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♪I have a friend who was the first of us.♪ ♪She did it on a dare, was a sitting♪ ♪ at the table,♪ Women have served as explosive ordnance disposal technicians in the US military since the 1970s, breaking barriers in a traditionally male dominated field and demonstrating their capabilities in one of the most dangerous and demanding military specialties.

On the weekend of September 6-8th, 2024.

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of these women, the EOD Warrior Foundation gathered eight of these brave women to participate in a song writing with Soldiers Retreat near Nashville, Tennessee.

Participants ranged from the first female to become an EOD technician in 1974 to current active duty EOD technicians.

♪And all my friends, ♪ they take the long walk,♪ ♪no longer alone on that trail, ♪ and they do it♪ ♪in combat boots and a pony tail♪ ♪looking for a knight in shining armor.♪ ♪Found something better instead.♪ ♪When we came♪ ♪together to keep on blazing the path ♪ ahead.♪ ♪Slaying the fire breathing dragon.♪ ♪Change in what we knew to be true.♪ ♪That knight in shining armor.♪ ♪She's a woman in a bomb suit.♪ So our mission here at Songwriting With Soldiers is to use collaborative songwriting to build creativity, connections, and strengths.

So those are the top three pillars that all weekend long, every workshop, every thing that's built into our schedule.

From the moment they arrive to the moment they depart.

It's using those three pillars to build that elevated feeling I've been traveling all day.

This isn't fair, y'all.

Now this is so, so super to be here meeting these people.

And we just clicked just like that.

You know, they all make you feel so comfortable and so welcome in what you're doing.

And I make you feel like you're already.

She was under an impression that you already know you're already there.

So I know that they're given us a lot of leeway, but it's a lot to be here.

Okay.

We'll get there in the morning.

What?

We're [unintelligible speaking] So first night is all about having a really pleasurable experience.

And so what that means for us as staff is that's really our time to kind of come to them and tell them a lot about us.

Show them who we are.

Have a meet and greet.

We'll get to do dinner with them.

We'll just start that process of 'Hi, I'm Jordan,' you know, and 'How are you?'

and getting that association built.

And then we'll go into the first what's called our jam session.

And that jam session is going to be the first chance for our songwriters to play some of the music that they've made, because we work with professional artists.

And then we from there go into their first group.

write.

And that group write incorporates everyone.

So the lead songwriter will guide the write, But it's from the the words of the participants.

Well, y'all, those are a few songs that we wrote.

What do you say?

What do you say we write one right now?

Yes.

We should have a little fun to mess around and see what we can come up with.

So let's think about some things in your life right now.

Let's, we can write a song about anything.

But let love.

Let's keep it.

Let's keep it on the on the on the positive side.

On the fun side.

Think about some things in your life that make you smile, that make you happy.

Dogs.

Dogs.

Oh, yeah.

What kind of dog?

Well, and naps.

Dogs and naps, Oh my gosh.

So it would take a while.

I tell you about them all.

There's a lot.

You have eight.

You have eight dogs?

Yeah.

All right.

Things escalated quickly, We just finished our first group.

write.

And I can already tell it's really incredible to watch this group come in, and these folks don't know each other.

Sit in a room, and in a matter of just a few minutes, they're already feeding off each other's energy and lines and building on a story and a song, and it just comes together.

It was their first time.

All of them, all of them writing songs, I think individually and collectively.

And it was just a lot of fun.

We all, got to throw in a lot of different thoughts and images and, we wrote a song together.

Yeah, I think it was a great chance to just kind of crack open the mystery of the song write.

So that tomorrow when we get together, we've had a little bit of an icebreaker, a little chance to just get to know each other in a fun way.

First, before we sit down and dive into the storytellers.

So it is 10:10.

So it's like three hours past my bedtime.

But we just finished our first night and it was amazing.

Even though our flight was delayed and we were just laughing on the plane every time they said they didn't know what time we were taking off, we got here.

We ate and met a whole bunch of cool people and wrote our first hit song.

That's going to go with a hallmark movie.

Aaron's going to make it happen.

It's called dogs, naps.

Dogs, oh my gosh, I love dogs.

Okay.

Yeah.

Dogs, naps, dogs, naps and what else?

Oh my.

♪Dogs, naps and cherry pie.♪ The songwriters are magicians.

It's.

And I just love it.

I mean, I, I have never met any of the other EOD women before, which are a couple hours ago and we're already talking super deep and just laughing, having fun together.

And that's making good memories.

It's beautiful location, and it's probably one of the.

It's a perfect place to have a retreat like this, to have such, a wide variety of sensory and visual stimulus to help really kind of get the creative juices flowing.

