More than 2 million women account for the U.S. veteran population, according to Department of Veterans Affairs data, and they are projected to be the fastest growing group, reaching 18% by 2040.
Despite an increasing presence of women in service, an Army and Air National Guard veteran said their story remains untold. Bevin Goldsmith, author of the fictional book series “Adrenaline Rush,” is using her writing to bring awareness to transition challenges of female veterans.
“You look on TV and you have all these military movies that are all these male military veterans, none of them are female veterans,” Goldsmith said. “Our stories are very under told. They’re very overshadowed, most of the time, not told at all. So that was initially why I started writing it because I wanted to write a story that followed a female veteran.”
After talking to female friends who went through transition, Goldsmith explains “some of them have really struggled,” which is why the book series specifically focuses on life after the military.
By 2025, the anticipated numbers of women veterans are:
- Army: 916,948
- Air Force: 464,069
- Navy: 409,586
- Marines: 124,169
- Reserve: 157,385
- Non-defense: 28,900
“They’ve had to come home to their kids while struggling with these issues of, PTSD or just depression, or whatever that might be,” she explained. “People hear about what males go through, or they just hear the word veterans. But very rarely do you hear female veterans go through this.”
In the first book of the “Adrenaline Rush” series, readers meet protagonist Katie Molson. She is a former military police officer working a new government agency role after leaving the Army. Through a series of events, she finds herself needing help from the department’s shrink and realizes she needs to learn how to take care of herself before she can help others.
Goldsmith left the Army after becoming pregnant and learning she would be deploying to Korea shortly after her child’s birth. This pushed her to pick her family over her military career, she said.
“My very first thought was, OK, yeah, I was trying to figure out [what I’m doing next],” she says, “I’m about to be a mom. But on the same note, I don’t have the baby right now. What am I going to do? And to deal with that anxiety part of that was, I’ll go to school full time. I’ll go start on my degree. So it was helpful that I went to school full time.”
RELATED: Former Iraq War photojournalist becomes world-renowned bourbon expert
Going to school gave her a purpose and a way to move forward. The title “Adrenaline Rush” came from the fact that Goldsmith felt she was struggling with her new life because unlike the Army, she didn’t experience a regular adrenaline rush of emotions. Her life went from being a bunch of situations that were not normal, to ordinary, and it was a hard change.
“Coming out of the Army, I was also going through like, this huge adrenaline withdrawal, which you don’t realize how hopped up you are on adrenaline until you start going through withdrawal,” she shared. “And it does not feel normal. You’re literally, like, crawling in your skin trying to figure out what is wrong with you, and that’s literally what it is, you’re going through withdrawal from adrenaline.”
Goldsmith said running became a physical way she could help her body to calm down and get out of whatever she was feeling inside. She also turned to writing to get the words she was feeling out.
In her work to write the novel, Goldsmith discusses how she realized having one thing to focus on was how she kept going through the transition and didn’t get stuck.
“A lot of it was not allowing myself to sit idle and try to constantly give myself something positive to do,” she said. “I was trying to constantly do something to not allow myself to sink down into a black hole.”
When asked what she hopes readers walk away with after reading her books, Goldsmith wants female veterans to know they’re not the only ones going through these challenges.
“You just have to push through it. Push all the way through it and feel it. Don’t stop in the middle. … I really want it [the book] to be a motivation or an inspiration. I like helping people. That’s what I want to do. I want to help them to get through it.”
“Adrenaline Rush” is available for purchase on Amazon.
