Alexis wants to get off painkillers. Mariette jumps at loud noises. BriGette won’t leave her home. Lashonna does not have one. Sue and Alicia served together and survived an IED explosion. A new documentary, “SERVICE: When Women Come Marching Home” by Marcia Rock and Patricia Lee Stotter, follows these women over a two-year period as they struggle to make the transition from active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan to civilian life.
In honor of Armed Forces Week, CSU Monterey Bay will hold a free community screening and a question-and-answer session with filmmaker Rock, at 7 p.m., May 22, at the World Theater on the university campus. The Arts Council for Monterey County is co-sponsoring the event.
Women make up 14 percent of today’s military. That number is expected to double in 10 years. SERVICE portrays the courage of these women, the horrific traumas they face, the inadequate care they often receive on return, and the accomplishments – large and small – they work mightily to achieve. Through compelling portraits, the film shows them wrestling with prosthetics, homelessness, post-traumatic stress and its insidious catalyst, military sexual trauma.
The film is also about the resourcefulness of these women, and how they created a supportive network through social media.