I would say, this was perfect.

You have waterfalls, you have trees, you have animals.

And an old mill.

It's it's amazing.

EOD is Explosive Ordnance Disposal.

Think bomb squad that you might be familiar with, with the local police department and then think steroids and what EOD in the military does and why I said think bomb squad on steroids, because everything from a small 22 caliber bullet to intercontinental ballistic missiles, chemical, nuclear, biological, conventional and improvised ordnance, is the responsibility of the EOD community to disarm, to render it safe, so that those hazards are, not there to, harm the public, to harm the rest of the military force.

And, to protect those resources.

♪Rockets rained down♪ ♪in the middle of the night.♪ ♪We all ran to shelter,♪ ♪and we prayed we'd made daylight.♪ ♪Over a course of heavy breathing, ♪ I could hear your sweet voice.♪♪ I was incredibly nervous about having to be responsible for bringing a story to a professional songwriter and it might have been nerves or maybe embarrassment sharing such an intimate part of your life, even if it's just a very small portion of your life, is a sliver of time.

It takes a lot of courage, I think.

And then for a songwriter to take that and be so delicate with it and express it in a way that makes you feel proud of it, it's it's hard to not take away anything other than a deep appreciation and kind of like a therapeutic long breath of just happiness.

I sat down with Kellie yesterday.

We had a I think we had a little, little coffee kind of visiting.

And then, we went down and we just started.

We just started talking and I was just struck.

And how how open.

I just I watched her open up and she, she just she she was not afraid.

She's like, you know what?

We're going to write this song and I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you a lot.

And I've told me everything.

but you told me a lot, ♪ mom, I love you.♪♪ ♪Everything's going to be okay.♪ ♪It was the deepest darkness♪ ♪that helped me see the light.♪♪ ♪I was changed, but still broken.♪♪ ♪But now I know how to fight.♪♪ This is my.

This is my song that I, collaborated with a songwriter.

And it was written by me.

For me.

Yes.

Ironically, my song took a totally different journey, and what started off as me trying to express internal feelings of what had been going on in my life not too long ago, turned into kind of a, a song for my son to listen to in five, six years when he might understand better what his mom went through during a deployment.

And and it's just amazing how it it the journey.

It was just so natural.

It turned into, hey, this is going to be about me being the mom I need to be for my son.

And it just changed the whole the whole vibe of this song.

♪I'm fighting to find the new me♪ ♪that's flawed but sees the truth.♪♪ ♪I'm finally feeling grace and faith♪♪ ♪and forgiveness ♪ and finding my way back to you.♪♪ So many words were chosen to kind of be open ended.

Some of the phrases are open ended so that if anybody listens to it, you can kind of interpret it however you want and take it and apply it to whatever may be going on in your life.

And I hope that in the future, if my son listens to this song, he can do the same thing.

Whatever is going on in his life, he has me and maybe this song to kind of paint a different picture of whatever's going on in his life.

First and foremost.

I mean, it's it's collaborative songwriting.

So, you know, we're lucky enough to live in a, in a town and live in a state that has a lot of really great songwriters, and we have songwriters that do our work that are all over the country, but we have a lot of them in Nashville, and they, you know, they do it for a living.

They're artists, writers, and we look for for a specific kind of of writer artists.

They, you know, they've there's a there's a list of sort of criteria that, that we look for, you know, from critical acclaim to, you know, that I maybe had some hits and, but, really, you know, how they, how they work with people and, and what kind of, you know, where their heart is?

And can they, can they write fairly fast?

Cause we only have a couple hours to do these sessions.

Can they play?

Can they sing?

I mean, there's there's a whole thing and they've got to have, you know, good social intelligence and understand, and be willing to, to, to to learn about the dynamics of the groups that we're coming into.

And, you know, because we do training, you know, we don't just run them in there to write songs.

We do training and try to prep them as good as we possibly can for the scenarios that they might face and all, you know, questions to ask and what to look for in that kind of thing.

I mean, we're we're not therapy at all.

We're just artists, writers and that that connect, you know, our job is to help them tell their story, not fix anybody or anything.

We just get we connect for 2.5 hours, two hours, and, we write a song and we try to tell a piece of their truth.

233 00:12:38,424 --> 00:12:41,427 235 00:12:45,498 --> 00:12:48,033 So on Saturday.

But happens is we're going to start our morning off with a morning mindfulness.

And so in our program, you know obviously songwriting is a core unit, but so is mindfulness and positivity.

And really introducing them to the wellness journey.

So I really kind of look at us as creativity plus wellness and not wellness.

It's be present here because it's so easy, especially in today's society, to be like, let me look at my phone.

And that's pulling at you.

