Manning developed into an inspiration for young queer and transgender youth, who wrote letters to her about their struggles, and she had the fortitude to embrace this role and reply with love and understanding.
"I really relate with all of them. I try my best to reach out to them because I want them to know that I appreciate their support," Manning confessed. "I was one of them once, and I remember those years intimately. I'm glad the world has changed a little bit, but it still worries me that these young kids are growing up with such a disadvantage."
Her supporters define her by the information she revealed--the "Collateral Murder" video, the military incident reports from Iraq and Afghanistan, diplomatic cables, and files on Guantanamo Bay detainees. There may be an expectation that she share more of her thoughts about what she released because she no longer has to worry about the conditions of her confinement worsening if she speaks out. Yet, there will be plenty of time for Manning to return to what set off one of the most high-profile cases in military history. She need not feel pressured to do so immediately.
As with other cases, where individuals were unjustly confined and sentenced to lengthy periods of imprisonment, her release will forever be a triumph for the spirit of Chelsea Manning and the tenacity of a grassroots movement, which brought attention to her case.
Some of these individuals stood out on the corner outside the gates of Fort Meade. They held signs up to cars as they passed by on a main thoroughfare in a military town. They did not care if the odds were stacked against Manning. They believed she deserved freedom, not punishment, and always showed up to the gates and the courtroom.
Setting foot outside the disciplinary barracks will seal the victory. Alive, Manning will have the last word on her case. The pundits from media outlets, which only paid her attention when they could make what she was enduring infotaining, will not. Neither will officials who made hyperbolic and baseless statements about the damage she allegedly did to the United States.
Chelsea Manning will own her story. She will teach us the lessons we should learn from what she did, her prosecution, and her commutation. She will not only define the life ahead of her but the life she survived over the past seven and a half years.
Once she builds her new life and revels in the new hope she has found, a world will be there to listen to whatever she has to say because all along she has always been authentic and true to her conscience and willing to invite us to share in her vulnerability and struggle against a government that, in a small window of time, saw fit to show her a bit of mercy.
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