US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, DC, FEBRUARY 2013—The Marine sergeant stood in the First Lady’s box, and the din of conversations from members of Congress below became, for her, a distant echo. She reached her right hand forward and felt the hem on the skirt of her dark blue uniform rise slightly as she shook the hand of Michelle Obama. The statuesque woman towered over Adams, flashed the smile that she has become known for, and asked about Afghanistan.
“Tell me about the FET. You built a school there, right?”
In the presence of the First Lady’s physical strength, which she had always admired, Adams squared off her shoulders and straightened her back to stand a bit taller. She heard herself confidently speak—as if she was both experiencing and witnessing the moment—about the importance of educating Afghan girls as one of the factors that motivated some of the women who volunteered for the duty. It was one of the factors that had motivated her.
Adams glanced at the two parents from Chicago who stood between herself and the First Lady, inviting them into the conversation as she told Michelle Obama about the medical facilities she helped build in Musa Qal’ah. The young couple had lost their daughter after a shooting at a South Side Chicago park, and the First Lady had returned to Washington from the funeral just the week before.
Michelle Obama nodded, staying engaged as Adams explained more about her time in the desert and the outreach program that had allowed her to take medical and health supplies to women who had no running water. “Most of the women,” she said, “were forbidden from leaving their homes because of Taliban occupation.” Out of the corner of her left eye Adams saw Apple CEO Tim Cook, who sat one row behind her in this small section of the second-tier balcony within the chamber of the US House of Representatives. The Marine could hear buzz and bits from conversations within the group of about two dozen. Michelle Obama shot Adams another warm smile and turned her attention to the young couple. Jill Biden, who was seated on the other side of Michelle Obama, stepped in.
She delicately maneuvered around the First Lady and reached her hand out to Adams: “It’s good to see you again.”
The combat Marine’s gestures were sure in this small world within a world, different and distinct from the rest of the House as the entire chamber waited for the president to enter.
Adams leaned forward, tilting her small frame slightly right against the low wooden partition that defined the balcony’s edge, and returned Biden’s gentle handshake. She had made progress in her push to expand FET operations since the two first met the year before, and Adams quickly shared key aspects of the protocol, anticipating the Second Lady would soon move on to connect with other State of the Union guests. Biden remarked about how the military was changing its attitude toward women in combat. Adams had, without trying, become the public and political face of that change.
As Biden moved on, Adams lowered herself into her chair and removed her voice, for just a moment, from the group’s casual conversations.
Her eyes drifted across the chamber to the oversized American flag that hung on a wall behind the podium from which the president would soon speak.
Sitting in the first row on the House floor, directly in front of the podium, was General Martin Dempsey, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a man who supported the full combat recognition that Adams and those female engagement teams long ago deserved.
Just the month before, Dempsey had written a letter to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta stating that “the time has come to rescind the direct combat exclusion rule for women and to eliminate all unnecessary gender-based barriers to service.”
He sent the letter two months after four servicewomen came forward and filed a lawsuit against the Pentagon over combat exclusions. He was the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs to make such a statement.
Next to Dempsey sat Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan. Near the aisle, Chief Justice John Roberts.
Within seconds the sergeant at arms’ voice quickly cut through the steady, low hum of the chamber.
“Mr. Speaker! The president of the United States!”
Adams started clapping and quickly stood. She craned her neck slightly but could see very little of the man whose words might include mention of FETs’ work in Iraq and Afghanistan. The sea of politicians rushing toward the chamber’s center aisle and hands reaching out to connect with the president temporarily obstructed her view.
She continued to clap as she waited to catch her first glimpse. The crescendo of applause was overwhelming. Random cheers burst from different parts of the House floor.
President Obama finally emerged from the throng of senators and representatives. From above, Adams noticed his slightly graying hair. She watched him slowly progress toward the podium and continued to clap when the president paused for brief chats with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and members of Congress and the Supreme Court. Obama moved with grace, was patient, and had a warm smile that, even from where Adams stood, resonated.
At the podium’s microphone Obama—flanked by sleek, black teleprompters—thanked the joint houses of Congress. The applause began to ebb.
“Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, fellow Americans,” the chamber fell silent. “Fifty-one years ago John F. Kennedy declared to this chamber that the Constitution makes us not rivals for power but partners for progress. ‘It is my task,’ he said, ‘to report the state of the union. To improve it is the task of us all.’ Tonight, thanks to the grit and determination of the American people, there is much progress to report. After a decade of grinding war, our brave men and women in uniform are coming home.”
Cheers erupted from the House floor.
Behind the president Vice President Joe Biden and House Speaker John Boehner rose. Adams saw the Joint Chiefs of Staff remain seated. They were the only people in the room not standing to applaud.
Adams knew the reality that separated the officers’ views from those of the commander-in-chief who stood before them. Afghan troops weren’t ready to take the lead in pushing out Taliban forces. The government in Afghanistan was still corrupt. Women were left with little political power or economic options. Too many girls still did not have safe passages to school or safe schools to attend. Troops may have been coming home, but it was not because commanders on the ground thought the time was right.
The applause died down, and the president continued.
Adams glanced at two female entrepreneurs in the row directly behind her when Obama spoke about job growth—a nod to the hundreds of people employed by small business owners like the two the First Lady invited to the speech. Entrepreneurs across the country, the president explained, found innovative ways to help raise employment and boost an economy that had been suffering.
Adams was anxious to hear more of Obama’s words on the wars and women in combat. Forty minutes into the speech the moment she had been waiting for arrived.
“Tonight we stand united in saluting the troops and civilians who sacrifice every day to protect us. Because of them, we can say with confidence that America will complete its mission in Afghanistan.” The president’s voice rose as he referenced defeating the core of terrorism.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff, led by Dempsey, gave Obama a standing ovation.
“As long as I am commander-in-chief we will do whatever we must to protect those who serve our country abroad, and we will maintain the best military the world has ever known.… We will draw upon the courage and skills of our sisters and daughters and moms because women have proven under fire that they are ready for combat.”
Adams never cries. Marine Corps boot camp knocked any inclination to do that right out of her. The brain injury she suffered sometimes made it hard for her to tap into her deeper feelings. But as Obama spoke, she was moved.
She shifted in her seat. The blues, yellows, and reds of the Combat Action Ribbon she received for holding her own during a thirty-six-hour firefight stood out among the many badges and awards that lined the front of her uniform. She had been the Marine with a spotty record of service and was greeted with skepticism and resistance by unit commanders when she requested FET duty. The president’s State of the Union reference to FET accomplishment gave her more validation than she had imagined possible.
Being a FET leader hadn’t been difficult or crazy. It had been a privilege for her to walk into the homes of other women and collect their stories, help their children, and fight the Taliban. It had been her attempt to carry out the president’s promise of progress.
But there was a sharp contrast between the president’s clean narrative about women in combat and the fight to keep the FET program alive. There was a messiness in trying to build on a system that the military erroneously thought it no longer needed.
Adams’s struggle to keep her job revealed a harsh reality. Women who had proven themselves on the front lines were making progress for future fighters. But the battle for combat recognition had done little for their own advancement. Dempsey’s letter declaring that the military should erase all barriers to combat jobs for women also stated, “to implement these initiatives successfully and without sacrificing our warfighting capability or the trust of the American people, we will need time to get it right.” That declaration signaled progress but changed nothing in 2013 for women like Adams. The fourteen thousand combat jobs that had been “opened” essentially gave a nod to low-level Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps positions women had already occupied. The Defense Department’s move to scrap the 1994 collocation ban simply rubber stamped what FETs had already been doing for ten years.
Both fights—to expand the FETs reach and mission and to save her career—were still waiting for Adams when she returned to California.
“I want to thank Michelle and Dr. Jill Biden for their continued dedication to serving our military families as well as they have served us,” the president stated near the end of the State of the Union address. First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden looked straight ahead toward Obama and smiled as Adams and the rest of the House stood. Applause filled the storied chamber.
“Thanks, honey,” the president stated. “Thank you, Jill.”
The women remained seated. Adams and the rest of the joint sessions of Congress continued to applaud.
After her return to California, Adams realized that the last group of FET women she trained would be the last she would ever mentor. The Marine Corps ended the program. By July Adams’s military contract expired, and she left the service for good.