And what we try to do is to take them out of that.

And we say, you know, phones in your pockets, let's have 30 minutes of mindfulness.

Let's be present.

Let's listen to the, you know, what's going on with the waterfall.

What are you experiencing?

And we'll guide them through a more of, like, a present mindfulness meditation, center their nervous system and then get them all kind of regulated it as a group that then leads us into our breakfast.

And from there, we'll kind of divide into two groups.

So we'll have the first group that goes to work one on one with their songwriters in the morning.

And then so that's like our group one and group two comes with me.

We'll do a tour of the grounds, and then we're going to go into our creative writing workshop, going to lunch.

And then we'll flip.

So for those four that wrote in the morning, we'll now go to the songwriters.

And then the other group will come with me for the creative writing.

Okay, I had the honor of sitting down with Mary yesterday morning.

We talked about a lot of things.

She was talking about how adventurous and brave she was when she was younger and just everything was wide open.

And then right around 18, she got into a couple situations, a personal one and a professional one where, people, they were even kind of intertwined, where a number of people, there were a number of forces that were trying to put her in a box where she did not belong.

She finally realized, I don't have to go just because that's where they point.

And I don't have to respond just because that's what they call me.

And she's the one who busted out with the title word for word.

She's like, you know, because you are what you answer to.

And I was like, did you know that you just wrote the title of our song?

279 00:15:11,243 --> 00:15:13,746 And this is has been many years now, right?

Since this and she, she has been volunteering and just scooping up new experiences and new skills.

I mean, like frickin hot air ballooning and I mean, you name it, she's probably tried like scuba diving.

Skydiving.

Yeah.

You know, I be waiting on the ground for you to come down like I'm not.

♪I don't trust a lot of people like♪ ♪I did at 18, live some life since then.♪♪ ♪So far, now I can see the patterns.♪ ♪And I know they mean...♪ ♪People show me they are what they are.♪♪ ♪Blowing things up ♪ wasn't the hard part of the job.

♪ ♪Getting out of the box.♪ ♪They stuck me in the name.♪ ♪They gave me, the place they put me.♪ ♪Oh, I'm never going back again.♪♪ Okay, so my stress in EOD was not the job, but getting the respect as the same kind of technician that everybody else was and not being given the girl job of doing the admin office and the typing and the filling out forms instead.

I mean, there's, there's other things, there's training, there's supply and everything else.

But I got put in admin and cleaning the bathroom.

I went in at 80, 81 or 80 and at the end 80, 81.

And so girls were not we weren't real plentiful there.

I think for me, a couple of the things that I specifically focused on is some of the, institutional discrimination that goes on, in EOD particular, it's very, very, very male dominated.

So they there's, there's things that are unique to being a woman.

And I think some of my male peers didn't understand some of that.

Or when people would report something happening, they they didn't take it seriously.

And so when you have the ability to advocate so you can advocate for people and not necessarily people that come to you asking for help, but you can see what's going on based on your own experiences, and you can use your your rank and your position to advocate for for others that are, you know, finding barriers in their way.

I was told by quite a few people that you're taking a job from a guy who's trying to provide for his family.

And I'm like, I'm sure the Air Force has a lot of other jobs that they can take.

They I didn't see them.

You know, they say no to a lot of people in it and, you know, they can go to the Army.

I'm not taking anybody's job, but they that's the way they go.

♪Getting out of the box, ♪ they stuck me in the name.♪♪ ♪They gave me the place they put me.♪♪ ♪Oh, I'm never going back again.♪♪ ♪Somebody point ♪ some way don't mean you have to go♪♪ ♪when you know how to say no.♪♪ ♪Hell no.♪♪ ♪Just cause it gets called out.♪♪ ♪Don't make it true.♪♪ ♪You are what you answer to.♪♪ ♪You are what you answer to.♪ I didn't have all the tools then, but I was learning fast about how to deal with that.

Like drawing the line of the of the urinals.

I drew the line on the urinals.

I'm not cleaning up after them.

There were other things that happened that were bad, but I learned not to put myself in that kind of situation, to be taken advantage of again.

And so that's that's the way it has to be.

You learn from all bad experiences and to make you a smarter, safer person.

I think there are times things happen that you have little control over as somebody early on in their career and you think, well, when I'm in charge, I'll change that.

And so as you go up through the ranks, you you do get in a place where you have more ability to change what's going on so your influence can be greater.

And, and then you using those negative experiences in a positive way to prevent, you know, someone else from experiencing negative things that may have happened to you.

You don't think that that wasn't available for me, having been like the first, the first female in EOD in the Army to get promoted to the highest, highest enlisted ranks of being a sergeant major and then being a command sergeant major, say I didn't have any female peers.

