Waging Gendered Wars: U.S. Military Women in Afghanistan and Iraq 9781409448464, 1409448460

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
List of Acronyms
1 The Road to Research
2 History of U.S. Military Women
3 The Second Sex at War in Iraq and Afghanistan
4 Female Veterans: Challenging Dominant Paradigms
5 The Ultimate Sacrifice
6 The Long Wars
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

WAGING GENDERED WARS

Gender in a Global/Local World Series Editors: Jane Parpart, Pauline Gardiner Barber and Marianne H. Marchand

Gender in a Global/Local World critically explores the uneven and often contradictory ways in which global processes and local identities come together. Much has been and is being written about globalization and responses to it but rarely from a critical, historical, gendered perspective. Yet, these processes are profoundly gendered albeit in different ways in particular contexts and times. The changes in social, cultural, economic and political institutions and practices alter the conditions under which women and men make and remake their lives. New spaces have been created – economic, political, social – and previously silent voices are being heard. North-South dichotomies are being undermined as increasing numbers of people and communities are exposed to international processes through migration, travel, and communication, even as marginalization and poverty intensify for many in all parts of the world. The series features monographs and collections which explore the tensions in a “global/local world,” and includes contributions from all disciplines in recognition that no single approach can capture these complex processes.

Previous titles are listed at the back of the book

Waging gendered Wars

U.s. Military Women in afghanistan and iraq

Paige WHaLeY eager Hood College, USA

ROUTLEDGE

Routledge Taylor & Francis Group

LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2014 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © 2014 Paige Whaley eager

Paige Whaley eager has asserted her right under the Copyright, designs and Patents act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: eager, Paige Whaley, 1973Waging gendered wars : U.s. military women in afghanistan and iraq / by Paige Whaley eager. pages cm includes bibliographical references and index. isBn 978-1-4094-4846-4 (hardback) 1. United states—armed Forces—Women. 2. Feminism. 3. iraq War, 2003-2011—Women—United states—Biography. 4. afghan War, 2001- —Women—United States—Biography. 5. Women soldiers—United States. 6. Women and the military—United states. i. Title. ii. Title: U.s. military women in afghanistan and iraq. UB418.W65e34 2014 956.7044’340820973—dc23 2013034169 isBn 9781409448464 (hbk)

Contents

Preface Acknowledgements List of Acronyms

vii ix xi

1

The Road to Research

2

History of U.S. Military Women

19

3

The Second Sex at War in Iraq and Afghanistan

39

4

Female Veterans: Challenging Dominant Paradigms

71

5

The Ultimate Sacri¿ce

91

6

The Long Wars

Bibliography Index

1

173 185 211

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Preface: Waging Gendered Wars

Paige Whaley Eager’s Waging Gendered Wars brings to life the experiences of women soldiers in the United States military during the post 2001 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of the American public still equate the word “soldier” with a male body, yet not only have women soldiers served in the military theaters of Iraq and Afghanistan, over 100 US of them have been killed. These deaths occurred during a time when women were banned from serving formally in combat position in the United States armed forces— a ban that will be lifted in 2016—demonstrating the limits of de¿ning “safety” in these wars. Many women soldiers who served in the two war-zones have been decorated with well-deserved medals for their bravery and commitment. Others have struggled to reintegrate into civilian society and are experiencing PTSD brought on by exposure to combat and/or sexual assault or rape within the military itself. Waging Gendered Wars brings these women’s lives (and deaths) to the fore, documenting their triumphs and tribulations in the Iraq and Afghanistan conÀicts. Eager has constructed her subjects’ personal narratives through extensive library research, the autobiographies and biographies of women soldiers and a small number of family interviews. The narratives provide rich descriptions of her subjects, demonstrating the importance of biographical narratives and thick description for understanding women’s (and men’s) lives in military conÀicts. In many ways Eager’s subjects challenge dominant, patriarchal de¿nitions of [male] soldiers both by their presence and their actions. They thus appear to reinforce liberal feminists’ belief in the liberatory potential of incorporating women into masculinist institutions. While familiar with the varied feminist interpretations of women in military institutions and theaters of war, Eager is reluctant to draw on one feminist theoretical position to explain the life stories she has discovered. Indeed, the stories she tells about women soldiers’ lived experiences defy easy categorization. They reveal everything from blatant murderous masculine dominance from fellow male soldiers to cooperation and respect between the sexes. This variety does not lend itself to a single theoretical lens, leading Eager to suggest the importance of adopting a variety of feminist theories for fully understanding women soldiers’ experiences of war. Waging Gendered Wars thus highlights the complex and varied experiences of women soldiers in the US military during the post-9/11 period conÀicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. It provides rich in-depth case studies that illuminate both the complexity of gendered practices in US military combat zones as well as offering fresh insights into the limits and possibilities of feminist theorizing in such contexts. It contributes to the impressive list of books exploring war, conÀict and

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gender already published in the Ashgate series Gender in a Global/Local World, and provides new material for thinking about the challenges of incorporating everyday life experiences of women soldiers into feminist theorizing and writing about gender, the military and war. Jane L. Parpart

Acknowledgements

This book is dedicated to: my father, Franklin W. Whaley, Jr., who was drafted, served with distinction in Vietnam, and passed away from cancer in 2010 at the all too young age of 65; my husband, Michael J. Eager, who served four years in the U.S. Army and became a naturalized citizen while doing so; my son, Cameron J. Eager, the most intense six year old basketball player in the world; my mother, Phyllis Ann Whaley, who continues to provide love and encouragement to me day in and day out; Dr. Janis Judson, a colleague and dear friend; and to many colleagues, friends, students, and neighbors who were kind enough to always ask me how the book was coming along. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the encouragement and editorial guidance provided by Dr. Jane Parpart, the series co-editor, as well as Brenda Sharp, Sarah Charters, and Kirstin Howgate at Ashgate Publishing.

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List of Acronyms

AVF DACOWITS DGCAP DoD IDF IED JRTOC MLDC MOS MST NCO POW PTSD ROTC SOFA SPAR TBI UCMJ VA WAAC WAC WAFS WASP WAVES

All-volunteer force Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services Direct ground combat assignment policy Department of Defense Israeli Defense Force Improvised explosive device Junior Reserve Of¿cer Training Corps Military Leadership Diversity Commission Military occupational specialty Military sexual trauma Non-commissioned of¿cer Prisoner of war Post-Traumatic Stress (Disorder) Reserve Of¿cer Training Corps Status of forces agreement Women Coast Guard (Latin acronym for Semper Paratus, Always Ready) Traumatic brain injury Uniform Code of Military Justice Veteran’s Administration Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps Women’s Army Corps Women’s Army Ferrying Services Women’s Airforce Service Pilot Women accepted for volunteer emergency service

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Chapter 1

The Road to Research

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have consumed more than a decade of U.S. foreign policy attention. Although President Obama of¿cially brought combat operations to a close in Iraq in December 2011, signi¿cant violence still continues to wreak havoc in the fragile country. The “war of necessity” or Operation Enduring Freedom (the war in Afghanistan) has been waged since early October 2001. President Obama has pledged to remove tens of thousands of combat troops in Afghanistan by the end of 2014. Both wars have cost over one trillion dollars to wage and will cost millions more in the longterm future to adequately address the pressing needs of U.S. veterans, who will need long-term care for more traditional physical battle¿eld injuries as well as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI), the two signature psychic and physiological traumas of these wars. While most of the general public still equates the word “soldier” with a male body, the unprecedented roles of U.S. women soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan warrant signi¿cant empirical and theoretical analysis. In 2008, a sobering “milestone” was reached when a headline in The New York Times stated that over 100 U.S. female soldiers had been killed in the military theaters of Iraq and Afghanistan. During both wars, women were barred from serving formally in ground combat positions within the U.S. armed forces, such as infantry and artillery; however, more women soldiers have been killed in these wars than all female casualties in the U.S. led wars of the twentieth century. Moreover, over 600 U.S. female soldiers to date have been awarded the Purple Heart, and other female soldiers have returned home as amputees such as former Assistant Secretary of Veteran Affairs and Congresswoman Major Tammy Duckworth.1 In addition, many female veterans are struggling to reintegrate into civilian society and are experiencing PTSD brought on by exposure to combat and/or military sexual assault or rape. The contribution this book will make is situated within the empirical and theoretical framework of feminist international relations theory and the rich literature on militarism, hegemonic and subordinate femininities, and civilianmilitary relations. Even though a single uni¿ed theory cannot and should not attempt to address the myriad roles of U.S. women soldiers over the past decade, this book seeks to inform discussions across various academic disciplines including political science, sociology, and women’s/gender studies. Within feminist international 1௑Duckworth was elected in November 2012 to serve as the House Representative for Illinois’ 8th District.

2

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relations theory, various strands of feminist thought including liberal, difference, Marxist, radical, and post-modern feminism are utilized to provide theoretical and empirical analytical leverage. The commonality of the feminist international relations enterprise is the utilization of gender as the privileged category of analysis to highlight women’s perspectives on social issues and research. Moreover, feminist international relations theory is often explicitly normative, meaning it seeks empirically to understand and redress gender inequalities which often remain hidden or ignored in a state-centric focus of traditional and male-centric international relations theory. Thus, in the spirit of Cynthia Enloe’s research, one of the ¿rst questions asked is “where are the women” in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars" In answering this question, I chose to examine U.S. military women only—a signi¿cant, yet admittedly narrow segment of the general population considering less than 1 percent of the U.S. population serves in the military at any given time. A more robust analysis would examine the impact of female soldiers from other coalition and NATO countries which participated in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan respectively. In addition, the impact of Afghan women, Iraqi women, U.S. female civilians, U.S. military wives,2 U.S. peace activists,3 U.S. female aid experts, and female private security contractors all merit analysis in a future holistic research agenda. However, I chose to focus on U.S. women in combat because the unprecedented roles assumed by female service personnel over the past decade fundamentally challenges the dominant and patriarchal social constructions of terms such as soldier, veteran, and war casualty. Another objective of this book is to explore the utility of feminist analyses in international relations theory for understanding the lives of the women in the U.S. armed forces who died in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Feminist analysis is a useful academic analytical tool; however, this book will clearly demonstrate that an examination of U.S. military women’s impact on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan necessitates the analytical leverage provided by a diversity of feminist perspectives. While the noted feminist international relations scholar Laura Sjoberg argues that the Iraq War demonstrated acceptable narratives and examples of “militarized femininity” through the stories of Jessica Lynch,4 the female general in charge of Abu Ghraib prison, and the U.S. military women who abused prisoners there,5 this book seeks to marry the theoretical views on women 2௑See Houppert, Karen. (2005), Home Fires Burning: Married to the Military for Better or Worse. New York: Ballatine Books. 3௑See Sheehan, Cindy. (2006), Peace Mom: A Mother’s Journey Through Heartache to Activism. New York: Atria Books. 4௑See “One of the Boys" Gender Disorder in Times of Crisis” by Claire Turenne Sjolander and Kathryn Trevenen (2010). International Feminist Journal of Politics, 12:2: 158–76. 5௑See “Agency, Militarized Femininity and Enemy Others: Observations from the War in Iraq” by Laura Sjoberg (2007). International Feminist Journal of Politics, 9:1: 82–101.

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3

“and/at/in” war with empirical data on how particular U.S. military women, who have in some cases been marginalized from the academic and public discourse, actually behaved during both wars. It is important, therefore, to examine particular women’s stories at face value, and not ascribe unto them feminist labels they might eschew. Instead, the book strives to illuminate how U.S. military women have purposefully, and sometimes without purpose, inÀuenced the debate and execution of policy in the most malecentric arena of foreign policy—war-making. We can no longer accept academic treatments that “airbrush” in women’s participation in foreign policy matters for gender tokenism. Rather we must advance the reality that women in high places of power, such as Secretary of State, and women in relatively low places of power, such as an enlisted woman who receives a Bronze Star for valor, have radically reshaped how states “make” war. Moreover, perhaps increased female participation in war will become a factor in reshaping the discursive and performative practices of the state, even liberal, hegemonic ones such as the United States. Thus, it is in this spirit that the following chapters will highlight the stories of “a polyphonic chorus of female voices whose disparate melodies are discernible sounds in the land” (Elshtain, in McGlen and Starkes 1993: 188). Exploring Feminisms The male element is a destructive force, stern, sel¿sh, aggrandizing, loving war, violence, conquest, acquisition, breeding in the material and moral world alike in discord, disease, and death… Elizabeth Cady Stanton 1868

Helena Carreiras (2006) remarks, “Feminists have posited conÀicting theories on the relation of women to war, peace, and revolution and women have, according to changing social and historical circumstances, responded to warfare and peace movements in a great variety of ways” (p. 62). As with most theoretical approaches to social inquiry, there is no singular de¿nition of feminism. In fact, there are many feminism(s); however, despite this diversity the large tent of Feminism can agree on the following points as necessary elements to employing this theoretical approach: (1) providing critiques of misogyny and sexual hierarchy; (2) a focus on women as subjects of analysis; (3) an expanded account of and altered orientation as to what is important to study in political life; (4) a speci¿c normative focus which critiques what is and offers a scenario of what ought to be; and (5) championing ethical/ moral norms that provide a critical stance regarding the position of women and Also see “The Woman in Peril and the Ruined Woman: Representations of Female Soldiers in the Iraq War” by Jennifer Lobasz (2008), Journal of Women, Politics, & Policy, 29, 3: 305–33.

4

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envisioning a more desirable state of affairs in social and political life for women (Beasley 1999: 26–36). Feminism can be utilized to critique mainstream political thought which has been viewed as male-centric, since it has been written and analyzed primarily by men for most of human history. Beasley refers to this approach as “add Mary Wollstonecraft and stir” (pp. 4–5). Other feminists, however, challenge traditional political theory and do not think that mainstream/or “malestream” political theory can be analytically separated from its male-centric assumptions; hence, the need for a radical rethinking of political theory as we know it. Finally, other feminists, namely postmodernists, posit that our ontological and epistemological assumptions and knowledge in social sciences is utterly wrong because of a sexual hierarchy and male domination which has kept women in a subservient position. Hence, our male understanding of knowledge and human history is inherently anti-woman.6 Feminists also traditionally critique the false division, as they see it, between the public and private spheres of life. Men, according to feminists, have dominated in the public sphere through their participation in political and economic relations outside of the home. Obviously, women were not permitted in many countries to own property, vote, or run for political of¿ce until the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Women have been con¿ned to the private sphere of life where they are viewed as being primarily responsible and biologically superior to men in regard to taking care of the physical and emotional needs of a husband and children. Feminists are quick to point out, however, that a woman’s supposedly natural inclination to keep the ¿re of the hearth burning while her male companion goes forth into the public sphere to make laws and do business is false and arti¿cially constructed to serve the interests of men. Moreover, women are still dominated and subjugated in the private sphere and are often victims of violence along with their children. For many women, including those who may even eschew the term feminism, what transpires in the private sphere of life is political as well. By the 1960s, women in the United States and Europe began challenging the false dichotomization between the public and private spheres. The rallying slogan became, “The personal is political.” The phrase was created to underscore the notion that what was happening in women’s personal lives such as: accessing reproductive health care services, being responsible for all of the housework, and facing sexual assault in their own homes were indeed political issues. Women, therefore, needed to become active in the public sphere by making elected of¿cials aware of these issues and most importantly exchanging ideas and organizing strategies with other women to improve their lives. In short, what could be described as “political” in nature was now broadened tremendously. Moreover, “Feminism is not only a political theory. It is a political theory that coexists with and interacts with a political movement dedicated to eradicating the problems that women experience because of their sex” 6௑See Harding, Sandra. (1991), Whose Science? Whose Knowledge? Thinking from Women’s Lives. New York: Cornell University Press.

The Road to Research

5

(Sjoberg 2006: 32). And one of those main problems is violence. “Feminists are not against violence because women are more peaceful; they are against violence because of its disproportionate impact on women and people at the margins of global politics” (Sjoberg 2006: 202). Since the emergence of a robust academic ¿eld in feminist international relations and feminist security theory, scholars such as Cynthia Enloe, Christine Sylvester, V. Spike Peterson, and Laura Sjoberg7 contend that women often occupy the margins of mainstream academic analysis of international politics. Some women can be at the center of international politics, but more women will be at the margins. To analyze women at the margins, I will investigate how U.S. military women have impacted and been impacted upon by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Moreover, U.S. military women certainly affected, both negatively and positively, the lives of women in Iraq and Afghanistan as well. Even though we still think of war as a largely male-centric sociological, economic, psychological, and political set of processes, U.S. women have played key roles as soldiers, veterans, fatalities, stateswomen,8 and peace activists.9 However, the primary focus of this book is the role of U.S. women as enlisted soldiers, of¿cers, female veterans, and female casualties of war. In order to examine these disparate positions and experiences, I draw on various strands of feminism—liberal feminism, difference feminism, radical feminism, Marxist feminism, and postmodern feminism—to provide analytical leverage. Liberal Feminism Liberal feminists argue that women are equal to men in intellectual and physical abilities; women are capable of doing what men do, including participating actively in the public sphere of life. Liberal feminism, which is often viewed as the dominant strain of feminism in the United States, is primarily concerned 7௑See Sylvester, Christine. (2012), War as Experience: Contributions from International Relations and Feminist Analysis. Colorado: Routledge and Peterson, V. Spike (ed.). (1992). Gendered States: Feminist (Re)visions of International Relations Theory. Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers. 8௑See Lusane, Clarence. (2005), “What Color is Hegemony" Powell, Rice, and the New Global Strategists.” New Political Science, 27, 1: 23–41. Mabry, Marcus. (2007), Twice as Good: Condoleezza Rice and Her Path to Power. New York: Modern Times. Rice, Condoleezza. (2011). No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington. New York: Crown Publishers. 9௑See Cockburn, Cynthia. (2007), From Where We Stand: War, Women, Activism, and Feminist Analysis. New York: =ed Books. Cockburn, Cynthia. (June 2010), “Gender Relations as Casual in Militarization and War: A Feminist Standpoint.” International Journal of Politics, 12, 2: 139–57. Riley, Robin. (2005), “So Few of Us, So Many of Them: U.S. Women Resisting Desert Storm.” International Feminist Journal of Politics, 7, 3: 341–57. Kutz-Flamembaum, Rachel. (2007), “Code Pink, Raging Grannies, and the Missile Dick Chicks”, NWSA Journal, 19,1: 89–105.

6

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with the issue of individual rights over the securing of the collective “good” and ensuring that women have access to the same opportunities as men. Seminal court cases, civil rights legislation, sexual discrimination battles, equal pay for equal work, and the Equal Rights Amendment were all important milestones for liberal feminists. Feminists from Mary Wollstonecraft to Betty Friedan and Bella Abzug have argued that it is fundamentally unfair and detrimental to society to exclude half of the population from making valuable contributions in all areas of human life (Goldstein 2001: 39–41). Some liberal feminists favor monoandrogyny, or the development of an ideal personality type that embodies the “best” of prevailing masculine and feminine gender traits (Tong 2009: 37). A monoandrogynous person would possess a full complement of female qualities such as nurturance, compassion, tenderness, sensitivity, af¿liation, and cooperativeness along with a full complement of traditional male qualities such as aggressiveness, leadership, initiative, and competitiveness. As will be discussed in subsequent chapters, monoandrogyny may well serve as the female soldier archetype. The key, however, is managing the outward manifestation of these qualities at critical times in the performance of duties and gender by women soldiers. Liberal feminists, however, do not believe that women’s inclusion in the public sphere, especially regarding positions of political power, will fundamentally change the nature of foreign policy or war itself. Most importantly, liberal feminists reject the idea that women are any more inherently peaceful or compassionate than men by innate nature. For example, in the mid-1990s Bosnian Serb women sat down in roads to prevent United Nations convoys from delivering humanitarian supplies to starving Muslims, and German women ran some of the concentration camps during WWII with extreme cruelty (Goldstein 2001: 224–5). Women also participated in the Rwandan genocide and, for that matter, all the genocides of the twentieth century.10 Moreover, liberal feminists argue that women make competent soldiers and commanders-in-chief as well. Therefore, it is no surprise that modern female leaders such as Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, and Margaret Thatcher have taken their countries to war in the twentieth century. ReÀecting upon liberal feminism’s contribution to the vast literature on women and the military, liberal feminists tend to advocate for full integration of women into the military. Given the long and often dif¿cult trajectory for American women to be fully integrated in the U.S. military, liberal feminism has called for ¿rst class citizenship for military women. This camp has mainly concentrated on the question of women’s access to all military specialties and jobs. Moreover, those subscribing to this point of view argue that the exclusion of women from organizations in charge of managing legitimate violence, such as the military, has historically meant an exclusion of full citizenship (Carreiras 2006: 64). In this regard, liberal feminist scholars and activists have welcomed the January 2013 10௑See Sjoberg, Laura and Caron Gentry. (2008), Mothers, Monsters, and Whores: Women’s Violence in Global Politics. New York: =ed Books.

The Road to Research

7

announcement by former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta regarding the repeal of the ground combat exclusion ban for U.S. military women. Liberal feminists further argue that the military should reÀect a society’s composition, both in gender and racial/ethnic categorization. Others opposed to this line of thinking argue that the military is different and should not be treated as a laboratory for social experimentation.11 The overriding goals of military readiness and military cohesion cannot be subservient to the liberal goals of an institution unduly pressed by legislative or judicial intervention to make the military a more representative and inclusive body. This line of argument, however, was utilized for decades to maintain a segregated military and until very recently to prevent gays and lesbians from openly serving in the U.S. military. Difference Feminism Difference feminists argue that women and men’s differences should be celebrated rather than devalued. Psychologist and ethicist Carol Gilligan argued in her book In a Different Voice (1982) that women have a different moral reasoning schema than men. Different feminists have examined studies conducted by psychologists which demonstrate that female children are more likely to play together without rules and are more concerned with “relational play”—or maintaining good relations with all their playmates; whereas, male children are more rule-driven and want the game to end with a de¿nitive winner and loser. This group of feminists contends that women, primarily due to their ability to give birth and act as primary care-takers of children, are naturally more paci¿st in nature and less inclined to support and endorse violence in both the private and public spheres of life. Difference feminists, such as Sara Ruddick and Virginia Held,12 contend that women’s innate/inherent capacity for care is a human strength rather than a human weakness (Tong 2009: 163). However, not all mothers are by de¿nition paci¿sts. Even though war is about destroying the children that mothers have literally spent years preserving, nurturing, and training, mothers can and do engage in state-sanctioned violence as soldiers, women ¿ghting in wars of national liberation, and occasionally as female suicide bombers.13

11௑See statements and editorials by Elaine Donnelly, the Executive Director of the Washington-D.C. based Center for Military Readiness. She is a proli¿c blogger and frequent witness before U.S. congressional hearings. 12௑See Held, Virginia. (2007), Ethics of Care: Personal, Political, and Global. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. Tong (2009) uses the term care-focused feminists rather than difference feminists. While there may be more focus upon maternal issues with Tong’s terminology, other scholars such as Titunik (2000) and Goldstein (2001) utilize the term difference feminists. 13௑See Eager, Paige. (2008), From Freedom Fighters to Terrorists: Women and Political Violence. London: Ashgate.

8

Waging Gendered Wars

In a broad reading, however, difference feminists14 share an assumption that women are more inherently inclined to be peacemakers and are more likely to compromise than men. Peace advocacy through non-violent collective action such as Women in Black15 are important points of reference for this strand of feminist thought and activism. For example, while Israelis and Palestinians have been killing one another for decades now, Israeli and Palestinian women have come together primarily through their shared identity as mothers to protest the continued violence. Mothers of Russian soldiers have demonstrated to protest the war in Chechnya. And of course, women from diverse religious, socioeconomic, and racial/ethnic backgrounds have demonstrated to end wars throughout the centuries. The biological and psychological differences between men and women inform what some theorists refer to as “paci¿st or maternal feminism.” Due to women’s life-bearing and life-sustaining activities, women are less inclined to support violence and killing. The glori¿cation of motherhood and its equation with moral superiority over men grew out of Victorian ideology (Carrieras 2006: 70). During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the presumption of a deep connection between the feminine nature and paci¿st virtues was evident throughout many suffragist campaigns in the United States and abroad. Many argued that granting women the right to vote would in effect become a vote against waging and ¿nancing war. For example, Emily Pankhurst, the leader of the British suffragettes declared in 1912, “It has never been and never will be the policy of the women’s social and political unions to recklessly endanger human life. We leave that to the enemy. We leave that to the men in their warfare. It is not the method of women.” Radical Feminism “Some feminists consider women to be morally superior to men, to be better than men. Women’s inherent advantage may be viewed as being derived from their 14௑See “Women Waging Peace” by Swanee Hunt and Cristina Posa (May 2001), Foreign Policy. 15௑“Women in Black (WIB) was inspired by earlier movements of women who demonstrated on the streets, making a public space for women to be heard—particularly Black Sash, in South Africa, and the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, seeking the ‘disappeared’ in the political repression in Argentina. But WIB also shares a genealogy with groups of women explicitly refusing violence, militarism and war, such as the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom formed in 1918, and the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp in the UK and related groups around the world opposing the deployment of US missiles in the 1980s. Women in Black began in 1988 in Israel. In 1987, 20 years after Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza, the Palestinian intifada began. In response Israeli Jewish women began to stand in weekly vigils in public places, usually at busy road junctions. Starting in Jerusalem, the number of vigils in Israel eventually grew to almost forty. In the north of Israel, where the concentration of Arab communities is greatest, Palestinian women who are Israeli citizens were also active in Women in Black groups” (http://www. womeninblack.org).

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9

special moral make-up, the speci¿c qualities of their bodies, and/or the particularity of their shared experience” (Beasley 1999: 18). For radical feminists, women are oppressed precisely because they are women. Hence, the notion of oppression can be mitigated by the strong focus on the “sisterhood of women.” Women are oppressed in all societies and all cultures; therefore, women should relate to one another ¿rst and foremost as women and refuse to be divided by socio-economic status, race, religion, or sexual orientation. To put it crudely, a wealthy white American woman will have more in common with a Muslim woman living in Iraq than with her wealthy, white American husband. Although the degree or severity of oppression will certainly vary, both women are experiencing domination or subjugation in at least some form. Radical feminists are more inclined to support women-only groups and some even advocate complete separation from men, hence, the nexus with lesbianism for some radical feminists. On the other hand, some radical feminists, such as Andrea Dworkin and Robin Morgan, tend to focus on the politics of the private sphere including sexuality, motherhood, and bodily/reproductive autonomy. Sustained engagement in the public sphere may be eschewed because of systemic patriarchy within the structures, laws, and norms of society. Furthermore, radical feminism argues that the essence of womanhood is supposedly “about the positive force of power to rather than power over. In this framework, a world dominated by women will be warm, supportive, nurturing, and full of creativity. It will be a return the womb. Only men are holding women back” (Tong 2009: 92). Radical feminism, however, cannot provide much analytical leverage in helping to understand why and under what circumstances women support and participate in state-sanctioned military activities or political violence and terrorism, because some interpretations do not provide a rationale for engaging in the male-dominated public sphere at all. Political violence and terrorism is often, but not exclusively, directed towards the “state” in some manifestation. Moreover, radical feminism would view political violence, especially warfare, as the folly of men. Yet, on the other hand, radical feminists such as Gloria Hernandez, Adela Hernandez Reyes, and Salvador Mendiola, would critique the construction of the public spectacle of “the Spartan mother” who is supposed to rejoice in relinquishing the life of her son/daughter for the greater cause of freedom, religion, or the nation. Radical feminists would argue that these mothers, whether during the Peloponnesian War or in the modern era, are simply ful¿lling the subservient role designed for them by social convention including patriarchal understandings of honor, valor, and sacri¿ce. Moreover, radical feminists must be critical of women who shame or goad men into ¿ghting. For example, in Britain and the United States during World War I, women organized a campaign to hand out white feathers to ablebodied men found on the streets in order to shame them for failing to serve (Goldstein 2001: 272). The “white feather campaign” was brought back during World War II in Britain, and the British government had to issue badges for men exempt from military service on medical grounds.

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Waging Gendered Wars

Radical feminists argue that war cannot be eliminated without the concomitant elimination of patriarchy and women’s involvement in the most patriarchal of all institutions, the military. Female military participation, according to difference and radical feminism, further strengthens male domination in society as well as women’s historical and pervasive discrimination (Carreiras 2006: 66). “Women joining the military are merely strengthening a fundamentally immoral institution and perpetuating gender equality. Furthermore, the aspiration to promote women in the military represents a militaristic feminism that has internalized the masculine and rei¿es the armed forces as an institution that certi¿es martial citizenship” (Sasson-Levy 2011: 89). According to political theorist Judith Hicks Stiehm,16 the masculine character of the military has contributed to an asymmetric division between the protectors and the protected. In Jean Elshtain’s conceptualization, Just Warriors are the protectors and Beautiful Souls are the protected.17 This exclusion of women to fully participate in organized violence allows men exclusive control over the means of state-sanctioned violence, which is replicated not only in the military but throughout society at large on a macrolevel and in the household at a microlevel. Hegemonic and Hypermilitarized Masculinities Both difference and radical feminist analyses are more inclined to highlight the hegemonic hypermasculine culture of the U.S. military. In traditional constructions of hegemonic masculinities, “risk-taking, self-discipline, physical toughness, aggression, violence, emotional control, and overt heterosexual desire” are privileged over subordinate masculinities and hegemonic femininities (Hinojosa 2010: 179). Military men are then able to continually re-create hegemonic masculinities due to the organizational culture, traditions, and the subordination of feminized masculinities within the military. Moreover, as service members, they are then “legally vested with the right to use lethal force in order to maintain physical and political domination over others” (Hinojosa 2010: 180). Gender studies theorists rightfully point out that just as there are a multitude of femininities, some privileged and other marginalized, masculinities are similarly socially constructed and impacted by axes of power including race, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, religion, and physical/psychological (dis)ability. The ways in which U.S. military women have to constantly negotiate and perform gender identity on a daily basis within such a unique sociological organization as the U.S. armed forces is undoubtedly affected by the preference

16௑See Stiehm, Judith Hicks. (1989), Arms and the Enlisted Woman. Pennsylvania: Temple University Press. 17௑See Elshtain, Jean Bethke. (1987), Women and War. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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for and performance of hegemonic masculinity and its hypermasculinized military variant.18 “Hegemonic masculinity is a social and political concept that cannot be directly mapped onto individuals. Hegemonic does not describe a set of characteristics, but rather a social position within the ¿eld of gender” (Parpart and Partridge, 2013 manuscript). Gender is a “situated doing,” not a property of individuals but rather a feature of social situations and interactions; however, the performativity of gender legitimates one of the most fundamental divisions of society (Hauser 2011: 632). The privileging of this form of hegemonic masculinity, according to radical and difference feminism, permits the use of violence and aggression within the public sphere of the state to impact the utilization of violence and aggression in the private sphere of life as well. For example, anthropological studies have shown that societies in which rape is more common are also societies in which war is waged more frequently (=urbriggen 2010: 538). Other theorists have argued that a relatively higher rate of military rape as opposed to civilian rape is related to “a culture of militarized hypermasculinity associated with military life that includes the objecti¿cation and denigration of women,” which could be “eliminated through the introduction of increased numbers of women into military units, including true gender integration throughout all basic training and the opening of combat units to women” (Rosen et al. 2003: 326). Unfortunately, “men’s experience of caretaking and deep emotional attachments that are experienced in war and combat are discarded as irrelevant to the construction of militarized masculinity” (Parpart and Partridge 2013 manuscript: 20). In order to deconstruct the sociological, psychological, and behavioral manifestations of a hypermasculinized military, which it should be noted may differ within various branches of the U.S. armed forces and between the enlisted and of¿cer ranks,19 liberal feminists often contend that more women should join the military in order to transform it from within and assert full citizenship rights. However, radical feminists would strongly disagree that simply adding more women to the military will fundamentally alter its hegemonic hypermasculine ethos and culture. Rather the institutionalization of these norms and customs are too ingrained within the military culture to expect the impact of more women to change structural constraints. Moreover, even if the military reached perfect parity, with a 50/50 split between males and females, there would be no guarantee that the dominant culture of the military would change.20 “Women do not enter militaries that are suddenly de-gendered or gender-neutral because of their 18௑See Connell, R.W. (2005), Masculinities, Second Edition. California: University of California Press. 19௑See Sasson-Levy (2003) for a discussion of how male Israeli soldiers in noncombat roles often demonstrate different conceptualizations of masculinity, which are constituted through an ongoing dialogue with combat masculinity. 20௑From a practical standpoint, achieving 50/50 parity in the U.S. military is unlikely. Surveys reveal that even if all combat exclusions were lifted and recruiting was completely

12

Waging Gendered Wars

presence. Instead, like their male counterparts, many women soldiers are being asked to prove their masculinity in terms of physical prowess and military-favored social characteristics” (Via 2010: 44). However, Rosen et al. (2003) in their survey sample of close to 1,400 U.S. military service personnel, found that men in mixed gender units manifested the lowest level of group hypermasculinity. The perception of hypermasculinity for men in mixed-gender groups was even more statistically signi¿cant than for women in mixed-gender groups (p. 342). In addition, perceptions of cohesion and military readiness—two concepts which have been utilized to argue against the introduction of women in combat arms—were not negatively affected in mixedgender groups. Conversely, groups rated high on hypermasculinity also tended to give low ratings on cohesion and readiness. Another aspect of the hegemonic hypermasculinity debate to consider is the fact that many U.S. military women, in order to be accepted by their male colleagues, might in fact need to embrace aspects of a subordinated femininity while in military service. A hegemonic femininity, if in fact one exists in the United States, might focus on the following acceptable gender characteristics as behaviorally expressed and performed by women and girls: sharing of emotions, supportive, subservient to the needs of family, overt heterosexual desires, empathetic, cooperative, and selfeffacing. However, subordinated femininity in the public sphere might be most similar to attributes of hegemonic hypermasculinity, as expressed in the military. In other words, the very fact that some female soldiers might have to self-police or suppress their hegemonic femininity credentials, which may have been expressed throughout their life in the public and private spheres, becomes problematic once in the military. Yet, on the other hand, female soldiers who act too aggressive, “butch,” or compete too openly with men also may fall outside the acceptable lines of militarized femininity. Female soldiers then face a double-bind, just as female politicians often do. “They must prove that they have culturally de¿ned masculine qualities such as self-control and stoicism, while also negotiating cultural de¿nitions of femininity that have provided them with stable gender identities throughout their lives” (Silva 2008: 941). Moreover, Cynthia Enloe has argued that the military allows for the presence of women only to the extent that it can ensure the reproduction of traditional cultural notions of women as nurturers and men as warriors (Silva 2008: 940). Whether these theoretical suppositions are borne out through empirical research warrants further discussion. For example, Lawrence and Rohall (2009) examined the attitudes of West Point cadets, ROTC cadets, and non-military af¿liated students from civilian colleges to ascertain the extent to which these three groups perceived a variety of acceptable roles for women in the military. At West Point or the United States Military Academy, 15 percent of each year’s entering class is comprised of women, which reÀects the overall level of female representation in the military as an entity, gender-blind, the percent of women recruits would not rise much above 20–25 percent for any service branch (Armor 1996: 24).

The Road to Research

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including the Navy, Army, Air Force, and Marines. It is important to note that West Point and ROTC programs across college campuses are responsible for training and commissioning the future of¿cers (Second Lieutenants) of the U.S. Army. West Point provides approximately 25 percent of new of¿cers entering the active duty Army each year, and the remainder of of¿cers is trained through ROTC programs (p. 244). A third route to becoming an of¿cer in the Army is through Of¿cer Candidate School, which enlisted personnel can attend on recommendation by a commanding of¿cer. Lawrence and Rohall (2009) found that non-military respondents from civilian colleges were the most supportive of allowing women to serve in a variety of roles from of¿ce clerk (the most feminized) to infantry soldier (the most masculinized). ROTC cadets, both male and female, were more approving than male West Point cadets of enlarging women’s roles in the military. In all three cohorts, female respondents were signi¿cantly more likely than males in their same cohorts, to approve of a wide range of roles for women in the military. But the most troubling empirical ¿nding was that male West Point cadets were the least approving of expanded roles for women in the military, despite the fact that female graduates of West Point have earned the highest levels of academic accomplishments and assumed highly visible leadership roles since the institution began accepting women in 1976. Lawrence and Rohall’s research, therefore, suggests that liberal feminist theory and successful legal challenges in favor of equal opportunity for women in the U.S. armed forces and the service academies have failed to fundamentally challenge the pervasive gender hierarchy of the military. Jennifer Silva (2008) conducted extensive open-ended interviews with ROTC cadets, both males and females, to understand how female ROTC cadets negotiate “the tension between masculine military culture and traditional femininity” (p. 938). She found that the women in her sample endorsed ROTC culture as an opportunity to be strong, assertive, and skillful. “They spoke enthusiastically about learning weapons systems, practicing land navigation, and serving as leaders of their battalion” (p. 943). In coding the interview data, Silva found that female cadets viewed ROTC as an escape from some of the negative aspects of hegemonic femininity, such as being viewed as weak or incompetent in order to attract male interest. On the other hand, being a gender neutral soldier for these young women also required “constant awareness of oneself as either a person or a woman, while the men ignored gender as a category” (p. 945). Orna Sasson-Levy (2003, 2007, 2011) in her multiple empirical studies of women soldiers in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) found that women in nontraditional masculine roles tend to adopt the identity and discourse of combat soldiers by mimicking their masculine bodily and discursive practices, thus distancing themselves from women and traditional ideas of femininity (p. 81). Even though female IDF soldiers presented a subversive gender identity within the military as an institution, they adapted to the androcentric norms of the military which associate power and authority with masculinity.

14

Waging Gendered Wars

Marxist Feminism Marxist feminists are mainly concerned with the exploitation of the working class in capitalist societies. “Hierarchical class relations are seen as the source of coercive power and oppression; therefore, sexual oppression is seen as a dimension of class power” (Beasley 1999: 60). Currently, Marxist feminists are concerned with the exploitation of women in developing countries by Western multinational corporations, and how the policies of the international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization contribute to and exacerbate the feminization of poverty around the world. Radical Marxist feminists are deeply antagonistic towards the capitalist economy and some may support the violent, revolutionary overthrow of the system of exploitation because they believe that female oppression will only be eradicated if the capitalist system is overthrown. For less radical Marxist feminists, such as Nancy Hartsock and Lise Vogel,21 women should join men, where appropriate, in order to band together to advocate on behalf of improved wages and better working conditions. A Marxist-inspired feminist analysis of the U.S. military as an institution and U.S. militarism in general would focus upon the societal expectations, economic, and political supports which enable the maintenance of a foreign policy that privileges the projection and execution of military power as fundamental to the security of the state’s interests. In addition, this feminist lens is theoretically helpful in examining the class and racial composition of the U.S. military. “In a democracy, it is believed that a broadly representative military force is more likely to uphold national values and to be loyal to the government and the country that raised it” (Armor 1996: 9). However, it is increasingly clear that the twenty-¿rst century U.S. military is not broadly representative and has not been for decades. For example, it is well-documented that African-Americans in general, but particularly female African-Americans, are over-represented in the enlisted ranks of the military (Armor 1996, Enloe 2010). For example, during the ¿rst Gulf War nearly 30 percent of Army troops sent to repel Iraq from Kuwait were African-American as compared to comprising just 11 percent of the overall U.S. population. Although African-American enlistment in the military has decreased over the 1990s, it is also the case that recruitment patterns often track closely to socio-economic conditions and opportunities within the U.S. economy. Race and ethnicity have statically signi¿cant effects on women’s enlistment propensity: propensity is highest among African-American women, lowest among white women, and Latina women fell between the two groups (Segal 1998: 75).

21௑See Hartsock, Nancy, 1983a. “The Feminist Standpoint: Developing the Ground for a Speci¿cally Feminist Historical Materialism,” in Sandra Harding and Merle Hintikka, eds. Discovering Reality: Feminist Perspectives in Epistemology, Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science, Dordrecht, Holland: Reidel Publishers: 283–310 and Vogel, Lise, 1995. Woman Questions: Essays for a Materialist Feminism, New York: Routledge.

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A Marxist feminist analysis would argue that one needs to correlate race/ ethnicity with socio-economic status as well. A partial demographic composition of U.S. female service personnel fatalities will be provided in Chapter 5. Another area that will be explored in more detail in Chapter 5 is the propensity of single mothers, who are more likely to live in poverty than married mothers, to enlist in the military as an economic necessity in order to provide a better life for their children. According to 2012 statistics from the Washington D.C. based National Center for Law and Economic Justice, ¿ve million more women than men live in poverty in the United States. Close to 35 percent of families with a female head of household were poor and almost 17 percent were living in deep poverty. Moreover, although African-Americans represent 13 percent of the general population, they represent close to 28 percent of the poor population. Hispanics, who comprise close to 17 percent of the general population, represent 25 percent of the poor population. Finally, a Marxist feminist inspired analysis of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would focus upon the wealth generated by and for private sector companies, namely defense contractors, whose weapons systems, private security contractors, and other outsourced necessities have pro¿ted from the United States being engaged in a global war on terrorism of unlimited duration and scope. The further securitization of an already institutionalized national security state also necessitates an analysis of the exploitation of developing countries. In some cases, countries have been strong-armed and in other cases co-opted into supporting the U.S. led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through the leasing of bases, providing access to convoy routes and over-Àight rights, and the purchasing of U.S. made high-tech weapons systems and counterterrorism expertise to developing countries of modest economic means (Via and Sjoberg 2010). Postmodernism Feminism Postmodern feminists critique both liberal and difference feminists. They see “gender itself and gender roles as fairly Àuid, contextual, and arbitrary” (Goldstein 2001: 49). “Post-modern feminists take their intellectual cues from psychoanalysts like Jacques Lacan, existentialists like Simone de Beauvior, deconstructionists like Jacques Derrida, and post-structuralists like Michel Foucault” (Tong 2009: 272). They explicitly reject conceptualizations of “women” as a homogenous category and disavow universalizing and normalizing accounts of women. Postmodern feminists equally critique the radical feminists’ idea of the unique sisterhood of women as well as the contention that all women are bound by a unique ethic of care. There is nothing intrinsically superior or inferior to the category of women; rather, power operates in many facets and women are as capable of being exploitative, caring, compassionate, or violent as men. For postmodern feminists, there are no inherent or stable identities much less universalizing truths about women and men waiting to be uncovered by social scientists (Goldstein 2001: 345).

16

Waging Gendered Wars

According to postmodern feminists, gender is socially constructed mainly through language. Language, in its tendency to dichotomize a complex world into binary opposites (good/bad, male/female/, black/white), unnecessarily affects and constrains our way of conceptualizing the “appropriate roles” of women and men. As a result of its emphasis on language, postmodernism emphasizes deconstructing texts to expose these “straitjackets” of linguistic convention which attempt to organize, categorize, and simplify things into essential meanings, which for postmodernists is impossible. One of the major criticisms, however, leveled against post-modern feminism is that it is “feminism for academicians” (Tong 2009: 283). Breaking into the circle of post-modern feminists is dif¿cult indeed for an outsider; moreover, there is an argument to be made that this strand of feminism does not lend itself to policy advocacy, or even helpful empirical analysis regarding the everyday lived experiences of women in the United States and around the globe. Even though it may appear liberating for post-modern feminists “to invite each woman to become the kind of feminist she wants to be,” post-modern feminists are critiqued for mainly speaking to one another in a jargon-laden discourse which is obtuse and intimidating to the un-indoctrinated (Tong 2009: 270). A postmodern feminist analysis, however, of U.S. military women would support the assertion that is it impossible to speak of “American enlisted women” or “American female of¿cers” as if either were a homogeneous social group. “Paying attention to women soldiers entails taking seriously the diverse experiences of women in the enlisted ranks and of¿cer corps and at the same time watching the behavior of their male peers and superiors” (Enloe 2007: 69). Therefore, intersectionality theory, which originated in black feminism, claims that subjects, in our case U.S. military women, are always situated at “the intersection of several axes of power and simultaneously experience several basic systems of inequality such as gender, race, ethnicity, and/or sexuality” (Sasson-Levy 2011: 78). Rather than viewing gender as a monolithic category like liberal and difference feminists may be inclined to do, postmodern feminists view gender as Àuid, constituted, and performed differently among individual women as it comes into play with other axes of power in particular social settings. Chapter 5 on female fatalities in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, draws out certain themes in their lives and deaths as weaved together through open-source information and interviews with family members; however, at the same time it is important to note that each woman is an individual with a unique history, relational network, life circumstances/opportunities/challenges, and often a grieving family left behind to rebuild their lives around the permanent absence of a woman who may have assumed many critical roles in the private and public spheres.

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Roadmap After providing a thumb nail sketch of ¿ve strands in feminist theory, is it apparent that each one can provide important analytical leverage for the ensuing discussion of U.S. female soldiers’ roles in the military, issues they are confronting as veterans, and most poignantly service personnel killed in both hostile and nonhostile actions in the military theaters of Iraq and Afghanistan. It is not necessary to choose one feminist theory; instead, we can and should acknowledge that each strand of feminist theory contributes productively to our analysis and potential for recommending policy changes, where appropriate. Therefore, it is imperative that we examine each set of actors on their own merits. Chapter 2 provides an overview of the role of U.S. women in the military with a focus on the post-World War II period. Attention will be paid to the various policy changes, as articulated by the Department of Defense, regarding women’s gradual integration in the U.S. armed services. Liberal feminism has been the dominant strand most responsible for bringing forth various court cases and policy changes regarding women’s increased participation in all branches of service, inclusion into the U.S. military academies, and the opening of more military occupational specialties (MOSs) over the years. Chapter 3 will focus upon the unprecedented participation of U.S. military women in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by providing empirical data on recruitment, promotion, and awards of women who have served. In addition, the chapter will highlight individual lived experiences of women soldiers by engaging in a literature review of a newly emerging but robust genre of female-authored war narratives. From accounts of female soldiers as drone pilots, Arab linguists, mortuary affairs assistants, and members of the Lioness and female engagement teams, we are able to navigate and interrogate some of the claims feminists have made about women in the military to assess whether autobiographical and biographical accounts actually reÀect feminist theoretical suppositions. Chapter 4 explores the various issues faced by war veterans, with a speci¿c focus on female veterans. The issues of PTSD, TBI, military sexual trauma (MST), and female veteran homelessness will be discussed through a review of secondary literature and resources. Chapter 5 encompasses the origin of the project years ago—to pro¿le and think critically and often times emotionally about the women who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the original draft of this book, each woman was pro¿led; however, due to space constraints and editorial suggestions, I have consolidated this information and instead highlight particular women as exemplary of particular themes or contextual factors in their lives and deaths. Even though the vast majority of information was gained through open-access information, I am very grateful to four families of fallen service personnel, Corporal Karen Clifton, Sergeant Major Marilyn Gabbard, Navy Corpsman Jaime Jaenke, and Sergeant Trista Moretti, for agreeing to be interviewed. Researching the lives of these 150 women for the past two years has personally affected me in ways I could not have anticipated beforehand. Their

18

Waging Gendered Wars

names, their faces, and even the graves visited at Arlington National Cemetery have compelled me to share their stories with colleagues, my students, my family, and even neighbors. In this regard, I admittedly do not aspire to nor endorse the emotional detachment preferred by positivist empirical research, which espouses the importance of the researcher/subject dichotomization and the distancing of the researcher’s emotions and values from the subject of analytical interest.22 Chapter 6 will provide an overview of the current situations in Iraq and Afghanistan regarding the political context at the time of publication. Moreover, with the announcement in early 2013 by former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta regarding the lifting of the ground combat exclusion policy for U.S. military women in all service branches by 2016, the claims put forth by the ¿ve strands of feminism pro¿led in this chapter will be examined to ascertain possible future opportunities and challenges.

22௑See “The Forum: Emotion and the Feminist IR Researcher” by Cynthia Sylvester (2011), International Studies Review, 13: 687–708.

Chapter 2

History of U.S. Military Women

The devaluation of servicewomen began in the American Revolutionary War and continued for the next two centuries (Solaro 2006: 10). During the Civil War, some women cross-dressed and passed as men or became “camp followers” and trailed after their husbands across the various blood-stained battle¿elds. Others engaged in spying or sabotage; many women for both the Union and the Confederacy served as cooks, laundresses, and nurses. Decades later, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson increasingly found it more dif¿cult to maintain a policy of neutrality vis-j-vis the Great War raging in Europe. Foreseeing the need for tremendous manpower should the U.S. become actively involved in the Great War, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels began asking his advisers whether the Naval Act of 1916 speci¿ed that U.S. citizens joining the Navy had to be males (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 6). Daniels’ advisers said no because the word “male” did not precede U.S. citizen in the regulations. Therefore, in March 1917, the U.S. Navy announced its decision to enlist single women between the ages of 18–35 as yeomen who would “free a man to ¿ght” by taking over at ¿rst feminized jobs such as clerical duties and then increasingly other positions. Once the U.S. of¿cially entered the war in April 1917, the U.S. was fully engaged in land and sea battles against the Germans, Ottoman and Hapsburg Empires. During the war, General John Pershing placed a request with the U.S. Department of War for 100 U.S. telephone operators who spoke Àuent French.1 These “Hello Girls,” as the U.S. Army Signal Corps operators were called, received the same pay as male soldiers in comparable jobs but had to pay for their own uniforms (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 10).2 Nursing, of course, was the more traditional role for American women during times of war. For example, the U.S. Army Nurse Corps was established in 1901; however, 1,500 nurses had worked as contract employees during the SpanishAmerican War of 1898 (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 11). During World 1௑Unfortunately, it took General Pershing personally observing British women manning the phone switchboards to believe that American women could do the same patriotic service (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 9–10). 2௑Sadly, these Hello Girls did not have military rank and were considered by the U.S. army to be contract civilian workers. Furthermore, they were not considered WWI veterans and were not eligible for awards and commendations. Finally, in 1979 military and veteran status were granted to these women; however, only a few Hello Girls were still alive to witness this victory for true equality (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 11).

20

Waging Gendered Wars

War I, 20,000 women served as nurses in the American Expeditionary Force (Solaro 2006: 10). Many of these nurses had worked overseas in France, England, Belgium, and Italy. Tragically, the great inÀuenza epidemic of 1918 claimed the lives of 200 army nurses. Marking another milestone in November 1918, the last month of the war, 18 of the ¿rst “Negro” army nurses were assigned to work exclusively with ailing black soldiers based in the United States (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 13). Thousands of women worked as physicians, telephone operators and in other needed support roles. Holding no rank or military status, these women were nonetheless subject to court-martial authority. Moreover, women serving in WWI, with the exception of military nurses, were excluded from receiving a war service bonus. Perhaps the most signi¿cant impact of American women’s involvement in World War I was the momentum it provided in favor of women’s suffrage. How could a country in a time of war demand that women heed the call to service, but not have the right to cast a ballot" It became increasingly dif¿cult for male politicians to continue to argue that women were good enough to tend to the in¿rmed, disabled, and dying, but too feebly minded to cast a well-informed ballot for the presidency. Shortly after the conclusion of WWI, the nineteenth amendment granting women the right to vote passed the U.S. Congress in 1919 and was rati¿ed in 1920. Women’s Involvement in WWII World War II was a game changer because 400,000 American women served in the military. In the early 1940s, U.S. House Representative Edith Nourse Rogers (R-MA), who took over the seat when her husband died, lobbied Army Chief of Staff and future Secretary of State George Marshall for his support in her introduction of a bill that would establish a permanent Women’s Army Corps (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 16). The aim of the legislation was to grant military women equal pay and equal veterans’ bene¿ts, an avowedly liberal feminist idea. Then when Japan attacked at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in December 1941, the American public and Congress knew that scores of American nurses were serving in locations and caring for the wounded in battle zones. When the island of Guam fell to the Japanese in December 1941, ¿ve Navy nurses became of¿cial prisoners of war (POWs). In January 1942, a House committee approved Representative Rogers’ bill, which was then followed by a Senate committee’s approval as well (Monahan and Niedel- Greenlee 2010: 23). During WWII, the four major branches of the U.S. armed services all established some type of women’s auxiliary corps. In the meantime, as areas in the Paci¿c continued to fall under Japanese control, more U.S. Army and Navy nurses became POWs. Parents of these female prisons of war received postcards from the War Department reading, “Your daughter stationed

History of U.S. Military Women

21

in the Philippines is missing in action; she is a prisoner of war at Santo Thomas internment camp” (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 25). In May 1942, the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) passed Congress and was signed into public law by President Roosevelt. As Congress and the War Department had insisted in order to pass the bill, women in the WAAC had no military status, nor system of equivalent male ranks (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 26). Even though it was a legislative pyrrhic victory, the ¿rst WAAC training center was established in Des Moines, Iowa at an old U.S. cavalry post. This location became the barracks for the ¿rst 770 women WAACs, also known as “Hobby’s Horses.”3 Of the ¿rst of¿cer class to graduate in August 1942, 40 of the new 440 of¿cers were African-American. The WAAC leadership decided that 10 percent of its corps would be black. Segregation was, however, still institutionalized. Black WAAC candidates went to classes with their white counterparts and ate in the same mess hall, but they were maintained in a separate all-black platoon and were posted to their ¿rst assignments as an all “Negro” group (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 31). The other branches quickly kept pace with the Army’s Auxiliary Corps. For example in 1942, Congress established the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service), and the U.S. Coast Guard established SPARS (an acronym for Semper Paratus, Always Ready). The ¿rst classes of the Marine Corps Women’s Reserve were held at Smith and Mount Holyoke colleges in 1942. Unlike the other services, women Marines did not adopt any acronym. The ¿rst black women Marines were accepted in September 1949 to begin boot camp (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 57). Despite the fact that U.S. Army and Navy nurses and women in the WAAC were serving overseas, Congress continued to deny WAVES, SPARS, and women Marines the right to serve outside the U.S. because they could lose their femininity or their ability to be good mothers (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 62). Before the end of the WWII, 18,000 American women had joined the U.S. Marine Corps, which currently has the lowest female participation rate of approximately 6 percent, mainly due to the decades long ground combat exclusion policy. By September 1942, the WAAC was expanded to 1.5 million members because a previously established ceiling of 63,000 was no longer operative. The rationale supporting the WAAC expansion was due to a study which found that 406 Army jobs were suitable for women, while 222 Army jobs remained suitable only for men. So in effect approximately two-thirds of all Army jobs or military occupational specialties were now deemed open to women in a short time frame. Then in June 1943, the WAC bill passed Congress and was signed into Public Law 110. This legislative step of¿cially established the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) as a component of the U.S. Army and not an auxiliary. All previous WAAC members became WACs (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 81). 3௑The term “Hobby’s Horses” was a reference to the leadership of Oveta Culp Hobby, the ¿rst commanding of¿cer of the WAAC.

