My name is Gloria, but many people call me Major, some even call me The Glorious G. I was a butt-kicking criminal litigator for 12 years including 7 as a JAG in the United States Air Force. In 2007, I was injured while prosecuting terrorists in the Central Criminal Court of Iraq in Baghdad. In 2009, the Air Force permanently retired me at the rank of Major. I have undergone extensive rehabilitation since 2009 but, in truth, I was left for dead by the VA and the Air Force during that time and have died and resurrected myself several times since.

I realized my lifelong passion for film in 2012 and completed my MFA in Directing Academy of Art University in San Francisco in 2015. I have been working on an MFA in Screenwriting at Academy of Art since 2017 and should graduate in 2023. I seek to show the world the realities of war, as it is experienced by actual human beings, with all its attending emotional horror, in stark juxtaposition with the fantasies of so many of Hollywood's wartime offerings. I seek to piss people off to such a degree that they consider their own roles in things and possibly even try to change them! I also want to create pieces which focus on personal transformation through perseverance and passion, despite any obstacle. If nothing else, I am a survivor and I want to add to the voices of courage and strength on which I have always relied. I Fight! It's what I do, and it is what I have always done - only now my arena is filmmaking, I call this fight: Litigation by Other Means!

I am originally from Miami, Florida but I have lived and been all over the world. My chosen home is the Bay Area of California although I recently returned to my “humble” family home here in Miami to help with my aging parents. My first film Forgive Me Father was very well-received, appearing in 7 film festivals - it was nominated for Best Director at AAU's NXT Up! My second film, a feature documentary, Women of War: Invisible made its world premiere in September 2021 at the Lady Filmmaker's Film Festival in Beverly Hills, CA. It won Best Feature at the Worldwide Women's Film Festival in Arizona in February 2022. The film focuses on three female combat veterans of the post 9/11 era and is interpreted through dance. I am working to finish another feature documentary, Women of War: Untouchable, this year. This film focuses on the ongoing, largest genocide in world history and was filmed on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. It is the historical companion, the "evidence", supporting my in-progress feature film script, Malicious Disobedience, a radical intersectional feminist reimagining of the legendary massacres of the Indian Wars.

I recently completed two pieces which have been nominated in this year’s NXT Up! What I Did in the War, is a short documentary about my service in Iraq and how I, despite my best intentions, helped breed ISIS. Veteran’s Crisis Line is a short film screenplay about the broken apathetic VA system which would rather kill veterans and blame them than look at its own role in the veteran suicide epidemic. I believe both pieces have tremendous potential and I look forward to getting them out into the world!

My website: www.thegloriousg.com. My Instagram: gloria.downey1