And yea, that can be very isolating.

So, you know, helping them build a network so they don't feel so alone.

And that gives you a lot of internal strength to stand up to whatever struggles that you're facing.

All right.

The first song I wrote yesterday was with Lisa right over there, who is a [inaudible] For those of you that don't know that.

370 00:20:41,640 --> 00:20:42,641 That's right.

Now, a {inaudible} that too.

Exactly.

I think it's a part of the human experience.

Like we all struggle and we all put on a facade, but what's going on inside is like, it's breaking your heart, and then you question yourselves and like people say, let it go.

Just that was the past.

Let it go.

But how do you let it go when you've been hurt so deeply and you don't trust anyone to bring that out into the sunlight?

To say, like, I'm hurt, it's, you know, where do you go to to find that safe space to do that, to then begin to, to start putting the pieces back together and start healing yourself and taking back that control.

Because you have to take that facade off that you've been carrying for how long?

And we wrote a song, I think she had the title.

It was called Taking Back Control.

And, you know, it's just basically about her career.

And now she's, had to deal with a lot of [inaudible] for one reason.

Just because she's a woman, because she's not great at what she does.

She is great at what she does.

And like I said yesterday, she has three, not one, not two, but three master's degrees.

So so we wrote this song, and it's just the idea that the stuff that has left her feeling hurt and and pain and stuff from from her past.

There's nothing we can do about that now.

But what we can do is take control of the moment we're in and, and live a good life and be strong.

And that's what she is.

And and we wrote this together.

I'm gonna sing it for you all right now.

♪I've taken all the punches.♪ ♪Everybody's thrown my way.♪ ♪You picked yourself up off the mat.♪♪ ♪and faced another day.♪ ♪Felt the pain deep inside my wound.♪♪ ♪soul.♪♪ ♪And taking back control♪♪ ♪I'm letting go of all the shame ♪ that's tied me down.♪♪ ♪So long.♪ ♪And all the shitty voices♪♪ ♪saying girl you don't belong no more.♪♪ ♪Living in that dark and lonely hole♪♪ ♪I'm taking back control, I'm taking back....♪♪ I'm so grateful for a phone call that I got from my buddy Radney Foster in 2011.

And, he said that was so his his buddy Darren Smith, was was setting up a retreat to write with some veterans.

And Radney asked me if I wanted to go do it.

The organization was founded by, two people, and they were friends in, middle school and high school.

And, one was a professional songwriter and the other was an educator and coach and expert in positive psychology.

They figured they would do it like almost an art project and blend the two.

At that time, Mary Judd, who created the program, was writing about creativity and human flourishing and happiness and Darren Smith, the songwriter, was working with veterans kind of in one off situations and writing songs.

We did it in Colorado, which is my home, which is my home state, which was really nice to do, beautiful trout streams everywhere and and, yeah, it was in 2011 and after the very first write, I, we all knew how powerful this thing could be because it was just we, we met for lunch that, that morning and after we wrote, you know, our, our first songs and we were just looking at each other, the writer's just going, what just happened?

We were in just in tears because we were our hearts were so full and we couldn't believe what just happened.

And so we knew we had to keep doing these retreats ♪and taking back control,♪ ♪taking back control of who I am♪ ♪a woman as good as any man.♪♪ ♪A soldier standing proud, living free♪♪ ♪and saying goodbye to all those lies♪♪ ♪that I've been told.♪ ♪Taking back control.♪ ♪I'm waking up now,♪♪ The songwriters ♪ and the team that are there at songwriting, because they they look at this whole concept of, of wellness, of an individual, and the collaboration and understanding that, it's not necessarily what that individual experienced as the one, one key moment in their life that maybe caused an issue, but it's their whole life.

And that goes back to, a lot of things we learn about post-traumatic growth, even, is that it may not have been the issue of the deployment.

It may have been something further back in their life that's been brought forward, that was brought out well.

Music has a special power because music literally hits all parts of the brain.

It's one of the few things that lights up the brain in every way.

And because of that, it can really have an impact.

You can see things through music, through a song that you just can't speak.

You can talk in metaphor and still get your message across and remember what it was about.

And even in the session, even if all of the stories that happened in the session don't come out in the song, they're still being heard.

There's real power to being seen, to being heard, just to being heard in that deep listening that someone is sitting across from you that really cares.

It is very interesting to watch.

People, people do it.

They do it willingly.

They they seemingly do it in an enjoyable manner.

But there's something about people who are used to writing and telling stories and taking an interest in you and helping you craft the ability to tell your story that, becomes very meaningful and very helpful.

