How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"Tell her Sergeant Harris will take a shift by himself," Kennedy said. "They won't need the rest of us."
"Yo, woman, you got a lot of mouth for a chick!" Harris said.
"Glad you noticed it, Sergeant." (1.27-29)
Gotta love Marla in this exchange. Not only does she call out Harris, she tells him to take notice of her attitude, so he won't mess with her again.
Quote #2
Jean Darcy came by carrying a plastic tray with her breakfast on it. I saw scrambled eggs, sausages, and potatoes.
"You like people?" she asked, looking up at me.
"Yeah, I guess," I said.
"Jerk!"
Strange chicks joined the army, I thought. Strange and strong. (4.15-19)
We won't lie here. We have no idea why Darcy gets so mad in this exchange. But check out the opinion Birdy draws from it. Way to take one woman's behavior and apply it to all women in the army.
Quote #3
Captain Miller started squirming in her seat about halfway through the talk. Her head rolled back when the colonel turned to Major Sessions and asked if we had any females to send to the village. (6.37)
Miller is always being sent to villages to talk to women—often women who have lost children in an American bombing. Not exactly a fun job. And it's a little unfair that Miller keeps getting stuck doing the apologizing just because she's female.
Quote #4
I was thinking again about Marla, about how she seemed to think and act more like a soldier than I did. It was a weird combination, a foxy-looking lady as tough as she was. (6.187)
Hmm. Do you think Birdy would think good looks and toughness would be a weird combination for a man?
Quote #5
We got ID'ed and a marine lieutenant offered me two laptop computers and a lifetime pass to Yankee Stadium in exchange for Marla and Barbara. Marla thought it was funny, but Barbara got uptight about it and cursed a blue streak as we pulled away. (8.54)
Did you notice how Birdy calls Barbara "uptight" for getting upset that the men treated her like property? When it comes to women, he's not exactly enlightened.
Quote #6
We were watching some cop program, the usual stuff with police dealing with low-level street crime. The cops were picking up prostitutes and Harris said that in a way most women weren't much more than whores.
"They get a man to support them and then they just sit back and watch television," he said.
"Yo, man, you got to show more respect than that," Jonesy said. "Your mama is a woman."
"No, you got to watch yours," Harris said. "I'm a sergeant, fool!"
"You also sounding like your brain is AWOL," Jonesy said. "We over here fighting with women." (10.1-5)
You tell him, Jonesy!
Quote #7
She screamed. She cried. She rocked back and forth. She moaned.
"With all the garbage that's going on… with all the disgusting garbage that's going on… How can they? How can they?" (13.133-134)
Miller was just rescued from being raped when she says this. She can't believe that hospital orderlies—tasked with helping the wounded—would choose to add to the horror.
Quote #8
"Then I ended up in juvenile court for shoplifting, and this black family took me in. Kept me out of juvy detention. I was with them for a little over a year. Giving them a hard time. They had a kid of their own with cerebral palsy and really wanted a companion for her. It was all good with them. At least I didn't have to fight her husband off. He was okay." (14.114)
Poor Marla. Her line about not having to fight a husband off gives us a peek at what her life was like as a foster kid, and might explain some of her toughness.
Quote #9
"Wherever you're going, we're not going with you," Marla said. "He specifically said "men."
"He thinks he's paying us a compliment by including us with the "men," Darcy said. (14.156)
Women serving alongside men is a relatively new thing in the U.S. army, and this book shows that some of the people in charge still don't really know how to address women. Clearly, calling them "men" is not the answer.