22

Waging Gendered Wars

As the war pressed on, more legislative changes were introduced. For example, President Roosevelt signed into law H.R. Bill 441 giving all women’s sea service branches the authority to deploy women members overseas and opening up higher ranks to women serving in the WAVES, SPARS, and women Marines. With these advancements, however, came many almost comical caveats. For example, women Marines did not receive weapons training. Instead, they watched male Marines demonstrate the ¿ring of mortars, bazookas, and riÀes. This type of “training” by observation had to be suf¿cient. Moreover, most male Marine drill instructors were loath to work with the female Marines and let their disgust be known. Some men expressed outrage at the Corps for accepting “niggers, dogs, and women” (Monahan and Niedel-Grennlee 2010: 97). Therefore, the jobs ¿lled by women Marines at this time were mainly in the aviation ¿eld or clerical work. Only 10 percent of women Marines held positions in the professional and scienti¿c areas like language expertise and photo analysis (Monahan and NiedelGreenlee 2010: 99). While all these developments certainly sound commendable in the tradition of liberal feminism, negative attitudes from some U.S. military men began to signal that perhaps gender mainstreaming was not welcomed within the overwhelmingly male enlisted and of¿cer corps. The only group to escape some of the sexist criticism was the nursing corps. Perhaps harkening back to the days of Florence Nightingale, military nurses were viewed as “angels of mercy and disembodied spirits” instead of ordinary women or sexualized objects (Monahan and NiedelGreenlee 2010: 105). A problem arose with a widely circulated rumor that WAAC women were loose and looking to pick up men. Instead, what had occurred is that department stores started making really good counterfeits of the WAAC uniform which they sold to anyone. Ironically, a large number of prostitutes in eastern cities were buying the uniforms in order to obtain easier access to bars and hotels located near military posts. It quickly became so dif¿cult to distinguish the real and alleged “virginal” WAAC from her not so pristine counterpart that WAACs were instructed to pin their insignia on the collars of their khaki shirts so they might be distinguished from prostitutes posing as WAACs (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 11). Presumably, these insignia pins were not available on the black market for purchase and harder to obtain. Another popular speculation was that Nazi propaganda was discrediting the virtue of the WAACs. Rumors circulated that 40 percent of all WAACs were pregnant, and that they were issued government supplied condoms so they could keep male soldiers sexually happy (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 109). After an internal study was conducted, the main source of the rumor mill was traced back to some enlisted men and of¿cers in the U.S. Army. The motive behind the behavior of the U.S. male soldiers was a simple one; the more WAACs the Army accepted, the more male soldiers would be sent overseas to the front lines. Remember the motto for the women: “Join to free a man to ¿ght.” These males were rightfully concerned about their own self-preservation and did not

History of U.S. Military Women

23

mind remaining in clerical jobs, even though before the outbreak of war these occupations would have been deemed “feminine” (Solaro 2006). Another problem was discovered when the WAAC study was completed. Over the strong objection of WAAC Director Oveta Culp Hobby, the standards were lowered for women to join in order to meet the new goal set for optimal WAAC strength (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 113). The WAAC was now permitted to accept candidates even before the individual’s blood test results for sexually transmitted diseases were known, letters of recommendation were no longer required, and an aptitude test score of 50 out of a possible 130 was considered passing. Furthermore, educational requirements were abolished as were background checks.4 Despite these changes in admissions standards against Hobby’s wishes, women continued to distinguish themselves in every facet of the war effort. A group of WAACs was assigned to Los Alamos in April 1943 to provide assistance on the Manhattan Project (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 199). By May of 1943, Japanese-American women were allowed to enlist in the WAAC. It was ascertained that these women could be very helpful in translating captured Japanese documents. Japanese-American women proudly served despite the Japanese interment program authorized by President Roosevelt in early 1942 under Executive Order 9066. As further testament to their professionalism, 25 WACs arrived on Normandy beach and waded ashore at Omaha Beach in July 1944 (Monahan and NiedelGreenlee 2010: 172). Also by 1944, there were approximately one thousand WAVES involved in secret and top secret work for the U.S. Navy. In the Air Force, two auxiliary forces emerged during World War II. The ¿rst was called the Women’s Army Ferrying Services (WAFS). These were women between 21–35 years of age, who held a high school diploma, had at least 500 hours Àying time, had Àown across country, and possessed a commercial pilot’s license (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 130). As one could imagine, this combination of attributes only applied to a very small subset of women in the 1940s, particularly women who had Àight lessons subsidized by well-off husbands or parents. The second auxiliary force was named the WASPs (Women Airforce Service Pilots). They were called into action due to the high volume of airplanes coming off the assembly line during the war. Their main mission was to Ày these aircraft to bases throughout the United States, since most male pilots were already serving overseas. Eventually, the WASPs were deactivated by the end of 1944, and none of these women were eligible for veterans’ bene¿ts (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 140).5 4௑We will see lowering of admissions standards during the Bush administration in order to meet recruiting goals. This will be discussed more in Chapter 4. 5௑WASPS were not granted veteran status until 1977 even though they performed vital duties such as ferrying aircraft from the factories to military bases, towing targets for gunnery practice, Àying cargo, and serving as Àight instructors. They were considered civilians. If a WASP was killed while serving, she did not receive a military funeral and

24

Waging Gendered Wars

As Operation D-Day and other battles turned the tide of war in favor of the Allied Powers, the United States took bolder moves to incorporate women fully into the U.S. armed services rather than existing as auxiliary units. On July 3, 1945 President Roosevelt signed the bill to establish the Women’s Army Corps in the Army of the United States. A month later, Director Oveta Culp Hobby took the oath of of¿ce as a Colonel in the Army, becoming the ¿rst woman admitted to the Women’s Army Corps (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 144). After the war, many military women chose to accept a discharge and return to civilian life. However, for those who remained and transferred to the newly constituted WAC, there would be new bene¿ts, rules, titles, and adventures. First, WACs now had military status and thereby the same military protection afforded to male soldiers, both in the United States and overseas. Second, women would be paid the same as men of equal rank. However, male soldiers were automatically paid for listed dependents without being required to produce supporting documentation. On the other hand, women in the WAC were held to a different standard. In order to receive dependency pay, they had to submit clear and legal documents that as a woman they contributed more than 50 percent of their husband’s and minor children support system (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 146). Third, women were now permitted to carry a sidearm, usually a Colt .45. Fourth, women in the army could marry without their commanding of¿cer’s permission. Fifth, single WACs could receive a medical discharge for pregnancy; however, if a WAC had an illegal abortion, she was given a dishonorable discharge for bad conduct.6 The bottom line was that WWII had created an anomaly. This was a “good war,” and women were desperately needed on the assembly lines manufacturing weaponry, but also out in the battle¿eld as transport pilots, nurses, and messengers. However, once Western civilization and values were saved from the scourge of fascism, a return to normalcy marked by pre-war gender roles was supposed to take her family had to incur the expense of bringing their daughter’s remains home. When the WASPS were deactivated, their records were locked away for 30 years. When the Air Force Academy began admitting females into the pilot training program in 1976, the media published stories about how the new young female cadets who would soon be the “¿rst female Air Force pilots.” The WASPS knew they had to come together to set the record straight. They petitioned Congress, and the injustices were corrected when WASPS were awarded veterans’ bene¿ts in 1977. Although slow in coming, the women are getting the recognition they deserve. In 2009, President Obama signed a bill into law awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to the WASPS. 6௑Keep in mind that the Roe v. Wade decision was decided in 1973, so this left hundreds of military women in jeopardy of being dishonorably discharged. Also, the pregnancy rates for WAACs/WACs were one per 1,000 per month as compared to 117 per 1,000 per months for the same age group of women in civilian life. For WACs married to men in the armed forces, medical care in army hospitals was permitted up to and through the delivery. Colonel Hobby also argued for and won the right for single WACs to receive medical care in army hospitals up to and through the baby’s birth (Monahan and NiedelGreenlee 2010: 147).

History of U.S. Military Women

25

place. However, both women and African-Americans drew upon their experiences during WWII to provide some of the early foundation for the 1960s civil rights and women’s rights movements.7 Into the Cold War The next major piece of legislation regarding women in the military was drafted by Congress three years after the end of World War II. The “Women’s Armed Services Integration Act” was passed after a great deal of debate in 1948. The legislation stated the following: (1) women could constitute no more than two percent of the total U.S. armed forces; (2) the number of women of¿cers could total no more than 10 percent of the overall two percent ceiling; (3) promotion of women of¿cers was capped above a pay grade of O-3 (Captain/Lieutenant); (4) O-5 (Lt. Colonel/Commander was the highest permanent rank a woman could obtain; (5) women serving as directors of WACs, WAVES, and women Marines were temporarily promoted to pay grade O-6; (6) women were barred from serving aboard Navy vessels (except hospital ships) and from duty in combat aircraft; and (7) by general policy, women were precluded from having command authority over men (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 238). With the Cold War quickly emerging after the conclusion of WWII, the inclusion of women in the U.S. Armed Forces would soon be tested. With the division of the Korean peninsula between a Soviet-dominated northern part and an American-dominated southern part, it was only a short time before hostilities broke out. In the beginning of the Korean War in June 1950, debate in the United States began about temporarily suspending the two percent ceiling rule and whether drafting, especially of nurses, would be necessary (Monahan and NiedelGreenlee 2010: 264). At the beginning of the Korean War in 1950, there were 22,000 women on active duty; most were in the health ¿eld. Therefore, in mid-1951, Secretary of Defense George Marshall and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Manpower and Reserves, Anna Rosenberg, reviewed the armed forces’ disappointing recruitment 7௑Two other committees established with the intent of making the military a more inclusive organization were the Fahy Committee (1949–1950), which was created by President Harry S. Truman and the Gesell Committee, created by President John F. Kennedy. The Fahy commission, comprised of three white and two black civilians, urged the President to desegregate the military which was accomplished through Truman’s Executive Order 9981. The Gesell Commission’s warnings regarding increasing racial polarization in the military, especially the lack of minority of¿cers, was largely ignored. However, in retrospect some believe that the Gesell committee’s recommendations should have been heeded given the pervasive disciplinary problems and racially motivated incidents during the Vietnam War (“From Representation to Inclusion: Diversity and Leadership for the 21st Century” MLDC Report 2011).

26

Waging Gendered Wars

numbers for women during the Korean War (Bellafaire 2006: 425). Because of the unpopularity of the Korean War era draft, the Department of Defense wanted to recruit as many women volunteers as possible. To achieve this objective, Marshall and Rosenberg formed a committee of 50 prominent women who would lend their names to a nationwide recruiting effort and advise the armed services on ways to make the military more appealing to women. The new committee’s name was the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS). The only African-American member was the legendary civil rights activist, Dorothy Height,8 who remarked, “The whole service was about servicemen, and everything in the service was designed as if it were for men; and when women were placed in it, they just had to ¿t in” (Bellafaire 2006: 425). Anna Rosenberg was a key ¿gure in the Roosevelt administration. She would eventually join with Senator Robert Wagner (D-NY) to draft the crucial legislation that would become the GI Bill of Rights. Approximately half of the appointees on the DACOWITS were professional career women with salaried jobs, and the other half worked outside the home as volunteers with philanthropic organizations and cultural institutions. Eleven members were academics from prestigious women’s colleges and universities (Bellafaire 2006: 430). The committee also represented various economic classes from Russian immigrants to Mrs. John D. Rockefeller. According to Bellafaire’s analysis, DACOWITS ultimately failed in its mission to help the services recruit greater numbers of women, but through no fault of its own. Demographically, the number of young, unmarried women the military had hoped to attract was rapidly declining. During World War II, the military had drawn from a population of young women born during the baby boom of the 1920s. Far fewer babies were born after the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, which meant the Korean War era recruiters had a signi¿cantly smaller segment of the population to draw from (p. 434).

Nevertheless, DACOWITS was retained by the Department of Defense. Nineteen women died during the Korean War, all by non-hostile causes; and 17 of those women were military nurses (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 267). During the Korean War, more than 120,000 women served in the U.S. military, but only 600 Army nurses served in Korea (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 321). From 1948 to 1969, women averaged 1.2 percent of military strength (Solaro 2006: 201). After the Korean War concluded in 1953, women again were relegated to a minimal role in the U.S. armed forces. For example, women Marines were limited to one percent. Furthermore, women were not allowed to be photographed wearing army fatigues even though they were going through basic training at Fort McClellan (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 272). By December 1964, newspapers carried stories that U.S. military women were being sent to Vietnam 8௑Dorothy Height, a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Freedom, died in 2010.

History of U.S. Military Women

27

to act as advisors and training personnel for the South Vietnamese Women’s Army Corps in Saigon (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 284). Of the approximately 250,000 women who served in the U.S. military during the Vietnam War, approximately 10,000 served in country. Eleven women died in Vietnam, including one soldier by enemy ¿re (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 321). Out of expediency, a new rule was issued in December 1964 stating that married women could now apply for the Army Nurse Corps (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 284). In August 1965, women in the U.S. Armed Forces could no longer claim marriage as a reason for discharge; and in the same month the U.S. Navy commissioned the ¿rst male nurse (Monahan and NiedelGreenlee 2010: 285). In June 1969, the ¿rst female military nurse was killed by enemy action in Vietnam (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 291). After the conclusion of the Vietnam War, momentous changes would occur throughout the Pentagon and its culture regarding the “lessons learned from Vietnam.” In the 1970s, women’s participation in all branches of the armed services became much more integrated and litigated often through the advocacy of liberal feminist organizations. Military women tend to spurn the label “feminist,” and are in general neither crusaders nor radicals. Military women, like military men, tend to be conservative in their ideological attitudes and seek to uphold military traditions (Titunik 2000: 246). However, despite these factors, the legal gains made by women to participate as equal citizens in their country, through their service in the U.S. military, would pave the way for future generations of female enlisted soldiers and of¿cers. A Decade of Change In 1971, the U.S. Air Force admitted women into its Reserve Of¿cer Training Corps (ROTC), and the Joint Armed Forces Staff College admitted women for the ¿rst time. During that same year, the U.S. Army followed the Air Force’s lead and opened up its ROTC program to women. In 1973, the controversial draft ended and Navy women became eligible for aviation jobs on non-combat aircraft; moreover, the Coast Guard opened its ranks to women for regular active duty. In 1974, the Army opened aviation duty on non-combat aircraft to women. In 1975, the Coast Guard Academy admitted women; and in 1976, all federal military academies were now open to women. Finally, in the same year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Crawford v. Cushman that the discharge of pregnant female Marines was unconstitutional. To close out the decade of women’s advancement and more robust integration within the military, an act of Congress in October 1978 disbanded the WAC. Women were now of¿cially integrated, at least by law, into the U.S. Army (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 310). The decade ended with the promotion of the Director of the Army Nurse Corps, Hazel Johnson, to Brigadier General. General Johnson became ¿rst black American woman to achieve general

28

Waging Gendered Wars

of¿cer status in all services of the Department of Defense (Monahan and NiedelGreenlee 2010: 323). The All-Volunteer Force Needs Women Liberal feminist advocates of women’s full legal equality have always argued that for women to be viewed as full citizens in the United States, they must be eligible for the draft. For centuries now, citizenship in the United States has been equated with the idea of the citizen-soldier, ready to take up arms to defend from enemies foreign and domestic of the United States, as stipulated by the U.S. Constitution. Once the draft ended in 1973, an All Volunteer Armed Services became the new paradigm for the United States. One of the many “lessons of Vietnam” was that forcible conscription of young men, who did not necessarily demonstrate any propensity to join the armed services, did not constitute an ef¿cient use of resources or manpower. These male draftees were quickly sent through basic training, shipped off to a distant land, and rotated out within one year if they were not ¿rst killed or seriously wounded. Furthermore, morale and unit cohesion were abysmal in Vietnam, by many accounts of the war. Drug use, racial tension, and “fragging”9 became commonplace in news stories about the war along with a ubiquitous war of attrition through the inÀated body count statistics on the nightly news. Thus, the idea promulgated by the Pentagon in the post-Vietnam era was that an all-volunteer force could be more ably trained into professional soldiers. Many men and a few women could be convinced to make soldiering a career choice with the right mix of recruitment tactics and incentives. The Department of Defense quickly realized that in order to recruit, train, and retain a quality all volunteer force, women were needed to ¿ll the gap left by male draftees. Therefore, advocates of true legal equality often argue that women should not be exempt from Selective Service Registration.10 One of the 9௑The term “fragging” denotes killing or assassinating an often unpopular commanding of¿cer with a fragmentation grenade. As the war continued, enlisted soldiers became even more concerned about being treated like cannon fodder. An overzealous or inept commander, who was viewed as purposely putting his troops into harm’s way, could be a likely candidate of death by fragging. There are at least 200 accounts of this event taking place during the war. 10௑The Selective Service System is a means by which the U.S. government maintains information on those potentially subject to military conscription. Most male U.S. citizens and male immigrant non-citizens between the ages of 18 and 25 are required by law to have registered within 30 days of their 18th birthday and must notify Selective Service within ten days of any changes to any of the information they provided on their registration cards, like a change of address. A 2010 GAO report estimated a registration rate of 92 percent with the names and addresses of over 16.2 million men on ¿le. Registration for Selective Service is also required for various federal programs and bene¿ts, including student loans, job training, federal employment, and naturalization (information retrieved on October 6, 2012 from http://www.sss.gov).

History of U.S. Military Women

29

most vocal proponents of women’s eligibility for Selective Service Registration eligibility was President Jimmy Carter (1977–1981). However, in July 1980 the U.S. Supreme Court decided in the case Rostker v. Goldberg that 18-year-old females could be excluded from draft registration while the federal government could legally mandate that 18–25 year old male citizens register. However, just weeks before the draft registration decision, the ¿rst women graduated from one of the nation’s military academies. A total of 229 women were then commissioned by their respective services (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 316). An early and ardent advocate for women’s full integration into the military was Congresswoman Pat Schroeder (D-CO). Congresswoman Schroeder represented Colorado’s ¿rst congressional district from 1972 to 1996 and ran an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988. She served on the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) during her tenure in Congress. As freshmen and newcomers to the HASC, she and African-American Democratic Ron Dellums (D-CA) were humiliated when the chair of the committee, Felix Edward Herbert, (D-LA) forced them to share a chair. In Herbert’s view, a white woman and a black man were each worth only half of a white man. Despite this humiliation, Congresswoman Schroeder diligently studied the war records of her fellow committee members. When male Congressmen questioned her ability to serve on the committee without ever having been in combat, she replied, “Then you and I have a lot in common” (Solaro 2006: 218). Congresswoman Schroeder was caricatured by the cultural Right, as the “Culture Wars” began in the 1980s, as a (Hanoi) Jane Fonda stand-in in the U.S. Congress. She was supposedly out to destroy the military by forcing it to truly integrate women. Instead, Congresswoman Schroeder, who was against the Vietnam war and a self-proclaimed feminist, took the time to educate herself about the military and remained on the committee for 24 years of service (Solaro 2006: 219). In addition, Schroeder worked to get military, CIA, and Foreign Service pensions declared joint property because she knew that spouses, more likely the wives, placed their own possible career aspirations on the back-burner to help their husbands advance. The decade of the 1970s represented an interesting conundrum. As the secondwave feminists were winning legal battles and as the prominence of the National Organization for Women was gaining traction, self-avowed feminists had a dif¿cult time coming to terms with the military. Radical feminists undoubtedly viewed the military as hopelessly masculinized, responsible for portraying a culture of death, and supporting a military-industrial complex that siphons precious taxpayer dollars away from health care and child care initiatives. However, more liberal feminists favored women’s legal equality in joining all branches of the military and holding all MOSs in the military.

30

Waging Gendered Wars

The Reagan and George H.W. Bush Years Under the Reagan administration, policy changes actually negated some of the progress made in previous decades. For example, in September 1983, the U.S. Army closed 23 Military Occupational Specialties (MOSs) that had been previously open to women, on the ground that these Army jobs were involved too closely with combat situations (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 330). However one month later in October 1983, U.S. troops were deployed under the orders of President Ronald Reagan in Operation Urgent Fury to restore stability in Grenada.11 The Army sent more than 100 military women to the small, Caribbean island to support troops in intelligence, military police, transportation, and communications. Paradoxically, despite the rule against women being involved in combat operations, these women all received imminent danger pay while serving (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 331). Until 1988, the Army used the Direct Combat Probability Code as a guide to assigning women. Positions were coded P1 to P7, with P7 designating the lowest probability of engaging in direct ground combat (Solaro 2006: 162). Women could be assigned to positions coded P7 through P2, but not P1 (meaning high designation of likely to engage in combat). All assignments forward of an infantry or armored brigade’s rear boundary were coded P1; however, women could be in MOSs that provided combat support services forward of the brigade’s rear boundary. Then in February 1988, the Department of Defense abandoned the Probability Code and put forward “The Risk Rule” in the hopes of standardizing the rules for assigning or excluding women from particular units and missions (Solaro 2006: 164). According to the Risk Rule, “risks of exposure to direct combat, hostile ¿re, or capture are the proper criteria for closing non-combat positions or units to women, provided that, such risks are equal to or greater than those risks experienced by combat units in the same theater of operations” (McSally 2007: 14). After the election of George H.W. Bush in November 1988, the U.S. military was starting to see a change to the Cold War division of the world with the elevation of Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985. Despite the decreasing probability of a conventional or nuclear war with the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies by the mid-1980s, the United States was still busy policing “its Hemisphere’’—surely a constant in U.S. foreign policy since the articulation of the Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt Corollary.12 In the late 1980s, the United 11௑See Stephen Kinzer’s Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq (2007) for a wonderful discussion of the invasion of Grenada and Panama. 12௑The Monroe Doctrine is a foreign policy doctrine of the United States introduced on December 2, 1823. It stated that further efforts by European countries to colonize land or interfere with states in North or South America would be viewed as acts of aggression requiring U.S. intervention. The doctrine noted that the United States would neither interfere with existing European colonies nor meddle in the internal concerns of European countries. The doctrine was issued at a time when nearly all Latin American colonies of Spain and

History of U.S. Military Women

31

States was pursuing a war against Panama’s Manuel Noriega, who had at one time been on the CIA payroll. Under the military campaign title of “Operation Just Cause,” approximately 800 U.S. Army and Air Force women took part in this campaign by Àying Black Hawk helicopters, which carried supplies, while being targeted by enemy (Panamanian) ¿re. Captain Linda Bray became an instant heroine of the war for a short time. Captain Bray was the commanding of¿cer of a military police battalion. She led a platoon of military police in an operation to take and hold a military dog kennel near Panama City. When the platoon arrived, they received small arms ¿re and realized that the building was occupied by Panamanian Defense forces. Bray gave the order through her translator for the enemy to surrender, but instead they were met with hostile gun¿re. Under her direction, Captain Bray’s platoon returned ¿re until all enemy opposition ceased, and the platoon took possession of its target (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 337). When General Manuel Noriega surrendered and the story broke, Captain Bray was lauded as the ¿rst U.S. Army woman to lead a unit into combat. The Pentagon decided to take advantage of the positive press about Captain Bray and her unit and released additional information for the press. Then a few days later, Captain Bray was under orders not to speak to the press. This incident of a female of¿cer leading a combat offensive, even though it was a dog kennel occupied by hostile forces, re-opened the contentious debate about women in direct combat roles (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 341). Regardless of the positive outcome from the U.S. military perspective, a transgression had occurred which was out of line with of¿cial policy. Subsequently, neither Captain Bray nor any other woman received the much-coveted Combat Infantry Badge because the units in which women serve are by de¿nition, according to the Pentagon, non-combat (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 341). During the fall of 1989, the Defense Department Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS) recommended that women be allowed to enter all military ¿elds, including ground and air combat during a four year test period (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 341). However, DACOWITS’s recommendations would not be implemented. Yet, the next test for women’s integration in to the military would come with Operation Desert Storm.

Portugal had achieved independence from the waning Spanish Empire (except Cuba and Puerto Rico) and the faltering Portuguese Empire. The (Theodore) Roosevelt Corollary, articulated during a State of the Union address, stated that the United States would intervene in conÀicts between European Nations and Latin American countries to enforce legitimate claims of the European powers, rather than having the Europeans press their claims directly. Both foreign policy doctrines have been utilized to justify interventions in Haiti, Nicaragua, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba.

32

Waging Gendered Wars

In August of 1990, the former dictator of Iraq Saddam Hussein invaded the sovereign nation of Kuwait. Clearly, this constituted a breach of international law.13 Convening quickly, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 660, which called upon Iraq to begin its withdraw from Kuwait immediately. As the United States under the leadership of Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, Secretary of State James Baker, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell built a coalition of 500,000 multinational troops, the withdrawal deadline of January 15, 1991 passed and military operations commenced. Approximately 41,000 women were deployed in the 1990–1991 Operation Desert Storm. To allay the fears of those who argued the military would be negatively impacted by “convenient pregnancies” of servicewomen while deployed, which mandates a woman be taken out of the combat zone by the third month of her pregnancy, a study conducted by General C.C. Krulak, United States Marine Corps Commandant, found that at the conclusion of Operation Desert Storm, only ¿ve females left because of pregnancies; and all ¿ve were unaware of this fact prior to deployment (Skaine 1999: 221). Rhonda Cornum was a Àight surgeon on a search and rescue mission who because famous when her helicopter was shot down; she was wounded and taken prisoner (Solaro 2006: 181). After Operation Desert Storm, the Marine Corps awarded 23 women Combat Action Ribbons because the Iraqi Scud attacks exposed women to danger, and two Army women in combat support and service support positions were captured and taken prisoner (Skaine 1999: 102). Although one of the two women taken prisoner during Desert Storm admitted to being sexually molested by Iraqis (it is likely that the other woman also was), 26 women deployed in Desert Storm reported being raped by U.S. Army forces, their fellow comradesin-arms, during the withdrawal of forces from the Gulf region (Skaine 1999: 165). In one hostile attack, 13 women and 25 men died during Operation Desert Storm when a Scud missile hit their barracks near Dhahran (Skaine 1999: 170). The war resulted in 148 American combat deaths and 467 wounded. Of the 116,000 coalition sorties Àown, the U.S. coalition had lost 75 aircraft, none of them to airto-air combat. Among those killed was Specialist Adrienne Mitchell, 20 years of age, who wanted to ¿nance her own education under the GI Bill. She wrote home to her parents that she was not afraid, and assured them that the Scud missiles were the only things people worried about. Three days later, she died. Her father, Frank Mitchell, a retired Air Force Chief Master Sergeant, served 30 years and did not

13௑The facts surrounding the signals the United States Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie may have given to Saddam Hussein in a meeting regarding Arab/Arab disputes is still hotly contested all these years later. Iraq was also reeling from debt after ¿ghting the Iran–Iraq War from 1980–1988 and wanted Arab/Sunni majority countries, like Kuwait, to forgo loans that had helped keep Iraq’s military aÀoat during the war with Shiite majority Iran.

History of U.S. Military Women

33

suffer so much as a scratch, while his daughter died after ¿ve months of service (Skaine 1999: 170). Despite the bravery of thousands of women in the 1990-1991 Gulf War, the issue of women’s full integration into the U.S. Armed Forces was marred by the scandal at the 1991 Navy Tailhook Convention. At the September 1991 Las Vegas Tailhook Convention, drunk junior aviators forced fellow Navy women to run gauntlets while men groped at women as they tried to race back to the safety of their hotel rooms (Solaro 2006: 170). The aviators considered their behavior a “legitimate unwinding” after the victorious Gulf War. The Navy ¿rst responded with a “boys will be boys” attitude and then a full cover-up. The scandal went public when Navy Lieutenant Paula Coughlin14 appeared on the show 60 Minutes, pushing the issue into the public arena. Admiral Frank Kelso, the Chief of Naval Operations, resigned as a result of Tailhook, and President George H.W. Bush wept when Lieutenant Coughlin recounted how she was forced through a gauntlet of 200 very drunken men, who happened to be her comrades and peers. She was brutally pawed and manhandled to the point that she was afraid of being gang-raped (Solaro 2006: 174). Rear Admiral Jack Snyder, Lt. Coughlin’s superior, was also forced to resign. No one went to jail; however, the ¿les of 140 junior of¿cers were reviewed for punishment, and more than half were discarded. Over 40 of¿cers received nonjudicial punishments such as ¿nes and letters of reprimand. Only six of¿cers were court-martialed, ¿ve because they had demanded a trial rather than accept nonjudicial punishments. Robert Stumpf, the commander of the Navy’s Blue Angels demonstration squadron at the time of Tailhook, was tried but the charges were dropped. Stumpf had been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his service in Operation Desert Storm. After the beginning of the Operation Desert Storm, Coalition Commander General Norman Schwarzkopf stated that American military women had performed magni¿cently (McSally 2007: 15). With a relatively quick air and ground war, the war supposedly erased the “ghosts of Vietnam.” Also, the stellar performance of military women evoked another round of deliberations about the full integration of females into the U.S. Armed Services. Thus, Congress began to consider repealing combat exclusion policies. On December 5, 1991 President George H.W. Bush signed the 1992 Defense Authorization Act, which included a provision repealing the law that prohibited women from Àying combat aircraft. Under the new system, restrictions on women Àying combat missions were left to the DOD’s discretion. A few months later in 1992, President George H.W. Bush created a Presidential 14௑Coughlin, 50, has stepped back into the public eye as a spokeswoman for Protect Our Defenders, a nonpro¿t civil rights organization that supports victims of sexual assault in the military. During the summer of 2012, the organization began an online petition asking for a public hearing before the House Armed Services Committee. Coughlin is also featured in the award-winning documentary The Invisible War, which examines rape and sexual assault among servicemen and women.

34

Waging Gendered Wars

Commission, due to an amendment proposed by Senators Sam Nunn (D-GA), John Warner (R-VA), and John Glenn (D-OH), which released its ¿nal report on November 15, 1992. In summary, the 1992 Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces15 recommended that women continue to be excluded from ground combat and air combat, but recommended that combat ships be open to women. The Clinton Years Shortly after Clinton was sworn in, the General Accounting Of¿ce issued a report entitled “Women in the Military: Deployment in the Persian Gulf War.” A total of 171 men and 147 women from ten units and all four services participated in 63 group discussions (Solaro 2006: 186). While many men and women both noted that men felt the need to protect women and that women needed protection from hostile ¿re, they also noted that men felt the need to protect women from other men—both outside and inside their own unit. Generally, the women were more worried about men inside their own unit, and the military men about men from outside the unit. The ¿ndings from these Operation Desert Storm focus groups highlights the continuing gendered and sexualized hierarchy of the U.S. military in spite of two decades of formal integration. As for military cohesion, women were thought to make positive or neutral contributions to interpersonal relations amongst soldiers. Regrettably, sexual harassment was not thought to be a serious problem because soldiers are “too busy” while at war. Under a new Clinton administration, policy yet again changed. In April 1993 President Clinton, the ¿rst president since the end of WWII to have no military experience, announced his decision to open all combat aviation assignments to women via an announcement by Secretary of Defense Les Aspin (McSally 2007: 16). Secretary Aspin directed the Navy to open more ship assignments and classi¿cations of ships to women within the current law and further directed the Navy to draft a legislative proposal to repeal the law prohibiting women from serving on ships engaged in combat missions. Furthermore, Secretary Aspin directed the Army to study opening additional MOSs including air defense artillery and ¿eld artillery.

15௑The members of the 1992 Commission were: General Robert Herres, Admiral James Hogg, Brigadier General Thomas Draude, Ronald Ray, a Marine and Vietnam combat veteran; Elaine Donnelly, founder of the Center for Military Readiness; Kate Walsh O’Beirne of the Heritage Foundation; Sarah White, a Master Sergeant in the Air Force Reserve; Meredith Neizer, a 1978 Merchant Marine Academy graduate and later White House fellow to the Secretary of Defense; Captain Mary Finch, a West Point graduate and helicopter pilot, and Retired Major General Mary Elizabeth Clarke, the last director of the Women’s Army Corps (Solaro 2006: 179).

History of U.S. Military Women

35

A major victory for proponents of women’s full integration into the U.S. armed services came in November 1993 when President Clinton signed the 1994 Defense Authorization Act. This act repealed the law prohibiting women from serving on combat ships and directed the Secretary of Defense to provide Congress with a 30 day notice when opening any additional assignments of women to combat units, class of combat vessel, or type of combat platform. Most importantly, the Act directed the Secretary of Defense to provide a 90 day notice to Congress regarding any changes to the Department of Defense’s ground combat exclusion policies, including a detailed inscription, justi¿cation, and implications of the proposed changes on the constitutionality of a male-only draft. Passage of the 1994 Act effectively rescinded the 1988 “Risk Rule” policy as a basis for barring the assignment of women to combat positions. Furthermore, the United States now had no law on the books that restricted women from serving in any positions or units in the military. Rather, all combat exclusion policy restrictions were and continue to be a matter of Department of Defense policy, with the requisite Congressional reporting mechanisms and oversight functions (McSally 2007: 16). According to the General Accounting Of¿ce in 1998, 221,000 positions in the military were closed to women: 101,733 due to direct combat and 89,755 due to the collocation rule.16 The most popular arguments against allowing women to participate in ground combat are: (1) women lack the physical strength to be effective in ground combat; (2) women’s very presence will decrease unit cohesion and therefore overall military effectiveness; and (3) women do not belong in combat due to cultural norms and historical context (McSally 2007: 18). Proponents of a female soldier’s right to qualify for combat MOSs argue that male recruits are not disquali¿ed from entering combat career ¿elds for lack of physical strength; however, all female recruits are by de¿nition disquali¿ed from combat career ¿elds regardless of their physical strength (McSally 2007: 20). Moreover, A man may choose a non-combat specialty and be respected as a soldier until he proves he is a bad one because it is expected that he will serve as a combatant in a time of need. He is trained and indoctrinated accordingly, or at least he has the right to expect that he will be. But a person who is categorically excluded from combat, whether a male non-deployable or a woman, is a second class member of the most hierarchical organization in the United States (Solaro 2006: 159).

As the debates over physical strength, cohesion, and military readiness continued throughout the 1990s, other battles took place in the court system. For example, members of the ¿rst class of women to graduate from West Point Academy 16௑Collocation occurs on the battle¿eld when units operate in such a close proximity to other direct ground combat units that they are almost indistinguishable from direct ground combat units in terms of the physical demands of the soldier, source of support, or possible physical contact with the enemy force (Skaine 1999: 35).

36

Waging Gendered Wars

became part of a class action suit against the all-male Virginia Military Institute (Skaine 1999: 78). Seventeen women ¿led a legal brief siding with the Clinton Justice Department against the VMI’s all-male policy. In June 1996, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-1 in favor of ordering the VMI to open its doors to women or lose its state funding. The school had the options of becoming a private institution, shutting down, or complying with the court’s ruling. In the fall of 1996, VMI voted to admit 34 women. In the same year, South Carolina’s Citadel ended its 154-year-old tradition of admitting only men after The Citadel Board of Visitors submitted its assimilation plan of women (Skaine 1999: 84). Another barrier was broken during 1996 when Sergeant Heather Lynn Johnson became the ¿rst woman in the Army’s history to guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery (Skaine 1999: 200). Despite these victories, 1996 ended on a troubling note when accusations of sexual misconduct at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland were made by female trainees against male drill sergeants. The Army responded by extending its investigation and opening a toll free number for reporting other cases of sexual harassment (Titunik 2000: 229). In 1997, TIME magazine conducted a telephone poll and found that a majority of those polled (67 percent) supported the statement that women should be allowed to serve in combat roles. The Triangle Institute for Security Studies conducted a 1998–1999 survey on the military in the post-Cold War era. When asked if women should be allowed to serve in all combat jobs, 53 percent of 1,000 people in the general public and 58 percent of civilian elites answered “yes” (McSally 2007: 32). While these polling reports are supportive of the liberal feminist argument, “Until the end of the 1990s, U.S. servicewomen were generally considered tolerable peculiarities. It was often believed that with the exception of nurses, women who entered the services were trying to get away from a man, looking to marry one, hoping to become one, or looking for love among each other” (Solaro 2006: 197). Towards the end of the twentieth century, U.S. female military personnel again demonstrated their professionalism and competency. In 1998 during Operation Desert Fox,17 Navy Lieutenant Kendra Williams became the ¿rst female combat pilot to Ày a strike mission (Skaine 1999: 68). Williams Àew her ¿ghter bomber from the deck of the U.S.S. Enterprise in a bombing run over Iraq. Two other female pilots Àew F-18s over Iraq. These missions marked the ¿rst time female pilots bombed designated targets in war, according to Navy of¿cials. As the twentieth century drew to a close, devastating terrorist attacks against the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and the U.S.S. Cole as it refueled in Yemen in 2000 were harbingers of a new type of asymmetrical warfare no longer characterized by clear combat zones on a two-dimensional battle¿eld. These new wars would require a renewed debate about the role of military women in the U.S. armed forces. 17௑Operation Desert Fox included air strikes against Saddam Hussein’s military and other hard targets in Iraq in order to try and enforce compliance with United Nations Security Council resolutions which mandated weapons inspections and the no-Ày zone regions that had been imposed in Iraq since the end of the ¿rst Gulf War in 1991.

History of U.S. Military Women

37

Despite the long list of advancements and contributions women have made to the U.S. Armed Forces in the twentieth century and earlier in the country’s history, Family roles remain at the heart of the controversy over whether women should serve in combat. Women and children are killed in vastly greater numbers as civilians than as soldiers in war, especially since WWII. But society accepts that because it does not contradict the image of women as victims, the horror of women in body bags is not a horror of a dead woman. It’s that the woman was a warrior, that she is not a victim. American culture does not accept that women can be both warriors and mothers, but the ultimate horror is the murdering mother. To accept women as warriors means a challenge to patriarchy at its most fundamental level (Skaine 1999: 139).

This challenge to systemic patriarchy is still vibrant. The degree to which the impact of U.S. military women’s participation in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will reap signi¿cant policy changes for women in uniform in this century remains an open-ended question. Chapter Summary By providing a brief overview of U.S. military women throughout the twentieth century, it is readily apparent that the liberal feminist argument of equal opportunity has been widely prevalent. Through legislative and judicial victories, proponents of women’s greater integration in the military continued to accept the notion that women must adapt to the military’s organizational and sociological structure rather than mount a sustained challenge to hegemonic hypermasculinized norms and behaviors as keenly theorized by difference and radical feminists. However, it is interesting to note that by the late 1980s and early 1990s, various commissions were already taking under serious consideration the repeal of the ground combat exclusion ban for U.S. military women. Yet, it would take twenty more years and two more wars for this signi¿cant policy change to be announced in January 2013.

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Chapter 3

The Second Sex at War in Iraq and Afghanistan

“War, as it is often observed, is a paradoxical activity. It is paradoxical insofar as it is the most destructive and chaotic human activity, but it requires the highest degree of organization and cooperation. The art of conducting warfare consists in getting a large number of people to perform together like a machine” (Titunik 2000: 234). And increasingly since the beginning of the millennium, a signi¿cant percentage of that organization and cooperation is being performed by U.S. military women. This chapter will examine the unprecedented roles U.S. female soldiers have played in both wars. To date, 280,000 women have been deployed since 2001. Currently, 15 percent of the U.S. armed forces are comprised of women. The Air Force and Navy have the highest representation of women and the Marines the lowest. Over 80 percent of MOS’s are now open to women, and the Department of Defense has moved to open submarines to women in the coming years. Despite the long history of women’s involvement in waging war, the ground combat exclusion ban will remain in effect until 2016 given the timeline articulated by former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s announcement in January 2013. However, during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, women were formally barred from joining combat branches including: the infantry, armored units, Special Forces, and most ¿eld artillery units. Paradoxically, women can lead some male troops into battle, but they cannot serve with them in battle. Yet Colonel Burt Thompson, the head commander of Warhorse, a former forward operating base in Iraq, commented in 2007: “The women have ended the debate over their role by their performance. I’ve relieved males from command, but I’ve never relieved a female commander in two and a half years as the head Commander of Warhorse” (Myers, August 16, 2009). Despite this laudatory comment by Colonel Thompson, Laura Sjoberg (2006) argues that even though women have become such a critical component of the U.S. military, females’ participation in war is still circumscribed by a sociological, psychological and political system that denies them equal access both to planning and involvement (p. 187); moreover, “a woman soldier is a woman who can make it like a man, not because masculine values have been questioned or changed, but because she adopts those masculine values and participates with them, becoming masculine” (p. 187). This line of argument is not new; however, does the same hold true for male nurses or male elementary school educators? Does a male nurse who can “make it like a woman” internalize and adopt feminine values? I have never quite been

40

Waging Gendered Wars

comfortable with the idea of a static set of masculine values. Even though Sjoberg has stated that this dominant male gender narrative is of course also presumed in the United States to be based upon a white, heterosexual male, how do subordinated masculinities even within the white, heterosexual male population shape the overall narrative? Moreover, Sjoberg’s line of reasoning would presumably hold true for female National Security Advisors or Secretaries of State. Are Madeline Albright, Condoleezza Rice, and Hillary Clinton simply internalizing and performing the accepted and preferred hegemonic male traits required of a (male) policymaker? Sjoberg’s argument seems to hold static the possibility of change occurring in gender narratives and gender performance, especially for men. Of course, men and women will be impacted upon by the historical and structural constraints of gender identity; however, the possibility of agentic change by individuals and groups who can challenge and modify these gender straightjackets even in very gendered occupations such as nurse, elementary school teacher, and soldier need to be analyzed across time and cultures with an appreciation that other facets of one’s identity, in addition to gender, create the possibility for incremental and in some cases paradigmatic shifts. Although more than 12 dozen countries1 allow women in some or all ground combat operations, the United States refused until 2013 to formally change policies which would recognize the critical roles women assumed in both these wars. However, there were signs of progress even before the 2013 announcement. For example, in 2008 President Bush nominated Lieutenant General Ann Dunwoody to head the Army Material Command, which is responsible for equipping, out¿tting, and arming soldiers throughout the Army. General Dunwoody,2 who retired in 2012, became the ¿rst woman to reach four-star rank because by law the ground combat exclusion policy has made it dif¿cult for women to be promoted in a military system that places a premium on combat experience for career advancement. It is important to note that unlike other private and public organizations, “the military operates as a closed personnel system. Senior leaders cannot be brought in from the outside but are instead brought up through the lower ranks. Therefore, each stage of the military personnel life cycle from who is recruited to who is promoted is intricately linked to the composition of future military leaders” (MLDC Report 2011: 39).3

1௑See “Discourses of Gender in the Contemporary British Army” by Rachel Woodward and Patricia Winter. 2௑For more about General Dunwoody, see “Commanding a Role for Women in the Military” by Rachel Swarns. The New York Times, June 30, 2008. Retrieved online at http:// www.nytimes.com. 3௑2006 data reviewed by the Military Leadership and Diversity Commission found that 80 percent of general of¿cers (rank O-7 and above came from the combat arms occupations).

The Second Sex at War in Iraq and Afghanistan

41

In September 2009, the Pentagon called for an end to the military’s historical ban on allowing women to serve in submarines.4 Also in 2009, the Army’s new top drill sergeant was an African-American woman, Command Sergeant Major Teresa L. King, a daughter of a sharecropper. King’s ¿rst Army job was a postal clerk.5 Furthermore, a poll conducted by The New York Times in August 2009 found that 53 percent of respondents favored allowing women in the military to join combat units, while 43 percent opposed inclusion.6 Finally, in August 2012, Brigadier General Tammy Smith, a 26 year veteran of the Army, became the ¿rst openly gay general as a result of the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in 2011.7 Brigadier General Smith married her partner in the District of Colombia in March 2011 (Wald August 12, 2012).8 The Macrolevel Picture of Women in the U.S. Armed Forces After the devastating terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the U.S. military was placed, albeit controversially, on a war footing against terrorism. Operation 4௑See “A Call to Allow Women to Serve on Submarines.” Reuters, September 27, 2009. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com. 5௑Dao, James. “First Woman Ascends to Top Drill Sergeant Spot.” The New York Times, September 22, 2009. Retrieved online at http://www.nytimes.com. In December 2011, King was suspended from her duties as the Drill Sergeant School Commandant pending investigation. King hired legal counsel and sued the Army for reinstatement, claiming her suspension was due to racism and sexism. In May 2012, King was reinstated as Commandant at the Drill Sergeant School and relieved of duty approximately two weeks later. The Army stated that it was determined to be “in the best interests of the Drill Sergeant School that she relinquish her duties as Commandant.” Army of¿cials stated that her relief of duty “reÀect(ed) a normal tour length and was based on the arrival of the (new) Commandant.” Sources have claimed that the investigation against King is due to allegations of alcohol problems, having an improper sexual relationship with a subordinate, and possible unwarranted consideration for promotion based on claiming college credit from unaccredited post-secondary institutions, but the investigation against her is still pending. 6௑The poll was based on nationwide telephone interviews with 1,050 adults. 7௑A congressional bill to repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was enacted in December 2010, specifying that the policy would remain in place until the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff certi¿ed that repeal would not harm military readiness, followed by a 60-day waiting period. A July 6, 2011 ruling from a federal appeals court barred further enforcement of the U.S. military’s ban on openly gay service members. As required President Obama, Secretary of Defense Panetta, and Chairman of the JCS Admiral Mullen, sent that certi¿cation to Congress on July 22, 2011, which set the end of DADT for September 20, 2011. 8௑See “Attitudes of Iraq and Afghanistan War Veterans toward Gay and Lesbian Service Members” by Bonnie Moradi and Laura Miller.

42

Waging Gendered Wars

Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) formally commenced on October 7, 2001, and Operation Iraqi Freedom began on March 17, 2003. As of October 2005, women made up approximately 11 percent of the troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and female casualty rates accounted for two percent of overall losses (Solaro 2006: 228). As of August 2006, 170,000 servicewomen had rotated through Iraq, Afghanistan, and aboard ships in combat theater zones (Solaro 2006: 240). According to the 2009 Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services Report, more than half (53 percent) of female service members have deployed since September 11, 2001; and of those deployed since 2001, 44 percent have been deployed two or more times (DACOWITS 2009 Report: 6). As of 2009, 212,000 female service members have been deployed in support of OEF and OIF (Mulhall 2009: 2). The reliance on women in the military today is absolutely critical. It is important to note that according to the 2011 report from the Military Leadership Diversity Commission,9 three out of four people ages 17–24 are not even eligible to enlist in the military. Many young people in this age cohort, and especially males, fail to meet basic entry requirements related to education, test scores, citizenship status, health status, or past criminal history (p. xvi). Moreover, through the use of “moral waivers” since the 2001 terrorist attacks, the military has allowed between 100,000 to 125,000 people to enlist with troubled histories, including: over 4,000 convicted felons, 43,000 individuals with serious misdemeanor convictions such as assault, and 58,000 convicted illegal drug offenders (Benedict 2007: 88; Glantz 2008: 120).10 The vast majority of those individuals permitted to enlist under moral waivers were men. As of 2011, 31 percent of 167,000 women enlisted in the military are black, twice their percentage in the civilian female population. White women, by comparison, represent 53 percent of women in the military, while accounting for 78 percent of the civilian population (Dao, December 22, 2011). Military women are less likely than military men to be married, 46 percent to 58 percent. While nearly half of the married women in the military have spouses who are also in the military, just 7 percent of military men have wives in the armed forces. A survey by the Pew Center conducted in 2011 of 1,873 veterans showed that women in the military were more critical of the recent wars than their male peers. The Pew Center survey found that 63 percent of female veterans said the Iraq 9௑Report retrieved online. The Military Leadership Diversity Commission is the third deliberative body established by an external authority to ¿nd ways to transform the U.S. military to become a more inclusive institution. 10௑Private First Class Steven Green was one individual who received a moral waiver. His record included three arrests and jail time served. Green was the ringleader of the four soldiers who raped and killed an Iraqi girl of 14, Abeer 4assim al-Janabi, in March 2006. The ¿ve soldiers shot her parents and ¿ve-year-old sister to death in the next room while Abeer was still alive. After raping Abeer, they killed her and then set ¿re to the family (Benedict 2009: 89).

The Second Sex at War in Iraq and Afghanistan

43

war was not worth ¿ghting, compared to 47 percent of men. Fifty-four per cent of female veterans said the Afghan war was not worth ¿ghting as compared to 39 percent of men (Dao, December 22, 2011). Since 2001, 2,500 to 3,500 military women are pregnant at any given time, which amounts to roughly 3.4 percent to 4.8 percent of the Army’s female strength. This is comparable to 4.62 percent of employed civilian women in the United States in 2004 (Solaro 2006: 277). Retired Air Force Captain Martha McSally argues that the military must foster a culture in which military women understand that it is not appropriate to get pregnant whenever they desire. Instead, women need to realize their duties take precedence. They must take measures to prevent unplanned pregnancies and plan for pregnancies to occur only when they are in non-deployable situations. Furthermore, McSally (2007) argues that servicewomen “should not be allowed to avoid their service obligations merely because they become pregnant” (p. 35). The recommendations offered by McSally sound good in theory, but servicewomen must be provided with appropriate gynecological care at bases and during deployment, which has been a serious issue reported by the VA system itself. In addition, McSally’s recommendation regarding “well-timed pregnancies” does not acknowledge the problem of rape in the military or the reality that no contraception besides abstinence or sterilization is 100 percent effective. Cohesion Argument One of the most utilized arguments against including women in the ranks of the U.S. armed forces is that the presence of women will be detrimental to cohesion, or the esprit d’corps, that makes a soldier not want to die, but to die for his comradein-arms or drag his “battle buddy” off the battle¿eld despite great risk to himself. “Cohesion is a complex term that describes the unity and bonding that a unit must possess in order to behave like a team in battle. They are two types of cohesion: social and task. Social cohesion refers to the nature and quality of the emotional bonds or friendship, liking, caring, and closeness among group members” (McSally 2007: 24). Unfounded fears about negatively affecting social cohesion were utilized for decades as a reason to not racially integrate the U.S. military. In a similar fashion, the social cohesion argument kept women assigned to separate units until the 1970s, and was utilized again to defend a formal policy against homosexuality in the military. The “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy promulgated during the Clinton administration was repealed by the U.S. Congress and approved by the Pentagon and President Obama in 2011. Military cohesion is what happens when new replacement teams, whether they are sailors, airmen, or grunts, team up with veterans and when the combination of energetic ignorance, ¿eld craft, and experience keeps a unit functioning (Solaro 2006: 308). “Cohesion is what happens when seven women are ‘attached temporarily’ to an infantry battalion somewhere in Iraq; each woman then realizes

44

Waging Gendered Wars

that she has an overwhelming number of guys (in addition to those trying to sleep with her), who regard her as a sister and will look out for her as a soldier who happens to be a woman” (Solaro 2006: 309). Task cohesion “refers to the shared commitment among members to achieving a goal that requires collective efforts of the group” (McSally 2007: 25). The mere presence of women does not impede cohesion because in the military the unit is created around a common purpose, not based on the group consisting of a common race, creed, gender, or now sexual orientation. However, Air Force Captain McSally has noted that some formal double-standards do degrade unit cohesion. These double-standards include: gender-segregated basic training, separate standards for men and women in basic training, and lack of uniformity in military uniforms for men and women. For example, women are allowed to wear skirts, pumps, and pantyhose in formal dress uniform. While this might be nice for military balls and other social events, it is a throw-back to the WWI and WWII era when women were speci¿cally instructed to do their hair and apply make-up to make them look like women, who just happen to be in the military. U.S. Female Soldiers’ Voices The conceptual issues raised by military and task cohesion concerns can be analyzed through some of the narratives of particular female soldiers reviewed in this chapter. Afghanistan and Iraq, unlike many previous wars, have given us a new genre of war literature—¿rst-hand accounts of women in combat, albeit not of¿cially combat de¿ned military occupational specialties. In order to highlight many issues—military sexual trauma, the combat exclusion policy, sexual harassment, and PTSD and TBI—it is helpful to explore these narratives. Searching for a singular war motif or experience amongst male or female service members is of course impossible. Each soldier’s story of deployment(s) is unique; however, there are recurring themes to be identi¿ed in each generation’s wars. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been unique due to the sophisticated use of social media. Never before have soldiers been able to remain in touch with family and loved ones on a sometimes daily basis. Military blogs became very popular as well. At ¿rst the Pentagon was not sure how much information to allow on military blogs, such as the unvarnished assessment of war plans gone awry, the boredom of waiting for action, and the simple longing for home are all richly, and sometimes humorously detailed on these blogs. The blogs are fragments, sometimes disjointed and other times worthy of books. But the war narratives from All Quiet on the Western Front (Erich Maria Remarque, 1929) of WWI to The Things They Carried (Tim O’Brien, 1990) of Vietnam to Jarhead (Anthony Swofford, 2003) of Iraq were all written by men. Now we have female service members relating their war stories as well. In +HVLWDWLRQ .LOOV $ )HPDOH 0DULQH 2I¿FHU¶V &RPEDW ([SHULHQFH LQ ,UDT (2011), Second Lieutenant Jane Blair reÀects:

The Second Sex at War in Iraq and Afghanistan

45

As the artillery smoke cleared, dozens of dead bodies lay lifeless by the trails of the guns. As unreal as ¿rst it seemed, I had just initiated ¿re on these Iraqis. The bodies lay motionless by the destroyed gun tubes. I looked around at the Marines who were cheering, but I didn’t feel anything. I just looked at the screen and the tiny black and white features of the enemy. Nothing was left of the battery. These bodies were crumpled around the site because I had called in the target. It had been effortless. In one instant, I had become their executioner. There was blood on my hands now. It’s something that I couldn’t erase from my mind, my eyes, or my gut. Once you kill, you can’t take it back. I had to kill those Iraqis because they were about to kill my boys. I wasn’t going to let them hurt my boys down there (pp. 151–2).