And, I have yet to find a person of the very, very many I know that have gone through songwriting that, were not affected by it on a deep personal level.

We're coming at it from kind of the humanity of creativity living in and the positive side of it.

So we want to have fun.

We want to get into flow.

We want to play and teach them how to come back to that as well to their own creativity.

Non-Judgment just do it.

Experiment.

I had the privilege to sit down with Linda yesterday, and, she came in and we we walked out on the deck and we looked we looked over.

It was on the third floor.

And gosh, we looked over and there was there was all those beautiful trees.

And we kind of looked down and, and, the first line of the song came, came out of that.

We were just standing there.

But this line, you know, if we weren't walking on the edge, we were taking up too much room.

That that's what she heard.

That's what she heard.

And and I got it, you know, she had heard that before.

And she told me it had to be the first line of the song.

I think we're starting the song right now.

♪ We weren't walking on the edge, ♪ we were taking up too much room.♪♪ ♪We were all drawn to the passion ♪ of harnessing that boom.♪♪ ♪We ride this road doing everything♪♪ ♪we could see ahead of the devil♪ ♪that I was up to no good♪♪ Particularly proud of this one This year represents the 50th anniversary of the first woman to come through EOD school and go on into the career field.

Talk about breaking glass ceilings.

The women that are going to be here this weekend for this collaborative event with songwriting, are all military EOD women, to include that very first woman, Linda Cox.

So at this retreat, we have the entire range of EOD tech and female EOD techs.

We've got, you know, the icon, Linda Cox, who was the first female EOD tech ever.

We've got officer and enlisted.

We also have, you know, from our historic women to like my generation of women who are senior NCOs in the military.

And then we've got the the youngest generation, our newest grad who graduated last year from school, she's about to celebrate her first year anniversary of being an EOD tech and went through all the trials and tribulations during that time era that you can imagine of a young woman trying to attend the very, well, not male dominated period and just male dominated career field, with some that were very unwelcoming to her.

But did it in a fashion where, that became a hallmark of her career, in being a, a a successful teammate, not expecting favors, working hard, learning, being smart or smarter than anybody else, ultimately becoming a teacher and a supporter and a mentor to others.

And from that start of that, that career, that very first person, that first woman to attend EOD school, went on to become the first, chief master sergeant in the Air Force.

in EOD.

that is, chief master sergeant being the highest enlisted rank in the Air Force.

Very difficult to do on its own, but even more difficult in a very small career field.

Now that I finally found my voice in the last couple of years, I feel like I'm the type of person that likes to stand up for the little guy.

And getting to meet, Lynda was just kind of like a dream come true.

She made it possible.

She made it possible for me to be able to do what I'm doing.

And I think I was just, I don't know, I just sometimes there's just no words.

I'm just kind of still in awe, and shock, and I have been blessed in my career to be surrounded by some very incredibly powerful and strong women who have helped shape me and make me who I am today.

♪Don't waste this extra time.♪ ♪Heaven has allowed.♪ ♪Let's go live this life.♪ ♪Make our fallen proud.♪ ♪We're in this thing together.♪♪ ♪You're not alone.♪ ♪EOD forever.♪ ♪Yeah, EOD is home.♪♪ I'm from a very small town, and there really wasn't anything to do in this small town.

And so I did, enlist in the Air Force after being in the Air Force for a couple of years, I. I didn't know about EOD.

I didn't know there was a bomb squad and a friend of mine.

This is a true story.

Friend of mine dared me to go into EOD.

She said, I bet you won't do that.

I said, I bet I will.

She said, I dare you.

So that's how I got in.

I love the job.

I love the work.

You feel like you're saving or making a difference.

Another thing is we do dispose of a lot of things by detonation, so we get to blow things up.

I mean.

♪We must have had angels,♪♪ ♪on each shoulder for all those dark,♪♪ ♪explosive years.♪ ♪They kept us safe,♪ ♪dragging that C-4 through the....♪ ♪♪ clearance walks and beers..♪♪ ♪Well, any way you cut it♪ ♪It just came down to luck that we made it ♪ home.♪♪ ♪And the others ♪ names are etched from marble dust.♪♪ ♪Don't waste this extra time♪♪ Back there.

Back in that day.

The people, the young people.

Now that you'll be talking to a little bit later, they have some fantastic technical abilities that we didn't have.

okay?

They don't necessarily have to put themselves in between you and the bomb because they have technology that does that to them.

In my day, they have robots and tools.

In my day, I was the robot.

We were the robots that went down there and place the tool.

So it's really, been quite a movement to improve.

And it has improved.

