‘Just keep climbing’: Longview veteran finds healing, purpose in making music
Editor’s note: This is part of a series of stories about how East Texas veterans adjust to life after military service.
With the American flag behind her, Jenn Ford walked to the lectern, leaned toward the microphone and softly sang “The Star Spangled Banner.” A crowd of fellow veterans stood at attention.
Ford dressed in black for the Sept. 11 remembrance ceremony at Crossing Creeks Country Club in Longview, one of her several patriotic performances in East Texas.
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A U.S. Army veteran, Ford is a musician at heart. And following her military service, music is something that healed her heart.
A painful memory still flashes through her mind: the time she was sexually assaulted by another soldier. She said, for years, the unwanted flashbacks were nearly debilitating.
But thanks to support from friends and family members, mental health care and a sense of purpose rooted in rhythm, Ford has found a way to cope with the pain. Its trauma is no longer something she’s controlled by — and she hopes to inspire other veterans to soldier on toward healing.
Jenn Ford sings the National Anthem during a ceremony honoring veterans and first responders during Operation True North’s Patriot Day Golf Classic, on Monday September 11, 2023, at Crossing Creeks Country Club. (Michael Cavazos/News-Journal Photo)
Michael Cavazos
“I don’t want people to feel sorry for me,” she said. “I want people to look at me and say, ‘She’s overcome so much. She’s strong.’ I’m not weak. I don’t feel weak anymore. I feel strong most of the time.
“I’m so happy compared to before. The before was awful.”
Texas roots
She calls herself the “Woman in Black.” A country singer who now calls Longview home, Ford dons dark colors that draw attention to her wind-blown blonde hair during performances, where she croons crowds with a style inspired by Patsy Cline — and ZZ Top, among others.
Ford is living out the childhood dream she had of a being a rock star. She grew up singing in church and in her high school band. For a small-town girl from Carthage, a college music scholarship seemed like fuel to rocket her toward a career on stage.
“My parents were like, ‘Yeah, you need to get a real job,’ ” Ford said. “They kind of coaxed me into trying out different majors in college, and I wasn’t happy. So, I felt like I had to break free from their halo of protection.”
To get away, Ford became the first woman in her family to join the Army. With two years of college behind her, she signed up to be a military police officer, drawing on her family’s history of law enforcement.
Behind the badge was a 19-year-old girl from Texas who grew up in a blue-collar family, yearned to provide for herself and wanted to find out how far she could push herself mentally and physically. Being a military police officer did that — somewhat. She still needed an outlet for creativity.
“I just kept circling back to music every time,” Ford said.
She continued to sing while in the military, participating in karaoke events and belting out tunes in the barracks. In 2001, she joined the U.S. Army Soldier Show, a Broadway-style touring musical troupe that performs at military installations around the globe. Ford met her first husband while in the show, and the two started a family together.
After her time in the troupe was over, Ford returned to Ft. Bliss and was reassigned to the U.S. Army Band as a singer.
In all of her military globe-trotting, Ford continued to make music, joining a military band in Iraq and performing in Germany.
Hidden trauma
But even though she was on stage often, something in her past wouldn’t leave her alone. While stationed in South Korea in 1999, Ford was sexually assaulted by another military police officer. Ford was 20 at the time, but she moved past the incident — or so she thought. She kept it to herself for years.
Ford is one of tens of thousands who’ve survived military sexual trauma. In 2021, about 8.4% of all female troops were sexually assaulted, and so were 1.5% of men, according to a Department of Defense report. Those percentages equate to almost 36,000 service members, Military.com reported.
She left the military in 2009. Quickly returning to the civilian world after spending years in the rigorous, disciplined routine of a soldier was challenging. Her marriage had crumbled, and she’d had a miscarriage that weighed heavy on her heart.
Ford and her children moved in with her parents. But she didn’t have the financial stability and structure she knew in the military. She also decided to return to college.
And then the memory came back over and over again, adding to daily life’s pressures.
“It was like Pandora’s box just exploded, and so everything was coming out,” Ford said. “Any traumas, anything that happened, anything that was a reminder, anything that was a trigger was all coming out at once, and I felt very out of control of my emotions, lashing out, hyper-vigilant, screaming, crying, like very emotional, which wasn’t the normal composure that I had.”
