In Wars We’ve Lost, Wars We’ve Won: A Soldier's Fight For and Against Her Army, Private Carter is hopeful, determined, and ready to cast off childhood traumas as she begins basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Before enlisting, no matter what she did, no matter how many successes garnered she could not avoid traps seemingly fashioned to imprison her in a cycle of generational dysfunction. 

 

Sometimes, she topples into those traps; other times, she dives in.  That cycle, she believes, will be broken once she joins the Army, her supposed savior.  Despite her best intentions, Private Carter quickly learns her Army, her “savior,” also has traps fashioned for imprisonment, meant specifically to confine girls like her.