In A Yellow Rose in Thorns Clothing, Lana Lees life is stitched together with music. Not just background noise, but signposts, reminders of who she was and what she survived. Love, heartbreak, reinvention... Every chapter had a song. Every song held a piece of her story.

Content

The Songs That Numb the Pain. 2

The Theme Songs of Reinvention. 2

The Nostalgic Melodies That Take Us Back. 2

Music as a Lifeline. 2

Final Thoughts: Whats Your Song?. 3

A Yellow Rose in Thorns Clothing

The Soundtrack of First Love

First love is like a song you cant stop playing. The same rush. The same longing. The same quiet devastation when it ends.

For Lana, music was part of every early crush, every romantic hope. She was just a teenager when she first fell for Alan, the boy in her biology class. He had a girlfriend, but that didnt stop her from dreaming. Every time Best of My Love by The Eagles played on the radio, she let herself imagine...what if? The song became a secret, a wish, a little world where things had turned out differently.

Later, with Howardher first husbandmusic became something they shared. Evenings spent listening to Fleetwood Mac, ABBA, Gerry Rafferty. But love, like songs, doesnt always last. After the divorce, Hotel California turned from something she loved to something that haunted her. The lyrics didnt change, but the meaning did. Thats the danger of music... It can hold memories youre not ready to relive.

The Songs That Numb the Pain

When heartbreak comes, sometimes the only thing that makes sense is a song that aches the way you do.

After her marriages unraveled, Lana was left trying to piece together who she was outside of the relationships that had defined her. Thats when music became an escape for her. The bars, the night air, the discovery of new sounds... Kansas, Foreigner, Styx, Van Halen. Loud, electric, defiant. Songs that didnt ask her to dwell on sadness but let her drown it out instead.

Thats the thing about music: it meets you where you are. When the grief is too much, it carries some of the weight for you. When words fail, lyrics step in. We all do this. We all turn to a song when life feels too big, too uncertain, too heavy. Let it sing for us when we cant. Make us feel seen.

The Theme Songs of Reinvention

Music doesnt just remind us of who we were. Sometimes, it helps us become someone new.

For Lana, I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor wasnt just a song. It was a battle cry. After everything, after all the heartbreak and loss, she needed to believe in her own strength. Singing along was about reclaiming something. A reminder that she wasnt defined by the people who had hurt her. That she wasnt just the girl who once believed love could fix everything. That she had survived. That she would keep surviving.

We all have songs like this. These are the ones that lift us up when we forget how to stand. The ones that tell us, over and over again, that we are more than the pain weve endured.

The Nostalgic Melodies That Take Us Back

Some songs never really leave us. Years can pass, but the first notes play, and suddenly, youre right back where you were.

For Lana, certain songs pull her into the past. Sonny & Cher remind her of childhood. The Monkees transport her to a time when life still felt like it had neat, predictable edges. Even the painful songs...the ones tied to heartbreak.... They carry something worth holding onto. Cold As Ice by Foreigner brings back the memories of crushes who never saw her, but also of a girl who was still figuring out who she was.

Thats what music does. It holds onto our stories, even the ones we think weve forgotten.

Music as a Lifeline

Lanas story isnt just about the things she lost. Its about what she found. Things like strength, resilience, the ability to keep moving forward. And music was part of that.

In the hardest moments, when everything else felt uncertain, music was something to hold onto. A way to escape, a way to feel, a way to heal. Even now, after everything, music is still there. A thread connecting her past to her present, proof that every version of herselfthe hopeful girl, the heartbroken woman, the survivoris still in there somewhere, singing along.

Final Thoughts: Whats Your Song?

We all have one. A song that saved us. A song that reminds us of who we used to be or who we want to become.

For Lana, it was I Will Survive.

For you, maybe its something else. But no matter what, the music is always there, waiting for you. Ready to remind you. Ready to heal you. Ready to save you, if you let it.