Ford sought mental health resources from the Department of Veterans Affairs, but others still didn’t understand what she’d been through. The torment culminated one day about a year after leaving the military. Dark thoughts were overwhelming her mind, causing her to black out. She admitted herself for psychiatric care at a VA hospital.
“I said, ‘I need help. This is not who I want to be. I don’t want to be like this for my children. I am drowning,’ ” Ford said. “That was probably the moment where I started to see me taking control of an out-of-control situation, and I had to go back twice, and I took myself both times.”
Hope was dawning.
Life of healing
Ford has been in therapy for 14 years, and she still check in with her therapist whenever she sees a problem developing.
“Instead of looking at things emotionally, I’m able to look at things a little bit more rationally and pick it apart — like what my triggers are and kind of see a problem before it starts,” she said. “If I know that a certain place is going to trigger a certain emotion, then I will either prepare myself before I go in or I just won’t go there.”
Mental health treatment was only one part of the healing puzzle, however. One of the biggest keys to finding freedom was opening up with her family and those around her about her struggle. Talking about the problem with people she trusts gave her strength, she said.
That runs counter to the mentality of a soldier, though, Ford said. Soldiers are trained to repress their emotions and bottle up their struggles so that they don’t interfere with their duties. But that doesn’t mean negative emotions go away.
“That’s not a healthy way to live your entire life,” Ford said. “It gets the job done, the military, but it’s not a realistic view of real life. It’s why there’s so many suicides — they didn’t see it coming. They didn’t see those emotions coming out of nowhere. It makes you feel crazy.”
Traumatic memories still come to Ford’s mind, and they affect her more on some days than others, she said. That’s why having a support system of friends and fellow veterans is essential. Veterans have a unique understanding of each other, and they can talk about experiences civilians might not understand. Joining a church as well as a local Veterans of Foreign Wars post also have helped Ford connect with others.
She also found another way to talk about her experiences: in song.
Music as medicine
When Ford steps on stage for a concert, the battle in her mind eases. She’s in her element, and she hopes her music will have the same effect for other veterans.
Her musical career kicked off in 2017 while she was an intern at the Texas Country Music Association. The organization offered to put her on stage for a performance.
“I could have said ‘No.’ But instead, I said ‘Yes,’ ” Ford said. “So, say ‘Yes,’ and you never know what’s going to happen from that. I got a record deal two weeks after that.”
Ever since, Ford’s fame has grown. She performs at bars, clubs and public events in East Texas. Her goal is to get 100 songs on music streaming platform Spotify; she’s got 25 there so far. She hopes to tour one day, too.
“It’s always been something that inspired me, that gave me comfort, that gave me joy, that gave me energy to do hard things,” Ford said of her music. “And I think that music is typically everybody’s first line of communication. A mother sings to her baby to comfort the baby, and music has been an extreme comfort to me. I dove into it. I dove deep, and I said, ‘I have to do this. If I don’t do this, then I can’t breathe.’ ”
Some of her music touches on her military experience, including her upcoming single “Pity,” which directly addresses how people interact with those who’ve endured trauma.
“It’s my goal always to be like, ‘Look, let’s just be real about life. It’s not easy, and have a good time while you’re at it.’ Make the best of things,” Ford said.
Beyond the message of her music, she said she hopes her personal story will inspire other veterans to find purpose in something. Her message to veterans who may be struggling with a battle of their own is this: Don’t give up.
“You have to do something every day to get to the next level,” Ford said. “Nothing is free. Nothing is promised. You can’t just sit there and wait for your life to improve. You’re responsible for your success. No one else is going to be responsible for it. No one else is going to work as hard as you.”
As for the future of her musical career, Ford’s not sure exactly where she’ll wind up. She’s remarried, and she thinks she may one day become a grandmother. Even if that happens, though, she hopes she’ll still be on the stage.
“My biggest mission is to show my children and my family and other women in my community that you have to do whatever it is to make a mark and leave a positive impact because bad stuff happens to everybody,” Ford said. “So, you can’t just sit there and fester in that moment. You have to crawl out. Just keep climbing.”