Angela Brightfeather
Drill Sergeant
by
Denny Meyer |
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Angela
Brightfeather is a sixty three year old woman of
Transgender experience who was a US Army Combat Training unit Drill
Sergeant for seven years during the Vietnam War;
finishing her service as a Sergeant First Class,
Field First - leading all the platoon drill
sergeants in her company. To be absolutely
clear, although she was self-aware as transgender
woman, she served her honorable and highly respected
Army career as a biological male. Following
her service, she partnered as Senior Vice President and has led a successful
industrial contracting company in the rural south
for many decades. She raised two children and
is a loving grandparent of seven grandchildren. You might logically
think that the life she has led is one of profound
contradictions, but you would be mistaken in your
assumptions if you did. Just
as Angela led and trained troops to survive combat
in Vietnam, today there are American transgender
soldiers fighting for freedom and democracy in
Afghanistan and Iraq. They do not go into
combat wearing high heels and show-girl sequined
dresses; they wear combat gear like everyone
else. Like their gay and lesbian counterparts
in our armed forces, they are indistinguishable from
any other soldier both in appearance and in their
ability to load and fire a .50 caliber machine gun, ride
atop a Humvee in the gunner's position or lead
patrols on constant alert for IEDs. They are indistinguishable
from any other soldier in their readiness to
sacrifice their limbs and lives for their fellow
soldiers and duty. Now,
you might logically think, "well, alright, the
only reason that works out is because they are
indistinguishable, that is -because no one knows; if
fellow soldiers knew who they were, it would be
impossible to carry on," but you would be
mistaken in your assumptions if you did. In 1948,
when President Truman integrated black Americans
into our armed forces, people protested that
Southern white boys, and most others, would never be
able to serve alongside nor take orders from black
soldiers. And yet, today and for all the preceding
six decades our American armed forces have been a
light unto the world for that very reason: our
integrated units of white, black, Hispanic, Asian,
Christian, Jewish, Muslim, male and female, gay,
transgender, and
straight Americans arrive in foreign lands to
protect freedom and by their presence are an
inspiration. Sixty years ago, shortly after
the close of WWII, an ordinary person would think
you were quite insane if you told them that our
armed forces would have been commanded by a General
Colin Powell, a black American, during the 1980s,
and that our troops in Iraq in the early years of
that war would be led by General Shinseki, a
Japanese American who now leads our Veterans
Administration. "A Negro and a Jap!"
They would exclaim in disbelief, "wadayah
wadayah nuts or sumthin?" Yet today, the
American cinematic image of a confident tough black
Top Sergeant barking at his troops is iconic and no
longer ironic; its a common reality. General
Shinseki's Asian American ancestry is not on the
mind of most Americans at all, least of all the
troops he led and the veterans who look to him to
see to it that they get the benefits they earned by
serving our nation just as he did for 38 years. So,
could a known transgender drill sergeant, today, get
the respect to train combat troops? Just as
Angela did 40 years ago, a sergeant appearing in a
uniform you could bounce a quarter off demonstrating
the obstacle course, running 25 miles with an 80
pound pack, and sharp shooting without getting a
speck of dirt on that uniform, will get the respect
of troops, regardless of skin color, religion,
ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity and
expression. Young
American men and women, today, who choose to
volunteer to serve their country do not care at all
about the personal background of their sergeant, any
more than they expect the sergeant to be concerned
about their race, religion, private sexual life, or
any of their other personal issues. Both our
sergeants, the backbone of the Army, and their brave
troops expect their excellence and the rank they
have earned to be all that
matters. Hang
on, we're not done yet. There remains the
question of why the hell a young Transgender
American, such as Angela, would want to volunteer,
as she did, to be a crack drill sergeant in the
middle of a bloody war, instead of happily
transitioning immediately to legal womanhood and a
totally different future for herself? Well, not every ordinary American wants
to be a soldier either; there are easier things to
do with your young life, after all. Yet, there
are and have always been young Americans who want to
do something meaningful and have no fear of
hardship, who want to be a part of the foundation of
our freedom; and throughout our history being black
or white, or Asian, or gay, straight or transgender
has not hindered them in their courageous pursuit to
help defend the freedoms they value, even if they
are limited by their being a minority. Perhaps
having that perspective makes it even more important
for them than to others, who may take those freedoms
for granted at such times in their lives. This author was a little 5'4"
110 lb Jewish homosexual, yet I served for ten years
and was a Sergeant First Class, go figure. And
I'd do it again because I'm proud as hell to have
served my country, just as Angela told me that she
is. Our blood is as red when spilled on the
battlefield as any other American's. Here
is Angela Brightfeather's story, at long last. Angela
was born in London, England at the close of
WWII. Her father was a US Army Corps Corporal,
Tail Gunner, and Armorer who met her mother at a USO
dance. Her mother worked for the wartime
British War Ministry located three stories beneath the Parliament
building. Prime Minister Churchill often
visited her workspace to view the map table upon
which the locations of the British Naval Fleet was
displayed. (Her father ruefully recalled that
he'd been a sergeant, but was busted for going AWOL
to visit his lovely fiancé). Ahh, those were
the days! After
a proper Roman Catholic wedding within hearing
