The Patriotic Stripper: From Rebellious "Bad Girl" to Military Wife

By Susannah Breslin, The Daily Beast. Posted April 25, 2009.

SB: You had a breakdown after your husband returned from his deployment. Did you believe you would survive it?

LB: No. I thought I would emerge from it in a body bag. When you're really in the full fury of PTSD, and whatever needs your attention has really come to the fore, what you need more than anything else is to get the fuck out, and that can mean walking out of your house and never coming back, going on a bender of drugs and alcohol, or becoming suicidal because your nerves are so shot. Whatever it takes to quiet that scream seems like a better alternative than continuing to suffer. We love to gut it out, to think our way through it. But you can't think your way out with a broken brain.

SB: While driving with you in the car, your husband had a flashback during which he thought he was back in Iraq. What was that like?

LB: The first thing you need to know about my husband is you see him as someone very capable and utterly sane. I depend on my husband as reliable and centered, and to see him become a caricature out of Apocalypse Now -- it was like watching someone become possessed. When I finally realized he was having this Hollywood flashback of the sort I didn't think really happened, I realized there was a lot more going on under the surface than I ever would've have suspected. To watch him flip out was heartbreaking.

SB: The military hasn't always been as supportive as it should be when it comes to veterans who suffer from PTSD.

LB: One of the challenges is the sheer number of people who have it. It's not like setting a broken bone. It's not a linear process you can see. It's not a bruise or a flesh wound. The Army is very matter of fact, and I love that, but what you're dealing with in PTSD is randomness, and randomness is not the military's forte. Historically, the assumption is that the soldier will suffer silently and drink his ass off for the rest of his life. We're not in that place in our culture anymore. Men want to be there for their families. Women want to feel safe. But the Army mental health care system simply has not caught up to thinking about what it means to be a happy, healthy veteran.

SB: Now you've come full circle. You run Operation Bombshell, "the only burlesque class exclusively for military wives.”

LB: It's such a blast. The military has Family Readiness Groups, where volunteers take care of families while soldiers are gone, but there's still so little for the wives. I got in touch with a woman who married a cadet, who's now an officer's wife, and I asked her to give it a whirl at Fort Hood. It was 8,000 degrees, and I taught in the roller rink. I'm trying to get the USO to take it over, so I can really travel and go overseas.

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