Vanguard

Writing memoir is scary. It is even more terrifying than joining the Canadian Armed Forces, which I did in 2003. I always knew I would write about my military career, aware that it wouldn’t be a tale of comradeship and belonging like many of the military memoirs I cherished, because they had all been written by men.

After I was medically released in 2011, after eight years of service, I did write — first essays and later my own memoir. I wrote about my basic training nickname, Mount Vesuvius. I wrote about the time I was groped on the obstacle course, and about the seasoned soldier who grabbed my breasts and insisted they were nice, real nice. He called me “ma’am,” while his fingers clenched and unclenched and another soldier stood dopily nearby. And there was the boss who called me a bitch for doing my job and, when I complained, said I’d have to get used to his personality...