distance of London's Cockney Bow Bells, the family
moved to Alexandria Bay NY on the St. Lawrence River in
the heart of the Thousand Islands. Her father
was a hunting and fishing guide; which may begin to
explain the tomboy trans-girl his young son was
evolving into (just try not to get confused;
take one breath at a time; its really not as complicated
as it seems). Angela claims that she first
felt fulfilled as a female at the age of two months
when wearing a Baptismal dress while being
Christened. (Ahh, the endless wonders of
Catholicism). School, for the young lad who
was Angela, was a terrible experience. She
wanted to be a girl, after all, and in the late
1940s and early 1950s this was not something that a
boy was allowed to do; so she was a rather
rebellious youngster growing up in Syracuse NY,
where the family later settled down to endure the
1950s. So,
why on Earth did young Angela volunteer to join the
US Army in 1968 at the height of the War in
Vietnam? After all, she had enough to deal
with already, one would think. "What were you
thinking," I asked. Aside from everything else,
like many Americans she was anti-war and was most
unenthusiastic about getting into harms way in
'Nam. And yet, there was a strong sense of
personal responsibility; she could not simply allow
herself to avoid hardship while her fellow young
Americans were literally biting the bullet; It just
wasn't right, to her thinking. Despite
everything, it seems, her parent's rearing and stoic
wartime background had instilled in her a proud and
patriotic morality. Like many youngsters
reared in the primeval forests of Western New York
with hunting rifles and cold fish, she knew a thing
or two about survival. She signed up to become
a Drill Sergeant in order to be able to provide her
fellow soldiers the best survival skills possible in
their training for combat. It would mean
wearing uniforms and combat gear, and not being able
to express herself as a feminine person. But
each of us who have served, in our own way, were
genuinely willing to sacrifice something that is
important to us individually, for God and country. Despite
a pending college draft deferment, Angela raised her
right hand and made a commitment in time of
war. She had no fear of physical exertion, she
was an athlete and had a childhood of rugged outdoor
adventures at her father's side in the
hinterlands. Like any mother, her mother was
not amused; but her father, a former soldier, was
pleased and proud. Angela
excelled in Advanced Military Leadership School and was soon a
sergeant rising at 3 AM to get spit shined and
awaken her troops at 4 by banging trash cans and
announcing reveille in the traditional manner that
everyone who ever survived boot camp would like to
forget. For
Angela, her official mission was also her personal
mission in serving as a Drill
Instructor.
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"When
I saw people come back from 'Nam," she
said, "and they knew they would have to go back,
some of those men cried - knowing their luck may have run out,
that they would not again come back. But they had to
go. When you talk to them
and see busses coming loaded with wounded soldiers
and bloody sheets being unloaded at a military
hospital stateside, you know it's not a game, this is
life and death, and if you don't teach them to function
as a unit, it costs lives; it puts them in jeopardy.
It was too important to turn away from that reality, despite my feelings
about war. They needed the skills to survive;
It was my job to give them those skills. That
was what was most important in my life in those
years." For that reason, she reenlisted
twice, to continue her task, finding that
she could not turn away from training troops
to survive as long as the war went on. |
She
cited the example of the famed Sgt. York, who had
been a conscientious objector and yet had fought
valiantly in bloody combat. York's Colonel had
asked him how, as a conscientious objector, he had so
heroically battled. "They were shooting
my friends, people were dying; if I didn't fight,
more would die; I did it to save lives," York
had said. "So,
in that spirit, you became a patriot?" I asked. "I
took pride in being the best drill sergeant I could
be;" she said, "I was proud of my hat and
badge, I took pride in the way my troops were
trained because when they left my company they had a
better chance of coming back alive. As for
being a patriot; the patriots were the ones who died
despite all we did; the true patriots were the ones
who died or performed heroic acts under fire. There
is a wall in DC that holds their names on it" "When
the war ended," she told me, "I saw the
television images of the last people being taken off
the roof of the Hotel Saigon by helicopter. It
was over at last, my troops would no longer be in
danger; and that was the day I resigned, ending my
military career. My mission was done; I could
go on with my life." "What
does it mean to you now to be a veteran, all these
years later?" I asked.
"As
co-founder and Vice President of TAVA (Transgender
American Veterans Association) I'm able
to fulfill the mission I left after the last
American service member left Vietnam. That is,
being a part of something bigger than myself by
preserving and encouraging pride in service."
she said. "We claim our pride in service, in
having put in our time defending our country.
Being a veteran is unique, and being a transgender
veteran is being one of the few who have had
the privilege of dismantling the dismissive stereotypes
that Transgender Americans have any less love for
their country than others. There are transgender
veterans who served as officers, drill sergeants,
flew planes, and lived through the dangers of war
and came out successfully. Our recent TAVA
survey of veterans demonstrated
that 95 percent of transgender veterans have
honorable discharges. There is the proof for
everyone to see. They Did their Duty, and that is so
important. The moment you hold up an honorable
discharge, the cynicism and stereotyping has to
stop, because it proves that you served with respect
and honor and everyone who served, or who did not
serve, knows that.
©
2009 The Gay Military Times
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