# Up early morning.

# Up early morning ...

In the military, there's like a reverse camaraderie when it comes to women.

We want to assimilate and integrate with the men, so they don't [say,] 'look, oh those girls over there.'

That kept me away from a lot of female interactions in the military.

So this being an all female interaction was really nice, 'cause I haven't had that kind of all female camaraderie.

-If I were anywhere but the military I would have received a promotion for saving the comp... - But not in the Navy.

- Not in the ol' U.S.S.

Nimitz.

I was on an aircraft carrier flying F-18 jets out every day, bombing people.

At the time, because you're in it and you're surrounded by people who are in it as well.

It's like, yeah, 'we're doing a good job out here.'

You know, 'we're serving our country.'

And then we, you don't really think about the repercussions and the backlash and the emotional damage that it does to you.

And when I got back, it just felt different.

I grew up here, but you none of my friends, none of the relationship I had, felt the same.

It was just like, man like what's going on here?

What, is it me?

Or is it them?

- Left, right.

You forget the cadence, you keep left right.

And just take us out left, right.

- I have some veterans in my family.

I always wanted to know more about their experience And to understand more.

And they they didn't talk about it.

And that's very common I've learned through this project We're not setting up a traditional theater experience where it's us and them, the performers and the audience.

We need the audience to come along and be a part of the journey with us.

-I was in Iraq in 2003.

I deployed to Afghanistan for one year out of that time.

And then I also went on a short mission to the Ukraine.

For me to express what my experience of war is ... -It's really sad, the things that you miss when you're o... -into some kind of sublimated form of art, I can let go of it and I think that's really cleansing.

-It's not just about being in the military.

Like we as women go through struggles everyday.

And it's just that the military is a different setting for that.

I've been out of the military five years now.

And just getting diagnosed bipolar and PTSD after so many years out of the military, just goes to show you that, you can think you're okay until you're not.

Getting diagnosed with a mental illness can like knock your feet out from under you.

And so I kind of needed some, some kind of something out of the norm to kind of help me kind of find myself.