♪heaven has allowed.♪♪ ♪Let's go live this life♪ ♪Make our fallen proud.♪ ♪We're in this together.♪ ♪Oh, you're not alone.♪ ♪EOD forever.♪♪ ♪♪EOD is home.♪♪ ♪We love walking on the edge.♪ ♪Somehow we made it through.♪ ♪We were all drawn to the passion♪ ♪of harnessing that boom.♪ All right.

It's always at a beautiful location.

It's.

It's really important to have a beautiful place for them to come.

And it it really is conducive to creativity.

And we always have great food.

There's always going to be great food because we think that's a big part of it.

And, you know, we'll have fantastic photographers here, Pulitzer Prize winning photographers, and we have sound engineers, professional sound engineers, and we have a studio that we set up so we can capture the song writers right after we write it.

You know, we call them the field recordings, but it's it's like a song taking its first breath, you know?

So we go in there and we record them right away, write them in the records, [inaudible] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪Find my way to a love ♪ that's a thousand miles wide♪♪ ♪I have made it to the other side.♪♪ It was a great, great experience with Sierra.

A powerful story.

She's one of those, people who has a story that, as I was listening to it, I was sitting there saying two things.

I was saying, how is this this young woman not crying and how is she getting through this story?

And how has she how is she survived?

But he worked so I could focus like solely on school.

And thankfully, in July of 2021, I graduated.

And in July I took my licensure exam to see if I could actually be a PTA.

And I passed on July 26th of 2021 head over heels.

I told him that I passed.

He's head over heels.

We were like, thrilled.

We always would, make comments about like, oh, we're going to be dinking it.

And dinking is double income.

No kids.

Oh so yeah, yeah.

We were like, oh, we're going to be dinking it.

Like we are so pumped.

Had all these plans that then, unfortunately four days later on July 30th, 2021, husband passed away in a motorcycle accident.

Oh, yeah.

It was horrible.

And, it's through perseverance and a great attitude and faith and and what we ended up writing, I thought we were going to write like a really dark song about grief, and it turned out to be a song about hope and living and, incredibly inspiring.

Like for the six months after he died, I spent a lot of time lying on the floor like screaming, crying, literally feeling like I could not breathe.

I often described it as like, I imagine like I feel like that feeling that I felt during that time and like the day of losing my husband during that whole entire time.

I feel like that is the equivalent of what it feels like to die without physically dying.

♪I wasn't eating, I wasn't sleeping.♪♪ ♪ Was a walking skin and bones was a broken,♪ ♪bitter lover who was better off alone.♪♪ ♪I lost count of all the tears.♪♪ ♪I can't believe how much I cried.♪♪ ♪But I made it to the other side.♪♪ Got a text message from a recruiter.

Completely random.

Have no clue how I got my phone number and I would talk to him.

And you know, I definitely think it was when talk to him was back and forth between joining the military and one night I prayed about it and I literally asked God to like, if this is what I need to do, if I need to join military to like, bring me peace about it because I'm so bad.

Yeah, I went to bed that night, woke up the next morning completely at peace, and I was ready to go.

So I told the recruiter that he signed me up for maps, and I was worried about EOD because I. I didn't know what job I wanted.

He asked me what job I wanted.

I was like, I don't know, but I'll tell you about myself and you tell me what you think.

♪Thank God.♪ ♪♪And my momma for the love that I got♪♪ ♪Thank God that the love is never gonna stop♪ ♪see the light shining through.♪♪ ♪And I'm here to testify.♪♪ ♪You can make it to the other side.♪♪ ♪Guitar solo!♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪ As an organization, we've written more than 1300 songs with veterans and active military and their families, and we've written more than 800 songs just face to face in the weekend retreats.

But we also work with a partnership where we write group songs, and we've written with more than 4000 veterans, first responders and active military.

If you add up all of the people that have been reached directly sitting across from a songwriter, it's nearly 5000.

♪There are times ♪ when I still wish that I could run away,♪♪ ♪but I found myself ♪ a real good reason to stay.♪♪ ♪It's that crazy little roller♪ ♪coaster ride we call life♪♪ ♪I made it to the other side here.♪ ♪I made it to the other side.♪♪ Yeah!

So to be honest, that was all the EOD Warrior Foundation.

I've been working with them a lot.

I'm stationed at Eglin, where they're located, and they help support so many programs that were involved in with women and EOD and student advocacy.

So working closely with them, they I think that they started knowing me as a person and realizing that I was under a lot of stress, and they stepped in and they were like, hey, we're throwing this retreat.

We would really love for you to be there.

And as busy as I was, they just kept forgetting to fill out my application and they kept going.

And we're still holding your slot.

Come on, do this.

