When Tracy Crow joined the U.S. Marine Corps right out of high school, she had no idea what she was getting into. Running from a childhood that included an abusive father and a drinking problem, she longed for rules, boundaries and the chance to prove herself. The Marines provided all that--though, as she would learn, at great personal cost.
Eyes Right, a memoir that incorporates two Pushcart Prize-nominated essays, examines the life of a woman Marine in the 1980s and '90s, during a relatively quiet era in American military history--except, as she notes wryly, for the Noriega coup, the Iran-Contra affair and constant Cold War threats. As a public affairs officer, Crow learned to be everywhere: writing stories, conducting interviews, snapping photos, pushing her way in. And as a woman, she learned to keep quiet about harassment, loneliness and the toll her career took on her marriage and family, including two miscarriages and eventual divorce.
Eyes Right provides fascinating details about Marine life, from training exercises in the high desert to the intricacies of relationships with superiors, subordinates and officers. Though the book repeatedly hints at an affair with a general that ended her career, Crow stops short of revealing details, still protecting the man for whom she gave up everything. Although that reticence makes the ending feel a little unsatisfying, her memoir still provides a clear-eyed insider's perspective on military life and a thoughtful examination of what it truly means to pledge oneself to God, Corps and Country. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams