Serving in Silence

By Kelly S. Thompson

I write a lot about gender issues in the Forces. In fact, as a trained harassment officer, I should have halted the countless incidents of unwanted behaviour that I witnessed and sustained. But most often, I did nothing, said nothing, viewing my silence as the price for fitting in because I was bubbly and effusive and female—I couldn’t afford to stick out when I was already impossibly unlike them. 

Many actions and policies will be a piece of pie in solving the issue of gender-based violence in the Forces, and one way I see that happening is through a deeper appreciation for what some see as “female traits.” Yet empathy, kindness and compassion are human traits, not assigned to any one gender binary. So why do we see these emotions as signs of weakness, not of strength. 

In my military career, I was told countless times that I had to learn to take a joke and “man up.” That “us lefties” were making it so no one could have fun anymore. But what does that say about us as an organization where our fun is at the expense of others? And when that “fun” is so insidious, so pervasive, that it wears us down like sandpaper? 

We need to change. We need progress. And we are moving in that direction. But this excerpt from my military memoir is just one example early in my career—on the obstacle course in basic training—that showed me what military life held for me. 

No one should ever have to feel that kind of fear, and one day, I hope no one will. 

Excerpt from Girls Need Not Apply: Field Notes from the Forces, Kelly S. Thompson, McClelland & Stewart, 2019. 

The leopard crawl and other challenges flew past. Next up was a series of wooden walls of increasing heights for scaling. I lumbered clumsily towards the first wall, four feet high, and threw myself over. I paused at the six-foot partition that came next, then stepped onto the back of a cadet who hovered in a stool position, reaching upwards for another platoon-mate to help pull me towards the sky, our bodies an orgy of dirt-crusted hands and thick leather boots. 

“You feel that, Thompson?” An anonymous cadet cupped me from underneath, his paw pressed firmly into my bottom. His palm could have been flat, open, nothing but a supporting foundation. Instead it was curled inwards like a bear claw, clenching and unclenching, my flesh clamped between his digits. “You’re a little more than a handful back here.” He pushed me up, grip still tight, and with the wooden slats of the wall underneath digging into my armpits, I pulled myself upwards, feeling dirtier as the humidity and dust coagulated on my skin. 

“Fuck off.” I was out of breath, my chest rising and falling at frightening speed. I gagged—from exertion, surely, not the slimy sensation of tentacles creeping over my unwilling body. Not from the brief acknowledgement that this squeeze of my buttocks was a potential premonition of what I could expect throughout my career. I hovered on the precipice, feigned catching my breath. Straddling the top of the wall, my platoon- mate looking up at me with a toothy sneer, it occurred to me to say something. To yell out. Kick him in the face. Cry. Bring my concerns to the course staff. And yet I felt like I was without options; I could not hold both definitions of myself in the palms of my hands—soldier and burgeoning feminist. 

My teammates and I were bound together in this venture, a fact continually reiterated by the course staff. If we didn’t sup- port one another, failure was inevitable. So, I dutifully leaned down to offer my groper a hand. We landed on the other side of the obstacle with a thud. I eyed him, searching for a feeling of regret, of shame, but came up wanting while the flesh of my ass throbbed as though the mark of his handprint were painted in camouflage.