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 journalistone day covering tank maneuvers or beach assaults, the next interviewing the secretary of the navy. But success didnt 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 firsteven 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 exposedand both were threatened with court-martialCrow was forced to re-evaluate her loyalty to the Marines, her career, and her family.

Eyes Right is Crows 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 womans perspective. Her memoir, which includes two Pushcart Prizenominated essays, evokes the challenges of being a woman and a Marine with immediacy and clarity, and in the process reveals how much Crows generation did for todays military women, and at what cost.

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