Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea : A Veteran's Memoir

It's the late 1990s-Tupac is taking over radio waves, Inkster, Michigan is as Midwest as ever, and a young Khadijah Queen has just been recruited to join the U.S.Navy while working her day job at RadioShack. In light of her dwindling college tuition fund, her mother's alcoholism and sisters' addictions, and an impending future of minimum wage retail jobs, Bootcamp doesn't sound so bad. But soon after Khadijah completes her grueling training and boards her ship, finds herself in even more traumatic situations among strangers far from home.Surrounded by men in the sonar room, she struggles to maintain her dignity day after day while dealing with near-constant sexual harassment, weeks-long demeaning labor assignments, and overt racism from her coworkers.At first, she tries to bring honor to herself, her family, her division, and the navy, taking pride in her work while studying to become an officer and leaning on poetry to lift her spirits.Queen begins to wonder the issues she is faced wi