Book Announcement:
Long Way Out
Nicole Waybright
tive foreign policy and military
agenda. I thought: there must be
like-minded veterans out there
who share my feelings and have
organized, focusing on topics related to our ongoing wars, as well as
discussing peace initiatives. Wondering if I was in fact alone or not, I
started googling "veterans peace,"
"veterans against the Iraq war,"
etc. That night, I found the website
for VFP; I read it over and joined
online! I have since become a
member of Chapter 9, Boston!
I joined Veterans For Peace three
years ago, midway through writing
my newly published book, Long
Way Out – A young woman's journey of self-discovery and how she
survived the Navy's modern cruelty
at sea scandal.
My VFP journey has a distinct
beginning. One quiet night, as I sat
alone writing in my office, I began
to shape a chapter focusing on my
experience of the phenomenon of
the ultra-nationalistic language that
has emerged since the First Gulf
War. This unique language, made
up of catch phrases, slogans, and
war rallying cries, has had the effect of stifling honest conversation
and critical thinking regarding our
recent wars. For years, I had been
frustrated by the stereotyping of
military veterans – that we were all
nationalistic in our thinking and
staunch supporters of a conserva-
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VFP Newsletter Summer
Long Way Out explores the psychological crisis I underwent while
in the military, telling the true story
of my coming-of-age struggles during my deployment as an officer on
a U.S. Navy destroyer. It is a Jungian-based journey about a woman
in crisis, a situation that is relatable
to anyone who has faced threatening crossroads and times of personal doubt, in or out of the military. In my personal case, the catalyst for my journey through the
individuation process (a psychological process that was first
named and defined by psychiatrist
Carl Jung in the early twentieth
century) was the experience that
began once deployed to my first
ship, wherein I discovered quickly
that I was unsuited and philosophically opposed to Navy life. Facing
a five year obligation and serving
alongside a tyrannical executive
officer only added to the psychological torment and sense of personal crisis. Alongside my turbulent psychological journey, Long
Way Out offers a glimpse into the
tragic story of the notorious executive officer under whom I served –
the first woman in U.S. history to
command an Aegis destroyer
and be stripped of command for
"cruelty and maltreatment" of
her crew. TIME magazine later
called this commander "the Female Captain Bligh."
The story is recounted in graphic
and historically accurate detail
based on my five years of service
as a commissioned officer in the
Surface Warfare (SWO) Navy. I
served as a naval officer onboard a
guided missile destroyer and an
amphibious assault ship from 19962001. In these assignments, I was
in the first wave of women to be
stationed aboard combatant ships
after congress lifted the ban on
women serving aboard warships
following the Tailhook scandal in
the 1990s.
In the unlikely ending, I emerge
with a radicalized self-understanding, committed to seeking selfawareness and exploring my newfound interest in building a culture
of peace.
Long Way Out is available on
ecrater.com (print) and Amazon
(print and ebook Kindle).
NICOLE WAYBRIGHT is a full-time
writer and resides in New England.
Nicole received her BS in Mechanical Engineering from Boston University in 1996. She was honorably
discharged from the Navy in 2001.
In 2006 she received her MA in
Spanish Literature from the University of Rhode Island. She serves on
the National Board of Directors of
Veterans For Peace as well as on
the Executive Committee of the
Boston Chapter.