Second Lieutenant Blair’s account of her ¿rst “kill” is as riveting and honest as any other account provided by a male soldier; however, the ground combat exclusion policy permits her to still be an “executioner of Iraqis” because she is in charge of a Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (or more commonly referred to as a drone) that can ¿re weapons at targets from the relative safety of a remote location. After graduating from Of¿cer Training School, Blair was stationed at Twenty-nine Palms, California. Her unit was an Unmanned Vehicle Squadron, with the sole asset of an unmanned aerial vehicle, The Pioneer R4-2B. Blair joined the Marines in 1999 after ¿nishing her college degree and studying the philosophy of science at a state university. She had a cozy job in human resources at a Fortune 500 company and lived in a great old farmhouse. Jane had a nice life with a good career ahead of her, but then she read an article about a Marine unit helping earthquake victims in Turkey. She realized that her life at age 26 had been all about her, and there was a lot more to life than “¿nding perfect comfort” (p. 17). Blair is atypical of the Marines. She never knew anyone in the military growing up, and she was raised by her mother, a post-modern painter, and her father, a criminal defense attorney. Jane joined the Corps because she recognized, “I was weak. I wanted to become unsafe and uncomfortable” (p. 18). Moreover, she decided to join the service branch with the lowest percentage of women— 6 percent as of 2013. But even before Blair joined the Marines, she had an interest in the Middle East. She had taken a trip to the area during Operation Desert Storm after graduating from high school. Jane lived in a Greek orthodox monastery in Sinai, Egypt, explored the Bedouin culture in the Negev, and helped Kurdish refugees in Iraq (p. 28). Jane is married to a fellow Marine, Peter, six years her junior and “brilliant” because he scored the highest aptitude score in the entire Of¿cer Candidate School. Peter is part of an artillery unit for the First Marine Division. Of course, the female Second Lt. Blair could not be part of the artillery unit. Peter was called up the week before Jane, and in two hours he was gone from their base house. Married in a drive-through chapel in Las Vegas, the big wedding they had planned

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Waging Gendered Wars

to take place in May 2003 had to be canceled due to the onset of Operation Iraqi Freedom in March. Once her husband has deployed to Iraq, Jane is left to consider her status. She notes she was the only of¿cer’s wife “who didn’t have nor was carrying a baby” (p. 11). Blair notes that some women threw off their wedding bands and hit the bar scene once their husbands deployed, but most women remained steadfast, “maintaining the household alone, often with several children” (p. 11). Many of these women were doing unpaid labor for the military—the tradition of “keeping the home ¿res burning” while the men were deployed.11 Blair readily admits she cannot identify with these Marine wives, and she does not feel any type of automatic bonds of sisterhood with these fellow women. Rather, she identi¿es with her fellow Marines, regardless of their sex. Blair had two female of¿cers in her unit, and a total of 12 females were deployed from her post to Iraq. The rest were in some state of pregnancy.12 Commanding of¿cers had already informed the 12 women that they might not deploy to Iraq because they would be working exclusively with the First Marine Division and its regiments, all ground combat units. Blair notes, “I’d never thought about the fact that I was female until some backwater, hillbilly Marine decided not to salute me because he didn’t salute female of¿cers” (p. 16). Once she is deployed to Iraq, her base camp consisted of 6,000 Marines. Thirteen Marines of that large base encampment were women. The female “hooch” or tent where the female Marines lived was called “the Palace” by the male Marines (p. 43). Daily showers were of course a luxury, but Jane’s biggest problem was with a (male) senior of¿cer who seemed to hijack all the work and keep Blair purposefully out of the meeting loop. Another male mentor of Blair’s counseled her to just show up to meetings without being invited to send a clear signal to the problematic senior of¿cer that she would not be passively complicit in her marginalization. In another account, Blair’s Commanding Of¿cer asked how things were going, and Blair debriefed him. She spoke of the females being harassed near the showers. Pushing Blair further for more explanation, she says, “It’s pretty harmless, but they (the male Marines) can get pretty disrespectful.” Her male Commanding Of¿cer replies, “Well, Jane what did you expect? Do what you have to do if they (the male Marines) get out of hand, but remember this…war has changed them. They’re not quite the polite, little gentlemen they used to be. They’ve been out here for two or three months, and they have taken casualties and killed up close” (p. 206). Jane responds, “I guess you’re right sir, I just don’t think they realize we have been 11௑For accounts of the lives of military wives, see Cynthia Enloe (2010) and Karen Houppert (2005). 12௑According to the General Accounting Of¿ce, about 10 percent of women in the military become pregnant each year and 75,000 military offspring are younger than 12 months of age as of 2002 (Mulhall, “Women Warriors: Supporting She Who Has Born the Battle,” October 2009, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America).

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out her too. It’s frustrating sir. They see females and automatically think we came straight from Kuwait” (p. 207). Blair’s Commanding Of¿cer replies to Jane, “You’ve changed a lot since you were in garrison. You don’t see how aggressive you are now. We’ve all changed since we’ve been out here. Wait until we get back to America. People are going to think we’ve lost our minds. They’re going to look at us (the soldiers) like we’re some crazed lunatics. Trust me, I have seen it before. Coming home won’t be the Àowery parade you think it will be” (p. 207). War, the great equalizer, does it change male and female soldiers in the same ways? When women join the military, they must undergo a double transformation. First, into the military culture from civilian society, and then they must transform into a very male, some would argue hypermasculine military culture to ¿t in. Blair had no word about her husband’s safety for weeks. She started to suffer from dehydration because all the females were afraid to drink a lot of water while they were on duty because of a lack of toilet facilities, or not being able to stop a convoy driving for hours in the desert or hostile terrain. This gendered problem is a recurring theme in many of the narratives of female soldiers. In fact, many military women routinely contracted urinary tract infections. Setting aside personal discomforts, as Blair’s unit pushes through Nasiriyah, Iraq, she starts to doubt the wisdom of the higher (male) command. Her unarmored unit was entering the city before the armored units had arrived to take out any possible resistance. Even though her unit only received an operational brie¿ng in regards to the ¿rst 72 to 96 hours of the war, she improvised throughout and utilized her Arabic skills in many situations. As just one cog in the wheel of the great war machine, Blair’s account was one of the most insightful. She took a group of her Marines to the Ishtar Gate in the ancient city of Babylon for a morale boost. Because of her academic training, she can appreciate and understand the great importance of ancient Mesopotamia; but at the same time she realizes that she must keep intact an inherent distrust of Iraqis so she can keep her “boys” safe through the surveillance of the unmanned aerial vehicles, high aloft in the Iraqi sky searching for enemy targets to hit. Hence, the “maternal” motif utilized by Blair even though she is not a mother is another interesting link to difference feminism. She is the commanding of¿cer of these mostly, male Marines. In Hesitation Kills, she never recounts a signi¿cant incident where a male Marine under her command gives her a dif¿cult time, disobeys an order, or utilizes gender-biased or sexualized language or behaviors towards Blair. During her deployment, she lost 15 pounds and remarked that she looked like a child in the mirror. At the same time, she is a newlywed in a war zone, ¿nally reconnected with her husband after agonizing weeks apart. She is torn between showing her “femininity” and openly worrying about her husband’s safety while not allowing the troops under her command to see any signs of worry for anything but their own safety. In another incident described by Blair, a female Marine, Lance Corporal Gonzalez, goes into shock and remains in the Humvee with her headphones on

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while her whole unit is in a prone position because they are under attack. A male sergeant yells at Lance Corporal Gonzalez at the top of his lungs to take a prone position, but she is frozen. Blair says, “I felt especially embarrassed that it was a female Marine. A cowardly female Marine was just what we needed in front of the grunts” (p. 146). However, Blair never speaks about any cowardly male Marines! Surely, there must have been one amongst the 6,000 at her camp. Yet, the double standard for a female Marine is that she must be “twice as good” to prove that she belongs there in the unit, and in the battle. “Whenever a woman moves to a new assignment, she is treated informally in a manner not typically experienced by men. If a woman’s performance is evaluated positively, it is not generalized to other females but is considered an individual accomplishment. If her performance is judged unsuccessful, however, her individual failure is likely to be generalized to all women” (Carreiras 2006: 48). And that is exactly what Blair feared would be the take-away lesson. Female Marine Lance Corporal Gonzalez did not perform according to the Marines’ training and standards. In addition, Lieutenant Blair was fearful that Gonzalez’s failure to perform adequately in the face of enemy ¿re would also degrade her standing as a superior commanding female of¿cer over male Marine grunts or enlisted men. Upon her return to the United States, her Commanding Of¿cer’s insight about Blair’s anomalous place in American society rings so true. Jane writes, “I returned to America and to a place that I no longer knew. I felt that I stepped into a culture where I had no commonality and no interest. I had become a stranger, and that existential emptiness I had felt during my rebellious teenage years returned. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. Conversations with old friends focused on trivial problems in their own lives, and I found it hard to care. I wanted only to stay home and listen quietly to the sound of rain or read a book” (p. 274). “Slut or bitch—those are the choices you get when you are a woman and a soldier” are amongst the ¿rst lines in Kayla Williams’ /RYH0\5LÀH0RUH7KDQ You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army (2005). The only other label she left out is dyke. Williams, 28 years of age, MOS Military Intelligence, is wise beyond her years. She discusses the sexual tension in the military left out in Blair’s book—perhaps because Williams is single. “Queen for a year,” Williams quips, “even the unattractive girls start to act up because by de¿nition you are a desirable commodity.”13 She is “forward deployed” with a group of male soldiers near the Syrian border, because she speaks Arabic. Kayla is a valuable commodity for the all-male platoon. Unlike Blair, Williams experienced a rough childhood, joined the punk scene, and enlisted in the Army just to prove to a former boyfriend (who was physically violent towards her) that she could do it. Like some of the female soldiers who were killed in action, Williams brieÀy attended college at Bowling Green 13௑For a similar discussion to Kayla Williams’ observations, see Orlee Hauser’s “We Rule the Base Because We’re Few: Lone Girls in Israel’s Military” (2011), Journal of &RQWHPSRUDU\(WKQRJUDSK\, 40,6: 623–51.

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University, but was looking for something more challenging in her life. Plus, coming from a lower-middle class background, she decided to enlist in 2000, sign on for ¿ve years, and receive the coveted enlistment bonus. Williams served with the Third Combat Brigade Combat Team under the 101st Airborne Division during the initial invasion of Iraq. Early in the war, she was not even issued plates for her ballistic vest because females cannot serve in combat. Kayla was once temporarily “attached” to an infantry battalion at Fort Campbell that had no female latrines; and that was conditions a female soldier faced state-side, before deployment to Iraq. ReÀecting on her war experience after returning home, she writes: It makes it really hard to know that I was over there and lived in privation and ¿lth, risking my life. Away from my family and my home, seeing death. What Shane (a fellow soldier who becomes Williams’ boyfriend) went through dealing with the V.A. system was discouraging. The fact that the war was based on lies destroys some of the sense of purpose for me. It degrades some of the goodness of our efforts. Not all of the goodness. Especially, when I think about the children I saw, attending schools again in places where they had not been able to do so for more than a generation. They were happy to go to school. Or when kids saw us and they’d cheer for us. That means there’s hope. A future. But otherwise, talking about the war and our reasons for going to war remain dif¿cult for me. For us. For every single one of us (p. 283).

Williams’ account of her time in Iraq is more disheartening than Blair’s memoir; however, both women discuss at length their continual self-awareness regarding their status as one of a few females in their environment whether at large camp bases, like Blair, or forward deployed near the border between Iraq and Syria, like Williams. Williams dismisses the antics of some of the men in her platoon who start begging her to show them her “ass and boobs.” The male soldiers even take up a pot of money and throw in some M&M candies for good measure, but the reader can imagine how Williams must have felt—utterly objecti¿ed by her fellow male soldiers. In addition, she had to fend off one unwelcomed sexual advance from her platoon mate. Blair never discussed any male sexual advances toward her, perhaps because it was well-known that she was married to a fellow Marine also deployed in Iraq. But both women discuss being fundamentally changed from their experience in Iraq, and not being able to relate to the mundane and trivial events that took up precious time of their friends and families’ lives upon returning to the United States. Another soldier interviewed by journalist Kirsten Holmstedt in Band of Sisters: Women at War in Iraq (2007) remarks on her ¿rst kill. The soldier is Marine Lance Corporal Blais, who followed her father’s footsteps by enlisting. When she killed an Iraqi man, Blais’s male Staff Sergeant must have known this was her ¿rst time. He grabbed Blais by her Kevlar vest and turned her head so she was facing him, looked her in the eyes and said, “Think of all the lives you just saved” (p. 20). Lance Corporal Blais, reÀecting years later on her experience

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to Holmstedt, commented, “It was an honor to have a kill because in the Marine Corps, your status increases proportionally with your number of kills.” But she felt guilty about the Iraqi man she killed. Blais pictured him with a family. Granted he had been carrying an AK-47, but they (the insurgents) all had them. In a short non-¿ction account entitled “Hymn,” from a collection of short stories and poems 3RZGHU:ULWLQJVE\:RPHQLQWKH5DQNVIURP9LHWQDPWR,UDT (2008), Charlotte Brock, who was commissioned as a Marine Corps of¿cer at the age of 22, discusses her time in Iraq as a Mortuary Affairs specialist. She was deployed to Iraq two years after joining the Corps. Charlotte was stationed at Camp Taquaddum with the First Force Service Support Group. Her of¿cial MOS was a communications of¿cer, meaning she was responsible for ensuring that communications were set up and maintained at the camp. While at Camp Taqaddum, however, Brock met the of¿cer in charge of the mortuary and volunteered to help him with his duties during her time off of¿cial duty. Of¿cer Brock utilizes poetic language to describe her tending to the bodies of those killed in action, often maimed beyond recognition, as well as the necessary cataloguing of the soldier’s personal effects. Here, in mortuary affairs, the beautiful and tragic coexist. She writes, “In the weeks that followed my ¿rst Mortuary Affairs experience, an image kept Àashing in my mind, a memory or a symbol that I couldn’t quite identify. It had to do with me at the table, bent over the angel lying before me” (p. 5). In her non-¿ction account, she intersperses biblical passages and verses from her favorite Christian hymns. Again, the vivid details with which she recounts her grave responsibilities are dif¿cult to read, let alone envision a young adult having to come to terms with on a daily basis. Charlotte Brock writes: There were times when I wanted to kiss them. My hand lingered on them longer than was necessary. I didn’t want to be the note taker. I wanted to handle the bodies themselves. I would reach across the table, grab a shoulder or a hip and pull into my body, to allow the Marine on the other side to get a look at the back. I pulled IVs out of their veins as gently as I could. I knew it was crazy, but I didn’t want to hurt them. I cut off socks and looked at dead feet and toes. I saw holes in every part of their bodies. I saw bones sticking out of Àesh. I saw brains leaking from heads and eyes that had been popped out of sockets. Bodily Àuids dripped on my boots. I gagged at horrid smells. I jumped back when the swollen, bright red body of a drowned man belched up water and weeds (p. 5).

Brock continues: Time spent in Mortuary Affairs was a time spent in a world apart. Nothing mattered like taking care of the people who came to us. This place became the center, the core of my existence. It was what gave meaning, signi¿cance to my life. I was a caretaker, a love giver, the other mother of the dead. I was Mary bringing Jesus down from the cross and washing her son’s body before laying

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it in his grave. I was the eternal feminine holding the body of the fallen warrior, who in death is just a little boy (p. 6).

When Brock evokes the mother/maternal/eternal feminine motif in this passage, it is what I would want if my only son was ever killed in battle. Brock is a female mortuary affairs specialist, with a heart of gold and a gentle and wise soul. As a young woman and soldier, she embraces the necessary reverence in treating the body of the fallen as a sacred obligation. We are left to wonder, however, if some of the male mortuary affairs specialists also felt a similar sense of duty and veneration; or was it just another MOS that they happen to have assigned to them in the military? I doubt it; but it would probably be a different short story if written from the perspective of a man, not wrong or callous, just different. Brock closes her short vignette with a heart-felt reÀection. Three years later I still don’t know how, or how well, or whether I have dealt with the entire deployment. I know I have changed in some ways. I learned to love life more. I became more emotional. I now see beauty where I never saw it before. But part of me is still there. Part of me wishes I was still with them. Part of me feels that is where I should be: wiping away the blood and the grime from a young man’s face so that his fellow soldier can come tell us, ‘Yes, that’s him’ (pp. 6–7).

In this passage, Brock is no different from many male and female soldiers we read about in the newspapers. She feels as though she has left her fellow warriors behind for the safety and comfort of being back in the United States. But nothing she does back in the United States could ever match the importance of her sacred work in Iraq. As the experiences in Iraq so too changed Blair and Williams in their memoirs, Brock in her short story has allowed us to grasp the death scene with all ¿ve senses—smell, sight, sound, touch, and hearing. However, it is a woman’s “sixth sense” or woman’s intuition that brings her account of tending to the dead bodies in such a loving and maternal manner to a unique and otherworldly experience for the reader. When the editors of 3RZGHU:ULWLQJVE\:RPHQLQWKH5DQNVIURP9LHWQDP to Iraq (2008) asked Brock to assess her years in the Marines, she remarked that she did not regret her decision to leave active duty, but she chose to remain in the Reserves. Further pressed, she said she would do it again. Brock explains, “I gave a lot to the Marine Corps. At times, I gave more than was reasonable and cared more than was productive. But the Marine Corps gave me at least as much: selfknowledge, incredible experiences, trials and tests and periods where endurance was the only way to make it through. Best of all, the Marine Corps gave me a circle of girlfriends that will last a lifetime” (pp. 120–21).

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Negotiating the Public and Private Spheres In The Girls come Marching Home: Stories of Women Warriors Returning from the War in Iraq by Kirsten Holmstedt (2009), the author is a not a soldier or a veteran but has woven the stories of 12 women into a rich tapestry of multiple themes covering women in and at war. One woman Holmstedt interviewed, Army Master Sergeant C.J. Robinson, discussed candidly the dif¿culty in adjusting back to home life and transitioning from warrior to mother. Robinson said, “Being a soldier in wartime is a sick profession. How is it when I hear the word deployment, I am able to effortlessly Àick a switch and shut off my family? Yet when I returned from deployment, there was no such switch to reconnect me to my children and parents. It doesn’t equate. I don’t get to pick up where I left off. I will have to rebuild” (p. 38). In a 2009 New York Times article “Wartime Soldier, ConÀicted Mom,” journalist Lizette Alvarez pro¿les Army Specialist Jaymie Holschlag. She did a 12 month deployment in Iraq and then came home to a “whole new set of children.” A single mother and combat medic, Holschlag’s two children were now in a very different place, both mind and body, than when she had deployed. Her 10-year-old son had moved in with his grandfather, switched schools, was angry, and depressed. His grades had plummeted and his weight had ballooned by 60 pounds. Her four-year old daughter hardly knew her and went into tantrums when she could not get chocolate syrup on her wafÀes or Mountain Dew with dinner—goodies she had become accustomed to in her mother’s absence. Specialist Holschlag knew she had “hit the wall.” When reunited with her children, she actually sat in her apartment in Iowa wanting to return to Iraq because life back in Iraq was in some perverse way easier. After seeking counseling for PTSD and contemplating returning to Iraq in 2006, she made the decision to sever her service from the Army for the sake of her children, return to college, and obtain a nursing degree. These narratives present another dilemma for the military of today. In wars past, the majority of deployed men and the few women (mostly nurses) were single. After the draft was lifted, married military families are now the norm. On the other hand, there is a very high divorce rate, especially among enlisted soldiers, due to the stressors of military life, constant moves, and multiple deployments. After the joyous reunions when mothers and fathers return to the welcoming arms of their children or surprise their children by reuniting with their kids at a baseball game or in a schoolroom, the roles of mom and dad are expected to be resumed without a signi¿cant transition period. Even though today’s soldiers have to submit to a mandatory psychological evaluation upon their return from deployment and are often sequestered with their brigade and battalion for up to two weeks to decompress from their war experience, the adjustment back to civilian life

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or state-side duty is often marked by a range of emotions including uncertainty, relief, and unmet expectations.14 Despite a steep learning curve, the military has changed a great deal in the 40 plus years since the end of Vietnam. However, the societal expectations placed upon female soldiers to transition back to the mother/homemaker/primary caretaker role, if children are involved, is even greater for them than for male soldiers. If the mother may be suffering from a traumatic brain injury or PTSD, the transition is even that more dif¿cult. She may be afraid to go out driving to go to the grocery store for fear of IEDs lining the roadways. How is she supposed to relate to other mothers at a school PTA function who have no idea what a female soldier may have just experienced in her deployment? Let alone the feeling for many soldiers, both male and female, that the family unit has managed just ¿ne without their presence. Where do they ¿t in now within the family dynamics? The transition back to the supposed normality, roles, and scripts of the private sphere from their public sphere role of citizen-soldier is perhaps even more dif¿cult for female soldiers. Despite the convenience of emails, Twitter, Facebook, Skype, and good old fashioned phone calls and letters, the distance and disconnect may still be dif¿cult to overcome upon the return home. And those dif¿culties will be compounded tremendously if the deployed female soldier now has to deal with the labyrinth of a male-designed Veterans Administration system to access physical therapy, psychological counseling, or other needed services. Army Sergeant Michelle Bare¿eld, a seasoned explosive ordnance disposal technician (amongst one of the most dangerous MOS’s), related her feelings to author Kristin Homlstedt. At age 41, Michelle served in Kosovo under NATO during the late 1990s. She is a mother and married to a fellow male ordnance disposal technician. Sergeant Bare¿eld told Holmstedt the following: I had children hug me in Kosovo for helping me clean up the unexploded bombs and mines. So Bare¿eld thought that then when she was with the Iraqi children, she would be able to relate to them as her own children, but that wasn’t the case. I don’t look at those children and see my own at all. Most people think that American women feel sorry for the women and children in Iraq. But all I felt was anger and almost hatred. I was surprised. There were 12 year old children threatening us with IEDs and RPGs (p. 79).

14௑On a personal note, my mother related she picked my father up in a blinding snowstorm at an airport in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in January 1970. He had served his one year in Vietnam and returned home literally in his summer fatigues—dirty as could be. Three days earlier, he had still been on patrols looking for Vietcong in the jungles, and now he was back in the United States with no transition time and his wedding to my mother awaiting him in three weeks’ time. He returned from Vietnam on January 6, 1970; they were married on January 24, 1970, and then left for Fort Benning, Georgia as newlyweds for another six months of state-side duty. The other option was to “volunteer” for 60 more days of combat in Vietnam with no state-side duty upon return home.

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Sergeant Bare¿eld’s words are so brutal yet refreshingly honest. She Àips the gender stereotype of a supposed maternal sacri¿cial code completely on its head. Fully aware of how cold and callous she may sound to Holmstedt, she still shares her unvarnished truth. In this war, even children are the enemy despite post-WWII international legal protections and norms that view women and children as innocent civilians (the ‘womenandchildren’ phenomenon) who should be kept out of harm’s way. However, it is clear that despite the various Geneva Convention protections codi¿ed into international law to protect civilians in international warfare and civil warfare, the reality is that the vast majority of those who have perished since the end of WWII are civilians, not soldiers. The Lioness Program and Female Engagement Teams Another interviewee of Holmstedt is Michelle Wilmot. Wilmot was 24 years of age, an Army Sergeant and a medic, who was deployed to Iraq for one year. However, like many female soldiers, Sergeant Wilmot was pulled away from her MOS and worked in the well-chronicled and novel Lioness Program. The Lioness program originated in Ramadi, Iraq in 2004 due to a military necessity. In both the Afghan and Iraqi culture, it was unacceptable for male soldiers to search Afghan or Iraqi women; therefore, U.S. and other coalition female soldiers started manning checkpoints and joining patrols to check for weapons caches in the homes of Iraqis and Afghans. The Iraqis viewed the presence of female soldiers not only as a sign of respect, for it meant that Iraqi women would be searched by a female, but also as a guarantee that any violence would be kept within the realm of “civilized warfare” (Solaro 2006: 85). In this scenario, a male U.S. marine might kick down the door to an Iraqi house suspected of hiding a cache of bomb-making materials. Closely following the initial male raiders would be a female Marine who, armed of course with a weapon, would then enter the dwelling and often try to calm the panicked women and children. If permitted, she might even take off her kevlar helmet to allow a pony-tail to escape. The much-heralded Lioness program also suffered tragedies as well. In Fallujah on June 23, 2005, a suicide bomber, who had loaded with care his propane tanks in a truck, deliberately targeted female Marines. The Marines were searching women and girls in an effort to reduce tensions and to keep the diverse insurgents from using women as mules (willing or unwillingly) for packing arms, ammunition, and documents. Six Marines were killed and thirteen wounded from this suicide bombing; three of the dead and eleven of the wounded were women (Solaro 2006: 102). The open, seven-ton armored truck was ferrying members of a U.S. military civil affairs team to perform checkpoint searches 40 miles west of Baghdad, according to of¿cials. Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad in the restive Sunni-dominated Anbar province, was the site of violent ¿ghting

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during 2004–2006 as U.S. troops attempted to oust Iraqi Sunni militants and international jihadi extremists.15 The majority of the fatalities were Marines assigned to the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force from Camp LeJeune, North Carolina. One of the soldiers killed that fateful day was Lance Corporal Holly Ann Charette, 21 years of age, of Cranston, Rhode Island. She was assigned to Headquarters Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force out of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Holly was the ¿rst female Marine killed in Iraq. Al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility for the fatal ambush. “She wanted to become a Marine after 9/11,” Charlene Wheetman, Charette’s aunt, said in a statement on behalf of the family. “She wanted to do something for her country. She was a very proud Marine” (Tucker 2005). “She was an awesome, awesome girl,” said Jaime Caniglia, who also worked with Charette at a CVS store. “I can de¿nitely see her (joining the Marines). She was always ready to help anyone out.” Charette had recently deployed to Iraq’s Anbar province from Camp Lejeune, where she worked delivering mail. In reality, though, Charette, and many other female Marines had been enlisted in the Àedgling Lioness Program. Working outside of their military occupational specialties, the tragedy that befell Lance Corporal Charette and other female Marines in June 2005 was a true indication that the Iraq war had a woman’s face to it. With the 120-degree June heat and rising tension in the hot-bed of the strengthening insurgency in Fallujah, the Marine women’s nerves were already frayed. The cargo truck they were riding in pulled onto the main road and turned toward camp (Moss 2005). It was only a 15-minute trip, but the blast took mere seconds to incinerate lives. The suicide bomber had waited for his victims alongside the road, and then rammed his car into the truck with deadly precision. The ambush ignited an inferno—scorching Àesh, scattering bodies and mixing smoke, blood and dirt. Several of the women lost the skin on their hands. Another Marine’s goggles fused to her cheeks. After rolling 50 yards on ¿re, the truck Àipped and spilled the women onto the road, where enemy snipers opened ¿re. With their own ammunition bursting in the heat, the women crawled and pulled one another from the burning wreckage. Two other women died in addition to Corporal Charette. Corporal Ramona M. Valdez, 20, who worked at the Statue of Liberty before joining the Marines in early 2002 to support her mother in the Bronx, regularly asked to be relieved from the checkpoint duty. The job even spooked Petty Of¿cer First Class Regina R. Clark, a 43-year-old Navy Seabee and single mother to a teenage son from Centralia, Washington, who was in Iraq for the second time. Clark had taken her previous tour in such stride that she had even shipped a stray dog back home. Valdez and Clark were killed in the June 2005 attack that took 15௑“Female Marines Killed in Iraq by Suicide Bomber.” Posted on ABC’s website on June 24, 2005 at http://www.abcnews.go.com.

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Charette’s life as well. Three male Marines, including two who provided security for the cargo truck, were also killed. Corporal Saalman, leader of the unit, and six other women were Àown to a burn center in Texas, where even morphine, she said, could not kill the pain of having their charred skin scrubbed off. The ambush in Fallujah marked June 23, 2005 as one of the worst days in the history of women in the American military. Yet it faded into the running narrative of Iraq, tallied up as another tragic but unavoidable consequence of war. At the White House the next day, President Bush spoke generally of the Iraqi insurgents’ resolve: “It’s hard to stop suicide bombers” (Moss 2005). Answering questions over the next week about the attack, the Defense Department issued assurances that the U.S. military women had been adequately protected. However an examination of the attack, photographic evidence, and further investigations revealed that the military sent the women off that day with substandard armor, inadequate security and faulty tactics, and the predictability of their daily commute through one of the most volatile parts of Iraq made them an open target. The cargo truck the women soldiers rode in was a relic, never intended for warfare with insurgents, and had improvised metal shielding (sometimes referred to as hillbilly armor) that only rose to their shoulders. The Àames from the blast simply shot over the top. Perhaps most signi¿cantly, the security team let the suicide bomber pull to the side of the road as the convoy passed, rather than ordering him to move ahead to keep him away from the women. Marines involved in the operation called the tactic, although commonly used, a serious error. “The females should never have been transported like that,” said Sergeant Carozio V. Bass, one of the Marines who escorted the convoy. “We didn’t have enough people or proper vehicles” (Moss 2005). Some Marines questioned whether the female Marines should have been traveling at all. Male marines also worked at the checkpoints, but did not have to face the dangers of the daily commute. They slept at a Marine outpost in downtown Fallujah, but Marine Corps rules barred the women from sharing that space with the men. “I think about it [the June 23, 2005 attack] every day, 24 hours a day,” said Lance Corporal Erin Liberty, whose seatmate on the truck that day was so badly burned that her body was identi¿able only by dog tags. “You’re never happy, you’re never sad, you’re never mad. You’re just pretty much numb to everything” (Moss 2005). Each day at 5 a.m., the female marines rose from their canvas cots and were taken by truck to downtown Fallujah. They often did not return until 11 p.m. On good days, the women interacted freely with the Iraqis, and most especially the children. But many older Iraqi women objected to being searched even by the American female Marines. By June 2005, the checkpoints were sweltering and a sense of dread was setting in. Fallujah should have been bustling on a weekday evening in summertime. But the streets had been deserted for much of the day, which the American military had learned could be a signal that residents had been tipped off to an impending attack. At 7:20 p.m., there was only one car on the road when the women’s convoy left.

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The Marines in the lead Humvee waved the driver of a car to the side of the road and later said that his demeanor had raised no alarms. The driver waited for the lead Humvee to pass and then hit the women’s cargo truck, striking just behind the cab on the passenger’s side (Moss 2005). The blast instantly killed the truck’s assistant driver, Corporal Chad W. Powell and Private First Class Veashna Muy, 20, of Los Angeles. In the back, Petty Of¿cer Regina Clark and Corporal Valdez died within moments, according to casualty reports. Lance Corporal Charette died three hours later after receiving treatment at Camp Fallujah. “I tried to pick her up by the back of her Àak jacket,” said Corporal Liberty. “She was a big healthy woman with lots of muscle, and she was down in the dirt and blood and I said, ‘Come on girl, we’ve got to go.’” Another marine grabbed Corporal Liberty and told her to let go. The surviving women took shelter at a storefront about 100 yards off the road; and the few men who were present had to run back and forth carrying the wounded. In all, 13 women and men were injured. Holly Charette’s remains were buried in Rhode Island’s Veterans Memorial Cemetery. Since her death in 2005, a post of¿ce has been named in her honor in Rhode Island and a scholarship has been established in her name. The sad irony of this attack and tremendous loss of life was that on January 11, 2005, ¿ve months prior to the attack, President Bush held an Oval Of¿ce press conference announcing there would be no women in combat in Iraq or anywhere else (Solaro 2006: 141). Furthermore, in the spring of 2005, Representative Duncan Hunter (R-CA), then Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and Representative John McHugh (R-NY), then Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Military Personnel, introduced a no-notice amendment to the 2006 Defense Authorization bill that if passed “would have legislatively codi¿ed a ground combat exclusion for the ¿rst time in U.S. history and prohibited women from serving in forward support companies” (McSally 2007: 8).16 This unprecedented legislative move gained immediate attention from the public and provoked strong objections from the Army leadership, Department of Defense, and many members of Congress. For example, Director of the Army Staff, Lieutenant General James Campbell, delivered a letter to the ranking minority member on the HASC Representative Ike Skelton (D-MO), stating that if the amendment passed, over 21,000 military occupational specialties currently open for assignment to female soldiers would be closed (McSally 2007: 8). In the end, the tandem effort by Representatives McHugh and Hunter was thwarted. The ¿nal amendment version to the 2006 Defense Authorization bill 16௑It should be noted that Martha McSally is the ¿rst woman to become a ¿ghter pilot in the United States Air Force and the ¿rst woman in U.S. history to Ày a ¿ghter aircraft into combat. In June 2006, she completed a tour as the ¿rst woman to command a combat aviation squadron, during which she led her A-10 ¿ghter squadron into combat in Afghanistan (McSally 2007: 7). She also ran for a seat in the U.S. Congress in November 2012, but lost a very close race.

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was a compromise. The compromise amendment mandated that the DoD notify Congress of any opening or closing of positions or units under the ground combat exclusion policy that came into effect after October 1, 1994. It also mandated noti¿cation of any change that opened or closed any career ¿elds related to military operations on the ground after May 18, 2005. “This requirement was unprecedented because Congress had previously wanted noti¿cation only on changes to ground combat positions, and not on all career ¿elds related to military operations on the ground. The amendment represented signi¿cant Congressional oversight in regards to military personnel matters” (McSally 2007: 8). While Congress was debating an amendment that would hamstring the U.S. military’s efforts in both theaters of war, the Lioness program migrated to Afghanistan. The New York Times journalist Elisabeth Bumiller’s article “For Female Marines, Tea Comes with Bullets” takes us to Marja, Afghanistan, one of the key Taliban strongholds which became a focal point for the surge of troops announced by President Obama in the fall of 2009. The terminology was now changed, however. The Lioness program was renamed “female engagement teams.” In early October 2010, 40 female Marines from Camp Pendleton, California were sent as part of an unusual experiment to accompany all-male infantry patrols in Helmand Province to try and win over the rural Afghan women who are culturally off limits to outside men. These female Marines, it should be noted, volunteered for this training and were to meet with Pashtun women over tea in their homes, assess their need for aid, gather intelligence, and help open schools and clinics. The U.S. military’s assumption that female Marines could better relate to Afghan Pashtun women with a few rudimentary words of Pastho or Dari or even body language or hand signals in the absence of a translator is proof positive of global sisterhood, right? In all likelihood, however, the female Marines were probably better able to relate to their fellow male Marines. In a strange way, these female engagement teams also reassert the double identity of female Marines—Marines ¿rst, or females ¿rst in this case? Every Marine is a potential combat soldier, as Jane Blair notes in her memoir. Again, the Marines have the lowest female representation with 6 percent of the overall force size. Yet, the males in charge at the Pentagon and the Joint Chiefs of Staff saw a unique opportunity—women relating to other women despite formidable cultural and language barriers. And more importantly, female Marines could help open schools and medical clinics—once again supporting gender stereotypes that women are more inclined to be concerned about affairs of the home and children. Bumiller’s exchanges with these female Marines are fascinating. One woman, Marine Corporal Anica Coate, a 22-year-old, was on patrol in southern Marja in early September 2010, just ¿ve feet behind Lance Corporal Ross S. Carver, 21, when he was shot through the mouth and killed by a sniper. Corporal Coate was the ¿rst to reach him, but she could not stop the bleeding. A week later at the memorial service for Corporal Coate and two other male Marines killed around the same time, Corporal Coate said she would not volunteer for the female engagement

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teams again. Coate explained her decision to Bumiller in this honest response: “It’s not the living conditions, it’s not the mission, it’s this, she said, gesturing toward a memorial display of boots, riÀes, and dog tags belonging to the three dead (male) Marines. She was, she said, quietly, too much of a girl to deal with these guys getting killed.” In addition to attending too many memorial services, the female Marines lost weight in the heat, and many lamented they had seen their marriages end while on deployment or their boyfriends leave them. Another unanticipated outcome of the female engagement team experiment is that sometimes the female Marines ended up connecting more readily with the Afghan men than the women. According to Captain Brandon Turner, “You put a lady in front of them (the Afghan men), they’ll start blabbing at the mouth.” In addition, these female Marines often were shot at on patrol as they raced back to their forward posts. In July 2010, in the midst of the Pentagon’s experiment, the Marine female engagement teams were abruptly called back from their remote outposts to more secure military installations in Helmand province. The reason given was to determine if the Marines were in compliance with Pentagon directives on women in combat. The women, understandably, were bewildered. This was a volunteer assignment with the full support of the Marine Corps; but now it looked as though either politicians or civilian leaders within the Department of Defense, tens of thousands of miles away, were becoming skittish.17 While the review was taking place, Major General Richard Mills, the commander of 20,000 Marines in Helmand Province, acknowledged that “the female engagement teams were out on the point of the spear many times” but were absolutely critical to the mission at hand. The Pentagon had been skirting of¿cial policies in both wars by attaching rather than assigning female soldiers to combat units. So of¿cially, the female engagement teams said they “accompany” Marine infantry units on their patrols as if they were going out on a daily stroll in a quaint U.S. town. After the three week review ended, lawyers and Marine commanders clari¿ed some new ground rules: the female engagement teams could not go on foot patrols primarily intended to hunt and kill the enemy, and they were not allowed more than “temporary stays” at the combat posts they had been living at for months. A temporary stay was determined to be 45 days by General Mills. As Bumiller’s article concludes, a fresh crop of 45 newly trained female Marines was being Àown in from Camp Pendleton to relieve the others. ReÀecting on the experiment, Marine Captain Emily Nusland, a graduate of Virginia Military Institute, 27, and the women’s commander, left these parting words:

17௑One of the consistently most vocal opponents of lifting the ground combat exclusion for women is Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness (http://www. cmrlink.org/). Donnelly frequently testi¿es before Congress, appears on talk and radio shows, and has participated on various blue-ribbon panels and committees.

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Waging Gendered Wars Just making a small improvement in somebody’s life, that means something. And if that means that someday women don’t have to wear a burqa, great. If it means that they’re getting beat up and they’ve got some place to go to tell somebody, great. Or if they have a well in their compound that they didn’t have before, that’s going to make a big difference. They’re going to remember what we did (Bumiller, October 2, 2010).

Heroines in Afghanistan and Iraq There are numerous examples of female soldiers going above and beyond the call of duty during their deployments in both countries. As of August 2006, 1,521 enlisted women, the vast majority concentrated at the E-4 through E-6 levels, had received the combat action badge (2007 RAND Study: 143). Many of these women were military police, truck drivers, or in logistics and supply occupations. A total of 242 female of¿cers received the combat action badge as of August 2006. These of¿cers were concentrated in pay grades O-2 through O-4 and included engineers, signal specialists, military intelligence, and quartermaster. One of these heroines is medic Sergeant Misty Frazier of the U.S. Army’s 194th Military Police Company. She ran through enemy ¿re to treat wounded soldier after wounded soldier on the streets of Karbala, Iraq. While Frazier was treating the wounded, another female soldier in her military police company, Private Tessa Broadwell, covered other soldiers with aimed bursts of ¿re from her machine gun. Sergeant Frazier and Private Broadwell were awarded the Bronze Star with valor device. Another heroine is Sergeant Leigh Ann Hester of the Kentucky National Guard’s 617th Military Police Company, who with Staff Sergeant Timothy Nein, helped clear a trench of insurgents outside an Iraqi town, south of Baghdad. Hester and her squad were escorting a supply company convoy when they came under attack. During the middle of the ¿ght, she led her team through the kill zone and into a Àanking position where she assaulted a trench line with grenades and grenade launcher rounds (Alfonso 2010: 65). Sergeant Hester and Staff Sergeant Timothy Nein both received Silver Stars, the third highest award for acts of gallantry against the enemy. Furthermore, Sergeant Hester received the ¿rst Silver Star awarded to a woman since World War II (Solaro 2006: 309). A third heroine is Specialist Monica Lin Brown, 19, and an Army Medic from Lake Jackson, Texas. She too received a Silver Star for her actions. After a roadside bomb detonated near a convoy of Humvees in eastern Afghanistan seriously injuring all ¿ve soldiers inside, Brown and Staff Sergeant Jose Santos jumped from their vehicle and ran back to the burning Humvee (Cheney 2011: 496). Specialist Brown saved the lives of fellow soldiers on April 25, 2007 by running through insurgent gun¿re using her body to shield wounded soldiers while mortar rounds fell nearby. She moved the wounded soldiers to a safer location over 500 yards away where they received treatment on site before a helicopter evacuated them.

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One of the injured soldiers, Specialist Jack Bodami, made these remarks about Specialist Brown, “To say she handled herself well would be an understatement. It was amazing to see her keep completely calm and take care of our guys with all that was going on around her. Of all the medics we’ve had with us throughout the year, she was the one I trusted the most” (Cheney 2011: 496). Monica Brown was 19 years old and became the second woman to receive the Silver Star, the nation’s third-highest medal for valor, during Operation Enduring Freedom (Alfonso 2010: 64). Ironically, because females were not formally allowed to participate directly in combat, Brown was pulled back to the base at Khost, Afghanistan shortly after the incident. After Vice President Cheney read Brown’s citation in a White House ceremony in March 2008, he noted there was not a dry eye amongst any of her commanders in attendance.18 Vice President Cheney, as both Secretary of Defense in the George H.W. Bush administration and as Vice President in George W. Bush’s administration, supported the ban on women in ground combat units. In his memoir, however, Cheney states that given actions like Specialist Brown and hundreds, if not thousands of other U.S. military women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is time to rethink the policy to reÀect the changing nature of warfare in the new millennium. Specialist Brown’s own commander said, “Our regular medic was on leave at the time. We had other medics to choose from, but Brown had shown us she was more technically pro¿cient than any of her peers. I thought it was a mistake that she was pulled from her unit” (Cheney 2011: 497). Reports and Commissions during the Wars Even though the 2007 RAND study Assessing the Assignment Policy for Army Women was performed four years before the of¿cial end of combat operations in Iraq, it offers interesting conclusions on the practical applicability of the ground combat exclusion policy in Iraq and Afghanistan. The 2007 RAND Study only focuses on Army operations in Iraq; however, the conclusions are nonetheless wideranging.19 18௑According to a 1997 RAND Study on the effects of gender integration, when women’s activities in the military are highlighted by the press or other civilian institutions, females then experience greater alienation from their fellow male soldiers (Titunik 2000: 244). Whether this perception has changed since 1997, remains to be studied. However, some military blogs reviewed for this research questioned whether female soldiers were really doing anything exceptional to be awarded bronze and silver stars, or whether it was good “public relations” for the military. 19௑This report was a result of the compromise Hunter-McHugh amendment to the 2006 Defense Authorization Bill that was discussed earlier in the chapter. The report was supposed to be due to Congress by January 2006, but there was an extension granted. RAND was contracted by the UnderSecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to

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First, the study which was commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in 2007, stated the following: Neither the Army nor the DoD assignment policies for military women are clearly understandable. Our interviews with senior personnel from the Army, Of¿ce of the Secretary of Defense, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as focus group sessions with personnel recently returned from Iraq, con¿rm that there is no shared interpretation of the meanings of many of the words used in the policy, including the terms enemy, forward, well-forward, or collocation” (p. xiv).

The directors of the study found considerable evidence that support units are collocated with direct combat units if the de¿nition is based purely on “proximity,” but if the de¿nition is based also on “interdependency and proximity,” then the evidence is inconclusive (p. xviii).20 The RAND Study examined six aspects of the current assignment policies in Iraq including: (1) the restrictions on assigning women to direct combat units; (2) the focus on a linear battle¿eld and engaging and closing with an identi¿able enemy force; (3) the restrictions on collocation with direct combat units; (4) the restrictions on repelling the enemy’s assaults; (5) the identi¿cation of occupations and units that are open or closed to women; and (6) the focus on the assignment, rather than the tasking or employment of women (p. 48). Regarding the views of a small sample of enlisted soldiers and of¿cers on these six aspects, here are some illuminating comments: If women are on a convoy, they are subject to direct combat with the enemy. You are primarily subject to attack every time you went out there. The paradigm of direct ¿re and engagement is just no longer there. It’s a different environment than when the policy was written in 1992. Any soldier in any theater if they leave one FOB (forward operating base) to go to another, they are subject to direct engagement (pp. 49–50).

One commander commented that combat medics are supposed to be all male; but he reported that three-fourths of the medics he was sending to supplement the combat medic platoon were in fact female. This practice complies with current

collect data and was charged with data analysis. In total, 80 people from two locations participated in 16 focus groups and eight individual interviews. Eleven qualitative interviews were conducted with Army, the Of¿ce of the Secretary of Defense, and Joint Staff key leadership positions. 20௑Collocate means as to place two or more units in close proximity as to share common facilities. Colocate means close physical proximity and interdependence of units. These two terms are often used interchangeably, even though there are different consequences for policy decisions in the theater of war.

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policy because these women are not “assigned” to be combat medics; they are simply tasked to relieve male combat medics (p. 59). The recommendations made by the RAND Study included: 1. Recrafting the policy for women to make it conform and clarify how it conforms to the nature of warfare today and in the future plan to review this policy periodically. 2. Clarify whether and how the assignment policy should constrain military effectiveness and determine the extent to which military ef¿ciency and expediency can overrule the assignment policy. For example, should the military leadership be able to change the policy without a month or more notice to Congress? 3. Consider whether a prospective policy should exclude women from units and positions in which they have performed successfully in Iraq. 4. Determine whether the collocation (proximity) and colocation (proximity and interdependence) are objectionable, and clearly de¿ne how those terms should be used in this policy (p. 69). Given the data that the RAND research team assembled, the report struck a decisive blow at the 2005 Hunter-McHugh compromise amendment. The summary of the RAND report asked whether it is desirable to have the military leadership hamstrung by being legally obligated to report to Congress regarding changes in female soldiers’ assignment policies at the brigade level or below. This is a classic example of civilian-military tensions; however, it should be noted that the original Hunter-McHugh amendment was not popular with a great number of politicians in Congress either. '$&2:,765(3257࣠21 Recall earlier in chapter 2, the discussion regarding the creation of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services. It was established to bolster female enlistment during the Korean War. Fifty years later, this committee continues to be chartered by Congress and issued a comprehensive annual report. In 2009, DACOWITS examined two main themes: (1) the utilization of women in Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq) and (2) support for families of wounded warriors. The primary data collection involved site visits to eight military installations between May and August 2009. In addition to the in-person site visits, virtual site visits were made to Iraq and 21௑The individuals who comprise the DACOWITS Committee are appointed by the Secretary of Defense and serve in a voluntary capacity for three year terms. Each year, the Of¿ce of the Deputy Undersecretary for Personnel and Readiness frames for the Committee the salient concerns related to the integration of military women and family issues in the Armed Forces.

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Afghanistan via video teleconferences held at the Pentagon. Forty-two focus groups were conducted with 454 individuals interviewed (p. 2). The study examined the Department of Defense policy guiding women’s service which was then known as the “Direct Ground Combat Assignment Policy” or (DGCAP). This policy imposed restrictions on the assignment of female service members in theater, rather than on their employment or utilization. The DGCAP stated that “military women can be assigned to all positions for which they are quali¿ed, except that women shall be excluded from assignments to units below the brigade level whose primary mission is to engage in direct combat on the ground” (p. 6). A further problem, however, arose with the implementation of DGCAP. Each military service branch has its own assignment policy for female service members. Yet according to a recent survey of active duty service members, 85 percent of females and 90 percent of males reported serving in a combat zone or an area where they drew imminent danger pay or hostile ¿re pay (DACOWTIS 2009 Report: 9). As of 2009 almost 3,000 women had been wounded in action in OEF or OIF, the vast majority from the Army. The majority of focus group participants felt that including females in combat does not erode morale, but can rather be a positive inÀuence. Women often served as con¿dantes for male peers and were more likely than men to organize moraleboosting celebrations (p. 3). Of course, this comports with gendered expectations about women’s roles in civilian life as well. More often, however, women said that their combat experience had caused them to want to separate from the military sooner than they had planned. Some attributed that decision to concerns related to risks associated with combat and the protracted absence from family associated with deployment. As for the impact of female combat experiences on military career opportunities, participants most commonly reported that their combat experiences positively impacted their career opportunities and perhaps made them more competitive for advancement. The study included 31 focus groups22 on topics such as combat preparedness for female service members, implications of women serving in combat, and perspectives on the roles women should serve in the military. In addition, DACOWITS hosted two panel discussions on women in combat with previously deployed female service members—one with enlisted soldiers and one with of¿cers (p. 37). When asked whether while in “theater” (meaning deployed to the war zone in Iraq), did you work outside of your MOS (military occupational specialty), 45 percent of the female respondents answered no, 26 percent answered occasionally, and 29 percent answered yes, frequently. 22௑A total of 336 participants attended the focus groups with an average of 11 participants per session. The majority of the focus group participants were female (70 percent) and 30 percent were male (DACOWITS 2009 Report: 39). The Army was most represented with 28 percent participants. The Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force were equally represented. The Coast Guard and Army National Guard were represented in the sample as well.

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A majority (66 percent) of the female focus group and panel discussion participants indicated that they were physically in a combat theater of operations and had been exposed to the possibility of hostile action constituting a threat to self or unit (p. 45). However, less than 10 percent of female participants reported they had ¿red their weapon. The majority of study participants believed incorporating women into combat has an overall positive mission impact. Reasons included: women allow for greater sensitivity to cultural considerations (as exempli¿ed by the Lioness Program and Female Engagement Teams in Afghanistan); women help to maintain personnel strength; and women provide a unique perspective to the mission (p. 63). One female participant’s remarks appear to wholeheartedly support the difference feminist perspective as discussed in Chapter 1. She said, “Women always bring a different dynamic. Women think outside of the box on an emotional level or on a different level. We use it to help them [men] do their job better. It de¿nitely helps our overall ability [the military] because we [women] think differently” (p. 4). When asked how the presence of women in combat affects unit morale, the following remarks were made: 1. A junior enlisted woman said, “I think women are naturally more nurturing. The men being able to talk to the women for just a second can help them too” (p. 68). 2. A senior male service member said, “The little extras that females contribute are wonderful like setting up trips and tours. The woman’s touch contributes to morale” (p. 69). 3. A senior female service member said, “The impact of having women there is huge. We went all out and made Christmas a big celebration for everyone out there. It was a surprise. The guys would not have done it but they enjoyed it” (p. 69). However, a minority of participants in the study, mostly males, felt that having females in combat negatively impacts unit morale for the following reasons: sexual tension and harassment, female emotionality, male soldiers having to exercise discretion and decorum to avoid offending females, and different physical standards for women (p. 68). DACOWITS also queried study participants about male and female leadership roles and probed their understanding of current policy relating to women serving in combat. Moreover, they asked in practical terms the feasibility of implementing and following combat exclusion policy guidelines while in theater. The study found that frequently even senior focus group participants were unaware of the policy on combat exclusion or unsure of what it was for their particular service branch (p. 79). For example, a senior female service member remarked, “I’m familiar with some of the restrictions that detail women’s missions relating to combat, and quite frankly I think it’s naïve and outdated and it doesn’t give much justice to women who have been in the Army and serving their country” (p. 81).

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The DACOWITS study also examined the support system for wounded warriors. The V.A. system categorizes service members as very seriously injured (VSI) or seriously injured (SI). Both groups of soldiers often rely on the assistance of a non-medical caregiver (often a female)23 for almost 20 months, and an estimated 43 percent of those designated VSI or SI will need caregiver assistance for the long-term. Most of these service personnel will be medically retired from the military and then have to rely upon the V.A. system to meet their long-term needs (p. 18). In a sample size of 248 VSI or SI respondents, 2 percent of females under the age of 30 fell into this category, and 4 percent of females 30 years of age or older were in this category. Policy Changes during the Obama Administration In 2011 the Military Leadership Diversity Commission delivered its report )URP 5HSUHVHQWDWLRQ WR ,QFOXVLRQ 'LYHUVLW\ /HDGHUVKLS IRU WKH st Century. After ten years into the war in Afghanistan and eight years into Iraq, a majority of the commission recommended eliminating ground combat exclusion policies for women to create a level playing ¿eld for all service personnel (p. 67). The commission report recommended that the Department of Defense and service branches “take deliberative steps in a phased approach to open additional career ¿elds and units involved in direct ground combat to quali¿ed women” (p. 71). Consistent with the commission’s recommendations, and after a year-long Pentagon review ordered by Congress, the Army in 2012 started placing women in as many as 14,000 combat-related jobs by opening up six military occupational specialties and placing women in 37 battalions across nine brigade combat teams (Tan 2012). Moreover, the Army eliminated a provision that banned women from being colocated with units that are directly or routinely involved in combat. On May 14, 2012 the Army began implementing the new Defense Department policy. The new DoD policy opened up an additional 3 percent of Army jobs to women; however, about 30 percent of Army jobs remained restricted to men. These six 23௑The most frequently cited caregivers in the study were wives and mothers. Nearly one-third of primary support caregivers were under the age of 30, one-third between the ages of 30–39, and nearly one-fourth of primary caregivers for VSI or SI soldiers were between the ages of 40 and 54. When a service member receives a classi¿cation of VSI or SI, the military noti¿es the next of kin and provides transportation to the soldier’s bedside. Very often, the primary caregiver also relocates for the duration of their loved one’s treatment and rehabilitation, often up to a year. In some cases, a family member can be compensated as a non-medical attendant for the hands-on assistance s/he provides. In addition, many caregivers lose their jobs because they exceed the amount of unpaid leave offered through federal legislation under the Family Medical Leave Act (DACOWITS 2009 Report: 20). For a personalized view of the role of female caregivers to VSI or SI wounded personnel, see Cynthia Enloe’s 1LPR¶V:DU(PPD¶V:DU(2010).

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new MOSs included: multiple launch rocket system (MRLS) crewmember, MLRS operations ¿re detection specialist, ¿eld artillery ¿re ¿nder radar operator specialist, M1 Abrams tank system maintainer, Bradley Fighting Vehicle system maintainer, and artillery mechanic. In addition, the 2012 policy change allowed women to be permanently assigned, rather than attached to a battalion (around 800 personnel) as radio operators, medics, tank mechanics, and other critical jobs (Bumiller, February 9, 2012). Despite these policy changes under the Obama administration, serving in combat roles still remains fundamental to advancement in the military. Moreover, the Military Leadership Diversity Commission, established by Congress to explicitly examine the situation of women in infantry roles, “concluded nearly unanimously in 2011 that the parts of the combat exclusion policy that govern women’s assignments should be eliminated immediately because given current practices in Iraq and Afghanistan, the policy seems obsolete” (Cushman 2012). In April 2012, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) introduced the “Gender Equality in Combat Act” (S. 3182), which sought termination of the ground combat exclusion policy. In the other U.S. chamber, Representative Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) introduced the companion legislation (H.R. 5792). Neither bill made it out of their respective committees for a full vote. One month later, Command Sergeant Major Jane P. Baldwin and Colonel Ellen L. Haring, both in the Army Reserve, brought forth a case in the Federal District Court in Washington, D.C. arguing that the government is violating the constitutional rights of servicewomen by excluding them from certain ground combat units and other positions solely because of their gender. It was the ¿rst lawsuit to challenge the combat ban and named Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and other top military of¿cials as defendants. Then in July 2012, the Marine Corps began an experiment allowing women to participate in the Infantry Of¿cer Course. This course is not entry-level training nor does it have entry-level standards. Lieutenants, who attempt the course, have completed nine months of Marine training at Quantico base in Virginia; each has graduated from either the Naval Academy or the Marine Corps Of¿cer Candidates School; and each has ¿nished a six-month course that teaches all Marine of¿cers the weapons, tactics, and ¿eld skills needed to lead an infantry platoon. Each candidate of the Infantry Of¿cer Course has volunteered for the infantry, and all have to undergo special medical screening to be admitted. In September 2012, two young female of¿cers, both volunteers, were admitted to the course and observed throughout in order to collect data to help the Marine Corps decide whether to open more combat jobs to women. The two female candidates dropped out before completing the demanding course—one on the ¿rst day and the other in the second week after she developed a stress fracture in her leg. In March 2013, two Naval Academy graduates became the second set of women to enter the course (Dao, February 17, 2013); however, both had to withdraw within the ¿rst week. To date, no woman has successfully completed the Infantry Of¿cer Course, but one must bear in mind that hundreds of men have to withdraw as well after months of mental and physical preparation.