And I it was I thank them so, so much, especially Maria because she kept on me and and I'm here and I'm so happy The EOD Warrior Foundation is an organization that was established starting back in 1969 and has grown, along with some other EOD related organizations, to where we are today.

And the purpose of the organization is to improve the quality of life of EOD warriors and their families.

And we focus in the areas of, education, scholarship, financial assistance where necessary, necessary, supporting their emotional health through wellness and retreats, wellness practices, and also in taking care of the EOD Memorial located across the street from the EOD school down at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.

So I again, as I always do, I threw myself into this with zero expectations and when I got here, I was immediately actually just at the airport, not even here.

I was immediately like greeted by this group of wonderful women.

I don't think they could have chosen a better group to be with.

They've all been so warm and welcoming and hilarious.

So, right away it was like we just clicked.

And, the experience has just been so wonderful all weekend.

Lots of laughs, tattoos, you know, and and lots of healing people.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪Hey, hey, hey.♪♪ ♪♪ She was like, I have, like, 13 matching tattoos with other people.

And I was just like, these tattoos, Tattoo happened.

It was sort of like that Spiderman meme where they're all pointing at each other.

We don't know who started it or how it happened, but things escalated quickly.

She was like, I've always kind of wanted like a little bomb.

I don't remember where the bomb idea came from.

Somebody had.

And I was like, yeah.

And Melinda is making phone calls to try to get tattoo shops to stay open late after our retreat.

And they did not expect it.

They did not expect it, but they they called ahead.

One of our leaders up there called ahead and got it all arranged.

Please stay open for so there'll be at least nine of us, at least ten tattoos.

And they loved it.

They enjoyed it more than we did, or just as much.

♪It's a commitment ♪ to do things a little different,♪♪ ♪make a change deeper than the skin.♪ ♪We're not afraid to detonate♪♪ ♪ the norm♪♪ ♪blow it up the box and try to put it in♪♪ ♪Hey.

Hey,♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪Howling at the moon.♪♪ ♪♪ ♪Yeah.♪ ♪Hey.

♪ And I did get one special matching one.

We got little murder ghosts.

And that was definitely to commemorate the horror theme, that we had going on.

So I did get a tattoo.

It was actually my first tattoo.

So I got the EOD Warrior Foundation, emblem tattooed on my arm.

We all got, like, little bombs and stuff.

Something that's representative of the EOD community.

And we had two of the ladies who got their first tattoos ever, so that's pretty amazing to get to be a part of something like that.

There's something so powerful in putting something on your body permanently that connects you with, other people.

It's kind of like the bonds that our sisterhood already has.

Like, we have this kind of shared trauma, the shared love of a career field all meshed together and, you know, it doesn't matter how far you are separated from it, it still bonds us together.

The other really powerful moments of the weekend is the first time they hear their song sung back to them with their peers.

They're being witnessed, and they're having a peer look at them and say, wow, I could have written that song.

That's my story.

To or just understanding them better.

And there's also civilians in the room.

And even though the civilian might not be able to understand what it's like to walk towards a bomb, maybe they can understand emotion, fear and loss.

So all of those things are just human emotions that connect us.

Chazelle and I sat down this afternoon, and we also, chose to lean toward the hopeful.

She told me a couple stories of challenges and the dark side, but also pretty early in our visit, wanted to focus on the good stuff and the progress that has come from women in the EOD.

Finding each other.

Exhibit A.

What I would say to a female is wanting to come into EOD, or even just the military in general, because it is so, male heavy or male dominated.

Is that you need.

You need to find yourself a good group of females that are sharing your experience, and that you can connect with.

Because for a long time in my career, I used to think that I was lucky that I didn't get treated unfairly, that I was lucky that I had really good relationships with my supervisors.

And, and now I don't see it that way.

I'm not lucky that it shouldn't be lucky to be treated like a human being.

And the unfortunate thing is, as amazing as the military is, there's still some people out there that try to make it just a little harder on women in particular.

And, and you need to be able to stand up for yourself and have these groups that connect to you so you can reach back out and have a support system in place for when those times get rough.

But what I will say is that it is getting so much better, especially because of things like this, these retreats that bond us.

Now we have a support system to reach back to whenever we go back to our flights, and we don't feel so alone.

♪When we came together ♪ to keep blazing the path♪♪ ♪ahead, slaying the fire♪ ♪breathing dragons, changing what we knew to be true.♪♪ ♪Yeah.♪ ♪That knight in shining armor.♪♪ ♪She's the woman in a bomb suit♪♪ ♪and that knight in shining armor.♪♪ ♪♪She's the woman in a bomb suit.♪♪ [laughter] We got introduced to all the songwriters.

The first night.

I was like, I really hope that I'm paired up with Erin.

I was like, I just.

