I'm Ken Harbaugh, host of Warriors in Their Own Words.

In partnership with the Honor Project, we've brought this podcast back at a time when our nation needs these stories more than ever.

Warriors in their own words is our attempt to present an unvarnished, unsanitized

truth of what we have asked of those who defend this nation.

Thank you for listening, and by doing so, honoring those who have served.

Last episode, we heard from Sergeant First Class Alana Duffy, and today we're finishing

that interview.

Duffy conducted counterintelligence and interrogation operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It's so crazy because when I think back to whenever somebody asks like, what's, you know,

is there a real difference between being a woman operating in that type of environment?

The craziest thing is that I was like, yeah, but it's not necessarily the Iraqis who treated me differently.

A lot of times it was some of the more quote unquote high speed units from the U.S.

that would look at me differently because I'm constantly having to prove myself over and over again

that I'm not just baby-faced, what was I, 23-year-old.

I wasn't even wearing rank, but especially like if my hair's at all short, like I can look like I'm 12.

So I was constantly feeling like I had to prove myself and it was worst

with some of the black ops types or Delta or some elements of special operations community

because they had women in support roles, but I started

calling it little ladying because they would basically be like, okay, little lady, aren't you cute?

Like, quote, we don't think that's intelligence.

We just think that you just want to be special.

You know, sitting there and their short little black silky shorts.

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