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Female and male students will be told to do the same things, required to pass the same tests, their backpacks will weigh the same, their hand-to-hand combat training will be the same, there will be no changes in the curriculum, or separate grading systems for men and women. According to Colonel Todd Desgrosseilliers, the commanding of¿cer of the Basic School, “Infantry of¿cers are supposed to close with the enemy and kill them, as a primary mission.” The Marine Corps will be using one of its most dif¿cult challenges, and asking for female volunteers, to try to move one step closer to a thoughtful answer to one of the last questions left about women at war. Can women be full-time infantry soldiers and of¿cers? According to General James F. Amos, the Marine Corps Commandant, he sees no reason why women cannot be full-time combat infantry soldiers; however, Amos argues there must be female of¿cers to lead female enlisted women. Only 110 female of¿cers come on line each year in the Corps. The Marine Corps will also change its physical ¿tness test by January 2014. All male and female Marines will be required to perform a minimum of three pull-ups and 50 crunches in two minutes, but the three-mile run will be scored by gender (Dao, February 17, 2013). Many jobs in the military have non-negotiable physical demands. For example, whether you are a man or a woman, you have to throw a live grenade at least 15 meters. If a woman can only throw it 10 meters, it is going to blow up in her face and kill her (Bumiller, February 1, 2013). In November 2012 four servicewomen, who all served tours in Afghanistan or Iraq, ¿led a federal lawsuit in San Francisco seeking to end the Pentagon’s ban on women serving in direct combat jobs (Dao, November 27, 2012). As a result of the combat exclusion policy, the plaintiffs contended, even women who have been “attached” to male-only combat units and fought in battles alongside men have been unable to attend combat leadership schools or have been denied assignment to positions that are critical stepping stones to promotions. Despite DoD changes, 238,000 positions in the armed forces remain closed to women, the A.C.L.U. said. In a widely circulated article, Marine Corps Captain Katie Petronio, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, wrote in the Marine Corps Gazette that seven months in Afghanistan left her physically broken, with muscle atrophy in her leg and an ovarian condition that left her infertile. “I am con¿dent that should the Marine Corps attempt to fully integrate women into the infantry, we as an institution are going to experience a colossal increase in crippling and career-ending medical conditions for females.” But one of the plaintiffs, Captain Zoe Bedell of the Marine Corps, said Captain Petronio’s experience might be very different from other women’s. “We all should be able to choose how we pursue our careers and what conditions we want to subject ourselves to,” said Captain Bedell, adding that she left active-duty service because her career had been limited. “We can’t have a policy that says I’m not allowed to compete.” In 2010, Captain Bedell commanded a female engagement team that worked alongside all-male infantry units, helping to gather intelligence from civilians. Her teams “patrolled with men every day, sometimes twice a day,” Captain Bedell said in the news conference.

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The four plaintiffs in the lawsuit were all exposed to combat, and two of the plaintiffs earned Purple Hearts. Chapter Summary Almost 300,000 U.S. military women have been deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, and some have endured multiple deployments. Although women were still formally barred from occupying combat-intensive military occupational specialties, is it clear from the various war narratives reviewed and journalistic accounts of the Lioness Program in Iraq and Female Engagement Teams in Afghanistan that women were most certainly serving in combat zones. Even women serving in supposedly non-combat positions including truck drivers and linguists could ¿nd themselves in a ¿re¿ght or under a mortar attack due to the nature of both wars. While individual women have certainly distinguished themselves throughout both wars, it is often the case that women’s accomplishments are viewed as singular exceptions as opposed to applicable to women as a class. Moreover, there is no monolithic war narrative of U.S. military women. An individual woman’s positionality within the U.S. military’s vast organizational complex is impacted by a myriad of other variables including marital status, educational attainment, racial background, and socioeconomic status. All the ¿rst-hand accounts discussed in this chapter do certainly, however, seem to reinforce the wise observation of Cynthia Enloe, “men are the military, women are in the military” (emphasis added; quoted in Sasson-Levy 2003: 447). While many high-ranking males in the military have uniformly praised the performance of U.S. military women, it is important to note that the successes of individual military women have not translated into systemic change in the organizational culture of the military. However, given the empirical evidence presented in this chapter, it is necessary to recognize that change is occurring. Increasingly, women are the military.

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Chapter 4

Female Veterans: Challenging Dominant Paradigms

The term “veteran” has most often been associated with a male body; however, 280,000 women soldiers, who deployed to Iraq and/or Afghanistan or in support of these military campaigns in other areas of the world, now join the ranks of millions of peacetime and combat veterans. Yet, the medical, sociological, and psychological literatures that have emerged over the past century have been focused on the male body as the veteran archetype. Just as pharmaceutical companies in decades past rarely conducted drug trials on women because they assumed that a drug that worked for a man must work the same for a woman, the Veterans Administration, college campuses, and private sector companies are now adapting to the reality that female veterans do share many of the same challenges as male veterans. However, their gendered war experiences also necessitate genderinformed public policies as well as gender-sensitive medical and psychological treatment for female veterans. Furthermore, the “wounded warrior” label, which is often utilized by the media and organizations raising funds for veterans in need of a myriad of services, is borne often silently and stoically by thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan female war veterans. Both male and female veterans are dealing with the effects of the 2008 Great Recession as they return home sometimes after multiple deployments. The unemployment rate for veterans aged 20 to 24 averaged 30 percent in 2011, more than double that of others the same age (Dewan). The unemployment gap cannot be explained solely due to a lack of a college degree for many veterans. Young veterans fare worse in the job market than their peers without degrees. Employers fear hiring reservists means potentially losing them to another deployment, or have now heard so much about TBI1 and PTSD that they fear the effects of combat might negatively affect the employee’s productivity or the workplace 1௑The Department of Veterans Affairs proposed new regulations in December 2012 that will make it easier for thousands of veterans to receive health care and compensation for certain illnesses that have been linked to TBI. The regulations list Parkinsonism, unprovoked seizures, certain dementias, depression and hormone de¿ciency diseases related to the hypothalamus, pituitary or adrenal glands as eligible for the expanded bene¿ts. Since 2000, more than 250,000 service members—some still on active duty—have received diagnoses of traumatic brain injury, or TBI, according to the Defense Department (Dao, “Rules Eased for Veterans’ Brain Injury Bene¿ts”, December 7, 2012). Accessed online at www.nytimes.com.

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environment. Obviously, it is illegal for an employer to discriminate on the basis of one’s military service or lack thereof, but it certainly may factor into some employers’ screening and hiring processes. Moreover, veterans often do not know how to tailor their military resume to a civilian employer, and many veterans will admit they are facing dif¿culty with the transition back to civilian life. Through outreach by the Obama administration, large companies like JP Morgan, Wal-Mart, Chase, and Verizon have pledged to hire a total of 100,000 veterans by 2020, and have begun airing television commercials to that effect. On the other hand, it is dif¿cult to translate job skills into the commercial marketplace if a soldier has been trained to be a sniper, for example. To add to the unemployment problem, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and founder and chairman of Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America, Paul Rieckhoff, estimated that in 2011 11,000 veterans between the ages of 18 and 30 were of¿cially listed as homeless in the Department of Veteran Affairs’ database. And then there are all the unaccounted homeless veterans as well (Farwell 2011). Female Homeless Veterans Thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are joining over 100,000 existing veterans from past wars who are living on the streets and in shelters. As of September 2009, the V.A. estimated there are 13,000 homeless female veterans (Mulhall 2009: 12). Women veterans are up to four times more likely to be homeless than non-veteran women, and they constitute the fastest growing segment of the veteran homeless population. Female homeless veterans tend to have more severe mental health problems than homeless male veterans in part because they are more likely to experience sexual trauma while serving in the military. The V.A. reports that about 40 percent of homeless female veterans of recent wars report being sexually assaulted by a fellow service member while in the military. A study by Dr. Donna Washington, Professor of Medicine at U.C.L.A., found that 53 percent of homeless female veterans experienced some form of military sexual trauma (Brown, February 27, 2013). The state of California is home to a quarter of all military veterans and home to a quarter of its homeless veterans as well. A study in greater Los Angeles in 2011 found 909 homeless female veterans, a 50 percent increase since 2009. To compound the problems faced by homeless female veterans, within the V.A.’s homeless shelter system only 60 percent of shelters accept women; and less than 5 percent have programs that target female veterans or offer separate housing options from men. As of 2009, almost one quarter of female veterans of¿cially enrolled in the V.A.’s homelessness program have children under the age of 18. Since the V.A. cannot provide direct care to children or spouses of veterans, providing suitable housing for homeless female veterans and their children then falls under the responsibility of multiple agencies. Female homeless veterans,

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many suffering from PTSD and TBI, were also deeply impacted by the Great Recession and housing crisis. According to the V.A. website, there are multiple supports in place now to directly target the growing population of female homeless veterans. For example, the Supportive Services for Veteran Families Program awards grants to private non-pro¿t organizations and consumer cooperatives who will provide supportive services to very low income veterans and their families residing in or transitioning to permanent housing. In addition, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and V.A. Supportive Housing Program (HUD-VASH) partner to provide permanent, supportive housing and treatment services for homeless Veterans. To date, HUD has allocated nearly 38,000 “Housing Choice” vouchers across the country, which allows veterans and their families to live in market rate rental housing while the V.A. provides case management services. A housing subsidy is paid to the landlord directly by the local public housing authority on behalf of the participating veteran. The veteran then pays the difference between the actual rent charged by the landlord and the amount subsidized by the program. The HUD-VASH program is for the most vulnerable veterans, and provides special services for women veterans, those recently returning from combat zones, and veterans with disabilities. Thirteen percent of those receiving HUD-VASH vouchers are women, nearly a third of them with children (Brown, February 27, 2013). Despite these signs of progress regarding the V.A. system’s attention to female homeless veterans, non-pro¿t organizations must also be relied upon as well. For example, the non-pro¿t organization, Final Salute, was founded in 2010 by Army Captain Jas Boothe. Boothe served over 13 years in the Army and is currently on active duty in the U.S. Army National Guard. Boothe’s personal story, as related on Final Salute’s website (www.¿nalsaluteinc.org), is exemplary of the feminist slogan “the personal is political.” Jas deployed during the Afghanistan/Iraq campaigns, and her military career has been dedicated to working with and advocating for soldiers and their families. In 2005, Jas was a single parent in the Army Reserves living in New Orleans, Louisiana. She learned she would be deployed to Iraq. Then Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 tore her life apart. She lost everything she owned, but still had to focus on her upcoming deployment. In September 2005, tragedy struck again. Boothe was diagnosed with an aggressive form of head and neck cancer. Due to her now life-threatening medical condition, the military gave her the option of a medical discharge; however, she needed complex services including expensive medical care, a job, and a place to live with her child. When searching for possible assistance through the V.A. system, she was told there were no existing programs for veterans with children. Rather, she would have to explore welfare and social services—a last resort option for many single mothers. After enduring six months of intensive medical treatment at Brooke Army Medical Center, she was found ¿t for duty and began looking for employment and a place to live with her son.

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In 2006, she relocated to Missouri and received a job offer from the Army National Guard. She then returned to full-time duty with a National Guard unit in Washington, D.C. later that year. Due to Boothe’s personal experiences, she pledged to take on a relatively undocumented and understudied political, sociological, and economic phenomenon—the lack of appropriate services for female homeless veterans and their children. Jas used a $15,000 cash advance on her own personal credit card toward purchasing a colonial brick home in Fairfax county, Virginia. With the help of private donations, this home has now become a transitional homeless shelter for up to eight women and children at a time. Female veterans have two years to get back on their feet, must commit to job training, and if working, they must contribute 20 percent of their pay to food and utilities for the group home (Gowen 2012). As of 2012, there were 20 female veterans on the waiting list. Even in my small home state of Delaware, the non-pro¿t organization Home of the Brave in 2013 purchased a second home intended to help female veterans and their children. Linda Boone, the president of the non-pro¿t’s board, reported the home is intended to house up to six women. That would make Home of the Brave the only shelter in Delaware to accommodate homeless female veterans and their children. With 600 homeless veterans in Delaware, 30 of them are female, considering the national estimate that one in 20 homeless veterans is a female. Linda Boone testi¿ed at a local zoning hearing that the group will rely on funding sources outside the government to launch the shelter (Rogers 2013). Even though the Department of Veterans Affairs spends more than $115 billion a year on health care, disability, compensation, and pensions for the nation’s 21 million veterans, its programs have been stretched thin. Nearly 50,000 of the two million Americans who have been deployed since September 11, 2001 have been wounded, some gravely. And despite the fact that less than 1 percent of all Americans wear the uniform at any given time, non-pro¿t organizations have become an integral part of providing veterans’ short and long-term care over the past decade. Veterans’ aid has been a major focus of non-pro¿t organizations since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began well over a decade ago (Dao, November 8, 2012). Since 2001, more than 7,800 non-pro¿t groups have registered with the federal government to care for troops, veterans and their families; the last third of these groups has emerged in the time frame of 2009–2012. Many organizations remain family run operations. But a few like the Semper Fi Fund, Blue Star Families, the Wounded Warrior Project, Operation Homefront, Homes for Our Troops, and Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund have become national organizations with multimillion dollar budgets. The Semper Fi Fund alone has issued more than $66 million in emergency grants to assist 8,200 service members since 2003. In 2011 alone, the organization raised $15 million.

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PTSD In World War I, it was known as shell shock, and in earlier centuries terms such as soldier’s heart, nostalgia, and mental exhaustion were often used. In World War II, the problem went by the term combat fatigue. Now today more than ever the general public, the media, and soldiers themselves are very familiar with the term Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD. Although the problem was ¿rst really focused upon during the Vietnam War, it is still widely misunderstood. Military psychiatrists are often in a double bind. They need to treat the patient suffering from psychological problems, but they also need to return the soldier to the battle¿eld as quickly as possible. These military psychiatrists came away from WWII with three important insights about what would become named PTSD decades later. First, they learned that predicting when individuals would “break down” was very dif¿cult and pre-screening was not effective to solve the problem. Soldiers with no prior mental disturbances would break down in the ¿eld, even though they scored well on the pre-screening evaluations and seemed to exhibit high resiliency factors. Second, they learned that group cohesion and morale were key factors in helping to determine which soldiers may be susceptible to battle fatigue. Third, early treatment of mental problems near the front line worked best to return soldiers to the battle¿eld; however, military psychiatrists were mistaken in assuming that “successfully” addressing psychological problems in the early term would guarantee that long-term complications for the soldier would not develop well after the war was over (Schaller 2012: 67). PTSD is a “disease or injury affecting human identity in the aftermath of a traumatic event or series of events that cannot be fully comprehended or absorbed by the human mind or soul” (Schaller 2012: 6). The current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders’ de¿nition of PTSD requires that symptoms persist for more than a month before a PTSD diagnosis can be made. PTSD was not included in the Diagnostic and Stastical Manual until 1980; however, due to the large cohort of Vietnam veterans appearing in the public health, mental health, and V.A. system with a multitude of problems, the psychiatric community moved to codify the disorder. PTSD represents, depending on the point of view, either normal behavior in abnormal times or abnormal behavior in normal times. Actions that would be criminal in civilian life become acceptable and even required in military life (Schaller 2012: 11). Many, however, are questioning why this generation of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans is presenting PTSD at higher rates. For example in April 2008, RAND think tank estimated that 300,000 veterans were suffering from either PTSD or MDD (Mild Depression Disorder). As of 2012, over two million soldiers have deployed to either Iraq and/or Afghanistan. Many studies agree that at least 20 percent to upwards of 40 percent of all soldiers will be affected by PTSD during their lifetime (Schaller 2012: 20). Jonathan Shay, a psychiatrist with the Veterans Administration who earned a MacArthur Genius Grant for his work on behalf of veterans, wrote that “combat

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post-traumatic stress disorder is a war injury. Veterans with combat PTSD are war wounded, carrying the burdens of sacri¿ce for the rest of us as surely as the amputees, the burned, the blind, and the paralyzed carry them” (Farwell 2011: 1). With regard to Afghanistan and Iraq, the pace and rhythm of deployments have exceeded that of prior conÀicts. A greater proportion of the armed forces, including National Guard and Reserve units, have been deployed and activated. Deployments have been longer, multiple deployments have been routine, and intervals between deployments, known as dwell time, have been shorter (Schaller 2012: 17). Also advances in body armor and medical technology have accounted for relatively low death rates. More soldiers now survive combat incidents that would have resulted in death in prior wars; however, their survival often leaves them very seriously injured. They become veterans with serious physical injuries, and many are plagued by PTSD, MTBI (mild traumatic brain injuries), and other depressive disorders. PTSD is a condition marked by clear physiological and neurobiological changes, which affect how a soldier’s memory is stored and processed by the brain. In addition, thyroid functions are enhanced, cortisol levels are decreased, and natural opiates in the body are elevated (Solaro 2006: 284). Moreover, people affected by PTSD may have a smaller or damaged hippocampus, the part of the brain that involves memory and emotional experience (Schaller 2012: 44). Reactions to traumatic experiences vary from person to person. Not all individuals react negatively to trauma; and when they do, not all have persisting and often debilitating symptoms. When people have persisting symptoms, however, three factors seem to inÀuence the outcome: (1) the nature of the trauma; (2) the personality and life experience of the person exposed to the trauma; and (3) the support the person receives before, during, and after the traumatic event (Schaller 2012: 34). As I talked to my mother over the years, we are sure that my father, a Vietnam veteran who served from 1969–1970 in the infantry, had PTSD as well. He would have nightmares and did not like to be around parades where guns were ¿red when he ¿rst returned home. Looking at the factors that Schaller outlines, my father had a high resiliency support system. He experienced combat trauma and was awarded three Bronze Stars. Moreover, he was racked with classic survivor’s guilt when he and his good buddy, Sergeant Clark, brieÀy changed positions in the armored personnel carrier one day. Normally, my father was the machine gunner but that fateful day in Vietnam, Sergeant Clark took over the machine gun and my father went down below to get more ammunition. In those brief moments, their armored personnel carrier took a direct hit, and Sergeant Clark died in my father’s arms. Sadly, my father was not given permission to return stateside to be present at Sergeant Clark’s funeral, so he could tell the family how his friend had died. But as far as traumatic experiences before Vietnam, by all accounts my dad was well-adjusted. He was a star high school athlete, even though he was not the best academic student. He attended various junior colleges on athletic scholarships before he was drafted. He had a big family, an extended network of friends, and by all accounts was very well mentally adjusted. The support system he relied

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upon when he returned home probably consisted of my mom, then his ¿ancpe, and a few other close friends (none of whom was drafted). Three weeks after his return from Vietnam, he was married to my mother and then they left for six months of duty state-side at Fort Benning, Georgia. Although Sergeant Frank Whaley never considered the military as a career, he was able to ¿nish college through the G.I. Bill and, again with the support of my mother, establish a career in banking, and provide a solid middle class lifestyle for my mother and me. I was born in 1973, only three years after his return from the war. My second experience with PTSD is from a male student at Hood College, where I teach Political Science. Hood College is a small, private, liberal arts institution located in Frederick, Maryland. Originally, established as an allwomen’s college in 1893, Hood went fully co-educational in 2001. Hood College is located about 50 miles from Washington, D.C. and less than a mile from Fort Detrick, the lab where accused anthrax scientist, Bruce Ivins, worked for a number of years. I teach a variety of classes, and one of them is Terrorism and Political Violence. About two years ago, a 27-year-old Iraq veteran who had missed early registration for fall classes walked into my of¿ce and asked me to approve his entrance into my course even though we were already two weeks into the semester. He selfdisclosed that he was an Iraq veteran, a Marine who had fought in the battle of Fallujah in 2004, and was 90 percent disabled according to the V.A. system due to PTSD. I listened and then tried to gently explain perhaps this course would touch too close to home for him. His reply was, “I am a Marine M’am, I can handle anything.” I said okay, signed him into the course, and presented him with a syllabus. His attendance in class was sporadic. I started sending early academic alert warnings about missed assignments and poor attendance. I ¿gured he had simply dropped the course. Then one day, he came into class and was demonstrably agitated and loud. I had never seen this type of behavior before. The class consisted of 30 students, mostly of traditional college age. I asked him to take his seat next to a visibly shaken female student, who I knew well, from other courses and proceeded to start lecturing. About ¿ve minutes into the class, he stood up and started yelling at me, “When are we going to talk about fucking Fallujah?” He went on, “These kids have no idea what combat is like, and neither do you.” I replied, “You are right. I don’t have any experience in combat and I bet most of the students in the class don’t either.” I asked him to take his seat so I could continue on with the planned lecture for the day. I probably got another sentence out, and then he popped out of his seat again, and this time began walking to the front of the classroom where I was standing. He started again yelling about Fallujah. I told him that we could talk about his experience in Iraq another day, but today we were focusing on Afghanistan. At that point, my brain started going in over-drive. I knew he had brought a backpack into class, and I started processing all the possibilities. Could he have a gun, or a knife? Was he going to try and attack me? Time always seems to go

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in slow motion in these circumstances. Again, I asked him to take his seat, and I could see one of my best students getting her cell phone out to probably call our campus security. Before I knew it, he went back to his desk, grabbed his backpack and was out the door. I lectured the remaining 60 minutes, saying nothing about what had just transpired to my class. After class, I immediately called security to alert them to the situation. I discovered he had already been taken to the local hospital for psychiatric evaluation. From the time he left the building I was teaching in, he walked into another building on campus screaming at the top of his lungs about Fallujah. A male faculty member happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and asked this student if he would like to come to his of¿ce and talk, even though the faculty member had never laid eyes on this student previously. The male student then proceeded to pin the male faculty member against the wall in a hallway, and screamed at him that he needed a veteran to speak to, not a “fucking professor.” At that point, our administrative secretary called campus security and they were there within a minute. The student had unpinned the male faculty member and was next heading to the student center. Campus security intercepted him there and found in his backpack empty bottles of alcohol. Of course I felt for this young man, and I wanted to see him get the help he needed. The next time class met again, a young quiet woman who sat in the front row asked if she could talk to me after class about the incident regarding the male Marine. I, of course, said sure. This female student, a veteran as well, told me she had been in a relationship with this male student and now she was afraid for her safety. He was leaving threatening messages on her cell phone and coming by her house where she lived with her ailing mother. Moreover, the female student told me that he had been kicked out of his apartment for not paying his rent on time and was now homeless as far as she knew. I alerted security to this new development, because I could not be told if the male student had been released from the local hospital due to con¿dentiality issues. I had no idea whether he would attend my class again. So for two weeks, a person from security patrolled the hallway where I taught the Terrorism and Political Violence class, but he never showed up on campus again. He was not expelled. Even though being drunk in class is an offense, it is not an expellable offense. This is my singular story in dealing with a young man coming back to college on the G.I. Bill. I raised the issue at faculty meetings that we need more resources to help veterans who may have PTSD and other disabilities; however, most of the administration said they are aware of the potential challenges, but of course they are not in the classrooms teaching. Again, this story is in no way an indictment against all veterans coming to college campuses because of course many of our non-veteran students have a whole range of mental health issues as well. But as Judge Schaller states in his book Veterans on Trial: The Coming Cases of PTSD (2012), this is a public health problem too. An overstretched V.A. system and under-resourced local and state agencies are often left to perform triage, at best, for our veterans. As Judge Schaller also states, the executive and legislative

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branches of our U.S. government have failed these veterans too. In the coming decades, it may well be the judiciary system which will have to provide remedies for veterans who have committed misdemeanors and non-violent felonies while simultaneously balancing the demands of due process for all citizens. Furthermore, we may witness defense attorneys invoking PTSD as a plausible defense or at least a mitigating circumstance in the commission of some of these crimes. As of March 2011, 50 jurisdictions around the United States have established veterans courts, where veterans charged with misdemeanors and non-violent felonies can be adjudicated, often by sympathetic judges (Schaller 2012: 207). As Judge Schaller notes, the courts have often become the equivalent of a social services clinic where judges will try to get veterans into programs dealing with drug and alcohol abuse, marital problems, ¿nancial issues, and of course mental health assistance. While most of those who appear before these specialized courts are men, occasionally female veterans are facing criminal charges as well. Another crisis linked to PTSD, whether accurate or not, was the murder of four military wives at Fort Bragg, North Carolina during the summer of 2002 (Houppert 2005: 118). Over a six week time span, four military husbands or ex-husbands killed their wives. Out of the four men, three had served in Afghanistan. Two were Special Operations soldiers. Two of the men killed themselves after killing their wives. Two women were shot, one was strangled, and the other woman was stabbed to death. The media spotlight on the murders forced the military to admit its longstanding problem with domestic violence; however, in the press, the motive of these four murders was linked to PTSD. It is true that the military contains a disproportionate number of poor and young married couples in comparison to the non-military population. If a military wife does seek help from a social worker on post, the allegation of domestic violence then proceeds to the husband’s supervisor who in turn typically confronts the male soldier. Without any prior notice to the wife that this confrontation will occur, the wife might then face her husband coming directly home—possibly resulting in a deadly assault for one or both individuals as well as any children involved. PTSD and Female Veterans PTSD, for many female veterans, is a serious problem. As of June 2008, close to 20,000 female veterans of Iraq or Afghanistan had received diagnoses of mental disorders from the Department of Veterans Affairs, including 8,454 women with a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress (Cave 2009). This number did not include troops still enlisted or those who never used the V.A. system. As of 2008, 3 percent of females deployed since 2001 have been evacuated from Iraq or Afghanistan due

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to PTSD. And as of July 2009, 5,103 female Iraq or Afghanistan veterans had received disability bene¿ts for PTSD as compared to over 57,000 males.2 First, women are traditionally affected by PTSD secondarily as partners of deployed soldiers and veterans.3 Second, PTSD affects women due to the combat stress of war. Third, PTSD affects military women who experience sexual trauma during their service, and especially continues to be exacerbated by all the bureaucratic hurdles they face if they do try to report and go through the established channels (Schaller 2012: 156). Moreover, female soldiers are more likely to have experienced sexual assault and sexual child abuse than their male counterpart soldiers and in comparison to the civilian female population. Initial studies conducted in 2009 showed that mental health issues arose in roughly the same proportion for members of each sex. However, women are already twice more likely than men in the civilian population to suffer from depression (Luxton et al. 2010: 1028). However, others argue that women experience more PTSD (due often to the double impact of combat trauma and sexual trauma), take longer to recover, experience different systems than men, have fewer symptoms that lead to violent behavior, and of course comprise most of the victims of military sexual trauma (Schaller 2012: 179). Moreover, female veterans, like their male counterparts, also may try to keep PTSD hidden while they are deployed. Yet experts and veterans agree that the coping mechanisms male and female veterans may utilize upon their return home are gendered. A male veteran might come home and drink himself into oblivion with his buddies; while a female veteran, very well could have been the only woman in her unit. She may come home after deployment and be much more likely to feel isolated. For example, Army Specialist Nancy Schiliro lost her right eye as a result of a mortar attack in Iraq in 2005. For more than two years after returning home, she rarely left a darkened garage that her grandmother called “the bat cave.” Female veterans are just as prone to ¿ts of rage, insomnia, nightmares, depression, survivor’s guilt, and fears of crowds; but culturally, society expects the female veteran to comport herself in civilian society in the same manner as before her deployment. Women are not supposed to punch a wall or show aggression upon their return home. It especially makes it more dif¿cult if a female veteran 2௑The V.A. did not provide the number of men and women who had applied for PTSD related bene¿ts, however. 3௑This leads to the issue of mainly male soldiers committing murder against girlfriends and spouses and sometimes even their children. According to a NY Times report dated January 13, 2008 more than 120 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans had been charged with homicide up to that point. One-third of all homicide victims committed by veterans were spouses, girlfriends, children, or other relatives. One-quarter of veterans charged with homicide killed fellow service members, and the rest killed strangers. When this story broke, veterans advocacy groups, understandably, pointed out that the homicide rate for the veteran population is 8.6/100,000 compared to 29.3/100,000 among American men aged 18–24 (Schaller 2012: 142).

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has a family waiting for her to resume all the roles she may have ful¿lled before deployment. For example, Aimee Sherrod, a mother of two, cannot stand to take her son to Chuck E. Cheese’s four years after her arrival back home. She cannot stand the noises in the arcade that make her jumpy. Even traveling to the park is not possible because it is a big, open space that provokes her anxiety (Cave 2009). Female veterans struggle for recognition when they return home. They may be talked down to if they access the V.A. system even by male veterans who discount their PTSD as not related to combat trauma, because they were not on foot patrols or searching house to house for insurgents. For example, Renee Peloquin, a member of the Idaho National Guard, even designed her own bumper sticker for her car that reads “Female Iraqi War Veteran” because she got so tired of strangers thanking her boyfriend for his service even though he never spent a day in uniform (Cave 2009). Susan Max, an Army Reservist and a grandmother of four, was deployed to Iraq at the age of 60 (Dao, January 10, 2012). One of her jobs was to carry large sums of cash to Iraqi construction projects outside forti¿ed American bases. She learned to be hyper-vigilant on those trips. When she returned from her deployment, she took time off from her nursing job in California to address her PTSD. She noticed that she could not drive any longer to see her patients, because she lived in a constant state of anxiety while driving. Ms. Max participated in a clinical trial to develop and test therapies which could help returning veterans. The issue of “road rage” with veterans of the Vietnam and the ¿rst Persian Gulf War has been studied before; however, for many reservists and regular soldiers who deployed to Iraq, the signature of this war was road-side bombs and IEDs. Imagine then a veteran’s world where even regular construction debris on the side of the road triggers a Àashback to experiences where IEDs were hidden in piles of garbage, a dead animal, or other refuse on the side of an Iraqi highway? A study of Minnesota National Guard soldiers who returned from Iraq in 2007 found that many had been told they drove dangerously in the months immediately after their tours were completed (Dao, January 10, 2012). PTSD and MST PTSD can also result from Military Sexual Trauma (MST) including sexual harassment, assault, and rape. Not everyone who is raped or survives combat develops a traumatic neurosis. People differ in how their bodies produce and process neurotransmitters and hormones such as cortisol, adrenaline, testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone (Solaro 2006: 285). Nor do we know at this time if PTSD is abnormal behavior as a result of the normal situations one would ¿nd herself in during combat, or if PTSD is a normal reaction to an abnormal situation—such as being in a war, being forced to kill targeted enemies, which in

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non-war times would be murder, and countless other morally complex decisions faced while deployed.4 The issues of sexual trauma and combat trauma can fuse for female soldiers. The onset of PTSD can be rather instantaneous or can take a year, if not decades, to manifest. In addition, female service members and veterans are more likely than the general female or civilian population to have experienced sexual assault before they join the military (Luxton et al. 2010: 1029). Like men, women are often drawn to the military for a myriad of reasons, but one common reason for women is to improve their present living situation. The military provides a woman, who may have experienced sexual trauma and/or rape in the civilian world, an escape valve. The structure of military training can engender more self-respect and allow a woman to be more physically aggressive by teaching her to fend off unwanted advances. There have been numerous reports on sexual harassment and assault within the services. A study in 1988 found that 5 percent of women and 1 percent of men had reported being victimized by rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault (Solaro 2006: 320). A study in 2004 amongst Reservist components found that sexual assault was 2 percent overall. In an examination of the service academies during the academic year 2004–2005 (in the midst of both wars in Iraq and Afghanistan), 6 percent of females and 1 percent of males at West Point reported attempted or actual rape and/or sexual assault; 5 percent of females and one percent of the males at the Naval Academy; and 4 percent of females and 1 percent of males at the Air Force Academy (Solaro 2006: 320). Shockingly, it is widely reported that 80 percent of military rapes are never reported at all for various reasons (Benedict 2009: 7). It of course does not help that the military as an institution has for decades condoned and even facilitated access to female prostitutes for male soldiers in bases abroad. The tragic brutalization, rape, and even murders of women in South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines have been understandable sources of tension between the U.S. and respective governments regarding basing rights and Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs). In January 2006, President Bush signed into law a new provision of Article 134 of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) that makes patronizing a prostitute by a service member a crime, punishable by dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and imprisonment of one year (Solaro 2006: 296). This provision was passed in an effort to end the complicity of U.S. troops stationed abroad who may knowingly or unknowingly be propping up sex traf¿cking networks which procure women, girls, and boys for U.S. service personnel. Of course, this is a problem with all countries’ militaries that serve abroad.

4௑See Sherman (2010) The Untold War: Inside the Hearts, Minds, and Souls of Our Soldiers. New York: W.W. Norton.

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PTSD, Sexual Assault, and Suicide According to Anuradha Bhagwati, a former Marine Corps Captain and Executive Director of the Service Women’s Action Network, “the rate of suicide among women who have served in the military is triple that of their civilian counterparts” (Bhagwati 2012). Female veterans, Bhagwati argues, face unique reintegration challenges to civilian society as compared to male veterans. First, female veterans have higher rates of unemployment and homelessness and lower levels of income. Second, women are often the primary caretakers of spouses, children, and aging family members, which mean they often have less time and resources to focus on themselves and access mental health counseling. A third reason is that suicide rates among female veterans is triple that of civilian women is due to military sexual assault. Even the Pentagon concedes that over 19,000 sexual assaults were committed against women and men in 2010 even though the Defense Department of¿cially reported 3,158 assaults in 2010. Obtaining a V.A. claim for PTSD based upon sexual trauma instead of combat trauma is another hurdle female veterans face. According to Bhagwati, “only 32 percent of PTSD claims based on sexual trauma are accepted by the V.A. as compared to 53 percent of PTSD claims based upon combat trauma.” Female soldiers are always advised to travel in pairs also known as the “buddy system,” especially when moving around their posts or bases at night. For example, Captain Margaret D. Taafe-McMenamy, the commander of intelligence at forward operating base Warhorse in Iraq in 2007, told a reporter that she carried a folding knife and a heavy ridged Àashlight, a Christmas gift from her husband, who even lives with her on base, as a precaution when she was out at night (Myers, August 16, 2009). However, some female enlisted soldiers and of¿cers argue that harassment, bias, sexual relations, sexual assault, and rape are a matter of discipline, maturity, and professionalism rather than an argument in favor of separating the sexes (McSally 2007, Solaro 2006). Private First Class Tina Priest of the Fifth Support Battalion, First Brigade Combat Team, Fourth Infantry Division, Fort Hood, Texas was raped by a soldier in February 2006 in Iraq. Her body was found in her room on March 1, 2006 with, by the Army’s determination, a self-inÀicted M-16 wound to her chest, 11 days after she was raped (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 411). And one week later, on March 8, 2006, 19-year-old Private First Class Amy Duerkson, also from the Fourth Infantry Division out of Fort Hood, Texas, was found with a supposed self-inÀicted gun-shot wound. She died three days later from her injuries. Her diary was found open to a page where she had written about being raped while in training after unknowingly consuming a drink laced with a date-rape drug. In December 2007, the burnt corpses of Marine Corporal Maria Lauterbach and her unborn baby were found buried in the backyard of a senior of¿cer’s house who she had reported for raping her (Benedict 2009: 6). During congressional hearings in July and August 2008 on the issue of military sexual assault and rape, it was discovered that the Principal Deputy Undersecretary of Defense, Michael Dominguez, has ordered Dr. Kaye Whitley, Chief of the Sexual

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Assault Prevention and Response Of¿ce, to refuse to comply with a subpoena issued by the U.S House of Representatives Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs to address the problem and respond to the fact that a specially designated task force still had not held its ¿rst meeting after being created four years earlier in 2004 (Monahan and Niedel-Greenlee 2010: 408). The 2012 release of the documentary The Invisible War has further impacted the discussion of sexual assault in the military. A recipient of many ¿lm festival awards, the documentary was viewed by Secretary of Defense Panetta on April 14, 2012. Two days later, Panetta announced that sexual assault complaints would be handled in the future as a matter of Pentagon policy by senior of¿cers, instead of lower ranking of¿cers who may be ill-equipped or reluctant to pursue assault cases. In addition, special units would be established by each service branch to interview victims and collect evidence. Moreover, recruits would be briefed on sexual assault policies within 14 days of joining the service. The view of military men as sexual predators is “convenient for liberal feminists, who aspire to expand the roles for women in the military” along the lines of the argument that combat exclusion policies for women contribute to a climate in the military culture where female soldiers are viewed by male soldiers as weak and retaining a ‘second class’ type of status” (Titunik 2000: 232). On the other hand, radical feminists view the military as the institutional embodiment of hegemonic masculinity and are therefore not convinced that changes in policies, the establishment of commissions, or adding more women to the military will change the dominant masculine culture. Both views merit discussion. In December 2012, the Pentagon released troublesome ¿ndings: sexual assaults reported by students at the three military academies jumped 23 percent during the 2011–2012 academic year. Eighty cases of sexual assault were reported by cadets and midshipmen during the 2011–2012 academic year, compared with 65 the previous year. Four of the victims were men. It was the third straight year of increases, from a low of 25 in 2009. Toward the end of 2012, the Pentagon announced that 26,000 sexual assaults took place, with only a quarter formally reported (Steinhauer, May 15, 2013). As of 2013, more troubling developments have convinced some members of Congress, especially female Senators Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Claire McCaskill (D-MO), that an epidemic of sexual assault and rape characterizes the U.S. military. Perhaps due to the fact that a record seven female senators currently sit upon the Senate Armed Services Committee, legislation has been introduced in both chambers that would give military prosecutors rather than commanders the power to decide which sexual assault cases to try. Virtually all modern military allies of the United States have removed the prosecution of military crimes from commanders and instead rely upon military prosecutors (Steinhauer, May 8, 2013). However, there is also disagreement over whether sex crimes should be singled out for different prosecutorial treatment than other serious crimes. Furthermore, Senator Collins is sponsoring a bill that would remove convicted sex offenders from the military.

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Despite high-pro¿le congressional hearings and wide-spread viewing of the documentary The Invisible War, troubling stories continue to emerge. For example, Lieutenant Susan Helms of the Air Force overturned a jury conviction in a sexual assault case without public explanation. In May 2013, Lt. Colonel Jeffrey Krusinski, 41, was arrested for approaching a female non-military victim in a parking lot and grabbing her breasts and buttocks. Ironically, at the time of his arrest Lt. Colonel Krusinski was in charge of a ¿ve-person Pentagon of¿ce that administers the Air Force’s sexual assault prevention and response program (Savage 2013). Veterans and Suicide Since 2001, 2,700 service members have killed themselves, and that ¿gure does not include National Guard and reserve troops who were not on active duty when they committed suicide (Dao and Lehren, May 15, 2013). As of 2012, one active duty soldier dies every day in the United States by committing suicide (Gibbs and Thompson 2012). Even though the Army in 2009 required that all 1.4 million of its soldiers take intensive training in emotional resiliency,5 as of 2012 a veteran commits suicide every 80 minutes now. According to former Department of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, “This issue—suicides is the perhaps the most frustrating challenge that I have come across since becoming Secretary of Defense.” By 2012, living veterans from all wars account for about 10 percent of U.S. adults, but comprise 20 percent of all suicides. The rates of suicide jumped 80 percent from 2004 to 2008, leveled off a bit in 2010 and 2011 and soared 18 percent in 2012 (Gibbs and Thompson). A constellation of different issues may impact an active-duty soldier or a veteran to take his/her own life. These include: the frequent deployments, limited dwell time (the time interval between deployments which can include time spent with family and friends and then re-training before being deployed again); the loss of comrades; family separation; loss of signi¿cant others or family members while deployed; and of course in some cases a history of substance and alcohol abuse. Other factors which affect suicide rates amongst veterans include traumatic brain injury and PTSD. However, combat trauma alone cannot account for this disturbing trend in increased suicides. Nearly one-third of the suicides from 2005–2010 were among troops who had never deployed, and 43 percent had deployed only once. Less 5௑See “Mental Stress Training is Planned for U.S. Soldiers” by Benedict Casey. The New York Times, August 19, 2009. Retrieved online at http://www.nytimes.com. The plan was to train 1,500 sergeants to teach weekly 90 minute classes by the summer of 2010. To track the effects of the program, the Army will now require that all troops, from new recruits to of¿cers, complete a 170 item questionnaire to evaluate their mental health and the strength of their social support system.

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than 10 percent, who committed suicide, were deployed three or four times. However, one in 20 active duty personnel stationed in Iraq acknowledged frequent suicidal ideation (Burns and Mahalik 2011: 349). Enlisted members are more likely to kill themselves than of¿cers; and 18–24-year-olds are more likely to kill themselves than any other age cohort (which is consistent with the general population cohort suicide trends). As far as the means of suicide, two-thirds kill themselves by gunshot and 20 percent hang themselves. Nearly 95 percent of suicides are committed by male active-duty and veterans, and a majority are married (Gibbs and Thompson). The Pentagon allocates about $2 billion or 4 percent of its annual $53 billion medical bill to mental health, but inadequate resources prevent the V.A. from helping all those who need treatment. Even though very few female veterans are committing suicide, the impact of male veteran suicide is also making a gendered impact worthy of discussion. Pro¿led in a recent TIME magazine story are two widows: Leslie McCaddon, a now single mother of three, whose husband, Captain Mike McCaddon, was at ¿rst a bomb ordnance disposal specialist in the Army and eventually a doctor specializing in obstetrics. The other widow is Rebecca Morrison, whose husband, Captain Ian Morrison,6 was a West Point graduate and an Apache helicopter pilot. Captains McCaddon and Morrison killed themselves on the same day: March 21, 2012. Through a gendered lens, we can unravel the lengths Leslie McCaddon went through to get her husband help. Captain Mike McCaddon was increasingly strained by the pressures of medical school, a life with three kids and a wife, and the fact that he was reaching the biological age at which his own father committed suicide. Leslie was sure that Mike was depressed. He started lashing out at the children and at Leslie, and she knew that he needed intervention. But to admit he needed help would also mean the end to Mike’s promising career trajectory. Nevertheless, Leslie McCaddon went to her husband’s superior, a female Lieutenant Colonel at the medical school where Mike was performing his residency. Mrs. McCaddon hoped that by sharing this information with his commanding of¿cer, Mike would be ordered into some type of counseling and then he would just be following orders. Instead in a perverse gendered dynamic, the female Lt. Colonel started shouting at Leslie: “Why hadn’t anybody ever alerted her to Mike’s history of depression beforehand?” She then ordered Mike and other colonels into the room with Leslie sitting right there. Captain McCaddon was morti¿ed to see his wife sitting there with the female Lt. Colonel. Leslie left the room crying, livid, and hurt. In an ironic twist of fate, the female Lt. Colonel turned to Leslie and said, “Honey, don’t worry. My ¿rst marriage was a wreck 6௑I must admit I was drawn to this story from Time because the late Captain Ian Morrison attended the same high school I did, Thomas McKean, in Wilmington, Delaware. Both of us were co-captains of our swim team. Although I never knew Captain Morrison since he graduated in 2001 and I graduated a decade earlier, I could picture him walking the same hallways I did and swimming lap after lap at practice.

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too.” The Lt. Colonel explained that there was an obvious dysfunctional family dynamic going on, which was not in her view the problem of the Army to sort out. After this humiliating and unhelpful encounter with the female Lt. Colonel, Leslie took her three kids to Massachusetts to help her ailing mother. She and Michael talked about getting a divorce, but she still wanted him to get counseling regardless of whether the marriage remained intact. Captain McCaddon continued his medical rounds at the hospital while Leslie and the children were in Massachusetts. Then, Leslie received the suicide email from Mike. “Know that I love you and my biggest regret in life will always be failing to cherish that, and instead forsaking it. Don’t tell the children how I died.” She immediately called the delivery services unit of the hospital, since he worked in obstetrics. The hospital staff began to search the hospital for Mike after receiving Leslie’s call. Leslie stayed on the line, and a few minutes later she heard screaming and crying in the background. Captain McCaddon’s body had been found. He was hanging from a noose in the call room, and it had been less than 30 minutes since his ¿nal email to his wife. It took 15 minutes to retrieve a heartbeat, but by then his brain had been without oxygen for too long. He was taken off life support after his wife Àew to his beside. Widow Rebecca Morrison saw no troubling signs when her husband, Captain Ian Morrison, returned home in September after being deployed to Iraq in early 2011. He had Àown some 70 missions, and his base was routinely mortared; but his Commanding Of¿cer issued a formal review writing Captain Morrison had “unlimited potential, continue to place in position of greater responsibility.” Rebecca noted, however, that the downtime back in Texas was hard for Ian to adjust to. He was due to be reassigned. Their house was not moving in a soft housing market, and he was having troubling sleeping. Rebecca knew all the warning signs of PTSD and came right out and asked Ian “Do you feel like you want to hurt or kill yourself?” Ian looked at Rebecca and said, “Absolutely not, no way. I don’t feel like that at all. All I want to do is ¿gure out how to stop this anxiety.” Captain Morrison sought help for his anxiety at Fort Hood’s health clinic, was kept waiting for three hours, and then was told there was nobody available to see him and nothing to prescribe to him at this point. Sleeping pills were later authorized, but did not seem to help Ian. He volunteered to join an Army sleep study, but he was told he would have to wait a month. Morrison continued to be a good aviator, and sought help where he could but was rebuffed by waiting on 24 hour hotlines. The day of his suicide, Rebecca remained in contact with her husband through texting. When she returned from her graduate school class that night after teaching second grade at a Fort Hood base school, she knew something was wrong. Ian was lying with his head on his pillow on Rebecca’s side of the bed. He was in his uniform. Ian had shot himself in the neck. Rebecca found no pulse, ran outside, and started screaming “Call 911.” Currently, all soldiers returning from deployment are required to perform selfassessments on their psychological state. By no surprise a 2008 study found that in assessments answered anonymously, soldiers were two to four times more likely

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to report depression or suicidal thoughts because they knew it could not hurt their performance evaluations and future promotion possibilities. Subsequently, the V.A. and all the service branches have launched resiliency programs. Since 2009, the Pentagon’s numbers of mental health professionals have increased by 10,000, but there remains a shortage of personnel. Currently, the Army has only 80 percent of the psychiatrists it needs, and 88 percent of the social workers and behavioral health nurses recommended by the V.A (Gibbs and Thompson). Both of these widows, Leslie and Rebecca, are victims of a gendered war as well. Even though they are not the soldiers, they are now left to try and rebuild the pieces of their shattered lives. Anger, grief, helplessness—they both gave their “all” to the Army and Air Force. Leslie McCaddon’s visit to her husband’s commanding of¿cer’s of¿ce was a bold move indeed. But that must be viewed as an indicator of how truly desperate she was to try and salvage what was left of her relationship with her husband and ultimately to try and save his life, regardless of whether they remained married. Another issue raised by suicide amongst veterans is how their death is received by the military community at large and even whether the surviving family members receive a condolence letter. One-third of service personnel commit suicide while deployed, and two-thirds die by suicide in other locations, often back in the United States. In 2011, the White House decided to expand the policy to send presidential condolence letters to the families of those who die by suicide while stationed in combat zones, but continues to exclude those who die by suicide in other locations (Carroll 2012). Army Lieutenant General Bill Troy was asked in 2010 about these policies when he honored a soldier who had died by suicide. Lt. General Troy said, “We should be memorializing his service to the nation, his service in combat, not passing judgment on the manner of his death” (Carroll 2012). Many other service personnel die as a result of training accidents, homicides, or illness. It is common for the Pentagon to classify deaths as hostile vs. non-hostile; but many of these personnel are denied memorialization by their states or communities because they were not “killed in action.”7 Chapter Summary Close to 300,000 U.S. military women have now joined the ranks of millions of veterans due to their military service in Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. Even though these women served in non-combat military occupational specialties due the imposition of the ground combat ban, thousands of U.S. military women are impacted by PTSD, TBI, and physical disabilities such as amputations 7௑There have been similar issues raised in recent years about adding the names of Vietnam veterans who died from complications due to Agent Orange exposure as well as “friendly ¿re incidents” to the Vietnam Wall Memorial in Washington, D.C.

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and severe burns suffered from IED attacks. While signi¿cant progress has been made in the education of the general public regarding PTSD, in particular, women veterans’ response to male-veteran based treatment programs will need intensive empirical study over the following decades. Despite liberal feminists’ desire to seek equal opportunities for U.S. military women, difference and radical feminists’ perspectives about may offer important insights on the following issues. Do women soldiers experience PTSD at a higher incidence rate due to their biological composition, or internalize and process the deaths and injuries of fellow soldiers and perhaps even Iraqi and Afghan civilians in a different manner due to a supposed capacity for heightened empathetic connections with others? Do women veterans respond better to group therapy treatment when they are in the company of other women veterans as opposed to being in mixed group therapy sessions? Will the epidemic of military sexual trauma continue to exacerbate the incidence of PTSD for U.S. military women regardless of whether they are deployed abroad? Finally, will homelessness and suicide rates amongst female veterans reach parity with male veteran rates in the coming decades, or will women veterans for a variety of sociological, relational, and psychological variables be more willing to access support networks and services due to the ability to more easily shed their “hypermasculinized military” identity unlike many of their fellow male soldiers? In other words, will some women veterans’ ability to re-appropriate and perform hegemonic femininity result in fewer short and long-term dif¿culties in negotiating the transition back to the civilian world for those women who have severed from the military?

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Chapter 5

The Ultimate Sacri¿ce

Unlike deaths due to civilian traf¿c accidents, military deaths are popularly viewed as deaths that should have a meaning (Ben-Ari 2005: 653). As Ben-Ari notes, “the relatively young age of the dead soldier turns his/her demise into something that is not natural and exacerbates the problems associated with explaining and justifying the death. As a consequence, such deaths are potentially chaotic and may both disturb the military’s organization and challenge the very bases of its legitimacy” (p. 653). Due to the fact that families are smaller in size today than in decades past and now with the availability of social media, each death during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars was recognized in multiple media outlets, especially through the New York Times’ “Names of the Dead,” the Washington Post’s “Faces of the Fallen,” and the i.casualties.org website. As Ben-Ari notes, it may be a bit surprising that the deaths of female soldiers seems to have been accepted in the United States, as well as other countries participating in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, without any major political reaction or criticism. Many argue that the death of a female soldier is no more tragic than that of a male soldier. As retired Brigadier General Evenly Foote remarked presciently in the early 1990s: I love the body bag question. Are you ready for your daughter to come home in a body bag? I said, ‘No, I’m not ready for either my son or my daughter to come home in a body bag. The whole theater is a combat zone, and some women in the rear area and some men in the rear area will be killed. Some women and men serving forward will also become combat casualties. These are the 1990s, and the battle¿eld is highly Àuid. Yet much of our thinking, and many of these exclusionary policies are predicated upon World War II battle¿eld mentality—fronts and rears, boundaries and brigades. I would like somebody to tell me where the front and the rear were in Vietnam (McGlen and Starkes 1993: 126).

To date, 150 female soldiers1 have been killed in Iraq and/or Afghanistan. Approximately 55 percent have died from hostile/enemy ¿re. Members of forward support companies and female engagement teams received combat pay, also known as “hostile ¿re” or “imminent danger” pay (MacKenzie 2012: 34).

1௑More female soldiers were killed in Afghanistan once the data had been collected for this chapter, bringing the of¿cial death toll for U.S. military women to 150 as of late 2013.

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This chapter was the driving reason for the author’s interest in this research agenda. I was awed and actually a bit ashamed that women half my age were dying in two wars. I started thinking what my life would have been like if I had joined the military. I too was puzzled by the lack of public reaction to a considerable number of female deaths. Again, more female soldiers have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan than in all the other wars the U.S. has participated in since WWII. The need to document these deaths and attempt to ¿nd any themes surrounding these women’s lives was my original intent. With the help of some industrious undergraduate students and through using the open-source information from Washington Post’s Faces of the Fallen, The New York Times’ Names of the Dead, and iCasualties.org website,2 we have developed a database of these women. After researching these 145 female service members, it is clear there is no typical pro¿le. Many women were young. Forty-two service personnel died in the 18–21 age range; and 41 women died between the ages of 22–25. Twenty-one women died in the age range of 26–29. However, 28 women died in their thirties, and 13 women at the age of 40 or older. According to the information found from obituaries and other open-source materials, 35 women had children. Some were married young, divorced young, and many were single parents. Forty-two women were married at the time of their death, and 12 were engaged to be married. Many met their spouses through the military as well. Some women found direction, purpose, and a challenge for themselves after drifting in and out of college, while others knew from a fairly early age that military service was in their future. Many of these women (44) had spouses, brothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, and siblings who also served in the military; therefore, military culture was familiar to them. Overwhelmingly, it was enlisted women, including a few senior enlisted soldiers, who died (120) as compared to 25 female military personnel with of¿cer rank. Some families were proud of their daughter’s ultimate sacri¿ce, while a few spoke guardedly to reporters about the distorted purpose of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some female service members’ families chose for their daughters or wives to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery, while others chose hometown cemeteries. According to research for this chapter, 80 female military personnel died due to hostile/enemy actions including IED, mortar ¿re, suicide bombers, and insider attacks; while 65 women died from non-combat related reasons including: suicide (8), homicide (7), vehicle/training accidents (22), natural causes (12), and undetermined causes including disagreements between the of¿cial military ruling and the family’s viewpoint on their loved one’s cause of death (16). The intent of this chapter is to demonstrate the myriad reasons why women join the military, the support structure or lack thereof they may have in place, and to ¿nally honor their service and sacri¿ce. Of course, the sacri¿ce and the 2௑See “Close Watch on Casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq” by Noam Cohen. The New York Times, November 21, 2010. Retrieved online at http://www.nytimes.com.

