Distinctly Montana Magazine

D I S T I N C T L Y M O N T A N A S P R I N G | 2 0 1 4 1 4 Gal "It makes you feel bad going into people's homes because now you are placing that family in danger too. So you pray they don't have a weapon that can blow up into the house. I thank the Lord that day that nobody got a bullet." BigMan also remembers times in which she had to engage in a combative situation. While taking supplies to a village in Iraq on a Red Cross Humanitarian mission, a riot broke out as snack bags were being handed out to children. The locals began to grab the weapons of the soldiers. BigMan held hers close. "I remember my captain said, 'run.' We dropped everything. There were kids and mothers with babies. They are taught to sacrifice." With the loss of "linear" battle tactics in modern conflicts, there is no safe place. Combat affects all units, ability levels, and genders. The very act of deployment forces a mindset not common to 20 year olds. Maday remembers writing her will the week be- fore she deployed, stating what would happen to her eight-month-old son if she were to die. Yet to be a warrior means more than the ability to sacrifice and fight skillfully. Finding commonality, even among those you are told are enemy, is part of the code. Kelly under- stood this first with Korea. "The North and the South are the same people. In Iraq, it was the same thing. Being older and getting to see it is different," she acknowledged, from her home today in Bill- ings, Montana, "You look at the culture and we're still the same." All three women are back home again after serving –– Maday for 5 years, BigMan 22 and Kelly 28. With their uniforms hung in closets awaiting special occasions, the dust of foreign lands now only in their memories, and the sound of gunfire coming alive at the sudden slam of a car door –– these women are far from the action they once knew. Action now means something altogether different: BigMan formed the nation's first all Native American women's color guard and performed for the President's 2013 inauguration; Kelly is an advocate for PTSD awareness and team leader for a disabled veteran color guard; Maday is Executive Director for Indian Nonprofit Alliance, dedicated to assisting tribal nonprofits –– proving that warriors do exist, and you can refer to them as "She." maria munro- schuster grew up on the Fort Peck Reservation in North- eastern Montana. Gaining insight into others' perspec- tives is her life's passion. She teaches middle school at Headwaters Academy in Bozeman. BigMan strove to find a balance between staying open to the new and ltening to the ways of her pt. MARK MUNRo-SCHUSTER Julia Kelly out of uniform and back in Montana

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