I see something like.

I feel like we're going to be really good and jive really well creatively.

And we did, we knocked out our first song in probably 45 minutes, and it was it was really great.

I felt like it really captured exactly what I was going through.

And we just kind of, we bounced off of one another.

Rebecca has just been taking the punches these last few years, and and so for you to still have the outlook on life that you have to keep striving to find the peace and to find the love and, like Melanie said, to embrace this.

Like you're not like pretending it's not there.

But you just keep fighting.

♪last♪ ♪three years there been so many tears.♪ ♪Tables keep turning on me.♪♪ ♪One moment I'm in the sun.♪♪ ♪Just soaking it up.♪ ♪The next my demons are dragging me out to sea.♪♪ I feel like I've come alive again.

This year was, really, really.

The past couple of years have been really, really hard.

But this year in particular, I got to a very, very dark space.

And it was very detrimental to me, because I like to think of myself as a positive person, but I like to put out there's just just never give up.

And never stop seeking ways to make yourself better, to help yourself.

Because they're the most unconventional ways, you know, like doing a songwriting retreat.

And I also did a surf retreat.

All of these kinds of things.

They open you up and you get different information that you have no idea how it's going to, affect you before you do it.

And, you know, once you go through it, you're just like, oh!

♪ it feels like I'm drowning.♪♪ ♪It keeps coming down, and it feels like♪♪ ♪the weight of it's crushing me underneath.♪♪ ♪I've tried forgiveness, the pain ♪ so relentless.♪ ♪♪Sometimes I just want to know... ♪ ♪♪ So 77% increased feelings of hope.

83% increase in creative pursuits after the retreat 78% increased in connections, and 100% of the people that attend the retreats would recommend it to somebody else.

And it's not all not all tough stuff.

You know, you can come in and be happy as a lark and write a happy song.

You can come in and write a song that tells a story and help pull out the stresses and the pain that you may have experienced.

It's about the individual and and that's what the team does with songwriting is they they pull that out out of the right place at the right time, in an appropriate manner and, and bring it full circle and do this is this is how we get better.

This is your story live your story.

Take the stigma out of your story.

Share it with others.

This weekend with the songwriters and all the professional writers and marrying together with the Warrior Foundation was spectacular.

I mean, it's such a good marriage.

They worked so well together and it was so fun and the outcome, the outcome was refreshing and everyone has already said they are leaving in a new frame of mind.

And I think that that's the whole thing, but just something special and magical was created here that like, I can reconnect to you anytime I feel like that light dimming and just reach back to it and keep pushing forward.

And then I have other people to, to remind me, like who I am and to keep honoring that true, authentic self.

The fact that the range is so diverse and we were able to come together and just connect and the way that we did and bond, it just shows the power of the badge and the EOD career field.

♪See that mountain♪♪ ♪Coming and I'm ready to climb.♪♪ ♪Lacing up my boots ♪ to take on the wilderness.♪♪ ♪I'll hold on to hope and say♪ ♪thy will be done I'll keep trying.♪♪ ♪Shining and soaking up your love.♪♪ And so I was talking with my husband earlier and with a friend, and they asked, how did it go?

And I said it was amazing.

Music is where you can talk without words through any language and so yeah, music is a big part of my life.

♪And it's gonna be all right.♪♪ ♪It's gonna be all right.♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪ I've been down in the dark.♪♪ ♪And found my way back to the light ♪ I know you got me.♪♪ ♪So I know it's gonna be all right.♪ ♪Beauty from the ashes.♪ ♪All in your time.♪ ♪Quiet my heart.♪ ♪Make still my mind.♪ ♪Just be here with me and hold me tight.♪♪ ♪You'll be my rock for the rest of my life.♪ ♪And it's gonna all right.♪ ♪It's gonna be all right.♪ ♪Gotta feel it's a healing.♪ ♪ And I'm not afraid to fight♪ That we honor and salute.

The brave women who have served and continue to serve as explosive ordnance disposal technicians across all branches of the U.S. military.

These courageous women have shattered barriers and proven their dedication and valor.

And one of the most dangerous and demanding military specialties and save countless lives.

We extend our deepest gratitude to all service members, past and present, who have answered the call to defend our nation.

We recognize the strength and resilience of military families whose love and support serve as a foundation for our armed forces.

We solemnly remember and honor all who made the ultimate sacrifice and service to our country.

Their courage, dedication, and sacrifice will never be forgotten.

♪Because I've been down in the dark♪ ♪and found my way back to the light.♪ ♪I know you got me.♪ ♪So I know it's gonna be all right.♪ ♪It's gonna be♪ ♪all right.

♪♪ [applause] This program was made possible by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.