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details of male soldiers’ deaths are just as important and in much greater numbers. But the fact that 150 female soldiers have died is a reÀection of the type of wars U.S. military women are participating in as well as the gendered wars still being waged in the Pentagon, Congress, and on some blogs regarding women’s “proper” roles in modern warfare. The awards, commendations, and accolades U.S. military women are receiving from their fellow soldiers are testament to decades of progress, albeit too slow for many individuals, towards integrating women fully into the civic institution of the United States military despite the signi¿cant problems that still remain. While every female soldier was initially researched, this chapter will pro¿le approximately 50 servicewomen. Information was gathered primarily through internet searches; however, four families out of the 20 families I approached through an introductory letter regarding my research graciously agreed to answer interview questions posed through email and phone conversations. The eight themes selected to pro¿le these women in no way is intended to de¿ne these women as one-dimensional individuals. Each woman was a complex individual worthy of her own memoir; however, the contribution of this chapter to the overall research agenda is to speak to the larger academic literature regarding women and militarism and feminist security studies. The empirical cases, however, in this research are tragically deceased members of our global community. Informing the theoretical literature through the examination of U.S. military women who died during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is truly exemplary of how the most personal of life events, a singular death, can be contextualized within larger relational, political, sociological, and economic phenomena. Single Mothers More than 100,000 female soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan are mothers, nearly half the number of women who have been deployed as of 2009 (Alvarez, September 26, 2009). And a third of those women are single mothers, who have to make alternative childcare arrangements for a long stretch of time while they are deployed. To be fair, the military does try to discourage single parents from enlisting. They are not allowed to enlist in active duty; however, if they become single while on active duty, they can remain in the service branch after providing a notarized family care plan. The same holds true for single parents in the National Guard and the Reserves. The Army has changed some of its policies to reÀect the new realities of soldier-mothers. For example, a new mother can defer deployment from four to six months, and then increase it to a year, following the Navy’s lead, which is the recommended time a mother should breast-feed (Alvarez, September 26, 2009). Moreover, the Army has even approved ten day paternity leaves for new fathers. Another reality is married military couple deployments. As we saw in the case of Second Lieutenant Blair in Chapter 3, both she and her new husband deployed

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to Iraq, but there were no children involved. By 2009, however, two million children had seen a parent go to war; and in some cases mothers have not come home. Studies show that most children are resilient; however, younger children might start wetting their beds at night, become extremely anxious, and not trust that mommy or daddy will not leave again after the deployment is over. Older children, especially teenagers, may become depressed and detached, especially if they are the children of Reservists or National Guard members who live outside a military community. Military historian, Martin van Creveld, argues that the “military has now turned into a safe-haven for very young mothers, many of who are single” (Pin-Fat and Stern 2005: 37). He further worries that the reason why women enlisted in the ¿rst place is because many hope they will not be obliged to ¿ght. However, the military provides these women with housing, medical care, decent base schools, and other critical supports female soldiers with children may be lacking in the civilian world. According to van Creveld (2000), the presence of “home” normally associated with the private sphere is then replicated in the semipublic sphere of the military base. Parents have died in warfare throughout human history; however, the reality of single mothers dying in Iraq and Afghanistan is proof for some critics, including van Creveld, that society has reached a new nadir when it willingly accepts and some would argue entices single mothers to enlist. From a Marxist feminist perspective, the military can and does provide modest economic security for a woman who may be caring for a child on her own or even with support from a family. The starting base pay of an E-1 (enlisted Private) in the Army with less than two years experience is approximately $19,000. From a liberal feminist perspective, however, these single mothers are availing themselves of an equal opportunity. Would it legally be permissible for the military to deny entry to single mothers, but allow entry of mothers who are married? And from a difference and radical feminist perspective, the culture of death, masculinized hegemony, and inherent inequality of the military is no place for a woman, let alone a single mother. However, as we will see from these women’s pro¿les, their identity as a single mother, while a powerful one, is again part of a multi-faceted constellation of events and choices, albeit choices constrained by socio-economic factors, relational networks, and personalities. To view these women, though, as simply pawns in the military-industrial complex structure is to reduce their individual agency tremendously. Navy Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Jaime S. Jaenke, 29, of Iowa Falls, Iowa, was killed on June 5, 2006 in Anah, Iraq as a result of enemy action when her Humvee was struck by an IED. Another male soldier was killed in the attack. Jaime was assigned to the Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 25 out of Fort McCoy, Wisconsin. As a Seabee Reservist, she provided infrastructure support for combat of¿cers such as building airstrips and housing. Jaime was a single mother to her daughter, Kayla.

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According to my October 2012 email correspondence with her mother, Susan Jaenke, the family has a deep naval background. It began with service in Europe and continued through the generations. Jaime Jaenke’s grandfather and great uncle both served in the Navy. Susan Jaenke’s oldest son, Garrett, joined the Navy at 17 and stayed in for 18 years. He traveled the world and served on 11 different aircraft carriers as a plane engineer. Another son, Justin, joined the Navy after high school and served on the U.S.S. Enterprise. He was deployed to the Persian Gulf region twice. Ms. Jaenke wrote, “We have known a lot of Navy personnel, and one in particular has become a life-long friend, Admiral William McRaven,3 one heck of a hero.” As a child, Jaime fell in love with horses around age seven. The family moved to Red Wing, Minnesota. Along her rural mail route, Susan discovered a horse stable; Jaime began taking lessons. It helped to make leaving her friends behind more bearable. She rode horses until she graduated from high school. However, the horse riding took a back seat to dating when she started to work at McDonalds and was promoted to shift manager at the age of 17. Her mom shared that high school became a “lost place” for Jaime. Her friends were not school friends, but party friends, including her boyfriend. Military recruiters had no success in enticing Jaime to enlist while she was still in high school. Jaime always brought home “pound puppies,” according to Susan, and one of them she married. At 20 years of age, Jaime gave birth to a daughter she named Kayla. Jaime did not join the Navy as a reservist until she was in her twenties, unlike her two brothers. She divorced her husband when Kayla was 18 months old. Ms. Jaenke then began working in emergency medical services in Ellsworth, Wisconsin. A Navy recruiter from Fort Snelling, Minnesota was trying to ¿nd paramedics who might be interested in joining the Navy as corpsmen. Jaime jumped at the chance, because she wanted to go into medicine and become an emergency room nurse. “She took to it like a duck to water. I think as a Navy Corpsman, she ¿nally found herself. They called her “Doc” and gave her respect. That is when the lost Jaime became the found Jaime and got back into horses and life,” according to Jaime’s mother. Jaime and Kayla’s life with horses would continue to Àourish. After Susan Jaenke had an accident while working at the post of¿ce in 2000, she had to medically retire and received a large settlement in 2003. Due to the ¿nancial compensation, the Jaenke family was able to take on 20 horses. Jaime made the 3௑Four star Admiral McRaven is credited for organizing and executing Operation Neptune’s Spear, the special operations raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011 (Pakistani date). CIA Director Leon Panetta delegated the raid preparation and execution to McRaven who has worked almost exclusively on counterterrorism operations and strategy since 2001. According to the New York Times, in February 2011, Mr. Panetta called Vice Adm. William H. McRaven, commander of the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command, to CIA headquarters and was instructed to begin planning a military strike.

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building a show place, and it was ¿nished in January 2006 just as she got her deployment papers. Fortunately, she did have a chance to ride and train horses in the stable before she left for Iraq in March 2006. Jaime’s plans were to make the stables a full training equestrian business where she could provide an income for her daughter while she worked on her nursing degree while enlisted in the Navy. When she deployed to Iraq, Jaime remained in constant contact with the family. She called daily when she was not out on a convoy. She was the lead corpsman for one of the convoy groups. The last time the family heard from her was when Jaime’s unit was heading to the Sunni-dominated Anbar Province, and she warned her family she would not be able to call or use the computer. Jaime was killed three days later. While she was in Iraq, she had her mother send hard candy and half plastic bags. Jaime told her mom that you could not give the Iraqi children anything more than a few pieces of candy, or it would make them sick. Most of the children Jaime came into contact with were half-starved and could not handle large amounts of food. Jaime remarked to her mother, “If you give the children a book, then they won’t pick up a gun.” When I asked about Jaime’s interaction with her unit, her mother responded, “Everyone loved Jaime. She was the center of the camp. We would send her stuff, and she set up a shelf in their barracks and everyone could come and get what they needed at Camp Freedom, which was only populated by Navy personnel.” She was so well-respected, according to Mrs. Jaenke, that six years after her death, Susan still hears from Jaime’s friends on a weekly basis. Her daughter loved to play pranks as well and had no problem excelling in a very male military culture. Susan Jaenke said, “I brought her up to handle being a woman in a man’s world. She could out shoot her brothers and could work on a car.” Upon Jaime’s death, Susan remarked that the Navy really took care of the family. “They stayed with us through the funeral and took care of the press. She was Iowa’s ¿rst female to die in Iraq, so there was a lot to contend with.” Six years later, Mrs. Jaenke has primary care of Kayla. Kayla was nine when her mother was killed in Iraq, and now her grandmother writes of Kayla: She is an amazing young woman. She lost her childhood on the day that we heard about Jaime. She can be childish, child-like, but never a child. Jaime left Kayla to me to raise her as best I can. If something should happen to me, then Kayla goes to my youngest son, Kayla’s Uncle Justin. But in three short years, Kayla will be off to college and then that will be the real test on how well I have done with her.

Mrs. Jaenke wrote, “Jaime is my heart, my best friend, my only daughter. Her brothers and I feel her loss every day. Her SeaBees come and see Kayla every year on a motorcycle ride to honor the fallen. There has been a building named after Jaime in San Antonio, Texas. She is in Kayla. The older Kayla gets, the more she

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looks just like her mom. Her grave is just a resting place. She is in everything and with us always. Thank you for asking about my girl.” Several of Jaenke’s medals were given to her mother during the funeral. Jaime posthumously received the Purple Heart, the Navy Marine Corp Commendation Medal with “V” for valor, Navy Reserve Meritorious Service Medal, Operation Iraqi Freedom Medal, and a Combat Action Ribbon. She completed 25 missions in Iraq, safely escorting 375 personnel. Jaime Jaenke is buried in Alden, Iowa. Navy Petty Of¿cer First Class, Regina Clark, 43, of Centralia, Washington was killed in Fallujah, Iraq on June 23, 2005 when an IED hit her vehicle. Two other women, Holly Charette and Corporal Ramona Valdez, were killed and several others wounded in the attack. Clark was temporarily attached to the Naval Construction Regiment Detachment 30 based out of Port Hueheme, California. Petty Of¿cer Clark, like so many other female soldiers, became part of the Lioness program. In Iraq, Clark was utilized to check women and children for explosive devices at deadly checkpoints. Clark was born in Kassel, Germany and attended college on a softball scholarship. After she was laid off from work in the bakery and deli section at Fuller’s Market Place in Centralia in 2004, she went to work at the Cedar Creek Correction Center (www.militarycity.com). “She is by far the strongest human I’ve ever known,” said friend Kim Elliott, “not woman but human.” She was assigned to a unit from Camp Lejeune. Her brother and father served in the Navy, and she was a veteran of Operation Desert Storm (1990–1991). Clark was called up one week after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Regina Clark centered much of her life on her son, Kerry, according to friends. She joined the Navy and married a fellow sailor, but they separated when Kerry was still a little boy (Bernton 2005). Regina’s mother, Melitta Fountain, watched her grandson during Regina’s other deployments.4 Though Regina Clark was a sailor through and through, friends say that as the Naval Reserves mobilized post9/11, Clark felt a conÀict between her duty as a mother and her duty to serve. She was supposed to deploy right before her son’s graduation from high school, but was able to postpone deployment a bit; however, that delay resulted in her deployment to insurgent-laden Fallujah, Iraq. As a naval reservist mess hall cook, her earlier duties in the ¿rst deployment in 2001 were mainly related to food preparation; but geopolitical circumstances had drastically changed and not for the better in Iraq by 2003. In March 2003, the morning she headed to Kuwait, she told a local newspaper that she was ready to head to a hot spot. She told her then16-year-old son, Kerry, who worried she might not return, “I could leave for work on a normal day and not come back. We never have any guarantees.” 4௑Another important aspect of U.S. military women to be explored in further research is the support networks they must rely upon when they are deployed to care for dependent children. Often, these are maternal networks where grandmothers are doing the majority of the daily care-giving without any additional compensation from the military.

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Clark’s friend, Kim Elliott, said Regina planned to retire from the military when she returned from Iraq. She had enough money saved. This was to be the last deployment for Regina. Navy Of¿cer Petty First Class Clark is buried in Tahoma Cemetery in Kent, Washington and is survived by her son and mother. Army Private First Class Sabrina N. Butcher, 19, of Tulsa, Oklahoma was killed on November 1, 2011 in Paktia province, Pakistan. She died from wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked her vehicle with a makeshift bomb. Butcher was on a resupply mission in the province when the bomb exploded (Wofford and Patterson 2011). An automated logistical specialist, Sabrina was assigned to the 700th Brigade Support Battalion, 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the Oklahoma National Guard. Another soldier was killed in the attack.5 Sabrina was the youngest Oklahoma citizen-soldier to die in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan. She was a 19-year-old mother serving in Afghanistan on her ¿rst tour. She joined the National Guard in 2010 to support her three-year-old daughter, Zoey. Butcher’s mother, Dana Bailey, now cares for Zoey in Arkansas. Sabrina had dreams of becoming a nurse (Miller and Golgowski 2011). Butcher came from a military family, following in the footsteps of her grandfather and brother (www. militarytimes.com). Posthumously, Butcher was promoted to the rank of specialist. Her awards include: the National Defense Service Medal, Army Service Ribbon, and Oklahoma Good Conduct Medal. She was buried in McCaskill, Arkansas; her family received the Purple Heart and Bronze Star posthumously on Sabrina’s behalf. At her service, Major General Myles Deering, adjutant general for Oklahoma, said, “She was a brave young woman who selÀessly gave all she had for her country and the other soldiers that served alongside her” (Wofford 2011). A new USO center in Afghanistan now bears the name of Sabrina. The center provides a theater, telephones, internet access, a library, and other amenities for soldiers. Army Corporal Michelle R. Ring, 26, of Martin, Tennessee died in Baghdad, Iraq from wounds sustained during enemy mortar ¿re on July 5, 2007. She was assigned to the 92nd Military Police Battalion out of Fort Benning, Georgia. Ring worked as a petroleum specialist in the motor pool. Michelle was the youngest of three girls. Born in Portland, Oregon, the family moved to Kentucky and then eventually Alaska. At 17 years of age, she dropped out of high school and fell for Marc Hopfenspirger, a 21-year-old soldier from Fort Richardson in Alaska. At a grocery store late one night, a ¿ght broke out and someone threw a beer bottle. A shard of glass broke and bounced off Hopfenspirger’s jeep and sliced his throat open. With Marc’s death, depression overtook Ring. She took to wearing baggy clothes, and later revealed to her family during the eighth month of her pregnancy that she was carrying her dead boyfriend’s child. Michelle’s baby, Marc, was born and Ring earned her GED and moved to Tennessee where her parents lived. She took a low-paying job at a Tyson chicken processing plant. Then she met the father of her second son, 5௑Sergeant Christopher Gailey was killed.

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Brandon. They married but it did not work out, and the marriage ended within one year’s time. Ring could barely pay the bills and provide for her two sons. On her lunch break at the age of 22, she saw a highway sign that said “Army.” She was a single parent, but she needed to get started again and provide for her children. She enlisted and went to boot camp. Late in 2006, she shipped out to Baghdad. Corporal Ring’s family said she was ¿nally ¿nding her place in the world. The Army brought structure and purpose; however, she told her family in recent months that the violence around her in Iraq seemed to be getting worse. She said she was worried she would not make it back to see her children again. Her family communicated with her in brief phone calls, e-mails and on MySpace.com. When she came to her parents’ house on leave for the last time in April 2007, Michelle said she did not want to go back to Iraq; however, she recently told her sister she had re-enlisted. Ring wanted to obtain a college degree and become a U.S. Marshall. Plus, the re-enlistment bonus was too good to pass up. On July 5, 2007 in Baghdad some friends brought Ring dinner while she was on patrol at Camp Liberty. She had been training to become a military police of¿cer. Shortly after dinner, rockets screamed into their compound and exploded. A piece of metal hit Ring in the chest and she died almost immediately. No other soldier was wounded during the attack. Michelle’s parents were presented with their daughter’s military decorations including a Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and Good Conduct Medal during the funeral service in McMinnville, Oregon. Ring was promoted posthumously from specialist to corporal. She is survived by her parents, two sisters, and two sons. Michelle Ring is buried in Williamette National Cemetery in Portland, Oregon. Army Sergeant Simone A. Robinson, 21, of Robbins, Illinois died March 1, 2009 at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. She died from injuries sustained when a suicide bomber exploded a sedan on a quiet street, near the German Embassy where Robinson and a fellow soldier were escorting a fuel truck outside of Camp Eggers in Kabul, Afghanistan. Sergeant Robinson was assigned to the 634th Brigade Support Battalion of the Illinois Army National Guard out of Crestwood, Illinois (www.militarytimes.com). Four other Illinois Army National Guard soldiers were wounded in the same attack.6 Another soldier, Staff Sergeant Carlo Robinson, was killed in the blast. Over 20 Afghan civilians were injured. Simone joined the Illinois Army National Guard in December 2004 while still in high school and needed her parents’ permission to do so. Once in the Guard, she worked in the of¿ce during weekend duty and then joined the Guard’s formal funeral detail during the week, a full-time job attending the burials of up to 20 veterans a day at a cemetery near the armory. After discovering she was pregnant, she remained in the Guard. Staff Sergeant 1st Class Christine Kelly recalled that after having her baby, Simone returned to her Guard duties driven and intent on building a life for her daughter as a single mother. 6௑The injured also included Daniel Acosta, 30, of Whiting Ind.; Aaron Carlson, 20, of Annawan, Ill.; Leigh Herring, 28 of Peoria, and Tyler Keener, 22, of Prairie City, Ill.

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Her unit was deployed in August 2008. Sergeant Robinson was serving on her ¿rst deployment. Robinson’s comrades said she loved her job in Afghanistan. She helped keep the lights on at the base, Camp Eggers, by protecting the fuel trucks that resupplied the massive generators. As she lapsed in and out of consciousness after the attack, she sang one of her favorite church hymns, “This Joy That I Have.” After being evacuated to Germany and then to Brooke Army Medical Center, she died six weeks after the blast (Gutierrez 2009). She left behind a two-year old daughter, Nyzia, to be raised by Simone’s parents. Simone’s mother, Regina Butler, said she will put together a scrapbook of her daughter’s accomplishments and present it to her granddaughter someday. The Robinson family organized a party on what would have been Simone’s 22nd birthday for the 130 soldiers of the Illinois National Guard who returned home in August 2009 without Simone (Gutierrez 2009). Simone Robinson was promoted to sergeant posthumously. Her awards include: the Purple Heart, National Defense Service Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Armed Forces Reserve Medal with M-device, Army Service Ribbon, NATO Medal and Combat Action Badge. She is buried in Restvale Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois. Army Specialist Jessica L. Cawvey, 21, of Normal, Illinois was killed on October 6, 2004 when an IED detonated near her convoy vehicle in Fallujah, Iraq. Cawvey was assigned to the 1544th Transportation Company of the Illinois National Guard. Her unit was deployed to Iraq in February 2004 and suffered many casualties including Shawna Morrison’s a month earlier. Cawvey left behind a six-year-old daughter at the time of her death. She decided to join the National Guard to provide for her daughter, and Jessica was also pursuing an accounting degree at Illinois State University. Jessica’s daughter, Sienna, was given two guinea pigs when her mother deployed to Iraq. Sienna named one Jessica, and the other was called Lynn, Jessica’s middle name. An undated posting from Cawvey’s daughter, Sienna, said, “dear mommy i love you i know you love me too. I miss you. Im happy you were trying to ¿ght for freedom. I love u. your the person I love the most well 2nd if im putting jesus 1st. nobody could replace you. I know you pinky promised me. You did your best and that’s all that matter. You went for someone in your troop. that’s brave. you are very special” (www.fallenheroesmemorial.com). Specialist Cawvey is survived by her daughter, parents, and two brothers. Her family received the Army Good Conduct Medal, Purple Heart, and Bronze Star medal on Jessica’s behalf. Jessica’s remains were cremated. Army Private Melissa J. Hobart, 22, of Ladson, South Carolina died on June 6, 2004 after collapsing while on guard duty in Baghdad, Iraq. A medic, Hobart had collapsed a week prior to her death as well, leaving Melissa’s mother to wonder why she was placed back on guard duty (Jordan 2004). She was assigned to Company E, 215th Forward Support Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division out of Fort Hood, Texas. Hobart deployed to Iraq in March 2004.

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Melissa did not graduate from high school, but she successfully completed the GED and was attending nursing school (Jordan 2004). Even though she knew the risks, her brother, Gary, said Melissa enlisted to provide a better life for her threeyear-old daughter, Alexis McCabe. According to her mother, Constance Hobart, “At the beginning Melissa thought she was doing good, good for the United States, good for democracy and freedom. Then she didn’t know what she was doing there anymore. Iraqis threw rocks at them and they don’t want them there anymore” (Kelly 2004). Melissa’s brother, Gary, on the other hand remarked, “I think what she (Melissa) did was great. I believe in what we’re doing over there. I support the troops, and it’s sad when this happens, but that’s just one of those prices that has to be paid in order to have the freedoms we have in America” (Kelly 2004). Constance Hobart, Melissa’s mother, will raise her granddaughter. Private Hobart is survived by her daughter, mother, father, and two siblings. She was buried in New Haven, Connecticut—the location of her childhood. The Thin Gray Line Women were ¿rst admitted to the military service academies in the mid-1970s. Since then, young female cadets have proven themselves both inside the classroom and in leadership roles across campus.7 On average, approximately 200–250 females enter West Point Academy every year, and women comprise 15 percent of the student body. These women realize that their right to attend West Point is due to the legal battles fought a generation before them, consistent with the viewpoint of liberal feminist theory. Despite this progress, however, it is important to note that women still face a complex institution to navigate steeped in tradition and malebased gender norms. Moreover, sexual harassment and assault occurs at all the service academies; and many observers believe the statistics are woefully underreported. Since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began, four female West Point graduates have died. The latest death occurred on March 13, 2013 when Sara Marie Cullen, a 2007 graduate and an Army captain, died in a Black Hawk helicopter crash in Afghanistan. Four other soldiers were killed in the crash. Sara graduated from a local high school, just a 30 minute drive from where I live. Captain Cullen was married to a former Black Hawk pilot. The pro¿les of two other exceptional women follow. U.S. Army 2nd Lieutenant Emily Perez, 23, was killed in Iraq on September 12, 2006. She was the ¿rst female West Point graduate to be killed in Iraq. Perez was killed by a roadside bomb as she led her platoon in a convoy south of Baghdad (Thornburgh 2006). She was a graduate of the 9/11 West Point

7௑See Donna A. McAleer’s Porcelain on Steel: Women of West Point’s Long Gray Line, Fortis Publishing, 2010.

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generation, young men and women who began their instruction just days before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Perez held the second highest rank of her senior class as Brigade Command Sergeant Major, and she further distinguished herself by serving as the highest ranking minority woman in the history of West Point. In addition, she set records as a sprinter on the track team, led West Point’s gospel choir, tutored a number of students, and helped start a dance squad to cheer on the football and basketball teams. According to her faculty advisor in the sociology program at West Point, “Emily was amazing” (Thornburgh 2006). A young woman of deep faith, Perez attended church services every Sunday morning and played the tambourine in the gospel choir. She was born into a military family and spent much of her youth in Heidelberg, Germany. Perez returned to the United States in 1998 and graduated from high school in 2001. Emily became wing commander of Junior ROTC at Oxon Hill, the high school she attended in Prince George’s County, Maryland (Partlow and Parker 2006). As a teenager in Fort Washington, Maryland, she established a HIV/AIDS ministry in her church. She was passionate about global health issues. According to faculty advisor Morten Ender, “Emily could have been the next Paul Farmer.”8 Her desire to help led to personal sacri¿ces. Shortly before shipping out to Iraq, she Àew from Texas to Maryland to be a bone marrow donor to a stranger who was a match, according to Pastor Michael Bell of the Peace Baptist Church Perez attended (Mareech 2006). After graduating from West Point, Emily was assigned to the Army’s 204th Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division and deployed to Iraq in December 2005 (Partlow and Parker 2006). She chose the highly selective Medical Service Corps, which even though it is not designated as a combat branch, still has a good chance of being in the midst of combat. Perez had already survived several previous convoy attacks in Iraq. On the day of her death, Emily Perez asked a fellow lieutenant to step down from leading the convoy so she could lead it herself because she felt the lieutenant was not ready, according to Emily’s father, Daniel Perez. While leading the convoy in Al KiÀ, Emily Perez’s Humvee hit a bomb, killing her instantly. Her Iraqi translator’s legs were severed, and soldiers in the back of the vehicle suffered minor injuries. Emily’s family chose to hold the funeral at West Point because of Perez’s reverence for the institution that challenged her physically and mentally. Second Lieutenant Perez was buried at West Point on a high bluff overlooking the Hudson River (Thornburgh 2006). At her funeral services, a fellow track teammate of Perez, Meghan Venable-Thomas said, “She was like a little Superwoman…so full of energy and life, and she was just willing to do anything” (Partlow and Parker 2006). Another of Perez’s mentors, Roger Pollard, who worked with her 8௑Dr. Paul Farmer is a noted anthropologist and physician who founded Partners in Health, which is primarily concerned with providing medical care to individuals in poor countries like Haiti and Rwanda.

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when she volunteered at a HIV-AIDS peer education program remarked upon her death, “I clearly remember thinking that she would de¿nitely be the ¿rst female president of this country.” Perez’s decorations include: the Purple Heart, Bronze Star, Army Commendation Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Army Service Ribbon, the Overseas Service Ribbon, and Combat Action Badge. The Emily J.T. Perez Foundation was established in 2006 by Daniel and Vicki Perez to honor the life and legacy of their daughter through a mentoring and scholarship program for girls and young women. Perez posthumously received the NCAA Award of Valor in 2008. Emily’s unit, the 204th Support Battalion of the 4th Infantry Division, will forever remember her as a great leader. They continue to honor her with a street named “Emily’s Way” and a medical center called the Emily J.T. Perez Treatment Facility. First Lieutenant Laura Margaret Walker, 24, of El Paso, Texas was killed in action on August 18, 2005 in Delak, Afghanistan. Walker died when an improvised explosive device detonated underneath her Humvee during ground assault convoy operations. She was assigned to the 864th Engineer Combat Battalion (Heavy), 555th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade (Provisional) out of Fort Lewis, Washington. Laura’s education included attending ten different schools, living in 18 different cities and three countries, and culminated with her graduation in 1999 from SHAPE American High School in Belgium. Laura attended the United States Military Academy at West Point where she was elected secretary for the class of 2003 and served as team captain of West Point Women’s Handball Team, leading them to a national collegiate championship. She graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and Systems Engineering on May 31, 2003 and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers. Walker arrived at Fort Lewis in January of 2004 and was assigned to the 555th Engineer Brigade. She deployed to Iraq in support of the 4th Infantry Division until April 2004. Laura was reassigned as a vertical construction platoon leader in the 864th Engineer Heavy Combat Battalion upon returning to Fort Lewis. She then redeployed to Afghanistan in March of 2005. Laura proudly wore the 4th Infantry Division combat patch on her right shoulder, a distinction she shared with both of her grandfathers from their service with the Division in World War II and Vietnam. Laura was an exemplary of¿cer and loved West Point and the soldiers she led. She was a strong person, spiritually, physically and mentally. Laura valued family and friends, and fostered a sense of community wherever she found herself. She was an accomplished and proli¿c writer. Walker treasured time spent with her sister and brothers. She loved learning to cook with her mother, and shared her skill with others. Laura enjoyed talking to her father on long, slow runs. She was a certi¿ed aerobics and yoga instructor and an avid soccer player. Here are some excerpts from a beautiful eulogy for Laura given by her close friend and fellow soldier First Lieutenant Doug Sackett:

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Waging Gendered Wars I am here to celebrate the life of one of my closest and best friends. Laura Walker and I met just as we were about to start the 8th grade. We both moved to Carlisle, Pennsylvania at the same time in the summer of 1994. I remember clearly the ¿rst time we met. We kind of shared back yards and there was a playground in between us. I was hanging out at the swings hoping to meet someone. Looking back on it, I’m not sure I was prepared to meet Laura. After the ¿rst ¿ve minutes, she had told me all about herself and had even gone as far as to start singing songs from the choir she had been a member of…I guess we were able to talk to each other pretty easily. We spent much of that next year talking on the swings behind our house. When your 13 for some reason it feels like no one understands you except another 13 year old. Laura’s life was made up of lots of love. There are so many things Laura loved. First and foremost, she loved her family. She was proud to be a member of the Walker clan. She adored her parents. She will be the ¿rst to tell you that her mother and father are her original heroes. Their marriage served as the standard she would set for love. The pride she had in her brothers could not be contained. Often when I would just ask her “what’s up,” I immediately got an update on Brian or Duncan. And the joy she got from sharing that special bond only sisters have with Audrey is the reason I think she got out of bed on most days. Months out in advance she would begin planning what Audrey and she would do and where they would go on their next outing or shopping spree. She loved to spend time with her Grandparents in DC. I would say she considered it her sanctuary from the hustle of homework or school. Laura loved Ed, her soon-to-be ¿ancp, and treasured their relationship. Even with the endless love of her family, there are still many other things that Laura loved. Laura loved to get dressed up. She loved to write. She loved Cracker Barrel. Laura loved to have warm slippers and hot coffee. She loved to dance. Laura did not love to ski, but she would do it because she loved spending time with her friends. She loved to travel and explore. I’ve never known anyone who could turn strangers into friends with such ease. Laura would go from a formal reception in the U.S. Capitol with Senators, Congressmen, and Generals where the national agenda was debated; to the dance club nightlife where the only concern was what to order at IHOP at the end of the night and be equally comfortable at either. Laura’s grace, warmth, and class transcended the traditional boundaries that keep everyone in the world from getting along. I have been contacted by countless friends of Laura over the past couple of days and the reoccurring theme that is continually brought up is how great of a friend she was to everyone. Days before she was killed, I talked, or more accurately typed with Laura on instant messenger. She was so excited to tell me about her new job as the Battalion’s Public Affairs Of¿cer and some of the many activities she was doing.

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She shared with me an article she wrote that was published in the CENTCOM newsletter. The article describes the progress on the highway Laura’s engineering unit was building to create a major road in Afghanistan. It was clear to me from her tone and enthusiasm that she was enjoying what she was doing and believed in the mission. As she wrote in her article: “With elections on the horizon, extending transportation routes into more rural areas of Afghanistan will play an essential role in encouraging the democratic process. Election dates have been pushed back twice due at least in part to the logistical dif¿culties of coordinating between provinces. Success in road construction here means not only making day to day life easier for the citizens; it facilitates the success of the ¿rst democratically elected government in Afghanistan.” Laura did not take life for granted. From what I saw, she was always grateful for the life she had. She lived life to the fullest. I am thankful for the friendship Laura and I shared. I, as I know so many others, will miss her beyond what any words can express. Laura’s sacri¿ce will always be felt, will always be remembered.

Walker’s awards and decorations include: the Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart, Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, Army Service Ribbon, Combat Action Badge, and Air Assault Badge (www.legacy.com). Laura and her boyfriend, Ed Peskie, were to be engaged in 2005 after three years together. Laura is survived by her mother, Valerie Walker, her father, Colonel Keith Walker, and three siblings. Her ¿nal resting place is the West Point cemetery. The Enemy Within For decades, opponents of women in the military have argued that female soldiers will be sexually assaulted and raped should they fall into enemy hands and become POWs; however, the truth is more military women have undoubtedly been sexually violated and killed by their fellow brothers-in-arms. At least 26,000 women in the military were sexual assaulted in 2012, and the Pentagon conservatively estimates that one out of every four women in uniform will be sexually assaulted or raped while enlisted. Some military women will be sexually assaulted multiple times. Even though considerable progress has been made in the channels available to military women to report and pursue claims of sexual assault against male enlisted personnel and of¿cers, the reality of women’s deaths pro¿led in this section certainly provide credibility to the arguments put forward by radical and difference feminists. Those who contend that the military is primarily a misogynistic, hypermasculinized institution with no real interest or ability in becoming genderneutral, will rightfully highlight these women’s lives and deaths to provide tragic

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and utterly disturbing empirical case studies which support their theoretical antimilitary feminist analyses. Army Specialist Kamisha J. Block, 20, of Vidor, Texas died on August 16, 2007 in Baghdad, Iraq from non-combat related injuries. She was assigned to the 401st Military Police Company, 720th Military Police Battalion, 89th Military Police Brigade out of Fort Hood, Texas. She was to return home from Iraq toward the end of August. Specialist Block joined the military in July 2005 shortly after her high school graduation. After her service in the military, she planned on pursuing a career in law enforcement. As a waitress at the local WafÀe House restaurant, Kamisha was well-liked by the regular customers. She came from small-town America, and most likely there were few economic opportunities in Vidor for a young woman with a high school degree. After she returned from Iraq, Kamisha and her life-long friend, Amanda Buck, were going to get matching tattoos. They were going to be yellow butterÀies, a symbol of Block’s military service. But instead as a memorial to Kamisha’s death, Buck and Kamisha’s sister, Shonta, painted butterÀies on the windows of the WafÀe House where Kamisha and Amanda worked during their high school years (www.dailykos.com). Kamisha’s death was not due to friendly ¿re, as her family was ¿rst told. Instead, she was killed by her jilted boyfriend, Staff Sergeant Paul Brandon Norris, age 30, who was married to another woman with a young daughter. Only the Block family was not told this information until June 2008 (Carpentier 2009). Kamisha and Norris engaged in fraternization, very common in the military, but it constitutes a violation of the United States Military Code of Justice. However, as Norris became abusive towards Kamisha, he was disturbingly transferred into units to become closer to her. Even before they deployed to Iraq, Block began to get a sense of Norris’s consuming jealousy. One day, while packing up a truck, Kamisha had trouble lifting a box. A male corporal walked up to help and accidentally brushed her breast. According to a witness, an outraged Norris grabbed the soldier by the collar and chewed out both the corporal and Kamisha. Norris arrived at Camp Liberty in late June 2007, several weeks after Kamisha. Within days, she found herself transferred to Norris’s ten person squad. The word around Camp Liberty was that someone up the chain of command had done Norris a “favor.” If Kamisha showed up somewhere on base, Norris more often than not appeared as well. “Every night, Norris would ¿nd some time to spend with Specialist Block, using the excuse that he couldn’t sleep or that he had ‘a lot of problems and needed somebody to talk to,’” recalled one soldier in a sworn statement. “I made comments to Specialist Block’s old squad leader that he should do something or say something, to tell Staff Sergeant Norris the relationship was getting out of hand. The squad leader would laugh it off and say, ‘There’s nothing I can do’” (Carpentier 2009). On July 23, 2007, a senior of¿cer confronted Staff Sergeant Brandon Norris, who Àatly denied dating Kamisha. That same day a platoon sergeant sat down with Norris to discuss the inappropriate relationship and the allegation, from senior

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leaders, that he was showing Kamisha preferential treatment. The commander issued a stern warning to Norris. “This relationship must stop immediately. Specialist Block will be reassigned to 1st Squad, and if you have any business that needs to deal with Specialist Block, you will use the chain of command or the NCO [noncommissioned of¿cer] support channel” (Carpentier 2009). Three weeks later after this meeting, Norris walked into Block’s shared barracks, ordered her roommate out and began yelling, ¿nally ¿ring his weapon into the wall to scare her. Block’s roommate then ran back in. Norris pointed the Beretta pistol at Specialist Jennings, who jumped behind a nearby barrier, and then ran for help. It was too late. Inside the trailer, Norris shot Kamisha Block ¿ve times with rounds to her shoulder, chest, and head. Staff Sergeant Norris then turned the gun on himself, putting a single bullet into the right side of his head. Medics arrived minutes later and found Norris dead at the scene. Kamisha had a weak pulse, and she was wheezing with a sucking chest wound. Despite immediate medical attention, Block could not be saved. After her murder, Army of¿cials initially told Kamisha’s family she was killed by friendly ¿re. It took Kamisha’s mother’s personal investigation and the intervention of Texas elected of¿cials to get the Army to admit that Specialist Block was deliberately killed by a superior of¿cer with whom she was involved in an illegal and abusive relationship that their superiors had chosen to overlook for months. The revised 1600 page report that the Army did release, however, was so heavily redacted and missing information that Block’s Congressman, Kevin Brady (R-Texas), had to pressure the Defense Department’s inspector general to release crucial information. Specialist Block’s awards and decorations include: the National Service Defense Medal, Korea Defense Service Medal, the Operation Iraqi Freedom Service Ribbon, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, and the Army Service Ribbon. She is survived by her parents and sister. Kamisha’s ¿nal resting place is Del Rose Cemetery in Vidor, Texas. Navy Master-at-Arms Seaman Anamarie Sannicolas Camacho, 20, of Panama City, Florida was killed on October 22, 2007 in Bahrain due to a noncombat related incident. Also killed on the same day was Master-at-Arms Seaman Genesia Greshman. Both women were shot and killed in the barracks of an American military base in Bahrain, home to the Navy’s 5th Fleet. The shooter, fellow sailor Clarence Jackson, was critically wounded in the shooting at the Naval Support Activity Bahrain base. The wounded sailor apparently shot himself in a failed suicide attempt (www.militarytimes.com). Jackson, who was authorized to carry a gun since he provided base security, shot Greshman and Camacho, who were roommates, as soon as the door was opened to their barracks. Greshman and Jackson had been involved in a volatile relationship; Jackson had been ordered to stay away from Greshman. Camacho, who had no relationship with Jackson, was pronounced dead at the scene of the attack. Annmarie’s mother, Jovy San Nicholas Paulino, described her daughter as a joyful child. Paulino stated it was her daughter’s decision to join the Navy in 2006.

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She said her daughter knew that getting into college was expensive, so she chose to join the Navy right after graduating from high school to get a degree. “She always tried to do things on her own. She was an independent child,” Paulino said (Calindas 2007). Camacho was born on the island of Tinian, a Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. No information could be located regarding Camacho’s burial arrangements. Navy Master-at-Arms Seaman Genesia Mattril Greshman, 19, of Lithonia, Georgia died the same day as her barracks mate, Annemarie Camacho. Both women were shot and killed in the barracks of an American military base in Bahrain, home to the Navy’s 5th Fleet. Jackson and Greshman had a volatile relationship (Schonaeur 2007). He had made threats against her in the past, was punished for it, and ordered to stay away from her. Jackson had just come off restriction when he shot Greshman and Camacho. Both Greshman and Camacho were pronounced dead at the scene of the attack. Jackson was transferred to the Navy hospital in Bethesda, Maryland from Germany. The bullet went through his brain, and he was not expected to regain consciousness. In February 2008, he was transferred to a VA Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota to be closer to his family, where he remains in a vegetative state. Therefore, no criminal charges will be ¿led despite the understandable outrage felt by the families of Greshman and Camacho. Genesia Greshman was buried at Resthaven Gardens of Memory in Decatur, Georgia. She is survived by her mother, father, and other relatives. ROTC and a Tradition of Military Service The reasons why women join the military are as varied as they are for men; however, one of the common themes through many of these women’s lives and deaths was the fact that they had participated in Junior ROTC (Reserve Of¿cer Training Corps) while in high school or in ROTC while in college. In Chapter 1, we explored studies which have examined the strategies utilized by female ROTC cadets to negotiate their gender identities within a still predominantly male institution. Although many colleges and university campuses banned ROTC programs during the 1960s, hundreds of programs now exist all over the country. ROTC has even been re-established at Harvard and Yale Universities despite some continued faculty opposition. Since 2004, the Army has nearly tripled the amount of money it has put into ROTC scholarships, to $263 million, and increased enrollment nationwide by 26 percent, to 30,721 students, to ¿ll vacancies in its of¿cer corps. It is no surprise, therefore, that as college tuition costs continue to outpace the ability of many students and families to ¿nance post-secondary education, the attraction of ROTC scholarships continues to grow for both men and women.

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A Marxist feminist analysis of women in the military, would certainly focus upon the socio-economic challenges many young women may face in trying to identify ways to ¿nance their college education. In addition to ROTC, the attraction of the G.I. Bill’s educational bene¿ts certainly impacted many young men and women’s decision to enlist. According to the Veterans Administration website, 800,000 veterans were utilizing education bene¿ts under the G.I. Bill as of 2010. Moreover, 60 percent of those 800,000 veterans were enrolled in some type of undergraduate post-secondary experience at two or four-year institutions. College students on ROTC scholarships frequently have to manage demanding military standards as well as maintain decent grades in their academic coursework. Occasionally, ROTC students in my classes have had to miss key lectures or exams because there is some mandatory ROTC required exercise. Even though I work with these students to make alternative accommodations, some of my colleagues grouse that ROTC should not even exist on campus. Furthermore, with women earning a greater percentage of four-year college degrees as well, it is no surprise that ROTC scholarships will continue to attract a growing cohort of women. The other frequent theme through many military women’s stories is the tradition of military service within their family. Frequently, in obituaries and other online memorials and tributes, it was common to read about generations of family members who served before or are currently serving. Just as individual political socialization is often impacted by families and peer networks, the same would hold true of military socialization. The greater familiarity there may be with military culture and norms for a young woman contemplating enlistment, perhaps the easier the decision may be to make. Likewise for approximately ten of the 145 female fatalities, these women were married to fellow service personnel (a dual career military couple or family) or had become engaged to a person also in the service. Army Sergeant Julia V. Atkins, 22, of Bossier City, Louisiana, died in Iraq on December 10, 2005. She was assigned to the 64th Military Police Company, 720th Military Policy Battalion, 89th Military Brigade out of Fort Hood, Texas. Julia was killed when an IED detonated near her Humvee during patrol operations in Baghdad. Atkins was on her second tour of duty in Iraq and was scheduled to leave in February 2006. Sergeant Atkins planned on leaving the Army and attending college. She was the youngest of four children, and her mother died when she was 12 years old. She joined the Army shortly after getting her GED in part because of a family history of military service. Her family remembered her as a fun-loving woman who was proud of her new car and planning for her future. Julia served with the Louisiana National Guard’s Shreveport-based 1/156th Armor Battalion’s Bravo Company until early 2004, just before it deployed to service in Iraq. Larry Thomas, Julia’s stepbrother, said the family was overcome with grief. In addition, Atkins’ father was also deployed to Iraq but they did not see one another the entire time they were in Iraq. Even during the summer of 2005, father and daughter missed seeing each other because their leaves did not overlap in time. Atkins’

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father was noti¿ed that she was leaving the compound in Baghdad, and Julia was in the lead vehicle. Julia’s vehicle ran over a buried IED. Sergeant Atkins planned to return to school and get married, her stepbrother said. Atkins’ ¿ancp, Specialist Keith Mack of Gary, Indiana, who was also in the Army and remained on duty in Iraq, attended the funeral service for her in Shreveport. He remarked, “Now I’m happy for her. She’s in a far better place, far better than here.” Army Corporal Karen Nicole Clifton, 22 years of age, was killed in Iraq on June 21, 2007. She was assigned to the 554th Military Police Company, 95th Military Police Battalion out of Kaiserslautern, Germany. Her vehicle was hit with a rocket propelled grenade. In my fall 2012 email exchange with Karen’s father, Doug Clifton, he said that many generations of the Clifton family have served in the military dating back to the Spanish-American War. Doug recalled how his daughter, as a young girl, enjoyed riding go karts on her grandparents’ land and watching sprint car races with her uncle and cousins on weekends. During her high school years, she become involved with the D.A.R.E. program and made the decision that law enforcement would be her career path. She also enjoyed shopping, eating out with her friends, and driving her Mustang GT. When asked about his daughter’s decision to enlist in the Army, Mr. Clifton said that Karen had made up her mind to join the military while in high school. Karen had no interest in receiving a degree from a community college because she wanted to gain her experience and education in the military. Mr. Clifton further commented that Karen’s grandfather had served multiple tours in the Navy and tried to dissuade her from the rigors and dangers of military life. “As her father,” Mr. Clifton said, “she and I had some heated discussions about her serving in such a dangerous capacity and signing up during a war. Karen was very strong-willed, and she had a vision for her destiny and ultimately we all had to learn to accept her decision to serve.” Karen wanted to become a state trooper and believed that her service as a military police of¿cer would open up doors for her when she left the Army and returned home. Karen remained in contact with the family by the internet or texting. According to her father, she liked to receive hand-written letters, small gifts, and snacks by mail. When asked if Karen talked much about her impressions regarding the mission in Iraq, Doug Clifton recounted, “Karen did not talk too much about her role in the war. She always said that was work and she wanted to talk about other stuff when we talked. I do know that she felt sorry for the women and children who were forced to live a suppressed existence under the former dictator.” Karen’s tour was extended out to October 2007, even though she was scheduled to come home in July 2007. When Doug Clifton was asked about this change in her tour he said, “Karen was very optimistic even though they had gotten extended. Karen had sent me an email saying ‘Happy Father’s Day’ and that she was going to the gym to work out so she would look good when she got to come home. I had sent her a return email that she unfortunately never got to read.” When pressed

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about whether Karen expressed frustration about the combat exclusion policy, Doug wrote, “Karen would get mad if she was left on base and not included in a mission. Karen was very much a believer in equal opportunities in the military.” Carol Clifton, Karen’s grandmother, and Doug Clifton were noti¿ed by Karen’s sergeant in a call from Iraq, telling them both that she died painlessly. Her sergeant described Karen “as one of the most loved and outgoing people that he had the pleasure of knowing” (Freeman, June 24, 2007). The sergeant told the Clifton family that he was in a Humvee ahead of Karen’s, and he saw the blast that took her life in his rearview mirror. The sergeant told Carol Clifton, “He [the insurgent with the rocket propelled grenade launcher] got her from the side.” The Sergeant continued, “She [Karen] never knew what hit her. He said you can rest assure she died painlessly.” Karen’s grandmother bravely asked how the sergeant could be sure that it was Karen’s remains that would be returned home; he replied that he “personally picked up what he could and that was what was placed in the casket” (Freeman, June 24, 2007). Karen’s mother, Chris Hancock, 40, said that her daughter Karen was her best friend. They would eat out a lot when Karen was home and people often mistook the two for sisters. Karen’s remains were sent home in an Army casket and arrived in Decatur, Illinois one week after her death in Iraq. A group of employees and retirees of Mount Zion High School, where Karen attended school and where Doug Clifton currently works, were at the airport an hour before the Àight arrived. Other families from Operation Enduring Support, who have sons and daughters currently deployed or in a state of deployment, were there as well to provide comfort to the Clifton family. Thousands lined the route to Mount Zion, holding signs and U.S. Àags. When I asked Mr. Clifton, Karen’s father, how the family continues to honor and remember Karen, he remarked that the family has established a scholarship at Mt. Zion High School for one senior who wants to pursue a career in law enforcement. He concluded, “Karen followed the path that she believed in and died doing what she loved.” Karen is survived by her mother, father, two sisters, and extended family. She was posthumously promoted to the rank of corporal and received the: Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Combat Action Badge, and the Army Good Conduct Medal. Karen is buried at Point Pleasant Cemetery in Long Creek, Illinois. Army 1st Lieutenant Jaime L. Krausse Campbell, 25, of Ephrata, Washington was killed on January 7, 2006 due to a bad weather crash of her UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter near Tal Afar, Iraq. Seven additional U.S. service members were killed in the crash.9 First Lieutenant Campbell was one of two helicopter pilots killed that fateful day. She was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 207th Aviation Regiment of the Alaska Army National Guard. 9௑Also killed were: Major Stuart M. Anderson, Major Douglas La Bouff, Captain Michael R. Martinez, 1st Lt. Joseph D. deMoors, Chief Warrant Of¿cer 4 Chester Troxel, Specialist Michael Edwards, and Specialist Jacob Melson.

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Jaime was born into a military family. Her father, Jeff Krausse, was a Command Sergeant Major, and her grandfather served in the Army during World War II. Jaime was the student body president of her high school in Ephrata. After graduation, she originally joined the Army as an enlisted soldier, but then joined the National Guard part way through college to help with her educational expenses. She graduated from Washington State University in 2002 with a B.A. degree in apparel, design, and merchandising (www.freedomremembered.com). Jaime deployed to Iraq in September 2005. She was nervous about her tour of duty in Iraq but was comforted in knowing that her husband of three years, Captain Samuel Campbell, and her father, Command Sergeant Major Krausse, were both stationed in Iraq. Jaime and her husband were stationed 150 miles apart while in Iraq and made daily phone calls to each other when possible. Command Sergeant Major Krausse had spent ¿ve days with his daughter two months prior to her death. His last image of Jaime was of her sitting in the pilot seat of her helicopter when she Àew him back to his post. He regrets that he never hugged her goodbye. Jaime last spoke to her family on January 1, 2006 when she called to wish them all a happy new year. First Lieutenant Campbell is survived by her husband, parents, and two sisters. Her ¿nal resting place is Ephrata Cemetery in Ephrata, Washington. Air Force Senior Airman Ashton L.M. Goodman, 21, of Indianapolis, Indiana died on May 26, 2009 near Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan. She died from wounds sustained from an IED. Senior Airman Goodman was assigned to the 43rd Logistics Readiness Squadron out of Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina. Two other soldiers were killed in the attack as well.10 Ashton enlisted in July 2006, shortly after graduating from high school, and had been on one deployment to Iraq prior to joining the provincial reconstruction team in Afghanistan. Goodman, a vehicle operator dispatcher, was assigned to the Panjshir Provincial Reconstruction Team, which helped Afghan communities with development projects such as building roads and schools, expanding medical services, and providing electrical power (www.militarytimes.com). She mentored Panjshir’s female Afghan leadership by advancing the economic and social development of women in the province. In addition, she participated in a shura, or meeting, with the Afghan Director of Women’s Affairs and 20 local women and teenage girls just three days before she was killed. Captain Stacie N. Shafran, a member of the same Provincial Reconstruction Team, wrote about Ashton, “Her contributions to this team are countless and now, as I look at the empty desk next to me in the small of¿ce I shared for the past month with Airman Goodman, I smile when I think about the impact she made on Panjshir Province. Her vivacious spirit, zest of life, and eagerness to experience it all will forever be remembered by our team” (Shafran, May 29, 2009). Ashton’s tour in Afghanistan would have ended in the summer of 2009; however, she was ready to return to Afghanistan or seek deployment to an African 10௑They were: Lt. Colonel Mark E. Stratton II, the Commander of the Provincial Reconstruction Team and Master Sergeant Blue Rowe.

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country. Her long-term goal was to become a veterinarian (www.airforcetimes. com). Ashton was a third generation female in her family to join the Air Force. She is survived by her parents, Vicki and Mark, and her stepmother. Senior Airman Goodman’s ¿nal resting place is Washington Park Cemetery East in Indianapolis, Indiana. Army Chief Warrant Of¿cer 2 Billie Jean Grinder, 25, of Gallatin, Tennessee died on February 21, 2010 due to wounds sustained when her helicopter experienced a hard landing in northern Iraq. Another soldier, the co-pilot Captain Marcus R. Alford, was killed in the incident. Grinder was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 230th Cavalry Regiment of the Tennessee National Guard out of Louisville, Tennessee. She joined the Guard in July of 2002 at age 17 while still in high school. She became a pilot in 2007 after completing Warrant Of¿cer Training School in Alabama. Grinder was the ¿rst female fatality of the Tennessee Army National Guard. She deployed to Iraq for the ¿rst time in June 2009 and was scheduled to come home in two weeks (Easton, February 22, 2010). Grinder’s sister, Melissa, was looking forward to planning her wedding when Billie Jean returned. Billie Jean’s sister, step-father, and husband all served in the Tennessee Army National Guard. Billie Jean’s husband, Sam Grinder, has just returned from Iraq earlier in the month to their home in Gallatin, Tennessee. Billie Jean’s step-father, Billy Davenport, was stationed at Camp Speicher along with his step-daughter when the accident happened. Friends and family described Billie Jean as a tough, but girlish tomboy who rode motorcycles, gave generously to other people, and liked doing things that other people might consider dangerous. A lawsuit was ¿led in 2010 alleging the failure of the Full Authority Digital Electronic Control (FADEC) system in a Kiowa OH-58D Warrior helicopter as a dire and proximate cause in the deaths of troops Marcus R. Alford Sr. and Billie Jean Grinder. The Alford-Grinder lawsuit is seeking $80 million in damages for surviving bene¿ciaries and heirs of both soldiers to include the value of life, labor, and future earning and bene¿ts, as well as loss of consortium, medical and funeral expenses. Chief Warrant Of¿cer Grinder is buried at the Grinder Family Cemetery in Castalian Springs, Tennessee. Army Specialist Toccaro R. Green, 23, of Rosedale, Maryland died on August 14, 2005 in Al Asad, Iraq. Multiple IEDs detonated near her unit during convoy operations. Specialist Green was assigned to the Army’s 57th Transportation Company, 548th Corps Support Battalion out of Fort Drum, New York. She worked as a motor and transport operator. According to her brother Garry, a Marine Staff Sergeant stationed at Norfolk, “She was destined for the military. She just wanted to make the family proud” (www.arlingtoncemetery.net). Toccaro was in the ROTC program at Forest Park High School in Baltimore, Maryland. She graduated in 2000. Green was an active young woman who enjoyed roller skating and working on cars. Before joining the Army, she tried college and worked as a secretary. She attended boot camp in

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January 2003 and was three months from ¿nishing her second tour of duty in Iraq when she was killed. Weeks before her death, she had helped restore morale to her unit, according to her commanding of¿cer. Green had been at home on leave for two weeks and returned to Iraq on August 8, 2005 only to be killed six days later. Toccaro’s father, Garry Green Sr., was a Baltimore police detective at the time of his daughter’s death. He commented, “She was always a go-getter. She would go to school early and stay late for ROTC. Their drill team won awards, and she became the class commander.” Mr. Green was not keen on his only daughter joining the Army, especially since Garry Jr. had joined the Marines; however, her strong-will prevailed. During her two week leave at home, she posed for pictures with baby cousins and older relatives she had not seen for years and prayed with members of her church. After receiving news of Specialist Green’s death, the family received a phone call from Specialist Nicole Coleman. Green was driving a Humvee behind Coleman. Between them were several trucks carrying supplies. When the convoy stopped to refuel and switch drivers, they climbed out of their Humvees. Coleman said, “The next thing we know, explosives went off. Coleman dropped to the ground and then heard a second explosion.” She jumped back into her Humvee and the next time she left her vehicle, she saw her friend, Toccara lying in a puddle of blood. She recognized Toccara by the scarf on her head. Someone tried to perform CPR on Green, but she was dead before the medevac unit arrived. Coleman told the family, “I just started screaming. I never lost a best friend before.” The two had met during basic training in 2003 and referred to themselves as “Batman and Robin” or “Pinky and the Brain.” Toccara’s funeral took place at New Psalmist Baptist Church where she worked with children in the congregation and read announcements. U.S. House Representative Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley attended the service. Representative Cummings remarked at the service, “She gave her blood, sweat, tears, and life. We gather here not because Toccara died, but because she lived.” Specialist Green was buried in Arlington National Cemetery on August 26, 2005. Her gravesite is in Section 60, Grave 8216. Her family was awarded the Purple Heart and Operation Iraqi Freedom medals on Special Green’s behalf. Army First Lieutenant Ashley Laine Henderson Huff, 23, of Belle Meade, New Jersey was killed in action on September 19, 2006 in Mosul, Iraq. Assigned to the 549th Military Police Company, 385th Military Police Battalion out of Fort Stewart, Georgia, Huff was killed by a suicide car bomber while training Iraqi police. During her sophomore year at the University of Georgia, Ashley watched the twin towers collapse on September 11, 2001. A month later, she had signed a University of Georgia Army ROTC Scholarship (Bell 2006). Ashley’s father, Mark Henderson, said, “She was very proud of her service, but you never would have thought she was in the military. Her sorority had all these southern belles, and

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then in she’d walk in her BDUs and face paint.” While studying at the University of Georgia, Ashley met her husband, Brian Huff, while out on the town in Athens, Georgia. In May 2004 she graduated from the university and was commissioned into the Army. She married Brian Huff on August 13, 2005 and deployed to Iraq in December 2005 (www.legacy.com). She was to return to the United States in November 2006, and she had devised a surprise for her husband. Since she deployed only four months after getting married, she did not have time to change her name to “Huff” in the military; however, she had ¿xed that while she was in a war zone. When she stepped off the plane in November 2006 to greet her husband, the patch on her uniform would read “Huff” instead of “Henderson.” The newlyweds remained in constant contact while she was deployed, and they planned on buying their ¿rst home by the spring of 2007. She told her husband she felt “she was doing God’s will even in a country that she felt didn’t value women.” First Lieutenant Henderson Huff earned the National Defense Service Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, and the Army Service Ribbon (www.legacy.com). The Army posthumously awarded Ashley Huff a Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and Combat Action Badge. A funeral procession of 150 mourners and 100 motorcycle riders from the Patriot Guard Riders wound through the University of Georgia campus on the day of her funeral. The ROTC cadets of the university presented a last salute as the procession went by. Ashley is buried at Oconee Hill Cemetery along the eastern edge of the University of Georgia campus. A scholarship in Huff’s name was established by her sorority. Army Sergeant Wakkuna A. Jackson, 21, of Jacksonville, Florida was killed on August 19, 2006 in Kunar, Afghanistan when an IED detonated near her convoy vehicle. Two other soldiers, Specialist Robert E. Drawl Jr. and Corporal Christopher F. Sitton, were also killed in the attack. Wakkuna was assigned to the 710th Combat Support Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division out of Fort Drum, New York. Wakkuna graduated from high school in 2003, where she was an active participant in marching band, the Spanish club, and National Honor Society. She joined the Army in 2004. Her father, a Navy veteran, said she joined the Army to save money in order to go to college. Jackson wanted to become a pediatric surgeon. Wakkuna Jackson was living on an American base surrounded by mountains and working as a combat medic in a clinic the military set up to help villagers (Murphy 2008). One photo that made it back home to her family in Jacksonville showed her suturing someone’s bloody toe. Another showed her shampooing the ¿lth out of the hair of a blue-eyed Afghani child in a clinic sink, stroking her head tenderly like a beautician in a high-priced salon. After she found out she would be deployed to Iraq, she wrote a letter to her sisters. Jackson said, “Don’t be scared because I’m not. I don’t want to go, but God already had this destiny picked out for me a long time ago. They haven’t exactly told me formally that I’m going to the sandbox, but we’re at war and they

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need medics to bandage up those war wounds” (Murphy 2008). Wakkuna even volunteered to extend her deployment and traded her leave. A colleague’s wife was ill, and he needed to go home ¿rst. In March 2006 she wrote to her parents: “I hope you aren’t worried about me because I am doing ¿ne out here. The weather is beautiful and I’m surrounded by mountains. I’ve learned so much just working in the clinic for the past week or so” (Murphy 2008). On August 15, 2006, she called her sister, Shenka, to wish her a happy birthday. Jackson let her know she would not be able to call her family again for a few days. She was heading into the mountains in a convoy to deliver medical supplies. Three days later, a roadside bomb blew up the Humvee that Jackson was riding in, killing her and two other medics. Ever the thoughtful sister, in September 2006 Wakkuna’s sister, Lisa, received a bouquet of yellow tulips and pink roses. Even in the midst of a warzone, Wakkuna had remembered her sister’s upcoming birthday. Wakkuna is survived by her parents, Sherman and Teresita Jackson, and two sisters, Shenka and Lisa. Sergeant Jackson is buried at Edgewood Cemetery in Jacksonville, Florida. Army Sergeant Ashly L. Moyer, 21, of Emmaus, Pennsylvania was killed on March 3, 2007 in Baghdad, Iraq when an IED detonated near her vehicle and engulfed it in Àames. She was promoted to sergeant just two weeks before her death. Two other soldiers were killed in the attack.11 Ashly was assigned to the 630th Military Police Company, 793rd Military Police Battalion out of Bamberg, Germany. Sergeant Moyer ¿rst guarded detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba before being deployed to Baghdad (www.arlingtoncemetery.com). Her tour of duty was to end in June 2007; and at that point, her boyfriend who was also serving in Iraq, planned on proposing to Ashly. Michael Moyer, Ashly’s father and a former Marine, said his daughter belonged right alongside the men in Iraq. “Ashly didn’t think of herself as anything but equal if not better than any man. She was there with the guys and she was just as aggressive as any of the guys if not more so.” Karissa Thomas, Ashly’s stepsister, said, “Ashly was never happy just being: as in being a student or ¿nding a profession. She wanted to ¿ght for something, and the U.S. Army gave her that opportunity” (www.arlingtoncemetery.com). Ashly’s grandfather served in the Marines during World War II and Korea, and her grandmother was in the WAAC Marine Corps Women’s Reserve during World War II. Military service was de¿nitely part of the Moyer family’s history. Sergeant Moyer joined the Army Reserve through the delayed entry program while still attending high school. After graduating in 2003, she attended the Army Military Police School in Missouri and graduated in March 2004. While home on leave in the fall of 2006, she spoke at her younger brother’s elementary school and talked about her experiences in the Army and hopes for the future.

11௑Sergeant Michael C. Peek and Sergeant Brandon A. Parr were killed in the same attack.

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When the attack happened, Sergeant Moyer was driving the second vehicle in a convoy of four. As the lead vehicle drove over the buried bomb, insurgents detonated it by remote control. The occupants in the lead vehicle survived, but the explosion detonated under the fuel tank of Moyer’s vehicle. Among the soldiers who responded to the bombing was Moyer’s boyfriend, Jake Wells, a member of her unit who tried to rescue her but was turned back by the Àames and rounds of ammunition exploding from the heat (www.arlingtoncemetery.com). A helicopter did destroy the car carrying the insurgents suspected of the bombing. One of the other soldiers killed in the attack, Sergeant Michael Peek, was to be married in two weeks. Sergeant Ashly Moyer was cremated and her ashes interred at Arlington National Cemetery on March 16, 2007. Her ¿nal resting place is located in Section 60, Grave 8543. Sergeant Moyer was awarded the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and Operation Iraqi Freedom Medal posthumously. Army Specialist Devin A. Snyder, 20, of Cohocton, New York, was killed by a bomb planted on a highway near the town of Mehtarlam, Afghanistan on June 4, 2011 (Norland, June 21, 2011). She was assigned to the 164th Military Police Company of the 793rd Military Police Battalion out of Fort Richardson, Alaska. As Specialist Lamb, a medic in Snyder’s unit, watched a buried bomb at a choke point spot explode under the ¿rst vehicle in the convoy. Three of the four soldiers died instantly, including Specialist Snyder. One soldier lived long enough to be medevaced, but died shortly after.12 By the time Specialist Lamb reached the vehicle, there was nothing she could really do to save her friend. Looking at Specialist Snyder’s remains, Lamb could still see Devin’s eyes and smile. Specialist Snyder was deployed to Afghanistan in April 2011 and was scheduled to come home on a two week leave in July 2011. Specialist Snyder was a high school track star and came from a military family. Her father served in the Navy; a sister serves in the Navy and a brother in the Army. She enlisted immediately after graduation from high school in 2008 and chose the military police because as one of her platoon mates put it, “We had the best and biggest guns.” Upon her enlistment in August 2008, she went to Fort Leonard, Missouri. She was part of Company D, 787th Military Police Battalion and graduated as a private E-2 in June 2009 with a certi¿cate for exceptional achievement in obtaining a score of 297 on the Army Physical Fitness Test. Then she was transferred to Fort Richardson, Alaska in February 2009 where she received a “Soldier of the Month” commendation and attended four promotion boards, winning two within the ranks of Private First Class and then Specialist. Her high school soccer coach Bill Sick added, “She was a very spirited girl. She had a lot of spit-¿re in her. She put her heart and soul into everything she did” (www.eveningtribune.com). With sleeve tattoos down both arms, Specialist Snyder thought about becoming a tattoo model and also expressed interest in becoming a deception analyst in the military’s psychological operation. Her physical ¿tness 12௑The others killed that day were Private Robert L. Voakes, Sergeant Christopher R. Bell, and Sergeant Joshua D. Powell.

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scores often exceeded the Army’s perfect 300. She was determined to become a sergeant—a promotion she earned posthumously. She wanted a family someday and hoped to pursue a career in law enforcement once her military service was completed. While on deployment, she carried a hot pink pocket knife and pink duct tape. And at her unit’s base in Fort Richardson, Alaska, she kept an off-road vehicle painted pink. “She de¿nitely had her feminine side,” according to her commander Lieutenant Blaisdell-Black. Even her tattoos were all Àowers and feminine things. Edward Snyder, Devin’s father and a former mayor of Cohocton, said he talked with his daughter on Facebook the morning she was killed. Devin’s family awaited the arrival of her remains at Dover Air Force Base. Hundreds of mourners attended a memorial service prior to the burial. Members of the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Rochester Blue Star Mothers—a group whose sons and daughters are serving in the military—lined the route of the procession outside the airport to show their support as members of an extended military family. Devin was buried in Zion Lutheran Cemetery in Cohocton, New York with full military honors. A section of Interstate 390 has been renamed the “Sergeant Devin Snyder Memorial Highway” (Poole 2012). Breaking Glass Ceilings From a liberal feminist perspective, the following stories of women who excelled in a still overwhelmingly male military institutional environment provide the empirical proof that legal challenges and shifting cultural and societal acceptance of women in the military are making signi¿cant differences. In the life, service, and death narratives of these women, there is no singular path. Women who broke glass ceilings emerged out of ROTC programs, the National Guard, and the Naval and Air Force academies. Their families and friends all acknowledged the dynamism of their daughters, sisters, and wives. No challenge was insurmountable for these fallen servicewomen, and the interviews of those left bereft almost consistently noted that these U.S. military women knew full well the risks they were taking; yet, they would not have chosen a different path in their lives. Air Force First Lieutenant Tamara Long Archuleta, 23, of Los Lunas, New Mexico was killed on March 23, 2003 in southeastern Afghanistan. Long Archuleta and ¿ve others were killed when their HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter crashed into a mountainside during stormy weather. First Lieutenant Archuleta was assigned to the 41st Rescue Squadron out of Moody Air Force Base in Valdosta, Georgia. The helicopter she was co-piloting crashed during a mission to rescue two critically injured Afghan children. “She’s always been a very driven person,” said Richard Long, Tamara’s father. “She never was satis¿ed—she strove to always be at the top” (www.militarycity. com). At the age of 7, Tamara announced her intention to become the country’s ¿rst female president. At 20, she became the ¿rst female University of New Mexico

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ROTC graduate to earn her pilot’s wings. Long Archuleta graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of New Mexico after earning her associate’s degree from the Valencia branch campus where she had been selected as class valedictorian in 1997. “She is one of the best students I have ever worked with—a terrible loss,” said Mark Peceny, an associate professor of political science at the UNM main campus. All six crewmembers of the 41st Rescue Squadron—part of the 347th Operation Group out of Moody Air Force Base in Georgia—were killed in the HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter crash. Richard Long said his daughter had just performed a successful rescue mission the previous night. The Pave Hawk is primarily used in extraction and insertion missions during both day and night. “She was one of our top cadets,” said Lt. Colonel Richard Trembley, commanding of¿cer of the UNM Air Force ROTC program. “A very admirable cadet and a very focused individual.” Theresa Carabajal, an employee at the campus Air Force of¿ce, said she has seen nearly 1,000 cadets who have been commissioned as of¿cers through ROTC, but she remembered Archuleta for her outstanding performance in the classroom and because she was willing to cut off half of her knee-length hair to make her training easier. During a memorial service at Moody Air Base, Colonel Tom Trask said, “It was a time for those gathered to heal.” It will be our job to take up the slack and continue to carry on the combat rescue missions,” Trask said. “They were us, and now part of us is gone.” “Their mission was to attempt to rescue two small children from Afghanistan—two children that represent the future of a country that we freed from tyranny,” Trask said. The death of Tamara struck close to home for third-graders at Georgia’s Lake Park Elementary School because she had written to the pupils in February 2003 in response to letters they had sent to lend their support to military personnel overseas. About two weeks prior to Tamara’s death, Stacy Scarborough’s class received a package that contained 13 letters, all from Archuleta. There was also a U.S. Àag with a certi¿cate saying it had Àown over Uzbekistan during Operation Enduring Freedom in honor of the Lake Park third-grade class. “I think at that moment it all came together—the description of the Àag being Àown over there. The children were very excited,” Scarborough said. “It meant a lot to them.” The Àag hangs on the wall in Scarborough’s classroom and will be Àown permanently at the school to honor all the men and women in the military. The students started writing in January 2003, and each had sent three to four letters. Ms. Scarborough told the children they might not receive replies because the troops were so busy. The package from Tamara was more than they expected. “The fact that she wrote each individual, they picked up on that and knew how special that was,” the teacher said. Robin White said her 8-year-old, Joseph, received his letter from Archuleta about two weeks ago. It was dated February 23, 2003. Tamara responded directly to him and mentioned how her son liked Scooby Doo, too. Joseph learned of Archuleta’s death when he saw the story in the newspaper, his mother said. “He was stunned,” she said. “The person he wrote to and received

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a letter from was his ¿rst encounter with death. I told him our troops are defending our country, and they are willing to die for their country. “It’s got our whole family thinking about her. We didn’t know her, but now we feel like we did,” she said. Tamara was to be married in June 2003 and is survived by a three-year-old son from a previous marriage. She is buried in Terrace Grove Cemetery in Belen, New Mexico. Air Force Master Sergeant Tara R. Brown, 33, of Bowie, Maryland was killed in action on April 27, 2011 in Kabul, Afghanistan. She died from wounds sustained due to gun¿re from an Afghan military trainee, an example of the increasingly common “green on blue” attacks. Eight other airmen were killed in the same attack.13 Master Sergeant Brown was assigned to the Air Force Of¿ce of Special Investigations, out of Joint Base Andrews, Maryland (www.militarytimes.com). According to the International Security Assistance Force, the Afghan gunman, Colonel Ahmed Gul, was carrying two weapons, left the room where the shooting occurred severely wounded and died in a different location in the building. The Afghan pilot appeared to have no connection with the Taliban. Gul opened ¿re with his pistol during a morning meeting at Afghan air force headquarters, shooting each American victim multiple times, according to the Air Force investigation. Gul was then shot by ¿rst responders soon after the attack began. While wounded, he wrote messages, including “God is one,” in blood on the walls of the headquarters building in Dari, a Persian dialect. He then climbed to a higher Àoor of the building and killed himself with two gunshots to the torso. Tara Brown graduated from high school in Florida in the spring of 1995 and enlisted in the delayed entry program in August of 1995. After completing basic training, she began working in the administrative career ¿eld and served in numerous overseas deployments including Saudi Arabia and Japan. Tara was married just before she left for her deployment in Afghanistan. During her deployment to Afghanistan, Tara worked as an international trainer teaching the basic fundamentals of desktop computers and networking to Afghan Air Force technicians. Sergeant Brown’s awards include: the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Meritorious Service Medal, Joint Service Commendation Medal, Air Force Commendation Medal with three oak leaf clusters; Air Force Achievement Medal with three oak leaf clusters, Air Force Combat Action Medal, and NATO Medal. She was buried in Parklawn Memorial Park in Rockville, Maryland with fully military honors. Army Command Sergeant Major Marilyn L. Gabbard, 46, of Polk City, Iowa was killed in a Black Hawk helicopter crash on January 20, 2007 while serving in Iraq. Gabbard was the ¿rst woman promoted to the rank of Command Sergeant Major in the Iowa National Guard, and she was the ¿rst woman in the history of the Iowa National Guard to be killed in combat. The helicopter was ambushed 13௑They are: Lt. Col. Frank D. Bryant, Jr., Major Phillip D. Ambard, Major Jeffrey O. Ausborn, Major David L. Brodeur, Major Raymond G. Estelle II, Captain Nathan Nylander, and Major Charles A. Ransom.

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and hit by small arms ¿re while in route to Liberty Base in Baghdad. The aircraft went into a spin, but the pilots managed to make a crash landing. However, the helicopter was then hit by a rocket propelled grenade, and all the passengers were killed (Berman 2007).14 According to her husband of 20 years, Army Command Sergeant Major Ed Gabbard, Marilyn was the ¿rst to serve on her side of the family. She joined the National Guard after ¿nishing high school in 1979. Gabbard started her career with the Iowa National Guard as a personnel management specialist. Ed and Marilyn met when Ed was 42 years old and Marilyn was 26. At the time, they were both supporting the state’s military academy, Camp Dodge. Ed was a leader for a noncommissioned of¿cer course, and Marilyn was the head cook who serviced the mess hall for Camp Dodge, the headquarters for Iowa’s National Guard. Ed and Marilyn married in 1990 after a courtship of a few years. Ed adopted Marilyn’s daughter, Melissa, who was six years old at the time of their marriage. Ed had joined the National Guard decades before because he grew up on a farm in Iowa and did not want to work on the farm his whole life. Marilyn had a twin sister and two brothers. The whole family hailed from Boone, Iowa. She loved to play softball as a youngster and would help organize softball tournaments at Camp Dodge. As far as Ed knows, Marilyn’s father was not happy about Marilyn joining the National Guard, but she was old enough to enlist without parental consent. Ed’s father, a WWII veteran, was not thrilled about Ed’s decision to enlist with the National Guard either. When asked if Marilyn ever entertained leaving the National Guard to do something else, Ed said it was her life and passion. In 1998, she became the ¿rst female First Sergeant to be in charge of a unit and the ¿rst sergeant of an infantry headquarters unit. Marilyn’s commanding of¿cer, according to Ed, knew her capabilities and pushed for Marilyn to be considered for this position. She was promoted in 2001 to Command Sergeant Major15 of a maintenance battalion, and Ed was promoted to Command Sergeant Major for the aviation battalion for Iowa. Ed and Marilyn enjoyed working with the enlisted soldiers and had reached the highest posts they could for non-commissioned of¿cers. Marilyn, however, knew that if she wanted to further her career, she needed a combat action badge. Her goal was to become the senior enlisted leader for the whole state of Iowa. She needed the combat action badge in order to relate to her soldiers who would then be under her command. Once Marilyn deployed to Iraq in December 2006, she was stationed at Camp Victory. She and Ed talked twice a day for 15 minute phone calls. She called 14௑The others killed were: Army Colonel Brian Allgood, Corporal Victor Langarica, Colonel Paul Kelly, Lt. Colonel David Canegata, Captain Michael V. Taylor, Sergeant Major William Warren, Sergeant First Class John G. Brown, Captain Sean Edward Lyerly, Command Sergeant Major Roger Wood Haller, and Staff Sergeant Darryl D. Booker. 15௑A Command Sergeant Major is the senior enlisted advisor for the Commander of a Battalion level command. A battalion usually has three or more units under its control.

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Ed before she went to bed in Iraq, and Ed was just beginning his day in Iowa. In addition, they e-mailed each other every day. Marilyn’s main function was to serve as the non-commissioned of¿cer in charge of the National Guard Affairs Team in Baghdad. She often helped coordinate senior VIP visits to Camp Victory. Gabbard visited the different units from Iowa scattered throughout Iraq. She was in country just 26 days when she was killed. Marilyn was not able to share with Ed any information about interactions with Iraqis since she was there for such a short period of time, and she did not tell Ed that Camp Victory was getting mortared on a regular basis. Moreover, Command Sergeant Major Gabbard did not speak to Ed about being one of a very few senior NCO females. She was used to it. She had already broken through so many glass ceilings in her promotions within the Iowa National Guard. Marilyn had plans to keep a diary and write a book about her experiences in Iraq but never got the chance. Ed had not spoken to Marilyn on the Saturday before her death because he was attending a meeting. Ed got up and turned on the TV on Sunday morning, January 21, 2007, and heard that a helicopter had gone down in Iraq. In our fall 2012 phone interview, Ed said he just knew that Marilyn was on it. He started to make phone calls to see if he could ¿nd out more news. Marilyn’s helicopter had been returning to Camp Victory late on the night of January 20, 2007 instead of staying overnight at another location in Iraq because they were Àying back to attend a memorial service scheduled early in the morning of January 21, 2007 for fallen soldiers. The chaplain and another of¿cial arrived at Ed’s house during the morning of January 21, 2007 and said that it was unof¿cial con¿rmation of Marilyn’s death, but it was known that Marilyn was on the helicopter manifest along with 11 other National Guard soldiers from various states. However, Command Sergeant Major Ed Gabbard did not receive of¿cial noti¿cation of Marilyn’s death until seven days after January 20, 2007. This is when the casualty noti¿cation of¿cer arrived at his residence. The only positive identi¿cation at the crash site was of Marilyn’s remains, according to Mr. Gabbard, because the bodies were burned so badly. Ed did not Ày to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to accompany Marilyn’s remains home to Iowa because the government was not offering this option for families in 2007. Iowa’s Governor ordered Àags to be Àown at half-staff in Marilyn’s honor. Iowa National Guard spokesman Lt. Colonel Greg Hapgood said, “She didn’t view herself as a trailblazer, just a soldier and a leader. She embraced the fact that she had gone places other people hadn’t gone before. I think she relished having soldiers look up to her.” Mr. Gabbard was told that Marilyn had done more for soldiers in her 26 days in country than her predecessor did during his whole tour. In addition to being awarded three Meritorious Service Medals, she served as the national secretary for the Enlisted Association of the National Guard of the United States and was the past President of the Army of the National Enlisted Association of the Iowa National Guard.

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Marilyn was buried at Fairview Cemetery in Madrid, Iowa with full military honors. Command Sergeant Major Gabbard was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star, Iraq Campaign Medal, Army Good Conduct Medal, and the Legion of Merit. Over 2,000 people attended Marilyn’s funeral, and the Captain of the Iowa National Guard spoke at her services. Between Marilyn and Ed, they have seven children and 11 grandchildren. Marilyn’s daughter, Melissa, wanted to join the military, but is unable to do so because of scoliosis. Today, Melissa has three children and has earned her national EMT license. She is hoping to go back to school to become a RN. Ed keeps Marilyn’s memory alive by organizing and attending Gold Star family events and organizes retreats for the families of the fallen soldiers in order for them to remain current on survivor bene¿ts. As Mr. Gabbard said, “Once the casualty assistance of¿cer had done his job, the families are no longer tied to any formal military information, updates, or changes.” Marine Captain, Jennifer J. Harris, 28, of Swampscott, Massachusetts was killed in Iraq on February 7, 2007. She was assigned to the Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 364, Marine Aircraft Group 39, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, First Marine Expeditionary Force out of Camp Pendleton, California. The Marine CH-46 helicopter she was Àying crashed while supporting combat operations in Anbar province, Iraq (www.militarycity.com). The helicopter was transporting blood between Baghdad and Fallujah. Six others on the helicopter died in the crash.16 An Al-Qaeda linked group, the Islamic State of Iraq, claimed that it shot down the helicopter near Fallujah. Jennifer graduated ¿fth in her class at her high school. The only child of Raymond and Rosalie Harris, Jennifer ran long hours to whip herself into shape to endure the physical rigors of the Naval Academy. When she left the Naval Academy, she joined the Purple Foxes as the lone female pilot. The Purple Foxes is a storied Marine helicopter squadron, and after three years of training Harris headed to Iraq. Captain Harris was on her third tour in Iraq, and she was scheduled to return home the week after she was killed. Upon completion of her ¿nal tour, she was supposed to become a Marine instructor for the Naval Reserve Of¿cers Training Corps at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. A family spokesman, Anthony Cacone, remarked, “Captain Jennifer Harris exempli¿ed the best of what this country has to offer. She was proud to be a marine, and she was proud to serve her country. She had a passion for life and was a compassionate human being” (Levenson and Ellement 2009). A friend from high school, James Schwartz, remembered, “She was always up for a challenge. Any one of those challenges—the Naval Academy, the Marine Corps, becoming a helicopter pilot—one is enough for the average person. She chose three. And then Àying in a combat zone is four” (Levenson and Ellement).

16௑The fallen were: First Lt. Jared M. Landaker, Sergeant Travis D. P¿ster, Corporal Thomas E. Saba, Sergeant James R. Tijerina, Navy Hospital Corpsman 1st Class Gilbert Minjares Jr., and Navy Hospital Corpsman Third Class Manuel A. Ruiz.

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Captain Harris had sent Christmas gifts wrapped from Iraq. The gifts sat unwrapped in February 2007 because the family was planning on having a delayed Christmas celebration. Jennifer’s ¿ancp, Major Christopher Abby, accompanied her body back to Massachusetts. Her father, Ray Harris, told reporters he would proudly drive to Logan Airport to “meet my lovely girl.” Mr. Harris said, “I told the funeral director that I want the hearse to come straight here. This is Jen’s home. This is where her mother and I and all her family and friends will be waiting to welcome her home” (Gelzinis 2007). Harris was mourned in the church of her childhood, St. John the Evangelist. It was so packed with friends, family and strangers that 80 people braved the cold and listened to the service through loudspeakers outside. The eulogy was delivered by Lt. Rose Gascinski, who roomed with Harris at the Naval Academy. Lt. Gascinski said that Harris earned the nickname “Dove” because of her calm demeanor in the face of adversity. Six Marines carried the casket out of the church to a white horse-drawn hearse as bagpipers played The Marines Hymn. A scholarship fund has been established in Jennifer’s name, and a public square has been named in her honor in her hometown. Army Captain Kimberly N. Hampton, 27, of Easley, South Carolina was killed on January 2, 2004 when her OH-58 Kiowa observation helicopter was shot down by enemy ground ¿re in Fallujah, Iraq. Her co-pilot was injured in the crash. A pilot, Hampton was assigned to 1st Battalion, 82nd Aviation Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Kimberly was the ¿rst female pilot killed in Iraq and the ¿rst woman from South Carolina to die in Iraq. Kimberly, the only child of Dale and Ann Hampton, excelled at all her endeavors. As a child, she dealt with scoliosis and severe allergies. She was the president of the student body and captain of her tennis team in high school. Kimberly had been recruited by West Point to play tennis but declined. Instead, Hampton attended Presbyterian College where she became the battalion commander of the college’s ROTC unit. An English major, she was honored in 1997 and 1998 as the Southern Atlantic Conference Women’s Tennis Player of the Year. After her graduation from college, Kimberly was accepted into the aviation branch of the U.S. Army and graduated with honors from the U.S. Army Helicopter Flight School and Of¿cer Basic Course at Fort Rucker, Alabama. Her ¿rst overseas assignment was in South Korea, where she patrolled the No Fly Line along the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. After completing the Aviation Of¿cer Advanced Course and Combined Arms Services Staff School, she was deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operating Enduring Freedom. Next, she deployed to Iraq. Captain Hampton, known as Dark Horse Six over radio communications, was engaged and looking forward to planning her wedding once she returned from her tour of duty. When she headed off to war for the ¿rst time, she sent her mother an email to try and ease Mrs. Hampton’s fears. Kimberly wrote, “If there is anything I can say to ease your mind, if anything ever happens to me, you can be certain that I am doing the things I love. I’m living my dreams for sure, living life on the

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edge at times and pushing the envelope. So worry if you must, but you can be sure that your only child is living a full, exciting life and is happy” (www.¿ndagrave. com). Over 1,000 people attended Hampton’s funeral service. Her parents were awarded the Bronze Medal, Air Medal, and Purple Heart on behalf of Kimberly. Captain Hampton’s ¿nal resting place is Robinson Memorial Gardens in Easley, South Carolina. Army Sergeant 1st Class Merideth L. Howard, 52, of Alameda, California died on September 8, 2006 in Kabul, Afghanistan when a vehicle-born IED detonated near her Humvee. Another soldier, Staff Sergeant Robert J. Paul, was killed in the attack as well. As of 2013, Howard was the oldest known American woman to die in combat. The force of the blast left a six foot wide crater in the road, killing at least eight Afghans (Barker and Janega 2006). Merideth was as a civil affairs noncommissioned of¿cer assigned to the 364th Civil Affairs Brigade out of Portland, Oregon. Her unit was deployed in the spring of 2006. Born and raised in Corpus Christi, Texas, Merideth attended Texas A&M University. After graduation, she wanted to be a ¿re¿ghter, but at the time her hometown did not hire women. In 1978, she joined the ¿re department in Bryan, Texas as the ¿rst woman to do so. She became a ¿re risk-management specialist with insurance companies, and she established her own consulting company based out of California. Howard had never been deployed since joining the Army Reserves in 1988 at the age of 34. After her medical unit was disbanded in 1996, she was assigned to the Individual Ready Reserves for soldiers without a unit. During Operation Enduring Freedom, Merideth was assigned to a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan—a mix of civilian and military individuals whose main mission was to help rebuild roads, schools, and other infrastructure. At ¿rst, Howard handled paperwork at the base, tracking projects, and applying for money for reconstruction projects. However, she longed to go “beyond the wire”—to go out on missions and be out with the Afghan people (Barker and Janega 2006). On missions in Afghanistan, Staff Sergeant Paul served as the driver and Howard was the gunner, standing on top of a box Sergeant Howard built with her own hands, to get a better view since she was 5 foot 4 inches. On this particular mission, Paul and Howard were picking up mail, ammunition, supplies, and three new Humvees—with adjustable platforms for the gunner. Sergeant Howard would have no longer needed her improvised box had she lived. A month before she was killed by a suicide bomber, she told her husband she liked what she was doing and was contemplating extending her mission. Sergeant Howard’s awards and decorations include the: Army Achievement Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Armed Forces Reserve with “M” Device, three NCO Professional Development Ribbons, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, and Army Service Ribbon. She is survived by her husband, Hugh Hvolboll. Sergeant Howard had made her husband promise not to bury her in the ground if she was killed while serving in Afghanistan. Keeping his word to his wife, Mr. Hvolboll, co-owner of a ¿reworks company, celebrated

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his wife’s life and sacri¿ce by blasting her cremated remains in two extraordinary ¿reworks displays more than a thousand miles apart (Rasmussen 2006). Air Force Senior Airman Elizabeth A. Loncki, 23, of New Castle, Delaware was killed by a car suicide bomber on January 7, 2007 while deployed to Iraq. Two other soldiers were killed.17 Loncki was assigned to the 775th Civil Engineer Squadron out of Hill Air Force Base, Utah (www.militarycity.com). Loncki was a member of the explosive ordnance disposal unit. She deployed to Iraq in September 2006 and was scheduled to return home in 20 days. Her boyfriend, Sergeant Jayson Johnson, had planned to visit the Loncki’s home to ask her father’s permission to marry Elizabeth just days before she was killed. Instead, Sergeant Johnson served as a military escort for Elizabeth’s remains as they were transported to Dover Air Force base and prepared for burial. Stephen Loncki, Elizabeth’s father, remarked, “She was a beautiful, beautiful child. She loved her family and her family loved her. We miss her so much.” The last time Loncki has spoken to her family was on December 24, 2006 as she opened presents her father had sent to Iraq. Her aunt, Tina Masiello, remarked, “She was incredibly pretty and petite and not somebody you would think of being on the bomb squad. But she could match boys push up for push-up.” A stand-out high school athlete at Padua Academy, Elizabeth spent one semester at Arizona State University but decided to join the military in 2003 once she decided that her life plans did not include a desk job. She graduated from Eglin AFB/Naval Tech Explosive Ordnance Disposal School in February 2004. Stephen Loncki remarked Elizabeth was one of only two women in her explosive ordnance disposal class, but that was what she wanted to do. “She was a damn smart kid and she was good at what she did. I was always scared every second of the day, but she thought she could do some good. I believe in my heart that’s what she was doing every day. It’s a terrible thing these kids—the price they’re paying for our freedoms.” Loncki volunteered to go to Iraq before being called up, her father said; and her plans once included a lifetime career in the Air Force. But near the end Elizabeth “didn’t know if she was doing the good she thought she was at the beginning because if people don’t want us to help, what do we do?” Stephen Loncki said. Her grandmother, Christine Loncki recalled Elizabeth saying to her, “Nan, they don’t want us over there.” Loncki was buried with full military honors at Delaware Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Bear, Delaware. Elizabeth’s father said, “Arlington is just too far away for us.” A scholarship fund has been established in Elizabeth’s name to allow underprivileged children to attend her grade school, St. Peter the Apostle Parish. Marine Major Megan Malia Leilani McClung, 34, of Coupeville, Washington was killed in Iraq on December 6, 2006 while supporting combat operations in Al Anbar province. She was assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force 17௑They were Technical Sergeant Timothy R. Weiner and Senior Airman Daniel B. Miller, Jr.

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Headquarters Group out of Camp Pendleton, California. A roadside bomb blew up near the truck she was riding in near Ramadi, Iraq. Two other military personnel were killed as well. She was the ¿rst female Marine of¿cer killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom (www.arlingtoncemetery.net)18 and the ¿rst female U.S. Naval Academy graduate to die in combat since the school began accepting women in 1976 (Walker 2007). Megan was in the ¿nal month of a year-long deployment and had been promoted to the rank of major in June of 2006. She was born in Hawaii but grew up in Mission Viego, California and received her of¿cer’s commission from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1995. Her parents did not even know she had applied until she let them know they needed to attend a reception for appointees. Her father, Michael McClung, was a former Marine of¿cer (Walker 2007). She wanted to Ày in the Navy but learned early on that she got airsick. Then, she decided she wanted to join the infantry, but the frontline jobs of course remained closed to women. In 2004, she left active duty and went to Iraq as a private contractor for Kellogg, Brown, and Root, a Halliburton subsidiary. She came out of the Reserves in 2006 and returned to Iraq as a Marine. While in Iraq, she was working as a public affairs of¿cer and was escorting media when she was killed. Megan managed the Marine media embedded journalist program and was an advocate of media coverage of military operations. Countless journalists remembered her in online blogs and editorials as one of the ¿nest public affairs of¿cers they dealt with in Iraq. Major McClung had just escorted Oliver North and the FO; News crew through Ramadi and was in the midst of escorting Newsweek staff when the explosion occurred. A top gymnast for most her childhood, as an adult she continued her commitment to physical ¿tness. She was an avid athlete and ran along the Tigris River in Iraq to keep in shape. Megan competed in six Ironman competitions and planned to run in another marathon she helped organize in Iraq just days before her death. Major McClung was instrumental in organizing a Marine Corps Marathon Forward, which shadowed the popular Marine Corps marathon held each fall in Washington, D.C. Marathon participant Navy Commander Matt Simms said, “Major McClung inspired hundreds, maybe thousands of soldiers, family members, and friends who heard about the race through her media work during training and the race” (www. arlingtoncemetery.net). After they received the news of their daughter’s death, Mike and Re McClung declined all requests for interviews. Then Mrs. Re McClung said they had a visitation. From a dream, a sense of energy, a voice, Re McClung heard her daughter clearly tell the couple to break their silence. When the McClungs started 18௑I did make contact with Major McClung’s father, Dr. Michael McClung, via email; however, he and his wife declined to answer the questions I posed to them because they viewed my questions as feminized and politicized. Despite attempts to assure him that I would include in the book the exact words they shared about Major McClung, I never heard back from him.

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reaching out, they were struck by the hundreds of emails that began Àooding in. Their daughter had touched more lives than they could even fathom. For example, six people told the McClungs that they had named newborn daughters “Megan” after reading about her story. Drawings from schoolchildren, quilts, photos, and messages from people their daughter only met brieÀy arrived out of the blue. Re McClung, Megan’s mother, said, “I don’t think the typical American realizes that the face of the war has changed. This one has a woman’s face.” As a student, Megan had an innate sense of fairness. While in high school she was rejected from the boy’s weightlifting program, so she took her case to the school board and won. Major McClung’s awards include: the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal (Walker and Beck 2006). Over 700 people attended her services at Arlington National Cemetery. She was awarded the Purple Heart posthumously. Her ¿nal resting place is located in Section 60, Grave 8514. Her personal motto is inscribed on her grave; it reads: “Be Bold, Be Brief, Be Gone.” In 2007 as a tribute to Major McClung, the Multinational Corps-Iraq broadcast studio building in Camp Victory, Iraq was named in her honor (Stars & Stripes, December 7, 2007). In addition, a Marine Corps League detachment in Washington state has also been renamed in her honor. Air Force 1st Lieutenant Roslyn L. Schulte, 25, of St. Louis, Missouri was killed in Kabul, Afghanistan on May 20, 2009. She died from wounds sustained from an IED attack. First Lt. Schulte was assigned to Headquarters, Paci¿c Air Forces Command at Hickman Air Base in Hawaii. Roslyn was the Air Force Academy’s tenth graduate and ¿rst female graduate to be killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Growing up in Ladue, Missouri, Roslyn played for a state championship lacrosse team, excelled in academics, and was involved in community outreach. She was described by friends as smart, determined, and compassionate. Schulte dreamed of being a ¿ghter pilot from the time she was a little girl, and graduated in the top of her class at the Air Force Academy. Majoring in political science, she also interned for U.S. Senator Alan Allard of Colorado, became a group commander, and captained the lacrosse team. In her third year at the Air Force Academy, she decided to pursue intelligence rather than aviation, thinking she could better serve her country in that capacity. She graduated in 2006 from the Air Force Academy. After completing her training at the intelligence school at Goodfellow Air Force Base in Texas, she was assigned as an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations of¿cer to the 613th Air and Space Operations Center at Hickman Air Force Base in Hawaii. Upon deploying to Afghanistan in February 2009 to serve the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan, her job was to help teach Afghan military of¿cials how to foster and interpret intelligence. She was traveling in a convoy from Camp Eggers, Kabul to Bagram Air¿eld when her convoy was

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attacked. Schulte met her boyfriend, Air Force Captain Bruce Cohen, at Hickman Air Base where they were both stationed. He had planned to propose to Roslyn in August 2009 when she returned to the United States. Her funeral services were held on Memorial Day 2009. A Navy colleague, Lt. Shivan Sivalingam, usually traveled the dangerous roads with Schulte on a daily basis in Afghanistan. However, on that particular day, he had not. Lt. Sivalingham traveled back to the United States for the funeral of his friend and colleague, “Roz”. He remarked, “I think it is ironic that this happened just shy of Memorial Day, but I hope everyone will think of her this day. Roz was truly an exceptional person. Usually, when you hear that about someone who just died, it is always an exaggeration. With Roz, it’s not” (Ross 2009). Schulte’s brother, Todd, said his sister was “the most fundamentally generous and kind person I knew, a brave soul, and leader.” Air Force 1st Lt. Roslyn L. Schulte was posthumously awarded the National Intelligence Medal for Valor in January 2010. Schulte was the ¿rst woman to receive the Medal of Valor. Among the intelligence community’s awards, the Medal of Valor is second only to the Intelligence Cross. Schulte’s parents, Robert and Susie, and her brother, Todd, attended the event in Washington, D.C. on her behalf (www.odni.gov). The former Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said, “In only three months of duty in Afghanistan, she made a far-reaching impact on how intelligence was taught and shared with the Afghan National Army.” Blair added, “She was wise beyond her 25 years, and respected as a leader by all those around her—from general to airman to Afghan tribal leader—regardless of the branch of service, regardless of nationality” (www.odni.gov). Schulte routinely had to travel to dangerous parts of Afghanistan, and still in her spare time, she worked for nearly three hours every day organizing a charity for Afghan refugees. At Camp Pawan, a U.S. training facility in Afghanistan, a building has been named the Schulte School and Clinic in her honor. The Schulte family established a memorial at the Air Force Academy in Lt. Schulte’s honor. Her ¿nal resting place is New Mount Sinai Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri. The Youngest Killed Forty-two women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan died before they turned 22 years of age. The statistics for the male fatalities would be no different. Overwhelmingly, in war after war it is the young enlisted soldiers who bear a disproportionate number of fatalities. While most civilian deaths in the same age cohort are due to car accidents, suicide, and drug overdoses, researching the narratives of these young women was overwhelmingly sad. The year before their death, some were attending their senior prom in high school, or had joined the military as a way to pay for college, or to escape a small town in the United States with very few job prospects. In some cases, parental consent forms needed to be signed because the

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young woman was 17 years of age; and in other cases, young women followed family traditions of military service. The appeal of the military amongst the youngest in our population could be attributed to a multitude of factors such as savvy military recruiters located in shopping malls and around high school parking lots, the improved public relations campaign of the military through its websites, commercials, and testimonials, and the allure of adventure, challenge, and independence. In the beginning of the chapter, an analysis was presented of a “good, military death”—a death must have a larger purpose to it, a proper funeral needs to occur, human remains need to be buried or cremated, and information as to the cause of death needs to be available. However, even though all those elements of a “good, military death” were met for these young women, the pictures of their young faces alongside their obituaries are tragic examples of “good lives” cut achingly too short. Army Private First Class Rachel K. Bosveld, 19, of Waupun, Wisconsin was killed on October 26, 2003 during a mortar attack on Abu Ghraib police station in Iraq. A military police of¿cer, Bosveld was assigned to the 527th Military Police Company, V Corps out of Giesen, Germany. Rachel was a neglected baby and spent time in the foster care system. Luckily, she was adopted by Marvin and Mary Bosveld. Once her parents divorced, Rachel lived with her mother, but moved to live with her father during her ¿nal two years of high school. After graduating from high school in May 2002, Rachel followed the path set by her father and brother in joining the military. Bosveld was remembered by her brother, Craig, as a young woman with many interests and talents. She liked to draw, play violin, and act. Her career goal was to become a graphic artist. At the time of her death, Rachel had told her father that she was ready to come home from Iraq; she related to Mr. Bosveld that the Iraqis wanted the American troops to leave. Bosveld’s funeral was attended by 700 people, including the Governor of Wisconsin (Jackson 2003). Her funeral took place on what would have been Rachel’s 20th birthday. Private Bosveld’s awards and decorations include: the National Defense Service Medal, the Iraq Campaign Medal, and posthumously the Bronze Star and Purple Heart (second one). Rachel received her ¿rst Purple Heart only six weeks before her death when her vehicle was hit by enemy ¿re during a patrol mission in Abu Ghraib. She is survived by her mother, father, stepmother, and two step-siblings. Rachel’s ¿nal resting place is Oakwood Cemetery in Berlin, Wisconsin. Army Private Sam W. Huff, 18, of Tucson, Arizona died on April 18, 2005 when an IED detonated near her Humvee in Baghdad, Iraq on April 17, 2005. She was assigned to the 170th Military Police Company, 504th Military Police Battalion, 42nd Military Police Brigade out of Fort Lewis, Washington. Sam’s sergeant cradled her in his arms after the bomb exploded by Huff’s Humvee. Her leg was severed from the blast, and Private Huff bled to death. As she lay near death, Sam told a sergeant next to her to pass along a message to her parents. When the sergeant told Private Huff that she would be able to tell them the message

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herself, Sam replied, “No, I don’t think I can make it. Tell my mom I love her, and tell my Dad good luck with his guitar album” (www.arlingtoncemetery.net). An only child, Sam was described as a girlie-girl by her father; she liked to wear false eyelashes and played the Àute in her high school band (Fryer 2005). She was the drum majorette of her high school marching band. Private Huff decided at age 16 that she would enlist, study psychology in college, and join the FBI. A beautiful young woman, Sam turned down a modeling contract and joined the Army. She spent her 18th birthday in boot camp and excelled at her duties as a military police of¿cer. Huff’s mother, Maggie, was a Marine and her father, Bob, a retired police of¿cer. Mr. Huff said, “I don’t know what 2,000 (the number of U.S. deaths at the time) means to me other than it’s too damn many.” Commenting on anti-war protestor Cindy Sheehan, Mr. Huff said that he feels for her but thinks such protests are misplaced. During a memorial service at Sam’s high school, the marching band she once took great pride in leading played two of her favorite ballads from the Disney movies Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid. At the funeral ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, Private Huff’s mother accepted the Àag, Purple Heart, Bronze Star, and Good Conduct Medal awarded to Sam posthumously. Sam’s mother placed her own uniform inside her daughter’s casket, which was used as a pillow for Sam to rest her head upon. She is survived by her parents, brother, and ¿ancp. Private Huff’s ¿nal resting place is Arlington National Cemetery, Section 60, Site 8109. In April 2009, Sam’s mother, Margaret Joyce Williams, died of cancer at the age of 56 and was laid to rest with her daughter at Arlington National Cemetery (www.arlingtoncemetery.net). Army Private Leslie D. Jackson, 18, of Richmond, Virginia was killed on May 20, 2004 in Baghdad, Iraq when an IED hit her military vehicle as she was returning to Camp Eagle. An army truck driver, she was assigned to A Company, 115th Forward Support Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division out of Fort Hood, Texas. At the time of her death in 2004, she was the youngest female to lose her life in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Leslie had been the battalion commander in her high school’s Junior ROTC program. She graduated in June 2003, enlisted in the Army in August 2003, and deployed to Kuwait and then Iraq in March 2004. Upon the news of her death, the principal of the high school she attended remarked that teachers and students were distraught over Leslie’s death. She was well-respected by all who came in contact with her (www.militarytimes.com). Private Jackson viewed the Army as a way for her to further her education. Ironically, in 2006 a scholarship fund was established in Leslie Jackson’s name at her former high school to provide ¿nancial assistance to a deserving high school senior to attend college. If such a fund had been available to Ms. Jackson, she may never have enlisted in the Army and lost her life at the tender age of 18. On the Fallen Heroes Memorial website, another soldier present the day Leslie was killed wrote the following:

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Leslie was an only child. Private Jackson is survived by her parents, and she was awarded the Purple Heart posthumously. Her ¿nal resting place is Salem Baptist Church Cemetery in Red Oak Hollow, Virginia. Army Private First Class Holly J. McGeogh, 19, of Taylor, Michigan was killed on January 31, 2004 in Kirkuk, Iraq when her vehicle was hit by an IED. A light-truck mechanic, McGeogh was assigned to Company A, 4th Forward Support Battalion, 4th Infantry Division out of Fort Hood, Texas. Two other soldiers were killed in the attack.19 Holly was the ¿rst female soldier from Michigan killed in Iraq. A cadet in the Junior ROTC, Holly graduated from high school in 2002 (Karush 2004). Deployed in April 2003, McGeogh was understandably shaken by the death of a female soldier and roommate, Analaura Esparza Gutierrez, who was killed in Tikrit on October 1, 2003. Her family was relieved Holly was alive, but it made Holly realize how tenuous life could be. McGeogh told her family that if she died, her family should take comfort in the fact that her death would be for a reason. Close to her mother and step-father, Holly pressed for her parents to sign the parental consent form when she was still 17 years old. Holly excelled at basic training and actually found it to be a lot of fun. McGeogh’s drill sergeant told her 19௑Sergeant Eliu Miersandoval and Corporal Juan Cabral-Banuelos were killed in the same attack.

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parents that she was a ¿ne soldier and was instrumental in helping her company graduate. She planned on attending college after her military service and pursuing a career in intelligence or psychology. Holly’s mother, Paula, recalled the phone calls she would receive from her daughter around 2 or 3 a.m. During one call, she fondly remembered hearing Rob, Holly’s brother, say “I love you” to her. The two siblings fought a lot, and the tenderness in Rob’s voice made Paula cry. Since Holly’s death, Rob cherished the car stereo Holly bought for him the Christmas before she was killed. Holly spoke to her mother about her interaction with Iraqi children. On one occasion, she had to watch about 15 children while a building was being searched. To pass the time, she taught them the childhood game duck, duck goose. Even though she spoke little Arabic and the children little English, Holly was glad she could make the children laugh for a little while. The children coined the game duck, duck ali baba. The casualty noti¿cation of¿cers tapped lightly on the McGeogh’s door on the night of January 31, 2004. Paula thought that if she did not let the of¿cers in, then Holly was not dead. They kept saying to Paula, “Ma’am, we need to come in.” Holly’s mother said, “I’m sorry, but I can’t let you in.” Holly’s truck had been the last in a ¿ve vehicle convoy. Private McGeogh had volunteered for a 60 mile trip to Kirkuk to pick up needed parts. An IED was planted in the middle of the road, and it exploded as Holly’s vehicle rolled over it. Paula wanted to see her daughter one last time—to touch her daughter’s hair. The of¿cers told her that that was not possible. The funeral would have to take place with a closed casket. Holly was promoted to specialist posthumously and her parents were awarded Holly’s Bronze Star and Purple Heart at her funeral service. Holly’s ¿nal resting place is Our Lady of Hope Cemetery in Brownstown Township, Michigan. The Taylor Fraternal Order of Police Lodge established a scholarship fund in honor of Holly. In May 2007, the city of Taylor, Michigan presented the “Lest They Be Forgotten” Memorial in front of City Hall, another tribute to Specialist McGeogh. Marine Corporal Jennifer M. Parcell, 20, of Bel Air, Maryland was killed in Anbar province, Iraq on February 7, 2007. She was assigned to the Okinawa, Japan-based Combat Logistics Regiment 3, III Marine Expeditionary Force. Corporal Parcell was a landing support specialist (www.militarycity.com). She was participating in the Marine Corps’ Lioness program, which entailed using female Marines from different occupational specialties to assist with searching Iraqi women at checkpoints. An Iraqi female suicide bomber detonated an explosive vest as she was being searched by Corporal Parcell. Jennifer was a few weeks shy of leaving Iraq. Jennifer graduated from high school in Bel Air, Maryland in 2004. In the summer of 2004, she followed her older brother’s path, Marine Corporal Joey Parcell, and enlisted in the Marines. She enrolled in college courses at Hartford Community College before departing for boot camp in January 2005. Determined to complete her college education, she enrolled in online classes at her foreign posting in Japan even while she was deployed to Iraq. Corporal Parcell was

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deployed to Iraq in August 2006. She was promoted to Corporal in 2006 and received six medals during her military service. Parcell planned to leave the Marines and attend college when her tour ended in 2009 (Guy and Hare 2007). Active in her local church and an aspiring amateur artist, Parcell was very close with her family. She named her brother as her best friend on her Myspace. com page and called her mom, Pam Parcell Simon, her personal hero. Jennifer sponsored an African child through her mission charity. When Pakistan was devastated by an earthquake in 2006, she and others in her unit were dispatched to the country (Guy and Hare 2007). She earned the Humanitarian Service Medal for her efforts. January 29, 2007 was the last day Parcell logged onto her Myspace.com account (Murret 2007). She sent her cousin and other friends an email saying she just had 22 days left before leaving Iraq for good and returning to Camp Pendleton, California for another year of service. She planned on leaving the Marines after completing her year of service in California. Corporal Parcell is buried at Bel Air Memorial Gardens in Bel Air, Maryland. Her maternal grandfather, Eugene Albert Parcell, was also buried there. He died the day after his granddaughter, Jennifer, was killed in Iraq. Army Private First Class Katie M. Soenksen, 19, of Davenport, Iowa died in Baghdad, Iraq from wounds sustained when an IED detonated near her vehicle on May 2, 2007. Private First Class Soenksen was assigned to the 410th Military Police Company, 720th Military Police Battalion, 89th Military Police Brigade out of Ford Hood, Texas (www.militarytimes.com). Another soldier, Army Private First Class Brian Botello, was also killed in the attack. Katie was a 2005 graduate of Davenport North High School and a leading member of the high school’s Junior ROTC program. Soenksen was conducting a security mission in Baghdad when her convoy was attacked according to her father, Ronald Soenksen. Katie arrived in Iraq in the summer of 2006 and was due back home in June 2007. Her father had last spoken with his daughter on May 1, 2007; she told him she was preparing for a mission the next day. On the afternoon of May 2, 2007, the Army visited the family home to tell Ronald that Katie was dead. Despite his loss, Mr. Soenksen said he never tried to discourage his daughter from joining the military. Her father said, “She wanted to go over there and keep the war on foreign soil” (www.militarytimes.com). Katie was inÀuenced by her godfather and aunt, who both joined the military. Katie’s aunt, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Rose Ramirez with over 30 years in uniform, accompanied Soenksen’s remains to Davenport from Dover Air Force Base (Slevin 2007). A miles-long procession escorted Private First Class Soenksen’s casket to the National Cemetery on Arsenal Island in Illinois. Katie had an impulsive streak as well. She married Benjamin Rowella, an Army Specialist, six days before her deployment and two weeks after they met at a night club. At the funeral, Specialist Rowella saluted his wife of less than one year. He was the last to walk away from the graveside. Specialist Rowella returned

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to Fort Hood after his wife’s burial. He planned to return to Iraq eventually. His unit’s stay had been extended to January 2008. “It’s my job. It’s my career,” he said. Then, before going outside to take a break from the crowd, he said he will never marry again. “She was that one special person everyone needs in his life.” In a letter posted on a Department of Defense Web site, Katie Soenksen thanked Americans for supporting the troops and acknowledged the dif¿culty of leaving home. She wrote: Being deployed is one of the hardest things to do, but being here makes me realize how good we have it in America. Even though being over here is hard, I’m glad I’m over here. Just seeing how some of them are living just hurts me inside. Wish I could do more for them but there’s only so much you can do without their help. I want to take this time to say thank you for the support. The support is what keeps us going. When times get rough and I don’t know what to do, I just look in my email and there’s an email from friends and family saying how they are proud of me. Every day I go into the chow hall and on the wall is a big American Àag that elementary students made with paint and their hand prints. Just the little things are what keep us going. So again THANK YOU for the support that we need! (www.fallenheroesproject.org).

