- From this point moving forward training, when we giving you structure, your only response would be, "Yes, Drill Sergeant."

"No, Drill Sergeant."

Am I understood?

- [Trainees] Yes, Drill Sergeant.

- You know, when you're surrounded by a lot more men than women, men who can do a lot more pushups than you, can do a lot more sit-ups, and can run faster, I feel like there was kind of a challenge, but at the same time, I've always felt that men and women are different.

So, I never felt pressure to be more than what I was or to match or compete.

It definitely pushed me to go harder.

- I grew up a farm girl.

The physical pieces of being in the military was not a big deal.

I enjoyed it.

Basic training was actually the funnest time of my time in the service, getting to do obstacles and different things like that.

Physically, it wasn't challenging for me at all.

It was more I grew up in a small rural community where everybody knew me as Mindy.

And all of a sudden, I went to the military where I am one of the only women.

And so, it was a very unique experience with the different cultures, different backgrounds of people.

I have never experienced that amount of male attention, I would say, before.

Some of it largely inappropriate and not knowing how to handle it.

- I felt protection.

You had a bunch of big brothers and big uncles kind of looking out for you and wherever you go.

I mean, there are people that don't do that, doesn't matter what field you're in.

So, there were some that were more protective of you than others and looked out for you more than others.

But I never really felt like I was discriminated against because of my gender.

I feel like there has been a little bit more acceptance on women being able to fill some of those roles that maybe they didn't in the past.

Women are doing truck driving and maintenance on vehicles, and it's probably come a long way as far as what women are capable and able to do.

Our mission on a regular basis was to just load up these trucks and bring stuff from point A to B and survive.

My job was the weapons and making sure they were clean, making sure that they were functional, and all that stuff.

I don't know if it was a job that I necessarily was wanting, but I really enjoyed doing it because I had my own arms room, I had my own way of doing things, my own system.

I did feel like it was a very important job.

If any of those weapons went out and they malfunctioned, I would've felt like that was on me.

I was on a convoy and we got some small arms fire, which the direction when we get small arms fires just blow through.

We just keep on going.

The only time we stop is if there's a casualty, (gun shooting) and I think it really kind of awakened dust to the reality of, this is war.

This isn't just missions.

We literally could die out here.

(somber music) I got home.

I actually moved in with my mom in the very beginning.

That was just kind of the plan all along, and she was growing concerned because I was up all night and sleeping all day, and she made a couple of comments that I was different, that I had changed.

And I went to a veteran therapist who said, "It's probably PTSD-related."

So, then I kind of started down that road of like, "Okay, well, let's try to fix and figure this out."

What ended up really pulling me out of depression or anxiety or just the life that I was living, I think it was my faith.

I think my faith grew really strong.

As a woman, sometimes we get in this mindset of, we need to prove something.

We need to prove who we are.

We need to prove our value.

And men and women, although we're different, we're equal in value.

And what we do matters and what we do makes a difference, whether we're doing as many pushups or not doing as many pushups, or whether we're at the front lines or not at the front lines.

What we're doing matters.

It makes a difference.

- Fort Hood, Texas was my first duty station.

It was the first day at my duty station when I inprocessed that I was sexually assaulted.

As a 20-year-old young woman, limited experiences outside of here, it was different.

I had inprocessed late in the evening and the staff sergeant that inprossed me was my perpetrator.

I still am not sure that I would've came forward with it, but he was going to be a navy chaplain and had just graduated seminary school, and I knew that if I didn't say anything that there would be other women.

But that investigation took six months, and so I was stuck in Fort Hood for six months now feeling like I'm wearing a scarlet letter, and a little bit scared of retribution.

After I came forward, 13 other women also came forward.

And then it turned into drinking more alcohol as well.

I ended up really developing an addiction.

And so, for me there was a lot of challenges, I would say, during that time that wasn't related to being deployed, it was just related to a lot of different things that had accumulated over time.

When I got back out of the service, I had came back to this area here in Bagley and I started going to AA meetings, I started chairing AA meetings.

I started working in the jails with another gentleman doing AA meetings for females that were incarcerated.

And in the interim, like, I decided I'm going back to school to use my G.I.

Bill and all of those things.

And I took my first psychology course, and I just lit up with passion.

It does seem that veterans are a little more open to therapy with a veteran, and I've had several on my caseload that I think it's been incredibly beneficial, because I can speak their language and I can empathize and I can understand, and they don't feel like they're gonna break me.

I have a nickname at work, they call me the Velvet Hammer, because, like, they say, "You're smooth but effective."

Because I am very blunt.

They joke around and say I use, like, trucker speak to connect with people, but I can use all the intelligent words as well, and I just be very genuine and very real, and that, I think, connects, you know, more than anything.

I think that there's definitely a lot more women that are in leadership now than probably were before.

I remember when I went through AIT, we had one female drill sergeant, but really it was male predominant.

And now, they have drill sergeants that are females, you have commanders that are females, you have first sergeants that are females.

And so, I think that as time has went on with more women being in the military, they have risen up to the ranks and taken roles of leadership and really supported other female military members.

So, I think that that's a good thing.

I can definitively say that the struggles and the suffering that I have endured has made me strong.

So, my goal in life is just to give people hope.

(gentle piano music) - [Announcer] Funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008, and by the members of Prairie Public.