Janis Karpinski saw and experienced how men degraded women in Fort McClellan. Although they were constantly getting put down by men, there were some women in the army who stood out by their power and authority, among the rest of the women. To Janis, these women were like superheroes to her, people that she admired and looked up to, and secretly, she wanted to be just like them. Janis recalls,
“In basic training an old-school lieutenant colonel had served as out battalion commander. She had always dressed primly and appropriately, looking like a recruiting poster from the ‘50s…Her fatigue uniform was tailored to look as if it had been painted on her. She had the rouser legs pegged to fit smartly inside her boots. She put herself together meticulously. She used to stand in the orderly room and have someone slip her boots on so that she didn’t wrinkle her trousers.”(53)
Janis continued on saying how amazed she was that the woman could be a so neat and perfect at all time. She admired how she always carried herself with grace and was so mature and calm, this woman was Janis’ role-model.
At Fort McClellan, Janis said that she, “learned about an even more impressive figure: the base commander, a larger-than-life career woman who was one of the first female two-star generals in the Army. She stood almost six feet tall, matronly and imposing, and soldiers whispered that she was a robot.” (54)
Janis also admired this women as well as the other one, but one thing that she made sure was that if she became as elegant as they were, that she would still be feminine, and have genuine feelings inside. She didn’t want to be emotionless like those women, she wanted to be real. After looking at herself as a freshman in the military, she realized that she had a long way to go to be like those women.
1 comment:
See those women are the strong ones, the ones that don’t let a man’s word get the best of her. They fight through thick n thin to prove to themselves and everyone else that a woman can too do whatever a man could and maybe even do a better job at it. They are the leaders the ones who will stand up for the other women and be the model for the rest. It takes a lot of courage to stand up for one self an the ones who can do it is heroic.
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