Alexis wants to get off painkillers. Mariette jumps at loud noises. BriGette won't leave her home. Lashonna does not have one. Sue and Alicia served together and survived an IED explosion. A new documentary, “SERVICE: When Women Come Marching Home” by Marcia Rock and Patricia Lee Stotter, follows these women over a two-year period as they struggle to make the transition from active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan to civilian life.

In honor of Armed Forces Week, CSU Monterey Bay will hold a free community screening and a question-and-answer session with filmmaker Rock, at 7 p.m., May 22, at the World Theater on the university campus. The Arts Council for Monterey County is co-sponsoring the event.

Women make up 14 percent of today's military. That number is expected to double in 10 years. SERVICE portrays the courage of these women, the horrific traumas they face, the inadequate care they often receive on return, and the accomplishments – large and small – they work mightily to achieve. Through compelling portraits, the film shows them wrestling with prosthetics, homelessness, post-traumatic stress and its insidious catalyst, military sexual trauma.

The film is also about the resourcefulness of these women, and how they created a supportive network through social media. The nation has a new military force. The veterans shown in the film represent the first wave of mothers, daughters and sisters returning home. The power of the documentary is in the intimacy it establishes with them, speaking with them in their kitchens and bathrooms, back yards, classrooms, therapy sessions and super markets. The film aims to wake up a sleeping civilian population.

Driving directions and a campus map are available here. For disability accommodations, contact Arlene Krebs at 582-5025.

Without doubt, the most powerful film I’ve seen about women veterans. It tears you to pieces to watch it and restores your soul . . . all at the same time. It’s a documentary about hope. It’s the best film you haven’t seen yet. Tell everyone you know about it. – Wendi Goodman, 18-year Army veteran, author of One Weary Soldier blog