A Yellow Rose in Thorns Clothing

Im not famous. Im not a celebrity. Im a normal person like most of you. This book is a record of my memories and experiences from a young child until I was thirty-seven and met my third husband in between. I faced challenges, made some questionable choices, suffered the consequences, and persevered. Im still here to talk about it. I felt like it was important to share this story as Im sure many people can relate. I hope to provide encouragement, empathy, and support. None of us are perfect. Weve all made our mistakes. We may not be forgiven by the general public, but most importantly, we have to forgive ourselves. It is never too late to change the path that we are on, and it is never time to give up. I hope that you find inspiration from this book.

. 3

The Army taught me to endure, to obey, to become a machine of strength. But while they prepared me for combat, they left me unequipped for a different kind of war, one that would consume me long after I left the uniform behind. As a female soldier, I was treated by some male soldiers as if women were mere objects for their gratification, a dehumanizing attitude no woman should ever face.

The military focused on physical readiness, turning civilians into warriors able to withstand combats horrors. We were taught to navigate minefields, fire weapons with deadly accuracy, and march through exhaustion. Mental toughness was expected, but it came from physical trials, not a skill deliberately taught. There were no lessons on processing betrayals trauma, no guides for handling the emotional fallout of harassment or assault.

The Army assumed that if you could survive the physical demands, your mind would keep up. But invisible scars last longest, and I was unprepared for the internal battles that would shape my life after service.

When I enlisted, I carried dreams of honor and service, inspired by childhood ideals of protecting justice. My story, though unique, reflects the challenges others face in different ways. My book, Secrets of the Uniform, tells this story from the pride of taking the oath to the disillusionment that followed. I wrote it to share the struggles I faced, not just as a soldier, but as a woman in a system that often failed to protect its own.

The book describes my time in basic training, where I excelled in structure and discipline, only to be stunned by the toxic culture of my reserve unit. There, I faced unprofessionalism, harassment, and, ultimately, a brutal assault that combined sexual violence and physical beating, shattering my sense of safety. These experiences, though painful, were only the start of a deeper struggle, one no military training could have readied me for.

The aftermath of my assault was a plunge into a war I didnt know how to fight. The military had conditioned me to push through physical pain, but it offered no tools for navigating betrayals emotional damage. Instead of sinking into despair, I grew fiercely angry, wrestling with distrust and fear that haunted me long after the assault. I was plagued by panic attacks that hit without warning, my heart racing as if I were still trapped in that supply room. Trust, once given freely, became something I couldnt afford. Every strangers glance felt threatening, every phone call a potential danger.

In Secrets of the Uniform, I describe the constant harassment that followed my assault: threatening phone calls in the dead of night, break-in attempts at my home, and even the heartbreaking loss of my dog, shot by those who wanted to silence me. These were not battles fought with weapons or strategy but with raw fear. The military had taught me to confront an enemy directly, but how do you fight ghosts who leave no trace? How do you reclaim your life when the system you served dismisses your pain? When I sought help, there were no support groups, only a VA doctor and a handful of close friends.

I stayed silent for years, piecing myself back together mostly alone, a grueling journey of self-recovery. My efforts to seek justice through the militarys chain of command met indifference, even blame. A JAG officers cold suggestion that compliance would have spared me the ordeal left me stunned, a stark reminder that the system protected itself, not me.

For me, healing was a slow process, supported by therapy, faith, and a few who believed me. Dr. Callahan, my VA therapist, gave me space to rage and grieve, helping me rebuild a mind shaped by fear. Ray Parrish, from the Midwest Committee for Military Counseling, offered support when I felt most alone. And Vice President Al Gores intervention, prompting an Inspector General investigation, gave me hope that my voice mattered.

My path taught me that healing is not a goal but a daily choice. Each step forward, through therapy, advocacy, or simply choosing to live, is a victory over the trauma that tried to break me. I fought not just for myself but for every soldier who feels abandoned by a system that demands loyalty but offers little in return.

Secrets of the Uniform is my message, a guide for those still fighting their internal wars, proof that even in our darkest moments, we can find the strength to keep going. The military may not have prepared me for this battle, and some male soldiers treated me, a female soldier as if women were mere playthings, an injustice no woman should endure. But Ive learned to fight it with a weapon stronger than any grenade: my voice.