Each midshipman starts on the ground, jumps up and runs to the first cone, crawls to the next cone, zig-zags across the second half of the football field. Then, the midshipman picks up a soldier, dead drags him halfway across the field, and throws him over his shoulder for the second half of the run. Then, they go back across the football field with two ammo boxes, chuck a grenade, do a few push ups, and run back.

“It does not get easier as you get older,” Giorgis says.

Before stating that her goal for this round of the test is to hit the maximum time for male midshipmen, Brown, who is also a varsity lacrosse player at Harvard, explains her ease on the field with the preparation that her experience playing lacrosse has given her.

She doesn’t quite hit the 2:14 time, but at 2:26 her run easily beats the female maximum of 3:01.

Brown talks easily and happily about her life and plans, seemingly unaware at how impossible her life looks from the outside. In her eyes she is not a 5’2” female lacrosse player and student about to join the 7.5 percent of women in the Marine Corps.

She is a ROTC cadet on her way to becoming a Marine, plain and simple.