Behind The Rank With Guest Dee Dee Hodges & Fanny Minnitt
Join Award Winning Author Lila Holley as she interviews the Co-Authors from their award winning new book ‘Behind the Rank’.
“With each Camouflaged Sisters book project we’ve experienced the healing power of putting pen to paper and better understand the incredible power our words have. In this series, we interview coauthors from the next Camouflaged Sisters book, Behind the Rank and learn how they’ve been able to regain personal strength by sharing their individual stories.” ~Lila Holley~
HOST: Ladies, if you could just give the listening audience a little bit of background about your military experience. You can go ahead and go first, Ms. Dede.
GUEST: Yes. Everybody calls me DeDe. Well, my background is I served in the army for ten years. I was medically retired from injuries that I sustained in Iraq in one of my deployments, and I’m so glad to be a part of this book project because it’s allowing me to be able to come out of my comfort zone, and to begin to share about my experiences a little bit at a time. It’s helping me to heal on my own, as well. I’m so honored to be a part of it, and I loved everything I did.
I was 88 Mike in the military, which is a truck driver, and I loved what I did. It was so awesome. It’s such an awesome experience to be a part of such great women who understand the things that we go through. A part of the book that I basically brought into was about my personal feelings and personal experiences as being a mother in the military and as a single parent at the time. Sometimes people don’t understand how it is, and I just wanted to be able to give my testimony in that area.
HOST: Yeah, yeah. Definitely. I mean, we’re going to have to talk a little bit more about that, but thank you so much for that. And you said something very, very important that I always stress, and I like to stress a lot when ladies find out about us and they want to connect, and they want to tell their story. You have to be in a healing place to be able to tell your story. Healing is a process. We all know that because the process of writing and sharing and telling your story, you have to be at the right place in your healing process to be able to tell that story.
Because I know when I first met DeDe I was like, oh my gosh, you got a story, you got a story, and you got to tell it. But everybody I respect now, and I understand now having done this a couple of times now, that there is a process that takes place that is called healing. And everybody has to take that process – they have to go through that process at their own pace, and it’s not until they get to a certain point in that process that they’re able to share their story. So I’m so excited that you are in this book, Dede, and that you are coming out of your shell, and your story is going to bless people. It’s going to really help people. And that’s why we do these projects, to really help and impact and share our lessons learned and share our stories with the next generation of women coming behind us. So thank you so much.
And then, Ms. Fannie, can you tell the people a little bit about your military background, ma’am?
GUEST: Yes. Hi, everybody. My military background is I was in the military, army, for three years, regular army, and then a total of seven years in the Nation Guard and Reserves. And I, like DeDe, I enjoy my time in the military. It was my transitioning time that I didn’t realize I had some issues with it, but I did. And I am thankful to God that you have the movement, the Camouflage Movement, and that you are allowing people to write their stories because they are revealing inspirational stories as you stated. And we also are revealing and healing. And anytime someone is a part of the inspiring people and causing people to be healed, I don’t mind being a part of it. And since I am a veteran, I love the fact that I’m a part of the Camouflage Sisters Movement.
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