>> Lisa Firmin: Hello, my name
is Lisa Carrington Firmin.
I'm a retired Air Force Colonel.
I'm a combat vet.
I'm a Latina.
I'm also a disabled vet.
I've been working in higher ed
since I got out of the military.
I retired in 2010
from the military.
I've had an interesting
career, I guess,
I would say, a challenging
career.
And then I've also been
challenged in my role
in higher education, where I
work with a lot of veterans.
I'm currently at the University
of Texas in San Antonio,
and I am the military liaison.
However, I am the founding --
the founder for the Department
of Veteran Military
Affairs at the University
of Texas at San Antonio.
So I work with them now
in the liaison capacity.
About maybe a couple of years
ago, I started to really think
about my -- probably when
the pandemic started.
I think that was the time that
I really started to reflect
on my military service.
I've always spoken positively
about my leadership experiences
in the military and
my military career.
I served 30 years.
And I'm the first
one in my family
to become an officer
in the military.
My father was enlisted in
the service, and I've kind
of followed in his footsteps
but getting the commission was
a very big thing for my family,
because I was the first person
to graduate from college
in our family, so that was
considered a really big thing.
And of course it is.
It changed the trajectory of
my entire family after that.
But so I joined the military
and then I had some
great experiences,
a lot of challenging
experiences, but I call it
like my leadership journey.
So I always spoke positively
about my time in the military,
and I still do, but in
the last couple of years
since the pandemic hit in 2020,
as I was hunkered down here
at home, I started to reflect on
my service and started thinking
about both the negative
aspects of my service
and the positive aspects.
And with the horrific murder
of young Army Specialist
Vanessa Guillen at Fort Hood,
who was a young Latina, and
when I saw what happened to her
and I saw her face, I began
to see my own at the same age,
about 21, and I realized then
that I had repressed memories
that I had just totally buried.
I compartmentalized very well
in the military, and I suspect
that a lot of women and
minorities do the same thing.
You have to kind of do that to
assimilate to a certain extent
and to actually survive
and then to excel.
So I had buried quite deeply
that I had been assaulted
in initial training.
So I never spoke about
military sexual trauma.
You know, I briefly spoke about
harassment in the -- in my --
in the last several years
when I was doing presentations
about adversity and
my climb as a leader.
So I talked briefly about it,
but never really in the detail
that I've come to know
in the last couple years.
So after the murder of Vanessa
Guillen, I decided speak up.
So I started writing,
and I wrote an op-ed.
And then the response to that
opinion piece was overwhelming
to me.
People started contacting me
and telling me their stories,
and once I heard their stories,
I'm thinking, man, I really need
to capture some stories
and write something
about this, right?
-- something bigger than
an opinion piece, right?
So I decided to write a book,
and I didn't have to solicit
for anybody to assist me or
to contribute to the book.
I had so many people
contact me that I had
to actually tell some people no,
that I had enough
stories for this book.
So I've written a book.
Before I wrote the book,
I started writing poetry
because I really
wanted to impact people
and write something that
would be more immediate,
immediate feedback for
them, immediate for them.
And throughout this process,
the writing for me has been
a healing process for me,
for me number one, to come to
terms with what happened to me
about assault and harassment,
and discrimination
as a Latina as well.
So all these things came to
a head and I started writing.
And I've written several poems.
The first one ever
wrote was about MST.
And it was it was full of
rage, because it was my first,
you know, attempt to talk
about this kind of thing.
And this book I've
just recently written
and published, has
two of my poems.
That first poem I
ever wrote in there.
And then another poem
called <i>MST Warrior </i>is
at the end of the book.
And you can see the difference
in my journey, you know,
the kind of healing journey,
how much I've traveled
on that journey, which
I'm still on, you know?
So now I'm speaking
up openly about MST,
military sexual trauma.
I'm also speaking
openly about PTSD.
I'm also a combat vet, so I've
experienced some combat related
trauma, and these are things
that I never would have talked
about before, because number
one, as a senior woman
in the military, as a full
colonel, I mean, you don't talk
about these kinds of things
because you don't ever
want to show weakness.
So and that's kind of
how I was brought up,
to never show weakness
in the military.
So it's only been recently where
I've been able to really come
to terms with what
everything that happened,
and speak about it and
try to destigmatize PTSD,
MST and that these are
things that happened to me
and that I didn't ask
for them to happen to me.
So I've been able to do that.
And by me being authentic
for the first time --
I never served authentically
while I served
in the Air Force -- so for
me to be authentic now,
it's been like a
huge burden lifted.
It's also made me
very vulnerable.
So but I never knew that showing
that vulnerability would
show such strength.
So the vulnerability I put in
my poetry, I put in the book,
the book is called <i>Stories
From the Front: Pain, Betrayal</i>
<i>and Resilience on
the MST Battlefield.</i>
It has 14 stories of
veterans, active duty,
all the way from the
Vietnam War to present day.
Folks who are active duty in the
book, I use pseudonyms for them
because I want to
protect their identity,
and so I think that's
important too,
because of what's
still occurring today.
And the stories, although
they vary, and they deal
with disparities
like discrimination,
for being African-American,
for being LGBTQ
or for being a Latina or for
being a woman in the military.
So and there's several
combat that's featured
in the book as well.
So I think all these stories,
when you read them collectively,
they're very powerful.
And I tried to talk in each
of the stories, I try to talk
about what people are
doing for to heal.
Are they doing therapy?
Are -- you know,
what are they doing?
What are they doing
with their lives today?
I wanted to show the
resilience of all of us.
I think that's important, too.
You know, so many people have
these stereotypical ideas
of who a vet is, especially a
vet who's maybe been exposed
to the combat environment
or is disabled or, you know,
so I wanted to really show that
we are all quite different,
but we've experienced
similar experiences.
So I think that was
important to show.
And then again, my own journey,
for me to be that vulnerable
and speak about things that
I've never spoken about
and put it in writing.
So for me, writing,
healing, is helping me heal.
It's helping the folks that
are in the book as well,
the folks who came forward
and really were brave enough
to tell me their stories.
I think that it takes a certain
amount of courage to be able
to face what happened to you
and to speak openly and publicly
about it in hopes that you
might impact someone else.
And I know that the
book is doing that.
It's just recently been
released a few weeks ago.
But the poetry that I have
out there is also doing that.
And I want to thank publicly
Uniting Us for working
so tirelessly to
help people heal,
and to acknowledge what happened
to them and have no shame and,
you know, and try
to help us continue
to heal and help others.
So this community that we've
built together, these community
of artists, I think is really
important because each of us
in our own way contributes
a lot to healing.
And you don't -- you never know
what one of us is experiencing.
So sometimes I tell my story,
and then somebody else would
talk to me and say "Hey,
this happened to me,"
and then they'll talk
about how they heal, and
so we can help each other.
So I think that's a powerful
thing is what we're doing
with Uniting Us.
So I'm proud to be one
of the artists associated
with Uniting Us.