Eyes Right: Confessions from a Woman Marine

Just out of high school in 1977 her personal life already a mess Tracy Crow thought the Marines might straighten her out. And sure enough in the Corps she became a respected public affairs officer and military journalist―one day covering tank maneuvers or beach assaults the next interviewing the secretary of the navy. But success didn’t come without a price. When Crow pledged herself to God Corps and Country women Marines were still a rarity and gender inequality and harassment were rampant. Determined to prove she belonged Crow always put her career first―even when after two miscarriages and a stillborn child her marriage to another Marine officer began to deteriorate. And when her affair with a prominent general was exposed―and both were threatened with court-martial―Crow was forced to re-evaluate her loyalty to the Marines her career and her family. Eyes Right is Crow’s story. A clear-eyed self-portrait of a troubled teen bootstrapping her way out of a world of alcoholism and domestic violence it is also a rare inside look at the Marines from a woman’s perspective. Her memoir which includes two Pushcart Prize–nominated essays evokes the challenges of being a woman and a Marine with immediacy and clarity and in the process reveals how much Crow’s generation did for today’s military women and at what cost.