Jess Goodell enlisted in the Marines immediately after she graduated from high school in 2001. She volunteered three years later to serve in the Marine Corps’ first officially declared Mortuary Affairs unit, at Camp Al Taqaddum in Iraq. Her job, for eight months, was to collect and catalog the bodies and personal effects of dead Marines. She put the remains of young Marines in body bags and placed the bags in metal boxes. Before being shipped to Dover Air Force Base, the boxes were stored, often for days, in a refrigerated unit known as a “reefer.”. The work she did was called “processing.”
“We went through everything,” she said when I reached her by phone in Buffalo, N.Y., where she is about to become a student in a Ph.D. program in counseling at the University of Buffalo. “We would get everything that the body had on it when the Marine died. Everyone had a copy of The Rules of Engagement in their left breast pocket. You found notes that people had written to each other. You found lists. Lists were common, the things they wanted to do when they got home or food they wanted to eat. The most difficult was pictures. Everyone had a picture of their wife or their kids or their family. And then you had the younger kids who might be 18 years old and they had prom pictures or pictures next to what I imagine were their first cars. Everyone had a spoon in their flak jacket. There were pens and trash and wrappers and MRE food. All of it would get sent back [to the Marines’ homes].”
“We all had the idea that at any point this could be us on the table,” she said. “I think Marines thought that we went over there to die. And so people wrote letters saying ‘If I die I want you to know I love you.’ ‘I want my car to go to my younger brother.’ Things like that. They carried those letters on their bodies. We had a Marine that we processed and going through his wallet he had a picture of a sonogram of a fetus his wife had sent him. And a lot of Marines had tattooed their vital information under an arm pit. It was called a meat tag.”
The unit processed about half a dozen suicides. The suicide notes, she said, almost always cited hazing. Women, she said, were constantly harassed, especially sexually, but it often did not match the systematic punishment and humiliation meted out to men who were deemed to be inadequate Marines. She said that Marines who were overweight or unable to do the physical training were subjected to withering verbal and physical abuse. They were called “fat nasties” and “shit bags.” The harassed Marines would be assigned to other individual Marines and become their slaves. They would be sent on punishing runs in which many of them vomited. They would be forced to bear-crawl—walk on all fours—the length of a football field and back. This would be followed by sets of monkey fuckers—bending down, grabbing the ankles, crouching down like a baseball catcher and then standing up again—followed by a series of other exercises that went on until the Marines collapsed.
“They make these Marines do what they call ‘bitch’ work,” Goodell said. “They are assigned to be someone else’s ‘bitch’ for the day. We had a guy in our platoon, not in Iraq but in California, and he was overweight. He was on remedial PT, which meant he went to extra physical training. When he came to work he was rotated. One day he was with this corporal or this sergeant. One day he was sent to me. I had him for an hour. I remember sending him outside and making him carry things. It was very common for them to dig a hole and fill it back up with sand or carry sand bags up to the top of a hill and then carry them down again.”
Quote by velveeta jones:
:yawn:
Quote by Raine:
Hey y'all, Remember in the way back in time machine when Mala set up the 4F Facebook page? Well I uploaded a more recent graphic, and I think I would like to kick start the page again.
I'll be adding some best of's as well as the daily post in the coming weeks. I'd like to get a few more members, so we cane gat a custom FB name.
Quote by Raine:
Hey Mala! how are you doing today?
Quote by wickedpam:Quote by Raine:
Hey Mala! how are you doing today?
Not bad - despite the dentist visit Monday turned out to be rather nice
Quote by wickedpam:
Should we add more Admins to the FB page so more people can post stuff?
Quote by Raine:Quote by wickedpam:
Should we add more Admins to the FB page so more people can post stuff?
Can't we set it up so anyone can post without being an admin? I'd rather do that, I think.
Quote by Raine:Quote by velveeta jones:
:yawn:
G'Morning morning bright eyes!
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Dr. Maddow is going to be on the show Thursday?
Quote by wickedpam:Quote by Raine:
Dr. Maddow is going to be on the show Thursday?
yeppers!
Quote by wickedpam:
At $4.00 a gallon I'm gonna complain since I have to drive 27 miles each way 5 days a week just for work
Quote by BobR:Quote by wickedpam:
At $4.00 a gallon I'm gonna complain since I have to drive 27 miles each way 5 days a week just for work
I drive 65 miles each way 3 day/wk. Most of it is highway, though, so that optimizes my gas mileage. Still - 400 miles at $4/gal is still a lot of bucks at ANY mileage
Quote by Scoopster:
Urghghghg... mornin' all.
What a fucking disaster of a weekend.
It wasn't immediately clear what the rope was for.
(snip)
He was reportedly once offered a position for the English-language version of the controversial Al Jazeera network, but said he turned it down because being gay and Jewish, he didn't think it would be a good fit.
Quote by Raine:Quote by Scoopster:
Urghghghg... mornin' all.
What a fucking disaster of a weekend.
What happened?
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Oh lesse.. my brother was a total dick the entire time which set the tone, I went to retrieve the blog I was writing from my work computer but the remote login wouldn't connect (cuz the power went out in the office), then the power supply in my mom's computer just plain up & DIED - luckily I had a new one on hand cuz I was gonna rebuild it but the board wouldn't fit so I just replaced that one part instead..
And the big one - the ham my mother cooked turned out to be bad/unedible. It literally had the consistency of peanut butter. Not sure what was going on there but we threw it out just to be safe, and so far thankfully no one's got food poisoning.