Katie’s mother, Ms. Parizek, said, “Katie was convinced that her presence in Iraq was making a difference in the lives of Iraqi people” (www.militarytimes.com). On the other hand, Jeff Manders, who had coached Soenksen in basketball, soccer, and softball from the time she was a little girl, said her sudden death “crystallized his misgivings about the war.” Mr. Manders commented that Katie’s death would de¿nitely inÀuence his vote in the November 2008 presidential election” (Slevin 2007). Mr. Manders continued, “This one hurts. This brings the war to your front door. It’s no longer someone else’s kid from a distant place. It’s the kid next door who’s died. Iraq is a mess. How do we get out of it?” Katie was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart, Bronze Star, and Army Good Conduct Medal for her service in Iraq. Her ¿nal resting place is Rock Island National Cemetery in Illinois. Soldier Suicides and Deaths under Suspicious Circumstances With a great deal of attention in the media and informed public dialogue about the alarming rate of suicides among veterans suffering from PTSD and other psychological traumas, it is important to recognize that a minority of soldiers commit suicide while on active duty. However, there is warranted concern that in the military’s quest to maintain ample numbers of troops during the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, male and female soldiers were at times kept in the ¿eld when it became clear they were a danger to themselves and fellow soldiers. Since 2010, suicide has been the second leading cause of death among

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U.S service members, exceeded only by war injury.20 Suicide mortality rates in the Army and Marine Corps have increased during the conÀicts in Iraq and Afghanistan; however, most active duty service members who die by suicide have never deployed. During 1998–2011, 2,990 service members died by suicide while on active duty. Numbers and rates of suicide were highest among service members who were male, in the Army, in their twenties, and categorized as white in race. Suicide death rates were 24 percent higher among those divorced or separated than single, never-married service members. Finally, 95 percent of all U.S. military suicides are committed by males. Equally disturbing are the cases where the of¿cial military investigation into a non-combat related death rules that the soldier committed suicide; however, the family disagrees with the of¿cial ¿ndings. At least ¿ve female soldiers, who died in the military theaters of Iraq and Afghanistan, fall under this set of circumstances. Many of the narratives in this section are profoundly unsettling. Investigations have endured for years, with often no de¿nitive closure for the families. In some cases, the family has taken to Facebook and blog postings to continue to challenge the of¿cial military ¿ndings regarding their loved one’s death; however, in other circumstances, it was impossible to ¿nd further details beyond the initial information available at the time of the female soldiers’ death. In a perverse way, as the research was conducted on U.S. female military fatalities, I found myself almost relieved if the female soldier died due to a suicide bomber, an accident, or a mortar round because there was not this cloud of suspicion and unease still lingering in some cases ¿ve or six years beyond the time of death. The narratives that follow certainly provide anecdotal evidence to support claims made by difference and radical feminists that the U.S. military is no safe place for a woman regardless of how many legal challenges have been won to integrate women as fully equal to their male counterparts. Army Specialist Mikayla A. Bragg, 21, of Longview, Washington, died in Khost province, Afghanistan on December 21, 2011. She was assigned to the 201st Brigade Support Battalion, 3rd Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division out of Fort Knox, Kentucky. She was a quali¿ed sharpshooter and motor transportation operator. U.S. Army investigators ruled that Specialist Bragg committed suicide while on duty in a guard tower. She had a lengthy history of mental health problems that were never communicated to her supervisors (Olson 2012). Her commanding of¿cers in Afghanistan were never told that Bragg had made an apparent previous suicide attempt while serving stateside at Fort Knox. According to records, Mikayla had spent 45 days in an Army hospital just months before she deployed to Afghanistan. She had told doctors she wanted to crash a car and injure herself. Her doctors were not aware that Mikayla had weaned herself off prescribed antianxiety medication in the summer of 2011 to satisfy requirements to deploy. 20௑“Deaths by Suicide While on Active Duty, Active and Reserve Components, U.S. Armed Forces, 1998-2011.” Accessible online at http://timemilitary.¿les.wordpress. com on March 22, 2013.

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A report numbering over 100 pages determined the facts of the case and included written statements from Bragg’s fellow soldiers and commander in Afghanistan, mental-health counselors, and Army of¿cials at Fort Knox. In the report, Army investigators said commanders failed to properly track Bragg as a “high-risk” soldier who could potentially hurt herself or others before she deployed to Afghanistan. The report also recommended that no soldier, regardless of gender, should be stationed in a guard tower alone. Moreover, in an internet chat she told a fellow soldier about a month before she died that she had been sexually assaulted by an Afghan civilian contractor while on base. Bragg did not report this alleged assault to her superiors. Bragg joined the Army in 2008 after graduating from high school (Olson 2012). She enlisted to earn money to pay for college and hoped to go into a ¿eld helping people or animals (Olsen and Allen 2011). She arrived at Fort Knox, Kentucky in May 2010, and for the next year she was moved back and forth to the rear detachment, which is reserved for non-deployable soldiers, at least six times because of medical and mental health problems according to the Army’s of¿cial report. At one point, Mikayla passed out numerous times after refusing to eat for four days while at Fort Knox. At this time, Bragg’s commanders began to pursue a Chapter 5–17 to remove her from the Army because of her personal struggles. In response, Mikayla weaned herself off the Valium she had been prescribed and obtained a waiver in order to deploy in the fall of 2011. However, normal policy is to have a soldier sit out an entire 18-month deployment rotation if they are deemed un¿t to go to war. Once in country, Bragg demonstrated no suicidal tendencies; she even completed the Army’s mandatory suicide prevention training in November 2011, which is required now for all soldiers. Prior to her death, she was awarded the: Army Commendation Medal, the Good Conduct Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Afghanistan Campaign Medal, and the War on Terrorism Service Medal. Moreover, Mikayla was promoted twice while in Afghanistan (Olson 2012). On the day of her suicide, she only took two rounds of ammunition with her instead of the required 210 rounds. She was scheduled to leave Afghanistan around Christmas 2011 and had even purchased a plane ticket home (Olson and Allen 2011). She exchanged messages with her best friend, Tiffany Hoist, just seven hours before Mikayla took her life. Instead of welcoming their daughter home, Mikayla’s father, Steve Bragg, Àew to Dover Air Force Base to identify her remains. The Army also conducted an autopsy. Sheyanne Baker, Mikayla’s mother, was sitting down to dinner with her husband when she heard the knock at the door (Piccione 2012). Sheyanne had one daughter deployed in Afghanistan and a son, Sergeant Allen Davids, in Iraq. But that time it was just a delivery of a care package from Mikayla—half a world away in Afghanistan. Instead, Sheyanne was noti¿ed of her daughter’s death at Walmart, where she worked. The store manager asked Mrs. Baker to come to his of¿ce and there they were—the casualty noti¿cation of¿cers. They asked her to take a

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seat, and then Mikayla’s mother asked, “Which one?” Sergeant Davids, Mikayla’s brother, accompanied his sister’s body home. Mrs. Baker said the holidays of 2011 were somber, so she set up a table with pictures of her daughter and lit a candle. Specialist Bragg was buried at Tahoma National Cemetery in Kent, Washington. Army First Lieutenant Debra A. Banaszak, 35, of Bloomington, Illinois died from non-combat related injuries on October 28, 2005 at Camp Victory in Kuwait. She was assigned to the 1035th Maintenance Company of the Missouri Army National Guard. Banaszak deployed with her unit in April 2005. Debra ¿rst joined the Army Reserve after completing high school in 1989. Banaszak was a former police of¿cer who had a great love for her son, Mark. Family and friends remembered her as strong-willed and goal-oriented (Freeman, November 2, 2005). First Lt. Banaszak graduated from Of¿cer Candidate School in September 2000, receiving her commission as a second lieutenant. In the same year, she graduated from Hamilton University with a B.A. degree in criminal justice. Despite balancing school, her National Guard Service and single motherhood, Debra was promoted to ¿rst lieutenant in two years. The military ruled Debra’s death a suicide. Family members of some troops, whose deaths have been labeled suicides, maintain that the military has given them limited information about the circumstances of the deaths. Some have had to wait more than a year for autopsies and investigative reports, which they say still leave questions unanswered. Barbara Butler, Debra’s mother, said she has trouble understanding why her daughter would have taken her own life as the military has determined. Ms. Butler said that while Banaszak, the single mother of a teenage son, was proud to serve her country and had not complained, the stresses of the deployment may have exacerbated her depression. “She was used to being in charge and being a leader, but never in these circumstances,’’ said Butler. “If the Army is right that she did this, it was nothing she would have done ordinarily. It was that war that brought it about” (Chedekel and Kauffman 2006). First Lieutenant Banaszak’s awards and decorations include: the Army Service Ribbon, two National Defense Service Medals, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, the Iraq Campaign Medal, and several Army Reserve Component Achievement Medals. At her funeral, Debra’s son, Mark, chose to put sunÀowers in his mother’s casket. They were her favorite Àowers. Her ¿nal resting place is Gilman Cemetery in Gilman, Illinois. She is survived by her parents, son, husband, Bruce Becker, and brother. Lance Corporal Juana “Chica” Navarro Arellano was killed on April 8, 2006 while supporting combat operations in Anbar province, Iraq. A bulk fuel specialist, she was 24 years old and from Ceres, California. Lance Corporal Navarro Arellano was assigned to the 9th Engineer Support Battalion, 3rd Marine Logistics Group, which is based in Okinawa, Japan. Juana was inspired to enlist after her younger twin brothers enlisted. She was fatally shot in the head by an unknown assailant while guarding other soldiers during a mission. Raised by a single mother, Juana was born in Michoacan, Mexico. She and a twin sister became U.S. citizens at age 13. She graduated from high school

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in 2000, where she volunteered with special education children. She was given the nickname “Chica” at her military occupational specialty school because some had trouble pronouncing her name during roll call. When fellow Marines talked about Navarro Arellano, words like compassionate, warrior, awesome personality, and sacri¿ce were used over and over again. During her memorial service, Lt. Colonel Edmund Bowen, the commander of the 9th Engineer Support Battalion, paid tribute to the fearless Marine who volunteered to ¿ght beside her fellow Marines in the security platoon. Bowen spoke of Navarro-Arellano’s “compassionate heart and warrior spirit.” One of her fellow Marines, Private First Class Gustavo Navrarro Cristales, said “She was the toughest girl I ever met. She demanded to be treated equal.” Army Sergeant Tracy R. Birkman, 41, of New Castle, Virginia died on January 25, 2008 in Owesat, Iraq from non-combat related injuries. A light-wheel mechanic, Birkman was assigned to the 626th Brigade Support Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Birkman died while on her third tour in Iraq, and the cause of death was not determined at the time of this book’s publication. Tracy enlisted the Army in 1988 and arrived at Fort Campbell in 2006. When Tracy was interviewed in March 2006 during her second deployment to Iraq as part of the Army’s celebration of Women’s History Month, she admitted that she had walked a tough path, and that the dif¿culties of being a woman in a heavily male-dominated ¿eld had not really subsided. She told an interviewer, “My job is part mentor and part den mother. My soldiers are my kids and a lot times they act like kids.” She also noted ruefully that her job would have been a lot easier if she were a man. But her gender did not stop people from appreciating her competency and professionalism. Her company commander at the time, Captain Jacob Grabia, said of Sergeant Birkman, “She is one of my best soldiers. She’s very dedicated to her soldiers and her job” (www.dailykos.com). Sergeant Birkman is survived by her sons, Bradley Grif¿th, Joshua and Ryan Birkman, and her parents. Jerald Grif¿th, Tracy’s father and a Vietnam veteran, said he was angry with military of¿cials for releasing information about his daughter’s death and with the news media. Mr. Grif¿th said, “She’s over there in a war we shouldn’t even be involved in, on her third tour” (www.militarytimes. com). Sergeant Birkman’s awards and decorations include: the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, the Iraq Campaign Medal, the Korea Defense Service Medal, Army Commendation Medal, Army Achievement Medal, Army Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Non-Commissioned Of¿cer Professional Development Ribbon, Army Service Ribbon, Overseas Service Ribbon, and the Driver and Mechanic Badge. Army Specialist Seteria L. Brown, 22, of Orlando, Florida died in Sharana, Afghanistan on July 25, 2008 due to injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident, a gunshot wound to the chest. Rumors quickly spread that Seteria had committed suicide, but her family and friends did not believe she would take her own life. A food service specialist, Brown was assigned to the 62nd Engineer

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Battalion, 36th Engineer Brigade. She deployed to Afghanistan in April 2008. Many websites believe Specialist Brown’s death was the result of sexual assault and continue to call for a re-opening of the investigation. A mother by the age of 15, Seteria joined the Army shortly after graduating from high school in 2004 (Self 2008). After her four years were up, Seteria’s mother, Michelle Harris, hoped that her daughter would separate from the military and attend college, especially after her daughter had already spent a year in Iraq and made it back safely. Her mother said Seteria’s decision to re-enlist was driven by the bonuses the military was offering and a poor job market. Brown is survived by her daughter, Shamya, who is being raised by her grandmother now and Seteria’s husband, Jonathan Brown. Specialist Brown’s decorations and awards include: the Army Commendation Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Army Service Ribbon, and Overseas Service Ribbon. A funeral was held for Specialist Brown in Aliceville, Alabama. Her ¿nal resting place is New Cemetery in McMullen, Alabama. Marine Lance Corporal Stacy A. Dryden, 22, of North Canton, Ohio died in Asad, Iraq on October 19, 2008 due to injuries sustained in a non-hostile incident. Lance Corporal Dryden was assigned to the 1st Supply Battalion, 1st Marine Logistics Group out of Camp Pendleton, California. Military of¿cials say she was injured during a wrestling mishap with a male service member. Stacy was found dead in a portable latrine. The autopsy showed Dryden had head trauma. Her death was ruled a homicide, but the investigation revealed no evidence of foul play; therefore, no charges were ¿led. Military records show Dryden voluntarily grappled with a male sailor the day before her death. Witnesses told investigators that Dryden struck her head on the concrete surface but never sought medical care (Duer 2009). Dryden later told friends she was sore from wrestling and had a knot on the back of her head. She died the next day. Thea Dryden, Stacy’s mother, said she talked to her daughter the day she was injured, but Stacy never mentioned hitting her head on the concrete. Stacy graduated from high school in 2004 and enlisted in March 2007 after holding a variety of jobs. She served for two months in Iraq as a packaging specialist. She was remembered by fellow Marines for her infectious smile and positive attitude even in a warzone. Lance Corporal Dryden is survived by her mother, father, and brother, Jake, who planned on following his sister into the Marines after his high school graduation. In January 2011, military investigators changed their explanation and said the wrestling match was actually a hostile confrontation after the sailor made a derogatory remark to Dryden (www.spotus. com); however, no charges were ¿led against the male Marine. Stacy is buried in Forest Hill Cemetery in Canton, Ohio. Army Private Amy A. Duerksen, 19, of Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland died on March 11, 2006 in Baghdad, Iraq from a non-combat related incident. She was assigned to the 4th Combat Support Battalion, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

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out of Fort Hood, Texas. Amy died three days later from a non-combat gunshot wound she suffered on March 8, 2006 (Kay, April 9, 2006). As the third generation of a military family, Amy decided to join the Army to receive ¿nancial aid to attend college (Jones 2012). She enlisted in April 2005 according to her father, Major Douglas W. Duerksen, an Army chaplain at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. Major Duerksen said he had a long talk with Amy about the commitment that would be required in joining the service; however, she was a ¿rm believer in the principles of freedom, justice, and liberty. Duerksen was found wounded at Camp Taji in Iraq, and she died three days after what the Army determined to be “a self-inÀicted gunshot.” The Army claimed Amy committed suicide. In the room where her body was found, investigators reportedly discovered Amy’s diary open to a page on which she had written about being raped during training after unknowingly ingesting a date-rape drug. The person Duerkson identi¿ed in her diary as the rapist was charged by the Army with rape after her death. Many who knew Amy did not believe she shot herself, but there is no evidence of a homicide investigation by the Army (Wright, September 9, 2008). In searching on-line, there were no further comments made by Amy’s family regarding the circumstances of her death. Amy is survived by her parents, Michelle and Douglas Duerksen, and her sister, April, who at the time of Amy’s death was also in the Army. Members of the Westboro Baptist Church protested at Duerkson’s funeral, while Patriot Guard motorcycle riders—including many Vietnam veterans—tried to shield the family from the signs claiming that the death of soldiers in Iraq are divine punishment for America’s toleration of homosexuality. Private Duerksen’s awards and decorations include: the Army Commendation Medal, the Army Good Conduct Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary and Service Medals, and the Army Service Ribbon. Her ¿nal resting place is Central Texas State Veterans Cemetery in Killeen, Texas. Army Private Hannah L. Gunterman, 20, of Redlands, California died on September 4, 2006 in Taji, Iraq. Gunterman was assigned to the 542nd Maintenance Company, 44th Corps Support Battalion out of Fort Lewis, Washington. A quartermaster, Private Gunterman’s duties included order processing and manning a machine gun on a guard tower at the base. According to the initial reports, Gunterman had climbed down from a guard tower in Iraq to head across a dusty road to use the latrine. As she walked across the road, a Humvee ran over Hannah and then sped away. More than an hour later, a tank driver found her and rushed her to the base medical center where she died from internal injuries (Trunnell 2006). During high school, Gunterman joined the choir and the drama department. Against her father’s wishes, Hannah joined the Army right out of high school in order to earn money to pursue her dreams in fashion design. At Fort Lee, she dated a fellow soldier and became pregnant. After being discharged from the Army in 2004, she returned to active duty in 2005. Once she was stationed at Fort Lewis, she began to reconnect with a male friend from high school, who was a fellow soldier at Fort Lewis. Christopher McKinney and Hannah were married just a

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month before she deployed to Iraq. Hannah’s mother, Barbie Heavrin, said her daughter was depressed and calling home a lot. She looked forward to coming home and reuniting with her two-year-old son. The of¿cial story of Hannah’s death started to change for the Heavrin family after Hannah’s funeral—where her two-year-old son asked his grandmother if his “mama was asleep?” (St. George, January 1, 2008). Near Hannah’s guard tower in Iraq, three sergeants gathered to celebrate the end of their tours on a September evening in 2006. Sergeant Damon Shell, then 25, had obtained alcohol even though it was forbidden in the combat zone. As the sergeants became intoxicated, they tried to get female soldiers to kiss them but were rebuffed. At 3 a.m., they stopped at Hannah’s guard tower. They called her down from her post, and she joined them in their Humvee. She then proceeded to get very drunk according to Sergeant Shell. As the other two soldiers drifted off to sleep, Shell and Hannah had a consensual sexual encounter according to his testimony. Sergeant Shell claimed he tried to return Hannah to her guard post around 5:30 am, but was unable to get her out of the Humvee. Shell asked Gunterman’s female guard tower partner to cover for the two of them, but Private Rachel Anderson refused. Sergeant Shell proceeded to drive down a dead-end road and realized that the door on Hannah’s side was open. After making a U-turn and pulling into a gap in a passing convoy, he heard a bump and realized that he might have run over something. He looked over, and the door was open. Private Gunterman was gone. Shell knew he might have run over her, but he did not stop to check. Rather, he drove back to the barracks. About 5:45 a.m., two other service personnel spotted Hannah as she lay in the road. She died of internal injuries shortly after being taken to the medical facilities on base. The court martial of Sergeant Damon Shell occurred in the spring of 2007. Hannah’s mother, father, two brothers, one a graduating senior from the Naval Academy and the other a Marine, as well as her husband all attended the hearing. The prosecutors assured the family that Shell would be found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and serve 7–10 years. The defense team for Shell brought in an accident reconstruction expert who testi¿ed that Sergeant Shell had not sped or swerved and that Hannah’s faulty door was prone to pop open. In the end, the judge said Shell was “not guilty” and was sentenced to three lesser charges—drinking in a war zone, drunken driving, and consensual sodomy with Gunterman . Shell was sent to prison for 13 months and demoted to private, but he was not discharged from the Army. Hannah’s ¿nal resting place is Riverside National Cemetery in Riverside, California. Army Captain Dr. Roselle M. Hoffmaster, 32, of Cleveland, Ohio died in Kirkuk, Iraq on September 20, 2007 due to injuries sustained from a noncombat related incident. Dr. Hoffmaster was assigned to the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division out of Fort Drum, New York. She deployed with her unit to Iraq only a few weeks before her death. Roselle was found dead on her cot by one of her roommates, with a M9 Beretta pistol still in Hoffmaster’s hand. The Army ruled her death a suicide.

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Dr. Hoffmaster volunteered for the assignment in Iraq because she had no children and wanted to spare doctors who did from being deployed (Contrada 2012). An undergraduate of Smith College and a 2004 graduate of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Roselle was commissioned into the Army Medical Corps in 2004 following an internal medicine residency at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. She enlisted in the Army to help pay for medical school costs (Contrada 2012). Just hours before her death, she had been berated by a senior of¿cer for not completing a pre-screening for blood donors (Mitchell, September 14, 2010). According to eyewitness accounts, Roselle left the meeting crying. The supervisor told another of¿cer that Hoffmaster needed to toughen up. Roselle later told another of¿cer, who counseled her that night, that she could not do it anymore and wanted to quit the military. Numerous interviews with military colleagues and family members, however, attested to Roselle’s positive attitude and expressed disbelief that she would commit suicide. Because Hoffmaster was a last-minute replacement for another surgeon who left the unit, she was not able to attend a readiness training center program in Louisiana, where she would have been acclimated to her new assignment. Captain Hoffmaster’s awards and decorations include: the Army Superior Unit Award, the National Defense Service Medal and the Army Service Ribbon. She is survived by her parents and her husband. A memorial service was held for Roselle in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Army Private LaVena Johnson, 19, of St. Louis, Missouri was found dead on July 19, 2005 in Balad, Iraq. Her body was found beside a riÀe in a contractor’s storage tent. This story is undoubtedly one of the most disturbing to come out of Iraq. The Army ruled Johnson’s death a suicide; but Lavena’s parents, Dr. John Johnson and Linda, have been very vocal and adamant that their daughter was ¿rst raped and then murdered. A telecommunications specialist and honor roll student, LaVena joined the Army shortly after graduating high school when she realized her parents would have to pay for she and her sister to attend college at the same time. Despite objections from her parents, she enlisted and was assigned to the 129th Corps Support Battalion. She died only eight weeks after being deployed to Iraq. Two hours before her death, she put on a reÀective belt, a requirement for walking around Balad at night (King, December 18, 2008). She visited a military P; and made a purchase. When her body was discovered, her recently used bank debit card was missing. The Army investigators ruled that LaVena committed suicide by ¿ring her M-16 automatic riÀe into her mouth. There was no suicide note, no recovered bullet, and no signi¿cant gunshot residue on her hands (Zucchino, March 8, 2009). Moreover, the right-handed soldier had a bullet wound on the left side of her head. Finally, there was a blood trail outside the tent where LaVena’s body was found. Dr. Johnson, who holds a Ph.D. in psychology and has 25 years of experience as an administrator for the Army in a civilian administrative capacity, has argued for years that his daughter was raped and killed (Muhammad 2008). LaVena’s father contends that the death scene was staged to make it appear she had

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committed suicide. When Dr. Johnson ¿rst tried to obtain a CD of the images of his daughter, the Army would not release them to him. After being told repeatedly by the U.S. Army that he was not entitled to the photos, Johnson contacted U.S. Congressman William Clay (D-MO). Representative Clay was actively involved at the time of LaVena’s death in congressional hearings regarding the cases of Corporal Pat Tillman21 and Private Jessica Lynch. Through Freedom of Information Act requests, Dr. Johnson ¿nally received the CD with color images of his daughter’s mutilated body and the autopsy photographs (King, December 18, 2008). Dr. Johnson will not allow LaVena’s mother or siblings to view the pictures of his daughter’s death scene. They are too graphic. Her face had been struck repeatedly with a blunt object. Most of her teeth were shattered. LaVena’s lip was busted, her nose broken, and teeth marks were on her upper torso. The picture of her vaginal area shows evidence of a cruel and vicious rape. Lye was poured on her vagina in order to perhaps destroy DNA evidence. LaVena’s body was also set on ¿re. Dr. Johnson has referenced stacks of investigative reports, crime scene photographs, lab reports, and letters he has sent to the Army, the Pentagon, and Congress. Dr. Johnson, who is trained to identify soldiers with suicidal thoughts, always was the ¿rst to talk to his daughter when she called home from Iraq (Muhammad 2008). He contends that his daughter did not display any symptoms typical of a suicidal person. However despite the family’s protests, the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command considered LaVena’s case closed. The spotlight on Johnson’s death and several others did propel the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to hold committee hearings on sexual assault and rape in the military. Former U.S. House Representative Jane Harman (D-CA) said at the hearings: “That a female soldier in Iraq is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy ¿re is sickening. This crisis has reached epidemic proportions and threatens our national security. Better training and rigorous prosecutions are needed to make clear to soldiers and the command structure that bright red lines have been drawn” (Muhammad 2008). Private Johnson is survived by her parents and four siblings. Her ¿nal resting place is Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri. Army Sergeant Denise A. Lannaman, 46, of Bayside, New York died on October 1, 2006 at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait from a non-combat related incident. She was assigned to the 1569th Transportation Company of the New York Army National Guard. Sergeant Lannaman committed suicide. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, she spent nine years in the Navy and was then unable to ¿nd a suitable career path. By the time she was 42, she had been a ¿re¿ghter, sailor, ¿lmmaker, scuba diver, paramedic, and auto mechanic 21௑Pat Tillman was an NFL football player, who gave up a lucrative sports career to join the Army. He was killed in Afghanistan in April 2004. Tillman’s family was told that he was killed by enemy ¿re in a heroic battle, when in reality he was killed by friendly ¿re.

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(Dwyer 2007). Denise had been a frequent psychiatric patient and had made four previous suicide attempts. In addition to her struggles ¿nancially, Lannaman was a lesbian; unfortunately, she did not receive the support of her family in her early years. Perplexing to her mother, Denise passed the military’s psychiatric review. She enlisted in the New York Army National Guard in May 2003 and was deployed to Iraq in January 2005 where she was based in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit. Even though she saw a convoy blown up by an IED in front of her, Lannaman decided to enlist for another three years. After her tour in Iraq, she then took on a desk job at a procurement of¿ce in Camp Arifjan, Kuwait. In December 2005, she was assigned to work with a logistics group that purchased millions of dollars in supplies for U.S. forces. Two other members of the U.S. Army, Lt. Colonel Marshall Gutierrez and Major Gloria D. Davis who were part of the same logistics group in Kuwait, committed suicide as well—Gutierrez in September 2006 and Davis in December 2006. Major Davis did admit to taking $225,000 in bribes. Lt. Colonel Gutierrez had been accused of shaking down a laundry contractor for a $3,400 bribe. Even though Lannaman had received a “superb performance” evaluation from Major Steven Carozza, she was called into a private meeting with a superior of¿cer on October 1, 2006. A military investigator told Lannaman’s family that Denise had been informed during that October meeting that she would be sent home in disgrace with a dishonorable discharge. A few hours later, Denise was found dead in a jeep from a self-inÀicted gunshot wound. Almost a year after her daughter’s death, Barbara Lannaman received a letter from the Army. It was ironically the honorable discharge of her daughter. A few posts from the internet speculated that Lannaman may have been blackmailed to remain silent about the corruption she may have witnessed or else her homosexuality would be exposed. Of course, Denise’s death in 2006 was well before the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” under the ¿rst term of the Obama administration. Unfortunately, the speculations have no de¿nitive ending. Navy Counselor Cherie L. Morton, 40, of Bakers¿eld, California died on April 20, 2008 in Bahrain while supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Morton was discovered dead in her living room at an off-base apartment after apparently suffering a head injury. She was assigned to the Naval Security Force, Naval Support Activity Bahrain. At the time of her death, an investigation was pending and no further de¿nitive information could be found ¿ve years later. Various websites have alleged that Morton, like many other servicewomen who died from non-combat causes in Iraq and Afghanistan, may have been the victim of sexual assault or rape. However, to date no conclusive determination of her death was released by the Department of Defense. Friends described her as a travel buff, who was eagerly awaiting the high school graduation of her only child, at the time of her death. An avid bingo player, hundreds attended a memorial service for Morton at the hall where she often played bingo with colleagues and friends. Morton, a 15 year veteran and the command career counselor for the Naval Security Force in Bahrain, provided

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career information to hundreds of enlisted sailors in the region. Counselor Morton was twice awarded the Navy Achievement Medal and the Good Conduct Medal on four occasions. Morton is survived by her son, Brian Trevor, and her mother and father. She is buried at Cedar Bluff Cemetery in Rockford, Illinois. Army Specialist Alyssa R. Peterson, 27, of Flagstaff, Arizona died from a non-combat weapons discharge (ruled a suicide) on September 15, 2003 near Tel Afar, Iraq. Alyssa was assigned to C Company, 311th Military Intelligence Battalion, 101st Airborne Division. Alyssa graduated from Northern Arizona University in May 2001 with a degree in psychology. She enlisted in the Army in July 2001 and was trained as an Arabic linguist. Deployed to Iraq in February 2003, Alyssa was conducting interrogations and translating enemy documents while in Iraq. A devout Mormon, Peterson was viewed by families and friends as a bright, quiet young woman who asked important questions about life and religion. While in Iraq, Peterson objected and refused to participate in Army intelligence prisoner interrogation techniques and was reassigned. Her objections came after working for just two nights in interrogation. Alyssa was sent to suicide prevention class; however, she killed herself with her service riÀe shortly after coming forward with her concerns. She avoided eating with her interrogation team and spent time reading at her desk when she did not have other assignments. No one in the unit reported signs of impending suicide. On the evening of September 15, 2003, she got off work at about 9 p.m. and was not seen again that night. According to the documents, the company executive of¿cer heard two gunshots at about 9:30 p.m. but did not investigate (Mitchell, September 14, 2010). At 9:00 the next morning, an aircraft passing over the nearby landing zone reported seeing Peterson’s body in a grassy ¿eld next to her service riÀe. Documents disclosed that she had two gunshot wounds. Her weapon apparently had been set on burst, beneath her chin. Specialist Peterson’s father was noti¿ed of his daughter’s suicide while he worked in the post of¿ce. A co-worker said he had never seen a more broken man. Kayla Williams, an Arab linguist featured in Chapter 3, recalled meeting Peterson while in Iraq. A civilian interpreter asked Williams to speak to Peterson, who appeared troubled (Mitchell, September 14, 2010). Williams described Specialist Peterson as a sweet girl. Williams had been asked to participate in interrogations where lit cigarettes were used to burn prisoners’ bodies, and she was asked to humiliate naked prisoners’ manhood. After participating in these events one day, Williams told the non-commissioned of¿cer in charge that she refused to participate again; furthermore, she told the of¿cer that the interrogations were crossing the line in violation of the Geneva Conventions. When the torture pictures of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison were released in the spring of 2004, renewed interest in Peterson’s death occurred. In 2005, an enterprising radio and newspaper reporter ¿led a Freedom of Information Act request to discover the circumstances and events leading up to Peterson’s suicide.

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Alyssa is survived by her parents and brother. Specialist Peterson was buried with full military honors at Citizen’s Cemetery in Flagstaff, Arizona. Army Private Tina M. Priest, 20, of Austin, Texas died on March 1, 2006 from a non-combat related injury in Taji, Iraq. She was assigned to the 4th Support Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division out of Fort Hood, Texas. The military concluded Priest died of a self-inÀicted gunshot wound to the chest after being raped by a fellow soldier (www.dailykos.com); however, Tina’s family does not believe she committed suicide. Born weighing less than two pounds, Tina beat the odds doctors gave her parents that she would not survive (Toohey, February 6, 2007). Priest decided to join the Army after earning certi¿cation as a medical assistant; however, she could not ¿nd stable employment in her ¿eld. Tina was injured one week after she arrived in Iraq but returned to duty quickly. Tina Priest accused a fellow soldier of raping her on February 15, 2006. She underwent two physical examinations, which were inconclusive on the rape allegation. On February 27, 2006, she was deemed “stable with no risk management issues” by an Army clinical psychologist and prescribed 48 hours of rest due to exhaustion. Tina was discovered dead in her room March 1, 2006; investigators concluded she shot herself in the upper chest with an M-16 riÀe. The initial Fort Hood investigation claimed that Priest may have been romantically involved with the soldier she accused of raping her. Preliminary investigations did not ¿nd suf¿cient evidence to continue the rape inquiry, but Tina’s family waited for a ¿nal review by the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command. Family members also say Army of¿cials told them that the investigation was concluded in September 2006, but their requests for the ¿nal report were initially denied (Toohey, March 1, 2006). Rape charges against the soldier she accused were dropped a few weeks after Tina’s death. The soldier she accused of rape pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of being in the quarters of a soldier of the opposite sex. There exists only Priest’s uncorroborated statement as evidence of the rape charge, according to one document entitled, “Presentation of Collateral Investigation Results to the Family of PFC Tina M. Priest.” But the reports and sworn statements in the family’s possession led them to question whether the Army could investigate the case. Freedom of information requests for Priest’s records ¿led by the American-Statesman with Army Public Affairs were rejected; concern for the family’s privacy was cited. An additional investigative report undertaken by the 4th Infantry Division report stated that a chaplain observed Priest exhibiting potentially suicidal behavior after February 16, 2006. A toxicology report accompanying an autopsy report also found traces of antidepressants. “It is believed that PFC Priest killed herself due to an inability to cope with the emotional, physical, and mental stress of the alleged sexual assault and ensuing investigation,” a summary of the Fourth Infantry Division investigation stated (Toohey, February 6, 2006). Joy Priest, Tina’s mother, told reporters and investigators that she talked and e-mailed with her daughter several times after the rape allegation. Ms. Priest was

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emphatic that Tina did not seem suicidal and was mad more than anything.”She was raped,” Joy Priest said. “I gave my daughter to the Army for this country, and they let us down” (Toohey, March 1, 2006). The Priest family’s documents show that an initial investigation concluded: (1) Tina Priest’s roommate moved out after the rape allegations, and she was alone in her room for two days before she died; (2) fellow soldiers failed to inform their superiors quickly enough of Priest’s suicidal thoughts; (3) the chaplain counseling Priest did not warn Priest’s immediate superiors strongly enough of Tina’s state of mind, but the superiors should have acted anyway; and (4) a superior ordered Priest’s ammunition taken from her but not her weapon. Private Priest’s awards and decorations include: the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, the Iraq Campaign Medal, the Army Good Conduct Medal, and the Military Merit Medal. Her ¿nal resting place is Oak Hill Cemetery in Smithville, Texas. Private Priest is survived by her parents, Tim and Joy Priest, and her twin sister, Danielle. Army Staff Sergeant Amy C. Tirador, 29, of Albany, New York died on November 4, 2009 at Forward Operating Base Caldwell in Iraq due to non-combat related injuries. This was Staff Sergeant Tirador’s third deployment to Iraq. She initially worked as an Army medic, and Amy was credited with saving the life of a soldier during a convoy attack in Iraq in 2004 on her ¿rst deployment. After that tour, Amy changed her military occupational specialty (MOS) and became an intelligence non-commissioned of¿cer. She was assigned to the 209th Military Intelligence Company, 1st Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division out of Fort Lewis, Washington. Staff Sergeant Tirador was an Arabic-speaking interrogator and translator focused on collecting human intelligence (amytirador.blogspot.com). The Army investigated the death since Tirador was shot in the back of the head—execution-style, according to Tirador’s parents. Amy’s husband, Mickey Tirador, was in Iraq on his third tour of duty when his wife was killed. He accompanied his wife’s body on the Àight to Dover Air Force Base. Married for three years, the couple was planning on starting a family soon (Gowan 2009). After graduating from high school in 1998, Amy attended Syracuse University. She was an accomplished trumpeter who played “Taps” at funerals of relatives who served in World War II. She joined the Army Reserves in 1999 and enlisted into active duty in 2001 as an Army combat medic. Amy’s mother, Colleen Murphy remarked, “She was a female soldier in a man’s world who thrived under the structured world of the military” (Gowan 2009). In December 2010, a full year after Amy’s death, the Army ruled that she committed suicide. Her body was found in a room small enough for a generator. When her body was found, the gun was in her right hand and her ¿ngerprints were found on the gun. Amy’s husband had arrived at the same Forward Operating Base in October 2009, one month before her death. Amy and Mickey were allowed to share living quarters (Ashton 2010). Amy’s co-workers described her as edgy and irritated once Mickey arrived, and investigators found evidence that Mickey had been looking at dating sites on his computer. Mickey last saw his wife on the night

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of November 3, 2009. He awoke at 5 a.m. the next morning and found she was not in their shared living quarters. Mr. Tirador assumed his wife had gone to work. He proceeded to the gym and then to run some errands. By lunchtime, a major on the base informed Mickey that something had happened to Amy. Ms. Murphy, Amy’s mother, does not believe her daughter committed suicide and demanded further investigation. In August 2009, Mickey had his wife’s body exhumed to be examined by a forensic pathologist (Ashton 2010). Furthermore, U.S. Senators from New York state, Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, have remained in contact with the family regarding the investigations. There are a plethora of websites and links that continue to question the of¿cial ruling of suicide by the military investigation. Ms. Murphy hired a private investigator because she does not believe her daughter’s optimistic attitude and deep faith would have allowed Amy to take her own life. Mickey Tirador, Amy’s husband, was never a suspect in the investigation. Staff Sergeant Tirador’s awards and decorations include: the Bronze Star for actions as a medic during combat, the Iraq Campaign Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, and the Global War on Terrorism Medal. Amy was buried at Gerald B.H. Solomon Saratoga National Cemetery in New York with full military honors. Navy Master-at-Arms 1st Class Jennifer A. Valdivia, 27, of Cambridge, Illinois died on January 16, 2007 from non-combat related injuries in Bahrain. She was assigned to the naval security force for Naval Support Activity. A Navy autopsy con¿rmed that Jennifer committed suicide. On the same day Valdivia’s body was found at her apartment in Bahrain, the Navy released a report on widespread hazing and abuse in the canine unit where Valdivia served as Kennel Master. While the report said that multiple personnel were implicated in misconduct, the ringleader was the canine unit’s chief, Michael Toussaint (www.youthradio.org). The investigation was undertaken by the base commander in Bahrain and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. The suicide investigation of Valdivia described an untenable situation where Jennifer was trapped between abusive and corrupt leadership and the young sailors who bore the scars of Toussaint’s hazing. Jennifer was informed that she might face disciplinary action for not reporting the hazing, which included sailors being force-fed dog treats, hog-tied to chairs, locked into feces-¿lled kennels, and being ordered to simulate homosexual oral sex in training videos (Sizemore 2009). According to the lead investigator’s report on Jennifer’s death, “Valdivia felt she was being made a scapegoat. Her ¿nal act revealed her to be under stress she was not able to bear. I believe it is unlikely that she would have committed suicide if she had not been under such stress” (Sizemore 2009). The conclusions of the Navy’s investigation of Valdivia’s suicide were secured through a Freedom of Information Act request from the newspaper The Virginia Pilot. Another document obtained was a hand-written suicide journal kept by Jennifer. In her journal, she left instructions as to which family members should care for her pets.

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Michael Toussaint was censured by the Navy Secretary and forced into early retirement; however, he initially received a non-punitive letter and was promoted to senior chief. Meanwhile, Jennifer was named Bahrain’s Sailor of the Year in 2005. Valdivia had been Toussaint’s second in command until he was transferred out of the unit in March 2006. Former unit members said Jennifer had appeared handcuffed to a bed, covered in only a sheet, in one of the “training” videos Toussaint organized. The hazing investigation originated due to a complaint from a male Petty Of¿cer, who said he was subjected to repeated slurs about his sexuality after he refused to have sex with female prostitutes. This same Petty Of¿cer acknowledged he was gay, gave up an appointment to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and left the Navy for violating the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Valdivia declined to be interviewed by the chief investigator, but she did provide four written statements. Jennifer wrote that she had questioned some of the activities in the unit under Toussaint’s leadership, but was “belittled and was made to feel that she wasn’t good enough or smart enough.” As the investigation drew to a close in December 2006, Jennifer noti¿ed her chain of command that she planned on leaving the Navy. On January 8 and 9, 2007, the Bahrain base commander conducted a mandatory suicide awareness training session, but Valdivia did not attend. On January 11, 2007, her commanding of¿cer told Jennifer she was being relieved of her duties and placed on administrative legal hold—meaning she was not allowed to go on leave, transfer, or separate from the Navy without command approval. On January 12, 2007, she committed suicide by inhaling carbon monoxide from a charcoal grill in her living quarters. Petty Of¿cer 1st Class Valdivia was buried in Western Township Cemetery in Orion, Illinois. Non-Citizen Soldiers and Minority Over-representation As discussed in Chapter 3, there is over-representation of minorities in the military, especially amongst African-American women in the enlisted ranks. However, both male and female minorities are under-represented amongst the of¿cer ranks. While most of the focus is upon the African-American and Latina populations when enlisted minority over-representation is discussed, the ¿rst woman killed in Iraq was Army Specialist Lori Ann Piestewa, a member of the Native American Hopi nation. It is a remarkable fact that U.S.-based Native peoples served in the United States military long before they were even deemed worthy of United States citizenship. In fact, between 1917 and 1918, over 10,000 Native American people enlisted into the armed services to serve in World War I. Although this was the greatest number of enlisted peoples from any one ethnic culture, citizenship with the right to vote for Native Americans was not granted until 1924.22 Nearly 20,000 22௑This information was obtained from the United States Housing and Urban Development website on March 22, 2013.

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people classi¿ed as Native American/Alaskan Native are on active duty. Moreover, the National Native American Veterans Association estimates that 22 percent of Native Americans 18 years or older are veterans. Another criticism, which has been leveled against the military from a feminist Marxist perspective, is the military’s unabashed recruitment of non-citizens.23 For non-citizens, whose immigration status may in some cases fall under legal scrutiny, a sure path to legalized citizenship lies in military service. Recent policy changes have streamlined naturalization for many non-citizen service members, so it is not surprising that citizenship attainment has increased and time-to-citizenship has decreased among non-citizen service members. In addition, non-citizens who are minorities, female, better educated, married or have dependents, or who score higher on the Armed Forces Quali¿cation Test (AFQT) are more likely to become citizens. Since the July 2002 signing of Executive Order (EO) 13269 (Expedited Naturalization of Aliens and Non-Citizen Nationals Serving in an Active-Duty Status During the War on Terrorism), the waiting period for non-citizen service members to apply for citizenship has been reduced from three years to one day of honorable service. This is the reason why one may hear in the news of fallen service personnel being awarded citizenship status posthumously, which makes it easier for next of kin to access survivor bene¿ts. Moreover, due to a lack of economic opportunities for non-citizens and potential dif¿culties in accessing job training skills and enrolling in vocational programs or traditional liberal arts colleges, the bene¿ts provided under the G.I Bill are also enticing for non-citizens (McIntosh et al., 2011). It is estimated that 4 percent of all enlisted soldiers are non-citizens.24 However, they are a potentially valuable pool for enlisted recruiting for three reasons. First, the number of U.S. non-citizens who are eligible for enlisted military service is large. Approximately 1.2 million non-citizens are in the desired age range (18 to 29) and have the requisite education, resident status, and English language ability for enlistment. Second, a sizable share of the recruitable U.S. non-citizen population comes from diverse backgrounds and possesses language and cultural skills that are of strategic interest to the U.S. military. Third, non-citizen recruits are far less likely than citizen recruits to attrite in the ¿rst term, even after controlling for demographic and service-related characteristics that likely affect attrition (McIntosh et al., 2011). The life and death narratives that follow of U.S. military women are representative of these two themes: minority over-representation and non-citizen 23௑I never knew a non-citizen could enlist in the U.S. military until I met my husband. He was born in West Germany and enlisted in the U.S. Army at the age of 18 as a green-card carrying legal alien. While enlisted, he became naturalized. 24௑Information was obtained from the Executive Summary of a report entitled “NonCitizens in the Enlisted U.S. Military.” The report’s authors were: Molly McIntosh, Seema Sayala and David Gregory. The report was compiled by the research ¿rm CAN Analysis and Solutions in November 2011 and was available at http://www.cna.org.

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participation in the United States military. According to the open-source information reviewed, these women and their families were proud of their service. Again, this aspect of these servicewomen is just one prism through which we can understand the sociological, racial/ethnic, and socioeconomic factors which may have impacted their decisions to enlist in the ¿rst place. Specialist Lori Piestawa was assigned to the 507th Maintenance Company, a support unit of clerks, repairmen and cooks. Lori, 23 years old, died from mortal wounds suffered in an ambush in Nasiriyah, Iraq on March 30, 2003. Her unit was supposed to head south of Baghdad to support a Patriot-missile battalion. But as the vehicles crossed the open desert, the 507th company lagged behind. Tires on the heavy trucks spun uselessly in the ¿ne sand until their axles reached the ground. At one point, fellow soldier Jessica Lynch’s ¿ve-ton truck, hauling 400 gallons of water, broke down. Lynch was standing in the desert, frightened and bewildered but Lori’s Humvee rattled over to Jessica and told her to get in. Jessica and Lori had been roommates at Fort Bliss, Texas. Specialist Piestewa, of the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps, was also in the same unit as Shoshana Johnson. Specialist Piestewa was born in 1979 in Tuba City, Arizona to Terry Piestewa and Priscilla Baca and raised on a Navajo reservation. Her father is a full-blooded Hopi Native American, and her mother is a Mexican-American. The family had a military tradition; her paternal grandfather served in Europe during World War II. And her father, Terry, was drafted for Vietnam and served one tour of duty from 1965–1966. However, she did have two uncles who refused to ¿ght in Korea and went to prison (Davidson 2004). The environment where Lori spent her formative years looked a lot like southern Iraq, open stretches of land dominated by a barren landscape. She spent weekends racing her three-wheeled ATV across the sand dunes (Davidson 2004). Had she been born in 1879 rather than 1979, the U.S. government would have considered Lori an enemy. In the late 1800s, the U.S. Calvary, under the direction of the federal government, invaded Hopi lands and decreed that these ancestral lands now belonged to white settlers. The Hopi fought back with non-violent resistance. The name Hopi means “peaceful people.” At the time of the invasion, the Army arrested Hopi leaders and sent them to Alcatraz Prison off the coast of San Francisco, California. Piestewa was raised in the Hopi tradition of non-violence. Lori’s brother, Wayland, said for Hopis being a warrior has nothing to do with hurting people. “My sister was a warrior because she did the right thing, the honorable thing, going to Iraq when she didn’t have to, because she felt it was the ethical and moral thing to do. That’s what being a warrior is about: doing what’s right, even when it’s dif¿cult and means sacri¿ce” (Davidson 2004). Lori’s convoy was traveling through the desert and was supposed to bypass the city of Nasiriyah in southern Iraq during the opening days of the war. But the convoy got lost and ran into an ambush on March 23, 2003. Piestewa drove at a high speed, successfully evading the enemy, until a rocket-propelled grenade launcher hit the front wheel well of her Humvee. Piestewa, Shoshana Johnson, and

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Jessica Lynch all survived the crash with injuries, while three other soldiers died. The three women were taken prisoner along with four others. Lori died from her wounds a week later. A video of some of the American POWs was shown around the world on Al Jazeera shortly before Piestewa died. According to Jessica Lynch, Lori suffered a head wound that would have required delicate neurosurgery, an impossible requirement in an Iraqi civilian hospital during wartime. Lori was the ¿rst Native American woman to die in combat while serving with the U.S. military. She was promoted to specialist posthumously and received the Purple Heart and Prisoner of War medals as well. Residents of Tuba City waited for a week for ¿nal con¿rmation of Lori’s death. Jessica Lynch said that Specialist Piestewa was the true hero of the ambush, despite the initial press reports about Lynch’s supposed valor. Lynch remarked in congressional testimony that she was too injured to even ¿re her weapon. Meanwhile news of POW Shoshanna Johnson was very hard to come by; some argue that was due to Johnson not ¿tting the narrative of acceptable “militarized femininity” (Sjoberg 2007: 86). Johnson was African-American, shot in the ankles, and a single mother of two children. Jessica Lynch named her daughter, Dakota Ann, in honor of Specialist Piestewa. Lori was a single mother of two who left her four-year-old son, Brandon, and her three-year-old daughter, Carla, with her parents who lived in a trailer in Tuba City, Arizona (Younge 2003). Hopi land is a vast expanse of hundreds of miles of red rock and yellow sand dotted with trailers and brick housing. More than 50 percent of its inhabitants, even before the 2008 recession, were unemployed. As a 17-year-old, Lori was the commanding of¿cer of the Junior ROTC cadet program at Tuba City High school, leading dozens of students in drills. At 19, she married a local man but divorced him shortly before her daughter was born. She joined the Army partly out of an interest in the job, but primarily to provide a secure income for her two young children. Pulled by both patriotism and economics, Lori felt that she was joining the military to undertake new adventures. While Piestewa was worried about leaving her two young children behind, she knew they would be cared for by her parents. After her death, the close-knit community refused to give interviews to the media out of respect for Lori’s parents except to say that “we are very proud” or “she was a great girl.” An education fund has been established to collect money for her two children to attend college some day. Because of the bloody and some would argue genocidal campaigns waged against Native Americans by the U.S. federal government since the founding of the United States, many are surprised that any Native Americans would want to join an all volunteer military of today.25 Tim Johnson, the executive director of a leading paper on Native American affairs, observed that the military is still very insensitive 25௑We are all aware of the Navajo radio operators known as “code talkers” during WWII. They used a complex language to devise a code for allied communications that the Japanese were never able to break. Also, one of the soldiers raising the Àag at Iwo Jima, Japan was a Native American.

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to Native American culture, such as saying that they are entering “Indian country,” meaning enemy territory and naming missiles Apaches and Tomahawks.26 Since Lori’s death, many efforts have been undertaken to memorialize her. For example, the Arizona state government renamed Squaw Peak in the Phoenix Mountains near her home as Piestewa Peak. The Hopi and Navajo tribes held a rare joint prayer gathering in her honor. Finally, the Directorate of Training Sustainment headquarters at Fort Benning, Georgia was named Piestewa Hall in her honor. Army Sergeant Tina S. Time, 22, of Tuscon, Arizona was killed on December 13, 2004 in Cedar, Iraq due to injuries sustained from a vehicle accident. A heavy wheel mechanic and machine gunner, Sergeant Time was assigned to the 208th Transportation Company of the Arizona Army Reserve. Tina was driving a supply truck during a dust storm when it collided with another military vehicle. Her unit was mobilized in December 2003 and deployed to Iraq in February 2004. Born in Australia and raised in American Samoa, Tina graduated from high school in 2000. Tina was class president of her high school, an honors student, and an athlete. She was taking classes at a community college in computer science. Sergeant Time was proud of the fact that she had completed more than 60 convoys through Iraq and Kuwait (Cieslak 2004). Her mother remarked, “She was a good role model for all. She was the sweetest daughter anybody could have. She’s my angel. She’s our hero. She’s missed by everyone.” Three of Tina’s four siblings were also enlisted in the military at the time of her death. Per capita, American Samoans die in Iraq and Afghanistan at a higher rate than citizens from anywhere else in the U.S. or its territories. Despite the grim statistics, American Samoans sign up for military service at a pace exceeding even recruiters’ already high expectations (Scharnberg 2007). In 2007, the death rate for U.S. residents serving in Iraq or Afghanistan was one per 85,000 residents. Yet nine American Samoans already had died while deployed — a rate of one in every 6,422 residents of the islands (Scharnberg 2007). Due to few economic opportunities, American Samoa provides an endless supply of recruits with often every family member involved in the military. Sergeant Time is survived by her mother, father, and four siblings. Her ¿nal resting place is a private family plot in Pago Pago, American Samoa. Marine Corporal Ramona M. Valdez, 20, of the Bronx, New York, was killed on June 23, 2005 when a vehicle-born improvised explosive device detonated near her convoy in Fallujah, Iraq. She was assigned to Headquarters Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force out of Camp Lejeune, North

26௑My husband, Michael Jack Eager, became a U.S. naturalized citizen during his four years in the Army. Born in West Germany in August of 1967, Mike said he will never forget the day his Commanding Of¿cer told the rest of his unit “the Hun” has become an American today, obviously using a derogatory term for enemy Germans during WWI and WWII. Mike said he still remembers it all these years later even though he did not take great offense to it at the time.

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Carolina. Two other servicewomen27 were killed and 11 wounded. She deployed to Iraq in February 2005. Corporal Valdez, like so many other servicewomen, was part of the Lioness program to search Iraqi women and children for explosive devices around checkpoints. Ramona’s mother emigrated from the Dominican Republic and raised two girls as a single mother. Valdez grew up blocks away from Yankee Stadium. She earned her ¿rst paycheck from selling concessions at the Statue of Liberty. Ramona graduated from high school at 15, enrolled in community college for two semesters, and joined the Marine Corps when she was 17. Ramona had to beg her mother to sign the parental permission papers so she could enlist. She married a fellow Marine, Corporal Armando Guzman, at age 18. Valdez’s family moved to Reading, Pennsylvania two months before Ramona’s death, because Ramona threatened to enlist for four more years if her family did not move to someplace with less crime and noise (www.militarycity.com). Valdez worked as a communications specialist but wanted to become a policewoman. The plan was that when her enlistment was up, she would move to Pennsylvania to be with her family where she hoped to work for the state highway patrol and enroll at a four-year college. The family had just sent Ramona S.A.T. books to prepare for the college entrance exam. Fiorela Valdez, Ramona’s sister, said the family is bitter about the war it regards as senseless and blames President Bush for her sister’s death. “Why doesn’t he send his daughters over there? If he had a family member there, he would end the war right now.” A neighbor called the Valdez residence to alert them that four Marine sergeants (casualty noti¿cation of¿cers) were outside their old home in the Bronx asking for directions to the new house. By Saturday of that fateful week, the Marines had arrived at the new home in Pennsylvania with the news of Ramona Valdez’s death. Elida Nuez, Ramona’s mother, collapsed to the Àoor, screaming, and never spoke to them. At the funeral service, Corporal Valdez was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart, the National Defense Service Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal, and the Global War on Terrorism Medal. Ramona’s husband planned on returning to Iraq since “they took his wife away from him” (Becker 2005). On June 1, 2007, the Marine Corps dedicated its new II MEF Communications Training Center at the Marine Corps Base Camp at Fort LeJeune, North Carolina as the “Valdez Training Facility.” Details of her burial arrangements could not be found. $/LIH)XO¿OOHGLQWKH0LOLWDU\ Amongst the many obituaries and memorials reviewed for this chapter, a signi¿cant number of narratives focus upon the ful¿llment many female soldiers 27௑The other servicewomen were: Lance Corporal Holly Charette and Navy Petty Of¿cer First Class Regina Clark.

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found in the military. These women came from diverse backgrounds, with some family members supportive of their decision to enlist, and other family members expressing signi¿cant reservations about the path their daughters, sisters, and wives had chosen. However, we must recognize that these narratives are as valid as those who question the ability of women to be fully integrated into the military, much less ¿nd a life and career of purpose and challenge. From a liberal feminist perspective, these women have pursued a path that has been inhospitable over the past decades; however, the pride and dedication with which many of these women served is also testament to the progress possible through challenging legal obstacles and changing societal norms about women’s ability to serve. Marine Lance Corporal Casey L. Casanova, 22, of McComb, Mississippi, was killed in Karmah, Iraq (Anbar province) on May 2, 2008 while supporting combat operations. She was assigned to the Combat Logistics Battalion 1, Combat Logistics Regiment 1, 1st Marine Logistics Group, First Marine Expeditionary Force out of Camp Pendleton, California. Three other soldiers were killed by the same roadside bomb that took Lance Corporal Casanova’s life.28 She deployed to Iraq in February 2008 and was scheduled to come home in September 2008. Cassanova was a ¿eld operator and on her ¿rst deployment to Iraq. She was expecting a promotion to corporal in June 2008 and engaged to marry another Marine, Corporal Brandon Henderson, whom she knew from Camp Pendleton. She spoke to her father, Craig Casanova, several hours before she was killed, “complaining of the boredom and nothing to do” (www.militarycity.com). Her grandmother remarked, “She was the sweetest, most well-liked, smartest person you’d ever want to know. She loved to sing and line dance.” She attended North Pike during her elementary and middle school years and graduated from Seventh-Day Adventist School in Lumberton, Mississippi. Casey attended Southwest Mississippi Community College on a full scholarship, where she played drums in the band and sang with her church choir. After completing community college, Casey found herself at a crossroads. She joined the Marines in 2006 thinking it would be a good way to help her ¿nd her place in the world. Casey’s grandmother, Kitty Caruth, recalled that the family tried to talk Casey into joining the Air Force or Navy instead of the Marines. In fact, Casey’s mother, Paula Caruth, begged her daughter not to join the Marines (Freeman 2008). Paula asked Casey why she would choose to join the Marines. Casey replied, “I am doing nothing here in McComb. I am young and there is nothing here for me. I want to do something with my life. It’s dif¿cult for people in McComb, and I had to learn to look at things in a different way.” After seeing her daughter’s transformation during basic training, Paula remarked, “She changed a lot. She used to be a bubbly, giggly little girl. When she got through, she was a ¿ghter. She’s not afraid of any human being anymore.” The phone calls Paula received from Casey were sporadic at times. She’s in radio 28௑They were: Corporal Miguel A. Guzman, Lance Corporal James F. Kimple and Sergeant Glen E. Martinez.

