Jodie Sweezey discovered military history in her teens, but she waited until after she graduated college to join the military, a decision partly shaped by her father who served in Vietnam.
When she was 16 years old, her grandmother asked her to help with the family genealogy. That’s when Sweezey learned she was related to William Tecumseh Sherman, the Civil War general.
That piqued her interest, and Sweezey went to her local library and checked out the book “Sherman’s March to the Sea.”
“I was a kid who wasn’t big into reading or into history necessarily, but I devoured that book and was fascinated with military history and became a huge Civil War buff,” Sweezey said. “That, combined with my dad having been a Marine, just led me to look more closely at becoming a Marine.”
Later, her father made her watch the movie “Full Metal Jacket” after she announced her plans to join the Marines herself.
While the movie didn’t deter her plans, she put them on pause and headed to college. When Operation Desert Shield kicked off, she watched the war unfold on TV like millions of Americans.
“I knew that was it. I was going in the Marine Corps.,” Sweezey said.
She went to Officer Candidates School in 1991, unsure if she would be able to finish and become an officer.
“I think everybody thought I was gonna not graduate,” Sweezey said. “In fact, my DIs [drill instructors] didn’t think I was going to graduate. In the first couple of weeks, I was one of the ones they checked off as ‘You’re going home.’”
But don’t tell Sweezey that she can’t do something.
She not only graduated, but after a few weeks at OCS, she was put in charge of the platoon.
Sixty-five women started OCS in her platoon, but only 25 graduated. Of those, just 17 accepted commission, becoming Second Lieutenant.
Her “job” in the Marines was Motor Transport – the same Military Occupational Specialty as her father – and she was stationed at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.
After serving a few years, she left the Marines as a major when the Department of Defense reduced the number of officers on active duty by about 23% from 1989 to 1996 as part of the post-Cold War drawdown in U.S. military forces.
Her desire to learn never faded and after she left the military she earned a master’s degree in history.
After Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom started, Sweezey still had the desire to serve and joined the Marine Corps. Reserves. She reaffiliated with a civil affairs unit in Washington, D.C. that was preparing to deploy.
“I joined that unit and started to train,” Sweezey said. “Went from having been out all the way to ramping up for a deployment to Iraq. Not just a deployment to Iraq, but I ended up in Fallujah.
She went from being a civilian again to living in Fallujah and becoming the logistics officer for the civil-military operations center.
“Which is where all of the reconstruction and governance kinds of things were happening,” Sweezey said. “It was kind of the hub where people came for help and support.
Sweezey’s study of history and what she learned about the Iraqi culture led her down the road to further her already impressive educational achievements.
“There were a lot of things we missed and a lot of things we didn’t understand. And it was really that experience that led me to study anthropology because I recognized that there were some huge gaps in our understanding,” Sweezey said.
After her second tour in Iraq, she continued in the Reserves for a number of years, but then had to make a tough decision – either stay in the Marines or finish her PhD – she wasn’t able to do both.
Sweezey left a successful career in the Marines as a major. Her desire to learn is insatiable.
Her original plan was to study how trauma shapes society and gender-based violence with a visit to Kabul, Afghanistan – a place she already visited with a non-governmental organization. As the security situation in the area deteriorated, she had to find a new focus for her PhD.
Her 201-page PhD dissertation was titled “Livin’ the Dream? How Veterans of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom Negotiate the Experience of Illness as They Transition from Healthy Warrior to Sick Veteran.”
“I looked at what it means for a veteran to go from being this hard charging soldier, sailor, airman or Marine to this transition of then having everything fall apart and you become a sick vet, and what that does mentally and physically and does to your life.” Sweezey said.
With her doctorate in applied cultural anthropology complete, Sweezey went into business with three former Army civil affairs officers, offering subcontracting where they teach other militaries across the world how to handle civil-military operations.
“We started a company called Intended Consequences Group and our mission is providing that knowledge-base research consultancy to help organizations who are working cross culturally, to do that in a way that’s least disruptive to the population,” Sweezey said.
Her work with non-governmental organizations and her own company has brought Sweezey to Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Cameroon and Kosovo, to name a few.
To learn more about Intended Consequences Group Inc., click here.