Quote by TriSec:
Scott Brown has a Democratic challenger
I'm not expecting much out of this one, folks.
Quote by Scoopster:Quote by Raine:Quote by Scoopster:
Urghghghg... mornin' all.
What a fucking disaster of a weekend.
What happened?
Oh lesse.. my brother was a total dick the entire time which set the tone, I went to retrieve the blog I was writing from my work computer but the remote login wouldn't connect (cuz the power went out in the office), then the power supply in my mom's computer just plain up & DIED - luckily I had a new one on hand cuz I was gonna rebuild it but the board wouldn't fit so I just replaced that one part instead..
And the big one - the ham my mother cooked turned out to be bad/unedible. It literally had the consistency of peanut butter. Not sure what was going on there but we threw it out just to be safe, and so far thankfully no one's got food poisoning.
Quote by Raine:
Oh dear. I had to look into this Richard Quest thing they were talking about on the show.
Oh dear.It wasn't immediately clear what the rope was for.
(snip)
He was reportedly once offered a position for the English-language version of the controversial Al Jazeera network, but said he turned it down because being gay and Jewish, he didn't think it would be a good fit.
Much less salacious, was tte NYT article.
Dude, REALLY?
Perhaps this is another person who might benefit from coming out of the closet? Dr. Maddow has been talking about this, and will on the SMS newscast, Thursday.
Quote by Mondobubba:
Bobber, Mala & Raine! Your boyishly handsome AG is mentioned in Salon today.
Quote by Mondobubba:
Bobber, Mala & Raine! Your boyishly handsome AG is mentioned in Salon today.
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Funny you should mention that....I'm reading "Fabric of the Cosmos" right now, and can't quite grasp the whole Higgs Field idea.
Quote by Raine:
Sassy is a terrible dog.
Virginia's assault on healthcare reform isn't considered the most robust of the various legal challenges working their way through the courts. Standard procedure is to let the federal appellate court process work its way through before the Supremes take on a case -- a timeline that probably delays any ultimate resolution of the constitutionality of healthcare reform until after the 2012 presidential election.
Since taking over as Virginia's attorney general in January 2010, Cuccinelli has been without doubt one of the most industrious -- if not the most successful -- warriors of the hard right.
Quote by Raine:
Mondo, I find this funny:Virginia's assault on healthcare reform isn't considered the most robust of the various legal challenges working their way through the courts. Standard procedure is to let the federal appellate court process work its way through before the Supremes take on a case -- a timeline that probably delays any ultimate resolution of the constitutionality of healthcare reform until after the 2012 presidential election.
IT sorta says to me, that the Cooch isn't the brightest bulb in the legal box. Interesting is this:Since taking over as Virginia's attorney general in January 2010, Cuccinelli has been without doubt one of the most industrious -- if not the most successful -- warriors of the hard right.
More proof that he is an ideologue first, trying to wrap law around his thoughts --- screw precedent. George Mason must be ashamed of him. He's a blight upon their law program.
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I'll have to get back and read that later this evening; can't make the time commmitment at the moment. (I will, I promise.)
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I think think it is time we start paying attention to the women left behind from some of these soldiers.
Read this. Especially, Tri. Tell me what you think. I am inclined to say that the Armed forces let this woman down as badly as her asshat husband. I get PTSD, I get Trauma, what I don;t get is the lack of assistance for military spouses. This was a suicide letter.
Something that could have been prevented.
Quote by Raine:
I'm not a member of the military. I am not a MilSpouse. I am however a woman who has suffered depression, I watched my first husband go down a rabbit hole much like this Jessica Harp. I know the situations are different, but hopelessness that clinical depression brings doesn't know what uniform you are wearing, nor what uniform you may be married to -- if any at all.
As a non military spouse, and as a person who takes veteran issues quite seriously (albeit as an outsider) I can say that It's NOT that she didn't try hard enough, as the military spouse mentioned in the post assumes.
I present to everyone out there: how much harder can a person try when they are clinically depressed? It's like asking someone already carrying 200 pounds of garbage on their back, after walking with it for 50 miles, to take on an extra 100 pounds.
It seems to me that while this nation suffers a terrible dearth of depression and PTSD from our vets, We are forgetting the families, in particular, the spouses.
I must admit, I am incredibly disheartened by this response. It shows how uneducated people are in this nation with regard to dealing with traumatic stress, no matter what form it comes in. Our Military, including the families -- are not immune to this. We are supposed to be our "brother's keeper" and I for one, do not believe that is a gender specific idea.
I hold in my heart that Jessica will fin peace, comfort and happiness. No one should ever judge a person in such a way.
Well first off this is a sad story but on the other hand I dont feel that bad for her.. I know that sounds bad but I just think when she refers to how she wished her husband died in combat I just think she was refering to the money she would have recieved and not the support from the local army community (because she has no job,etc and now is single). Also there is a saying “If the Army wanted you to have a family, it would have issued you one†… That being said they have improved many things for spouse “dependents†and I find it hard to believe they turned her away at any family support group especially when she had suidical thoughts…We might not be the first priority on the armys list but we are very important to them and not just to them but to our soldiers fighting the wars…I just cant feel that bad for this woman.. She put it out there so to me she was looking for attention… I just dont feel bad for woman who do this types of things when they are in a middle of a divorce and or just divorce a service member…. There are many things on base she could have seek help at and I just dont think she tried hard enough
Quote by TriSec:
Oh, and for a previous lurker...
I'm at the store tonight (5-9) and will be there most of the day Saturday (Open-4pm) downstairs in the camping department in both instances.