USD Magazine Spring 2020

CLASS NOTES USD MAGAZINE

ZACHARY BARRON

[ m e t a m o r p h o s i s ]

by Kelly Knufken T Helping women vets find themselves — and each other N O S T R I N G S A T T A C H E D he dragonflies are flitting around the lake, and Billiekai Boughton ’15

that separated Boughton’s stint in the U.S. Army serving in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait during Desert Storm from Colleen Shus- ter’s time in the Marine Corps during the Iraq War. “This definitely has changed my life, meeting Billiekai,” says Shuster. As they walk, little echoes of their shared experience creep in: A fellow vet who’d re- sisted treatment got into a therapy program? They high five. Shuster says she’ll get back to Boughton on something, and the reply is an unironic “10-4.”

just ultimately live outside it: they get to fly. It’s a sweltering morning that will, by degrees, eventually reach 100. Boughton and another die- hard member of her women vet- erans group — “I think the heat scared off most of them,” Bough-

ton says — are walking around San Diego’s Lake Murray and talking about their shared experi- ences as veterans in combat zones that were close geographically, if not chronologically. There’s an ease the pair has together, despite the decade or so

(MSEL) can’t help herself. She interrupts her thoughts about veterans and talks about how the gossamer-winged creatures are born underwater, but also don’t

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