Fidelis

July 1, 2020
An ex-Marine officer's account of her deployment to Iraq, the challenges she faced as a female platoon leader, and the illicit "quasi-relationship" she began with a married fellow officer. Fazio joined the Marines in the late 1990s on a ROTC scholarship that paid for the college education her parents could not afford. "The Marine Corps looked badass," she writes; with a strong desire to prove herself, she thought the Corps would be a perfect fit. She attended MIT, spent months training as a communications officer, and then received orders to deploy to Iraq. The "youngest and shortest officer in the battalion," Fazio was keenly aware of the significance of her mission, and she wanted to show others, especially Iraqi women, that she was "making a difference" as the member of a fighting team. She quickly learned that life as a female Marine was difficult. One female staff sergeant told her that among male Marines, a woman was either "a bitch, a dyke, or a ho." Fazio never played up her femininity because she saw herself as a "warrior" who understood the double standard that punished women for any expression of sexuality. Then she met Jack, a chief warrant officer involved in mortuary affairs, and her attraction to him was immediate. The two began spending time together, keeping their relationship "mostly chaste" out of fear of being discovered and court-martialed. When their tours of duty ended, both returned to California, where Fazio was forced to come to terms with the fact that Jack was a war-damaged man whose promise to divorce his wife would never become reality. Compelling for the conflict it depicts between honor and love, Fazio's book offers a deeply personal perspective on gender issues in the male-dominated world of the Marine Corps. A candid and insightful memoir.

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