed or wounded more US women in combat than any other conflict, has redefined their role in the military and triggered a rethink of their place on the front line. Women who serve in the US army are barred from engaging in combat under rules drawn up by the Pentagon a decade ago. But the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, where the US is fighting an insurgency and no front line exists as such, have been proving grounds for the women soldiers. Image by AFP/Getty Images