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communications out in the ¿eld with men in front of her. Paula said she would ask a lot of questions, but Casey responded often “I can’t talk about it.” Paula thought to herself, “What have they got my baby doing?” Paula reported being conÀicted about the war itself (Freeman 2008), but Casey assured her that the Iraqis were very happy for the U.S. to be there. Casey spoke of building homes, walking the streets, and being able to shop. Casey often asked her mother not to watch the bad news of the war, but Caruth said it was hard to stay away from the stories. In a March 2008 interview two months before Casey’s death, Caruth said, “My daughter is my best accomplishment in this life. She’s the best thing I’ve ever done” (Freeman 2008). Hundreds of mourners, including many Marines, attended Casey’s services. She was remembered through musical tributes and tearful recollections of her dedication to the Marine Corps. Paula Caruth was presented with her daughter’s Purple Heart medal during the service. Casey is buried at Adams United Methodist Church cemetery in rural Lincoln County, Mississippi. Army Sergeant Trista L. Moretti, 27, of South Plain¿eld, New Jersey, was killed on June 25, 2007 when her unit was attacked by insurgents using indirect ¿re in Nasir Latifah, Iraq. She was assigned to the 425th Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division out of Fort Richardson, Alaska. Sergeant Moretti was in her housing trailer when it was hit with mortar ¿re. She was a signals intelligence analyst and paratrooper who joined the Army in 2003, re-enlisted in 2005, and was deployed to Iraq in October 2006. Trista was a distinguished high school athlete lettering in ¿eld hockey, winter and spring track. She later studied at William Paterson University from 1998 to 2000. For a time she wanted to become a teacher. But too much about her—her taste for competition, exceptional athletic skills, and a desire to see the world suggested she was not going to settle for a quiet life (Din 2007). According to Trista’s sister, Jennifer Moretti Crespo, “She was fearless.” Mrs. Crespo continued, “We thought she was safe on the base. I just talked to her the day before she was killed and she never complained about it once.” Sergeant Moretti worked nights at the base and slept during the day. Trista was inspired to join the Army by her neighbor, Ms. Gloria Anthony. Her decision to enlist in the Army took the family by surprise. Trista’s sister, Jennifer, recalled in a lengthy March 2013 phone conversation with the author that nobody in the family tried to talk Trista out of enlisting in 2003; however, when Trista re-enlisted in 2005, Jennifer shared her feelings of trepidation openly with Trista. With less than two years age difference separating the sisters, Jennifer and Trista were best friends. Jennifer was engaged and asked Trista to be her maid-of-honor. Jennifer even scheduled her wedding date around Trista’s scheduled time to return from Iraq. Jennifer and her parents traveled to watch Trista graduate from basic training, and Jennifer felt that Trista had established a wonderful life for herself while Trista was stationed at Fort Hood in Texas. The sisters spoke often on the phone; when Trista got orders to travel to Alaska for more advanced training in her area of specialization, it was a bit more dif¿cult to stay in contact. Unfortunately,

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the Moretti family never got to see Trista off from her point of departure as she headed to Iraq. While in Iraq, Jennifer said she talked to Trista even more so than when Trista was stationed in Alaska. Trista never complained during their phone calls, and often the two discussed the upcoming wedding. Trista dated but was not involved in a serious relationship. During a two-week visit home in March 2006, Trista stayed at Jennifer’s home. Jennifer commented how Trista never shed any tears at these times of arrivals and departures. Jennifer shared that she would break down crying, and Trista would remain strong for the entire family. Jennifer spoke to her sister approximately 12 hours before she was killed in June 2006. Trista had called home to speak to her parents as well, but missed them. The next day, Monday, was the worst day of Jennifer’s life as she relived it in our phone conversation nearly six years later. Jennifer was working at a law ¿rm, and started receiving frantic phone calls from her ¿ancp. Jennifer thought he was giving her a hard time about working too late and not being home for dinner, but in fact he was trying to reach Jennifer because he already knew about Trista’s death. Trista had named Jennifer as her next of kin rather than her parents even though there was no dispute amongst them. While Trista had been deployed, Jennifer had power of attorney and had been paying Trista’s bills for her. Jennifer and her ¿ancp had been living at her soon to be in-law’s home while the paperwork for the next of kin had been ¿led. Therefore, the casualty noti¿cation of¿cers arrived at her ¿ancp’s parent’s home trying to ¿nd Jennifer to tell her the news of her sister’s death. Once Jennifer arrived home, she sat in a chair going through mail. Her ¿ancp burst through the front door and laid his head in Jennifer’s lap, sobbing that Trista had been killed. Within 24 hours the media arrived, and Jennifer was only told that Trista had been killed; no details were shared with the family regarding the cause of death. However, the circumstances of Trista’s death in Iraq actually came from her circle of military friends stationed in San Antonio. From Texas, they were in touch with Trista’s unit in Iraq. By Wednesday of that fateful week, Jennifer now knew that it was true. Her best friend, her only sibling, the woman she admired so much was gone forever. Jennifer related in our phone conversation that once the casualty noti¿cation of¿cers arrived, she kept screaming, “Are you sure it is her? How can she be gone? I just spoke with her 12 hours ago.” The preparations for the funeral fell to Jennifer. Trista’s father did not want a military funeral for his daughter, but Jennifer conveyed that she “wanted ¿reworks at her sister’s funeral. I wanted everything that she deserved.” Achingly, Jennifer related that she was so in denial about the condition of Trista’s remains that she thought there could be an open casket for her sister. When Jennifer was gently told that an open casket was not possible, she collapsed. “I was imagining that at least I would get to see her one last time in the casket with her military uniform on.” Jennifer expressed repeatedly that the town she grew up in was a wonderful source of support for the family. A wake was held, and hundreds attended.

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At the funeral services, Jennifer wore Trista’s dog tags as she spoke. “She was fearlessly brave when most of us would hide behind a tree. We hope you are as proud of us as we are of you. I hope one day to see you again. It was an honor to be your sister” (Adarlo 2007). Army Major General Timothy McHale presented Trista’s parents with the: Purple Hart, Bronze Star, Combat Action Badge, and Iraq Campaign Medal. Since Jennifer was the next of kin, she was presented with a duplicate set. After Trista’s death, Jennifer suffered from severe depression. She admirably sought counseling and credits her husband for getting her through the worst of it. Jennifer reassessed her career and embarked upon one that would give her more personal ful¿llment. She now has two young children and is happily married. The Moretti family attends all memorial services and dedications for Trista. A scholarship has been established in Trista’s name at the high school the sisters once attended together. Jennifer tells her two children about Aunt Trista—even though they know her only from photographs and the loving memories the family shares. Jennifer concluded, “Trista was so happy in the military. She really was my hero. Still though, my life has forever been altered by her death. There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t think of her.” Sergeant Moretti is buried in Rosedale Cemetery in Linden, New Jersey. Army Specialist Julie R. Hickey, 20, of Galloway, Ohio died July 4, 2004 due to complications from diabetes. Hickey was evacuated out of Afghanistan on June 30, 2004 and passed away at a U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. Julie was assigned to the 412th Civil Affairs Battalion of the Ohio Army Reserve and deployed to Afghanistan in November 2003. Julie joined the reserves after graduating from high school in 2002. She wanted to earn money for college and planned to attend Ohio State University beginning in the fall semester of 2004. Specialist Hickey’s battalion specialized in humanitarian assistance and worked with a provincial reconstruction team, which focused on assisting displaced civilians in Afghanistan, mainly women and children. According to Julie’s mother, Melody Hickey, Julie loved working with the children. There was a history of diabetes in the Hickey family; however, Julie was not diagnosed prior to her deployment. The military told Ms. Hickey that Julie fainted at work, was stabilized, and moved to Bagram where she was diagnosed with the disorder. Once she was transferred to Landstuhl, Germany she went into insulin shock and died the day before she was to be transferred to Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Melody was looking forward to helping Julie plan her wedding to another soldier, Jeff Lagrange, when she received the phone call that her daughter had passed away. On a visit home to Ohio in May 2004, Specialist Hickey brought home a burqa for her mother to see. Julie was inspired by her work with women’s organizations in Afghanistan. After one of her speeches to a group of Afghan women, an interpreter approached Julie to relay a message. The Afghan women wanted Julie to know they were inspired to see Julie wearing pants and working

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alongside men. Julie’s life and occupation gave this group of Afghan woman hope that their lives and their daughters’ lives could be different in the future. Specialist Hickey’s awards and decorations include: the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, and the Army Service Ribbon. Julie is survived by her mother, father, stepfather, and many siblings and step-siblings. Her ¿nal resting place is Sunset Cemetery in Galloway, Ohio. Placed in Hickey’s casket was the burqa she brought home with her only two months before her death. Army Staff Sergeant Tricia L. Jameson, 34, was killed in Trebil, Iraq on July 14, 2005. She was assigned to the 313th Medical Company out of Lincoln, Nebraska. An IED detonated near her ambulance as she rushed to the aid of three wounded Marines. According to of¿cials, Jameson was the vehicle commander of an ambulance that was supporting a convoy mission from Camp Korean Village to the border crossing with Jordan near Trebil, Iraq. During their mission, they encountered a separate convoy of U.S. Marines that had been attacked and stopped to render aid. Staff Sergeant Jameson had been deployed to Iraq at the time of her death for less than three weeks. Jameson was a health care specialist at the Nebraska National Guard air base clinic before volunteering for deployment to Iraq. Holly Freeman, a close friend of Jameson, said “Tricia thrived on adventure. She kept a medical kit in her car at all times to see if she could help somebody if she came across a car wreck.” Unfortunately, during her funeral services at St. Bridget Catholic Church in Omaha, Nebraska ten protestors from the radical, anti-gay29 Westboro Baptist Church held aloft signs reading “God hates the U.S.A., God hates soldiers, and Thank God for IEDs” (Winter 2005). The silver hearse carrying Jameson’s body was draped with the American Àag. Jameson’s family exited from a limousine and read the signs across the street, somehow maintaining their composure. Bravely, Tricia’s mother, Pat Marsh, a petite, blond woman, crossed the street and asked 29௑The family of deceased Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder ¿led a lawsuit against members of the Westboro Baptist Church who picketed at his funeral. The family accused the church and its founders of defamation, invasion of privacy, and the intentional inÀiction of emotional distress for displaying signs that said, “Thank God for dead soldiers” and “Fag troops” at Snyder’s funeral. U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett awarded the family $5 million in damages, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that the judgment violated the First Amendment’s protections on religious expression. The church members’ speech is protected, “notwithstanding the distasteful and repugnant nature of the words.” In 2010, by a 8-1 ruling, the Supreme Court af¿rmed the lower court’s decision in an opinion by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. The Court held that the First Amendment shields those who stage a protest at the funeral of a military service member from liability. Justice Stephen J. Breyer ¿led a concurring opinion in which he wrote that while he agreed with the majority’s conclusion in the case, “I do not believe that our First Amendment analysis can stop at that point.” Justice Samuel Alito ¿led a lone dissent, in which he argued: “Our profound national commitment to free and open debate is not a license for the vicious verbal assault that occurred in this case.”

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the protestors to leave out of respect. The protestors replied, “It’s not about her daughter; it’s about America.” The service inside of the church was attended by uniformed National Guard soldiers, retired Marines, and Vietnam veterans along with family and friends of Jameson. Staff Sergeant Jameson is buried at Bohemian Cemetery in Omaha, Nebraska. Army First Lieutenant Ashley I. White Stumpf, 24, of Alliance, Ohio was killed on October 22, 2011 in the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, Afghanistan. She died from wounds sustained when enemy forces attacked her unit with an IED. White was assigned to the 230th Brigade Support Battalion, 30th Heavy Brigade Combat Team of the North Carolina National Guard. She was commissioned as a medical service corps of¿cer. Two other soldiers, Army Rangers, were killed in the attack.30 A 2009 graduate of Kent State University, White volunteered to be a member of a cultural support team that aided Special Operations forces (Caniglia 2011). Her main task was to help interact with the children and women in the country. Lieutenant Colonel Tom Bryant, spokesman for Army Special Operations Command, said White was a member of the second class of cultural support trainees. These trainees endured a stringent selection process and faced several weeks of dif¿cult training comparable to what Special Operations soldiers experience (Brooks, July 21, 2012). Ashley deployed to Afghanistan in August of 2011 and was married to Army Captain Jason Stumpf. Josh White, Ashley’s brother said, “She wanted to go; it was her choice. We didn’t really ¿ght with her. We knew the passion she had. We were scared to death when she went over there. We knew the risk. We supported her 100 percent because we knew that is what she wanted to do” (Hall 2011). At her funeral service White’s husband, Captain Stumpf, said that he supported his wife in her mission and memorialized Ashley as the ideal wife. Colonel Mark O’Donnell, deputy commanding of¿cer of the 75th Ranger Regiment, said, “Her mission helped the credibility of the humanitarian role. She held babies, comforted mothers and children, and often gave out chocolate chips and candy” (Reicosky 2011). Her friend and fellow cultural support team member, Major Laura Peters, told mourners that Ashley was extremely humble but had immense physical and emotional strength. Major Peters said bringing her friend home, meaning accompanying Ashley’s body as it was Àown back to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, was the most dif¿cult duty she ever had, but also was the greatest honor of her life. White’s awards and decorations included: the Parachutist Badge, the Ohio Faithful Service Ribbon, the Armed Forces Reserve Medal, the Army Reserve Achievement Medal, and the National Defense Service Medal. In addition, Lieutenant White was awarded the Bronze Star Medal, the Purple Heart, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Afghanistan Campaign Medal, and the Combat Action Badge posthumously. After the service, her Àag draped casket was taken by a horse-drawn hearse to a hill behind the church to her ¿nal resting place. Her 30௑They were Kristopher Domeij and Christopher Horns.

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husband was presented with the Àag from her casket. First Lieutenant White was buried in a cemetery in Mogadore, Ohio. The Military and Homosexuality Before Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta departed from his post in February 2013, he announced the Pentagon would expand some bene¿ts to same-sex partners of military personnel, but remained doubtful that the Pentagon could offer the medical, dental, and housing allowances desired by gay and lesbian couples (Shanker, February 5, 2013). There is an estimated 50,000 gay troops and families to consider (Thompson, February 4, 2013). Full bene¿ts for gay and lesbian couples would necessitate the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which became federal law in 1996. Despite lifting the ban on openly gay and lesbian troops in 2011, the Pentagon cannot recognize their marriages, even if they are legal in some states, because military personnel are federal employees covered by federal legislation. DOMA affects about 1,000 federal rules involving military housing, medical care, and surviving spouse bene¿ts (Thompson, February 4, 2013). However, in June 2013 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Windsor v. The United States that Section 3 of DOMA is unconstitutional, thus paving the way for gay and lesbian couples in the military to receive similar military bene¿ts as heterosexual couples. Staff Sergeant Donna R. Johnson, 29, of Raeford, North Carolina, died October 1, 2012 while on patrol in Khost, Afghanistan. She was assigned to the 514th Military Police Company based in Winterville and had previously deployed to Iraq from 2007 to 2008. Johnson, and two other soldiers from her unit,31 died when a Taliban suicide bomber rammed a motorcycle packed with explosives into a joint U.S.-NATO patrol. Donna worked as a correctional of¿cer before joining the North Carolina National Guard in 2006. Her memorial service included lots of red, Donna’s favorite color. As many friends, family members, and colleagues spoke of her courage, big heart, and professionalism, Tiffany Fields, who played softball with Johnson in high school, coordinated The Human Wall in honor of Staff Sergeant Donna R. Johnson. Unfortunately, the wall was necessary because the Westboro Baptist Church came to protest at Johnson’s funeral. Donna is survived by her same sex spouse, Tracy Joe Dice (Futch 2012). The local police chief estimated that 1,500 people including 175 Army National Guard soldiers, Marines, Navy Seals, Army soldiers, leather-clad bikers, and everyday citizens of Raeford were united in trying to shield Johnson’s family and spouse from the picketing organized by the Westboro Baptist Church (Futch 2012).

31௑Sergeant Jeremy Hardison and Sergeant Thomas Butler IV were killed in the same attack.

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Sadly, the of¿cial announcement of Johnson’s death in the Army Times did not list Tracy Joe Dice as her spouse or wife. The Army stated that was because even though the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ regulation had been repealed by the time of Donna’s death, the Defense of Marriage Act was still in force where the military as in institution does not recognize same sex marriages (www.dailymail.co.uk). Subsequently, Dice was not eligible to receive any of Johnson’s survivor bene¿ts. Also, Tracy could not legally be acknowledged by the military as the primary next of kin. Instead, she had to be listed as a designated person, someone who ¿nds out quickly about the fallen soldier’s death, but only after the primary next of kin has been noti¿ed. During the military ceremony, Ms. Dice was treated as if she did not exist. She did not receive the American Flag, Purple Heart, or Bronze Star the day of her wife’s funeral (Thompson, February 4, 2013). Staff Sergeant Johnson’s awards and decorations include: the Bronze Star Medal posthumously, Purple Heart posthumously, Army Commendation Medal, Army Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Afghanistan Campaign Medal with Bronze Service Start, Iraq Campaign Medal with Bronze Service Star, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Armed Forces Reserve Medal with M Device, two non-commissioned of¿cers professional development ribbons, Army Service Ribbon, Overseas Service Ribbon, Combat Action Badge, and many other awards. She was buried at Raeford City cemetery in her hometown of Raeford, North Carolina. Two months after Sergeant Johnson’s funeral, another same-sex couple, Ashley Broadway and Heather Mack, a U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, made national headlines. The couple had attended Johnson’s funeral and were appalled at the way Dice had been disregarded. When Broadway, a civilian, was denied access to the Association of Bragg Of¿cers’ Spouses semiof¿cial social club, Lt. Colonel Mack took the denial public. “While the tempest over who gets into the Fort Bragg spouses’ club may seem trivial, it signals a much larger and covertly fought war inside the military” (Thompson, February 4, 2013). Army Corporal Ciara M. Durkin, 30, of Quincy, Massachusetts died at Bagram Air¿eld in Afghanistan on September 28, 2007 due to injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident. She was assigned to the 726th Finance Battalion of the Massachusetts Army National Guard. Her duties included ensuring that the ¿nances of soldiers were in order and that families were receiving their entitled bene¿ts. Durkin was found shot in the head inside a secure area at the base, near a church. Initially, military of¿cials said she was killed in action, but then changed the circumstances of her death. Investigators were on the scene within minutes of discovering her body. An investigation was pending with the U.S. Army’s Criminal Investigation Command probing the circumstances of her death. Born in Ireland, Ciara moved with her family to the United States at the age of nine. She was the eighth of nine siblings. Durkin graduated from high school in 1996 and joined the Army National Guard in 2005 after getting laid off from her information technology job. Durkin had recently spent time with her family in

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early September 2007 before returning to Afghanistan. She was supposed to come home for good in February 2008. The family pushed for an independent autopsy because the military had failed to answer questions about what exactly happened to their sister. Then Massachusetts Senator John Kerry intervened and made a personal call to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Her mysterious death came just weeks after she told her family she feared for her safety after seeing something on the airbase that concerned her. Ciara told her family to investigate if anything happened to her. Openly gay, Durkin was engaged to be married according to her family. She also volunteered for an organization, Mass Equality, which promotes and protects marriage equality in Massachusetts. Her family, however, did not believe that Ciara’s death was linked to her sexual orientation. The Army concluded that Durkin committed suicide shortly after the autopsy and closed the investigation in April 2008. In response to the release of the report, the family posted the following on a memorial website in 2008, “The Durkin family has received the Army’s ¿nal report into Ciara’s death with their conclusion that she took her own life. We are very upset and saddened by their conclusion. We have borne an extraordinary amount of pain over the past nine months, compounded by a protracted and at times ambiguous investigation. We now need time and privacy to grieve, and let our Ciara ¿nally rest in peace” (www. arlingtoncemetery.net). Promoted to corporal posthumously, Durkin received several honors including the Army Commendation Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, and the Army Service Ribbon. Per her wishes, part of her ashes were buried with her father at a cemetery in Ireland, and her ashes were also interred at Arlington National Cemetery, Section 60, Site 8733 nine months after her death. She is survived by her ¿ancpe, Haidee, eight siblings, her mother, and many beloved nieces and nephews. Military Widowers Forty-two women were married at the time of their death in Iraq and Afghanistan. These wars have created a different subset of the bereft—the spouses left to grieve for their wife and often mother of their children. While organizations such as Gold Star Wives and the Society of Military Widows have been established to bring military widows together, many of whom were widowed in their twenties, the men pro¿led in the following narratives often do not garner as much media attention. However, feminist analysis must also acknowledge that for a widower, there is probably even more of a societal expectation that the surviving male spouse will grieve and then get on with his life. Since men are less likely to seek counseling for grief and depression in general, there are scores of men who might feel very isolated from the traditional conceptualization of the “military widow.” However, men are ¿nding ways to keep deceased wives’ memories alive for their children.

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Moreover, who knows how many husbands are also helping their girlfriends and wives to deal with the effects of PTSD or physical disabilities such as permanent dis¿gurement due to severe burns or amputated limbs. In our desire to understand the multi-faceted reasons impacting why women decide to enlist, their experiences while they serve, and the accounts provided by their family and friends upon their deaths, we must too remember that husbands and fathers have been forever impacted by these wars as well. Army Staff Sergeant Lillian L. Clamens, 35, of Lawton, Oklahoma was killed in Iraq on October 10, 2007. She was assigned to the 1st Postal Platoon, 834th Adjutant General Company out of Miami, Florida. She was due to return home within a week of her death. Another soldier32 was killed in the attack when insurgents ¿red rockets at Camp Victory in Baghdad from a nearby abandoned school (www.militarycity.com). Clemens, who was married with three children, was a full-time postal worker and had served in the Army Reserve for 17 years. She was serving as an administrative clerk for her deployed unit at the time of her death. Clemens’ mother said she received the news of her daughter’s death shortly after she got a text message from her. Clemens’ sister, Dana Cobbin said, “She died doing what she wanted to do. I don’t have a sister no more. I miss my baby. I’m going to miss her. I just want to see her one last time. She was supposed to come home.” Staff Sergeant Clamens had spent time in South Korea and Germany as well throughout her 17-year military career. She is survived by her mother, husband, three children, and many extended family members. She is buried in Our Lady of Mercy Cemetery in St. Doral, Florida. Navy Lieutenant Florence B. Choe, 35, of El Cajon, California died on March 27, 2009 when an Afghan National Army soldier opened ¿re on personnel assigned to Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan at Camp Shaheen in Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan. Also killed was Navy Lt. Francis L. Toner IV. Choe was a medical service corps of¿cer assigned to the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, where she lived with her husband, Lt. Commander Chong “Jay” Choe, a Naval Academy graduate, and their three-year-old daughter, Kristin. Choe and Toner33 were taking a Friday afternoon jog around a well-worn path on the outskirts of Forward Operating Base Shaheen when an Afghan Army soldier raised his military-issued weapon and fatally shot both of¿cers. A third Navy of¿cer was also wounded. The Afghan gunman then turned the gun on himself and committed suicide. The sailors and soldiers living on base were stunned, as they were there to mentor the Afghan troops. Lt. Michael Lucrezio, 32௑Army Specialist Samuel F. Pearson, 28, of Westerville, Ohio was also killed in the attack. 33௑Lt. Toner’s widow, Brooke, was presented with a Silver Star in September 2011. The Silver Star was posthumously awarded to her husband due to the heroic actions he took. Once the shooting began, he verbally challenged the gunman even though he was unarmed and continued advancing toward him until Toner was fatally wounded.

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a medical corps of¿cer assigned to the same base, said, “The simple fact is that they were murdered in cold blood. This was not some random bad guy who snuck on base wearing a stolen uniform. This soldier had been vetted through the Afghan National Army recruiting process and trained to their basic standards” (Tilghman 2009). Afghan of¿cials expressed condolences for the deaths and said the incident was under investigation. Born into a Navy family, Choe was raised in San Diego, California. She earned a Bachelor’s Degree in biology from the University of San Diego in 1987 and a Master’s Degree in Public Health and Health Care Administration in 2001 from San Diego State University. Choe contacted a Navy recruiter days after September 11, 2001 and was commissioned ¿ve months later. While serving at Navy hospitals in San Diego, Bethesda, Maryland, and Japan, she earned a reputation for hard work, collegiality, and being able to garner respect not usually afforded to a junior of¿cer. She volunteered for a one year assignment to Afghanistan where she helped run the medical station that served U.S. troops, Afghan troops and civilians (Perry 2009). Florence reported to Camp Mike Spann34 in northern Afghanistan in May 2008 and immediately got to work. She helped get the medical station up and running, formed a library, and set up the camp’s United through Reading program, which allows military personnel to read stories to their children on DVDs. Then came her tragic and senseless death. More than 8,000 miles away, Florence’s husband was summoned from his clinic at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego. He was told to go immediately to the admiral’s of¿ce. When Jay entered the admiral’s of¿ce, about a dozen people were gathered. He did not recognize most of them. He glanced around. Jay looked at their faces and their tears (Drash 2011). “I remember seeing a chaplain. I remember sitting down and seeing the evidence of eyes having cried in many, if not all, of the people there,” Choe said. “And that was when I knew. I felt sick and nauseated.” Choe left for his in-laws’ house, where he and Kristin were living. He arrived with a chaplain on one side and an of¿cer in uniform on the other. Florence’s parents opened the door, fell to their knees and wept. He held his young daughter. “Mommy went to heaven,” he told her, “and she’ll always be in our hearts.” “Is Mommy OK?” Kristin asked. “She is now, and she’ll forever be an angel watching over us.” Kristin gave her dad a giant hug (Drash 2011). The burden of moving on when parents are killed in action almost always falls on the women, the wives and mothers who must raise their children alone. Support groups have long been established for widows. Among them is the American Widow Project, created by 2011 Top 10 CNN Hero Taryn Davis, which has provided support to more than 900 military widows since 2007 (Drash 2011). But the changing landscape of the U.S. military, with more women deployed to war zones than ever before, has created a tiny fraternity: the widowers of 34௑Spann, a member of the CIA’s Special Operations Division, was the ¿rst American killed in the war in Afghanistan.

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war, like Choe, who are linked through tragedy. As of November 2011, 142 U.S. servicewomen had died in Iraq and Afghanistan; about three dozen of these women were married. The husbands they left behind range in age from their early 20s to mid-50s. Many are fellow service members. Some are parents who must take on the responsibilities of being a single father while still mourning their wives and working around the clock. I was thrust into a role I wasn’t familiar with, Choe said. Being a single father, I initially found it very dif¿cult in terms of emotional support that I felt I could provide to a little girl. There is no magic formula. There’s no recipe for parenting in general. But as a single father, I feel that it has brought more awareness in terms of the need for that nurturing role, even more so in my life. In a way, through hardship, it has made me a better man because of my child, because I realize there are roles that I need to take on (Drash 2011).

Lieutenant Choe’s awards and decorations include: the Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart Medal, Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal, Navy Meritorious Unit Commendation, Humanitarian Service Medal, Sea Service Deployment Ribbon and the Combat Action Badge. Florence Choe’s ¿nal resting place is Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego, California. Army Staff Sergeant Carletta S. Davis, 34, died in Tal al-Dahab Iraq on November 5, 2007 when an IED detonated near her Humvee during combat operations. She was assigned to the 10th Brigade Support Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division out of Fort Drum, New York. Three other soldiers were killed in the attack.35 Davis, who grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, joined the Army in 1994. She hoped to become a physician’s assistant when her military career ended. As a Àight medic, she spent much of her adult life in harm’s way. She served six months in BosniaHerzegovina in 1996–1997 and a year in South Korea in 2002. Staff Sergeant Davis was on her third deployment to Iraq when she was killed. She was deployed to Iraq in September 2007 for the third time and did not get to say good-bye to her three sons, Treyton, Theodore, and Tyrique. Delayed by his graduation from a medical program at the University of Washington, Carletta’s husband, Thomas, and his sons rushed by car from Washington state to Fort Drum, New York to see Carletta before she shipped out but they missed her by a day. The military put her on one of the last planes so she could try and say good-bye to her family. Thomas Davis remarked, “She’s been gone three-quarters of the time the last few years. I wonder if it’s really going to sink in that this time she is not coming back” (Zucchino, December 25, 2007). Thomas kept the family together while pursuing his own medical career. Plus, the family had been lulled into a false sense of security since Carletta had survived two other tours in Iraq. Then on 35௑They were: Sergeant Derek Stenroos, 24, of North Pole, Pfc. Adam Muller of Underhill, Vermont, and Staff Sergeant John Linde of New York City.

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November 5, 2007, the boys called Thomas at work to say “the generals” had visited even though it was a chaplain and sergeant. Thomas Davis knew deep down what had happened. Mr. Davis said, “Everybody’s sympathetic and offers to help, but I don’t know what to tell them. I don’t know what I need.” The boys had not seen Carletta since January 2007 when she went to Texas for military training, and Thomas Davis went to Nome, Alaska for physician’s assistant training. The three children had been living with their grandmother in Fairbanks, Alaska. Staff Sergeant Davis led a distinguished career. She was awarded two air medals, the combat medical badge, a Bronze Star, and a Purple Heart. She twice received awards for heroism—for rescuing two soldiers who had fallen down a cliff near Fort Lewis, Washington and for rescuing a wounded Iraqi police of¿cer. According to her commander Lt. Colonel Joseph Novak, “Carletta was selected as the lead medic in the brigade commander’s personal security detachment—an elite position that often took her away from her forti¿ed base near Kirkuk in northern Iraq.” Lavada Napier, Carletta’s mother, said that Carletta visited people she normally did not before her third deployment to Iraq, “My daughter seemed to sense that something might go wrong this time” (www.military.city.com). Carletta was buried in Fairbanks, Alaska. For so long, Mr. Davis, remarked, we had focused on December 2008, when Carletta was due to return home and then we could be a family again. He noted, “That date doesn’t matter anymore.” Army Sergeant Pamela G. Osbourne, 38, of Hollywood, Florida was killed on October 11, 2004 when two rockets hit her camp in Baghdad, Iraq. Another soldier, Private Anthony W. Monroe, was killed in the same attack. Osbourne was assigned to Division Artillery, 1st Cavalry Division out of Fort Hood, Texas. A native of Jamaica, Osbourne’s family immigrated to Florida when she was 14 years old. Pamela worked as a certi¿ed nursing assistant before enlisting in the Army shortly before the 2001 terrorist attacks. The family relocated from Florida to Texas to be near the Fort Hood base. Even though Osbourne could have avoided being deployed to Iraq due to a medical reason, she was determined to go. Pamela’s husband, Rohan, stood ¿rmly behind his wife’s decision and cared for their two children during her deployment. Every morning, she would phone home between 5–6 a.m. On the morning of her death, there was no call to Rohan. He woke from a dream yelling her name as his children woke him up. The next day, the casualty noti¿cation of¿cers were at the house. In an interview, which focused on children coping with the death of parents in wartime, Rohan Jr. discussed bonding with two other students, girls at his high school, who had lost fathers in Iraq. Rohan shifted between present and past verb tenses when speaking about his mother. “She has a nice smile, she’s caring, giving and loving. I spent a lot of time with her, because my dad worked late sometimes. We’d talk or play tic-tac-toe. Little things. She would quiz me on my spelling. Sometimes we’d go outside and look at the clouds and talk about their shapes. Sometimes we’d play basketball. Once in a while, I’d let her win” (Jerome 2005: 12). Rohan even went to school the day after his family was noti¿ed

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that Pamela had been killed in Iraq. He thought that was what Pamela would have wanted. Even though he could not make it through the day, he tried to for his mother. Rohan, his sister, and father went to family counseling after Pamela’s death. Sergeant Osbourne is survived by her husband, three children, and her mother. Her ¿nal resting place is Fred Hunter’s Hollywood Memorial Gardens in Hollywood, Florida. Army Sergeant Eduviges “Duvi” G. Wolf, 24, of Hawthorne, California was killed in action on October 25, 2009 at Forward Operating Base Bostick in Afghanistan. Sergeant Wolf died of wounds sustained when insurgents attacked her vehicle with a rocket-propelled grenade. An automated logistical specialist, she was assigned to the 704th Brigade Support Battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division out of Fort Carson, Colorado (Kim 2009). Wolf grew up in Hawthorne, California as the youngest of four sisters in an immigrant family from Guadalajara, Mexico. From a young age, she was often characterized as a tomboy who wanted to run around outside when her cousins wanted to play with dolls or experiment with makeup. Her father, who worked as a gardener, taught all his daughters how to play the violin. Her father even made CDs of Eduviges’s mariachi music performances to distribute to family and friends. As a young teenager, Eduviges dreamed of becoming a police of¿cer and loved the television show “Cops.” She joined the Junior ROTC program at her high school, where she became a lieutenant in the program. Because she was too young to become a police of¿cer, she enlisted in the Army. Her family certainly had misgivings about her decision, but supported her when she made the choice. In the Army, Wolf joined the airborne school to become a paratrooper but had to drop out when she developed stress fractures in her hips and legs during the training. Duvi met her husband, Army Sergeant Josh Wolf, while both were stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The newlyweds quickly began a family with the birth of two daughters, Valeri and Isabel. They bought a home and moved to Colorado. In the summer of 2009, Eduviges and Josh were both deployed to Afghanistan. Their daughters stayed with their grandparents in South Dakota, and Duvi often expressed how hard it was being away from her daughters. Despite her longing to be with her daughters, she reenlisted for another three years in the Army just a week before she was killed (Kim 2009). She told her family that her time in Afghanistan was ful¿lling, but she was looking forward to a two-week leave in November 2009. Sergeant Wolf’s awards and decorations include: the National Defense Service Medal, the Army Commendation Medal, the Army Achievement Medal, the Army Good Conduct Medal, the Afghanistan Campaign Medal with Campaign Star, Army Service Ribbon, and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal. The Purple Heart and Bronze Star Medal were awarded posthumously to her husband. The front of her funeral program read, “A Mother holds her children’s hands for

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a while…their hearts forever.” Sergeant Wolf’s ¿nal resting place is Saint Peters Catholic Cemetery in Farmer, South Dakota. Chapter Summary The feminist lenses explored in Chapter 1 proved useful in analyzing the various reasons U.S. women enlist in the military. There is no singular narrative to encompass the women pro¿led in this chapter. Rather, each woman has a unique story impacted by numerous sociological, economic, political, and personal circumstances. Some U.S. military women did feel the “call to duty” after the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. Other women followed the paths of enlistment of family members and friends. Many servicewomen pro¿led in the chapter broke through glass ceilings and found lives of ful¿llment in the military. Other women enlisted, just as many men do, to pay for a college education. Surely, one of the most profound aspects of the Private Jessica Lynch story was that she enlisted to pay for college because she wanted to become a kindergarten teacher. Marxist feminist analysis is particularly useful in analyzing how the economic incentives of military enlistment including free/subsidized housing, free childcare, college tuition assistance, and the Tri-Care military healthcare insurance coverage, are too good to pass up in a country where college tuition costs continue to outpace family incomes and access to state and federal social services, especially for single mothers, is increasingly under partisan political scrutiny. The deaths of 150 U.S. military women during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom are unprecedented in the history of U.S. women’s involvement in the military. Despite the imposition of the ground combat ban during both wars, U.S. military women indeed were exposed to combat as intelligence analysts, truck drivers, linguists, and military police. However, many commanding of¿cers temporarily attached women to units, whose primary goal was to engage with the enemy. A slight majority of U.S. female soldiers from 2001–2013 died under hostile conditions including IEDs, mortar attacks, and suicide bomber attacks. The vast majority of U.S. female military deaths were under 30 years of age; moreover, enlisted women comprised close to 75 percent of the fatalities. Statistics regarding women’s racial/ethnic background were not collected. The causes of U.S. military female non-hostile fatalities were determined through open-source materials. As pro¿led in the chapter, servicewomen lost their lives due to a number of reasons including: suicide, homicide, accidents, and undetermined circumstances. The various women pro¿led under these different categories are tragic empirical case studies of the reasons why radical and difference feminists, in particular, are suspect of arguments purporting the bene¿ts of equal opportunities for women in the military. As analyzed through the radical and difference feminist lenses, a cohort of U.S. military women are

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“succeeding” only because they are adapting to and reifying the hypermasculine ethos and behavioral attributes of the military organization. Even though the tragic murders of U.S. military women Hannah Gunterman, LaVena Johnson, and Kamisha Block were perpetrated by individual male soldiers, the sociological and psychological aspects of an organizational entity which supports the application of state-sanctioned violence and killing will inevitably mean that all too frequently sexual and deadly violence is perpetrated against fellow female soldiers.

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Chapter 6

The Long Wars

The United States has been on a continuous war footing since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Women have played a signi¿cant role in the planning, execution, and evaluation of foreign-policy making related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—from the female Army Private to the Secretary of State. Even though men still largely “make war,” the inclusion of women in greater numbers in the armed services and elite foreign-policy making apparatus does not appear to have translated into a kinder, gentler, more empathetic foreign policy posture for the United States. Despite the sigh of relief breathed by most of the world with Barack Obama’s election in 2008 and re-election in 2012, the United States continues to utilize drone technology, Guantanamo Bay is still housing detainees, and the war in Afghanistan still continues. Moreover, Afghan and Iraqi women have been affected by the choices made by women in the United States—mostly indirectly. The status of Iraq is still tenuous. Despite the withdraw of U.S. combat forces at the end of 2011 primarily due to the inability to negotiate a legal immunity provision for U.S. soldiers stationed in Iraq, the country is still convulsed by signi¿cant violence. Car bombings, political assassinations, and a sputtering economy continue to make life dif¿cult for Iraq’s citizens. Moreover, Iraq consistently places in the top ten most fragile states on Foreign Policy’s Failed States Index. Women in Iraq, during the Saddam era, were guaranteed many freedoms—at least in principle. In the 2002 Arab Human Development Report, Iraq ranked highest in terms of gender empowerment in the region and earned the same scores as women in Cyprus and Guatemala. However, since the fall of Saddam’s regime, some women are fearful that an increasingly Islamist presence in the country will erode many of their freedoms. During the phase of direct occupation by the United States military forces, Iraq’s Governing Council included only three female delegates. However as a new constitution was being drafted, Iraqi women from civil society pushed for the inclusion of a gender quota in the new constitution. As a result of national lobbying and international support, Iraq’s 2005 constitution guaranteed women 25 percent of the seats in the National Assembly. The Obama administration has characterized the withdrawal from Iraq, or the “war of choice,” as a success (Gordon, September 22, 2012). Despite talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani in early 2011 to maintain a 10,000 U.S. troop presence in the country, the negotiations failed. Veteran diplomat Ryan Crocker, who served as an ambassador to both Iraq and Afghanistan, remarked, “I don’t think either government handled it as well as it could have been handled. The U.S. side came in late” (Gordon, September 22, 2012).

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In February 2012, Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi was charged by a panel of judges with overseeing paramilitary Sunni death squads, which were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Shia Iraqis. Before the arrest warrant could be issued, al-Hashimi Àed to Turkey. In September 2012, he was sentenced to death in absentia. In December 2012, Kurdish President Talabani suffered a massive stroke and was Àown to Germany for treatment. The next round of Iraqi general elections are scheduled for 2014; however, some political analysts predicted alMaliki might call early elections in 2013 to shore up his position and propel his political party, State of Law, into implementing faster reforms. In Afghanistan, or “the war of necessity,” the U.S. military death toll reached 2,000 in the summer of 2012. These calculations include deaths in Pakistan and elsewhere where American forces are directly involved in aiding the war (Dao and Lehren 2013). It took nine years of war for the United States to reach the ¿rst 1,000 war dead in Afghanistan, but only 27 months to add another 1,000 fatalities to the grim toll. The Marines have been hardest hit by combat casualties since the 2010 surge1 was implemented. Sadly, though, in 2011 more active duty and reserve soldiers committed suicide in a non-war zone situation as compared to the number of soldiers who died in combat in Afghanistan. Afghanistan, undeniably one of the worst places on earth to be born a girl, has shown some improvement since 2001. Like Iraq, Afghanistan has reserved seats for women in the lower house of parliament. However, unlike Iraq, the reserved seats policy in Afghanistan was primarily driven by the top-down efforts of the United Nations in comparison to the civil society activism demonstrated by Iraqi women in favor of a gender quota. Like Iraq, the interim Afghan Loya Jirga Commission also had three women present. These three women faced daily death threats and required armed guards protecting them at all times. Furthermore, 200 of the 1500 delegates at the emergency Loya Jirga, which was tasked with drafting a new Afghan constitution, were women. Many of these women faced death threats, assassination attempts, and in some cases scorn from their families for wanting to play a part in shaping Afghanistan’s political future. Life for most Afghan women has been and will continue to be marked by signi¿cant challenges and hard-won opportunities. Since the 2001 war began, more Afghan women and children have been internally displaced or made refugees. In 2006, female literacy was estimated to be 10–20 percent. Some Afghan women and children have succumbed to heroin addiction with the persistent availability of opium despite multinational efforts to reduce poppy production.2 As in many countries, there are too few treatment centers to address the needs of entire families who are addicts. 1௑For an insider overview of the Obama administration’s deliberations and ultimately decision to implement a surge of troops into Afghanistan, see Bob Woodward’s Obama’s Wars (2010). 2௑See PBS Frontline “Afghanistan: Women and the Silent Addiction to Opium.” Accessed online at http://www.pbs.org on May 23, 2013.

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Many U.S. based and other international NGOs have tried to speci¿cally target the diverse needs of Afghanistan’s women and children. A singular example is retired Marine Lieutenant Colonel Sharon Jacko. In November 2012, we sat down for two hours to discuss her military career and her second career, advocacy on behalf of Afghanistan’s women. Jacko dedicated 26 years of her life to the U.S. Marine Corps. She experienced many of the ups and down regarding women’s changing roles in the U.S. armed forces. Jacko worked closely with General George Casey when she was deployed to Iraq in 2005. After her Iraq tour, she then became a Watch Of¿cer at CENTCOM headquarters in Tampa, Florida. Despite a stellar career in the military, Jacko retired the day before she was to “pin on colonel.” Jacko would have been deployed to Afghanistan had she remained in the military. Sharon did get to Afghanistan in June 2008, but as a civilian, three months after retiring from the military. A male Lt. Colonel told Jacko about a woman she had to meet—Betsy Beamon, the founder of the Frederick, Maryland based Women of Hope Project. Beamon had worked in the U.S. airline industry for 24 years. After the terrorist attacks of 2001, which left an already teetering airline industry close to collapse, Beamon took a year’s leave absence from work and traveled to Afghanistan on her own. Inspired by the plight of women she met through an interpreter, Ms. Beamon began to work with women on hydroponic farming techniques. Her goal was to create a center and school, which would allow women to become more self-suf¿cient, literate, and empowered. With supporters back in the United States sending donations, organizing fundraisers, and eventually selling crafts created by the Afghan women themselves, Women of Hope has built a school and learning center. As a registered NGO in Afghanistan, Beamon and Jacko have worked closely with their local Afghan director and driver to keep themselves safe as well as the women and children who come to the center. Jacko remarked during our interview that the Taliban began a rumor that Betsy was proselytizing Christianity, and that was a scary time for everyone. Jacko has not been back to Afghanistan since 2010 due to a deteriorating lung condition; however, she certainly had views to share about the long-term situation of the country. When asked about Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Jacko stated, “I thought he was a good guy when I ¿rst went there in 2008, but he has just become overrun. The Taliban and warlords are so powerful. Karzai doesn’t care about the women.” Moreover, Jacko is skeptical about the 2014 withdraw date. She believes the Taliban will just wait out the United States, and then everything will revert back. Sharon fears that any modest gains made for and by Afghan women will be lost quickly. Sharon reiterated what many have observed about Afghanistan for years—Afghanistan’s citizens have never have paid much attention to what is happening in Kabul, the capital. Due to historical context and geography, a form of decentralized governance is the best option for the country. Western nationbuilding has been more successful in northern Afghanistan where Tajik, Uzbek, and Hazara ethnic/tribal groups are dominant. In the Pashtun zone (Pashtunstan)

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in eastern and southern Afghanistan, as well as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan, ethnic/tribal loyalty and fealty poses a problem for U.S. forces, civilian reconstruction teams, and cooperation between the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan (Gannon 2012: 52). Finally, Jacko voted for the Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2012 even though she voted for Barack Obama in 2008. I asked her if she would encourage an 18-year-old fresh out of high school to enlist today. She emphatically said no. When pressed, she answered that the government, but speci¿cally Obama, has “taken over” determining the rules of engagement. Jacko lamented that right now the rules of engagement say a U.S. soldier cannot return ¿re unless the weapon and person is visually seen. Even though the “protect the population” mantra is classic counterinsurgency doctrine, Lt. Colonel Jacko believes that altered rules of engagement have meant that Marines have literally been “sent to their deaths by President Obama,” especially in remote outposts. In October 2012, a date was set for the next Afghan presidential elections—April 5, 2014. Karzai is constitutionally barred from running for another ¿ve-year term. He has been the U.S’s “guy” since 2001 for better or worse (Rosenberg 2012). Even though many Afghans and international observers believe the 2014 election will be a repeat of the fraudulent 2009 elections, the electoral process will take place while U.S. and NATO troops are continuing to drawdown their involvement in the country. With over 50 green-on-blue attacks (Afghanistan soldiers/police killing U.S. and other coalition forces) in the year 2012, the general public in the United States and other NATO countries no longer support the war. In a study conducted by the German Marshall Fund based in the United States, 53 percent of Europeans, and 44 percent of Americans favor immediate withdrawal of all troops. And large majorities, 75 percent of European respondents and 68 percent of Americans, support either withdrawal or an immediate troop reduction (Tisdall 2012). In addition, the Taliban and its Haqqani network allies, which are based out of the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan, continue bombings, kidnappings, and ambushes of American troops, the Afghan National Army, and NATO forces (Norland, September 21, 2012). The bottom line is that any gains made in routing out the Taliban have been fragile and reversible. In December 2012, a sobering report was released by the Pentagon, which found that only one of the Afghan National Army’s 23 brigades (3,000–5,000 troops) is able to operate independently without any air or other military support from the United States or NATO partners (Bumiller, December 10, 2012). Moreover, Afghan National Army commanders “have to check the ringtones of their new Afghan recruits to see if they are Taliban campaign tunes, if the screen savers show the white Taliban Àag on a black background, or if the phone memory includes any insurgent beheadings” (Norland, October 15, 2012). Finally, desertions and low re-enlistment rates mean that a third of the entire Afghan National Army, 195,000 soldiers, has to be replaced ever year. The same report also found that violence in Afghanistan was higher in 2012 than it was before the Obama surge. The current combat commander in Afghanistan,

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General Allen, kept the majority of the 68,000 troops in country through the ¿ghting season of 2013; therefore, Afghan forces will have as much support as possible and be better positioned for the 2014 drawdown deadline. The Afghan police force is also mired by incompetency, high turn-over, and corruption. The report titled, “Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan” is mandated twice a year by the U.S. Congress. The report was supposed to be released before the U.S. presidential election in November 2012, but was delayed for no publicly stated reason by the Pentagon. General Joseph Dunford Jr., a Marine Of¿cer, was selected by Obama to assume command from General Allen. Allen was tapped to be nominated for the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe (NATO) job; however, the David Petraeus scandal which broke in November 2012 also impacted Allen as well. Heeding lessons from the failure to broker an immunity protection for U.S. forces to remain in Iraq after the December 2011 SOFA took effect, the Obama administration began earnest talks with the Afghan government days after Obama was re-elected. The goal was to have a deal in place by the end of 2013 regarding the role, composition, and size of a modest force in Afghanistan beyond the 2014 withdrawal deadline, which will guard against terrorist threats and advise Afghan forces (Gordon, 15 November, 2012). Options presented by General Allen in early 2013 included maintaining anywhere from 6,000–20,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan past the December 2014 withdrawal date. Depending on the force levels, U.S. troops could engage in counterterrorism activities, continue to train the Afghan National Army, and engage in joint patrols with the Afghan Army in limited areas. The long-term consequences of the wars for Iraq and Afghanistan will continue to be debated by historians, military strategists, and political scientists for decades to come. The signi¿cance of these conÀicts, however, for U.S. female soldiers is unprecedented. For the female veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, their very presence in society will necessitate the reconceptualization of the public discourse and public policy debate regarding fe(male) veterans’ issues. The workplace, college campuses, and the V.A. system all realize the paradigm has changed. The next question to consider is whether the January 2013 announcement regarding the lifting of the ground combat ban for U.S. military women will fundamentally alter the nature of the military as an institution, gender relations within and outside the military, and whether the various feminist lenses presented in Chapter 1 provide suf¿cient analytical leverage to address this considerable development. Where are the Women? According to military historian Martin van Creveld, if women are included on equal footing with men, a military loses its ¿ghting prowess because of the impossibility and inadequacy of female-bodied soldiers. For the opponents of women’s further integration, the military’s very survival as a sociological institution depends upon the “maintenance of zones of distinction between men/women, home/polis, war/

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peace, inside/outside, and protector/protected. The markings of masculinity and femininity make possible the workings of the military only if they are maintained as distinct and dichotomous” (Pin-Fat and Stern 2005: 33). With former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s January 2013 announcement that the ground combat exclusion policy will be lifted by 2016, it appears that van Creveld’s worst fears have come true. Women could now be eligible for over 200,000 occupational specialties including armor, artillery, infantry, and possibly even Special Forces. The somewhat unexpected decision was made upon the recommendation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Bumiller and Shanker, 23 January, 2013). It appeared the decision was driven by the military itself. In fact, some midlevel White House of¿cials were caught off guard by the announcement, which indicated that the decision had not gone through the normal and often lengthy channels of an extensive review vetting. With the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and now the repeal of the ground combat exclusion policy for women, the legacy of the Obama administration vis-à-vis policy changes impacting the military could be as signi¿cant as President Truman’s controversial decision to desegregate the U.S. military years before the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision. As reported widely in the media, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s decision came after he received an early January 2013 letter from General Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who stated that the armed service chiefs of all four branches agreed “the time has come to rescind the direct combat exclusion rule for women and to eliminate all unnecessary gender-based barriers to service” (Bumiller and Shanker, January 23, 2013). Each service branch has been tasked with devising implementation plans over the next several months; however, each branch has until January 2016 to make its case that a speci¿c job should not be opened to a woman. In addition, the U.S. Congress does not need to approve the decision before it goes into effect. Rather, Congress would have to pass new legislation speci¿cally prohibiting the change. However, with threequarters of U.S. voters supporting the lifting of the ground combat ban, it appears unlikely that such legislation would be forthcoming. U.S. House Representative Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), who lost both her legs in Iraq when the helicopter she was piloting was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in 2004, praised Panetta’s move as advancing both greater fairness and military effectiveness. Representative Duckworth said, “There has always been some level of opposition to increasing the diversity in our military, whether it has been minorities or women. The inclusion of groups like African-Americans and Asians has made our military stronger.” Duckworth continued, “I know the inclusion of women in combat roles will make America safer and provide inspiration to women throughout our country.”3 However, Elaine Donnelly, the Executive Director of the Center for Military Readiness and a long-time opponent of greater integration 3௑“Women Warriors Move by Panetta Advances Obama’s Goals,” by David Lerman and Tony Cappacio. Bloomberg News, January 24, 2013.

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of women in the U.S. military remarked, “For the same reason that professional football does not seek diversity on the gridiron, this is not a good idea. It’s very irresponsible on the part of the Secretary of Defense on his way out the door. There’s no good reason to do this. It will do great harm to the majority of women in the military.” In an interesting parallel to the feminist slogan that “the personal is political,” it was widely reported that the decision to lift the ban was rooted in the personal experiences of Defense Secretary Panetta and General Dempsey (Bumiller and Shanker, January 24, 2013). In 2003, General Dempsey arrived in Baghdad as a division commander. He climbed aboard a Humvee and asked the driver where he was from. Then Dempsey slapped the turret gunner on the leg and asked, “And who are you?” The reply was, “I am Amanda.” A stunned Dempsey processed the revelation. A female soldier was protecting a division commander in a combat zone. Dempsey realized that much had changed on the battle¿eld and the policy needed to reÀect those realities. Secretary Panetta served two years in the military as an Army intelligence of¿cer. His “the personal is political” moments came about due to his conversations with a female V-22 Osprey pilot who talked to Panetta about her experiences in war zones when she Àew him to visit a military ship off the coast of California. He also visited a military policewoman at Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas who had been shot in Afghanistan while guarding a base. Most poignantly, Panetta described in a press conference going to Arlington National Cemetery for funerals. He stated, “They serve, they’re wounded and they died right next to each other. They’re ¿ghting and dying together, and the time has come for our policies to reÀect that reality.” Some may still argue that it is somehow different and more heart-wrenching when female soldiers come home in body bags. Tim Goddard, who lost his daughter, Nichola, a Canadian artillery of¿cer who was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade launcher in Afghanistan in 2006, remarked: “I can assure you that a mother misses a son as much as a father grieves for a daughter. Grief has no gender” (Austen, January 23, 2013).4 While countries such as Canada have lifted the combat ban since 1989,5 there is no expectation that droves of women will suddenly be applying for direct 4௑Goddard was the ¿rst Canadian female soldier killed since WWII and the ¿rst ever to be killed on the front lines of combat. She was killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan in May 2006. Sjolander and Trevenen argue that the image of “Goddard constructed by the media serves to reassure Canadians that on issues such as gender roles, military force, and the war in Afghanistan, Canadian society is not just ethically right, fair, and equal, but actively laudable (p. 127). 5௑In some countries, the lifting of the ground combat ban for women came through legal challenges, and in other countries it was done through intra-military debate and policy changes. Other countries which do not legally exclude women from ground combat include: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, New Zealand, Norway, and the United Kingdom.

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combat occupational specialties. Even in the frequently researched Israeli Defense Force, which mandates military conscription for Israeli women for a two year commitment, albeit with exceptions, Israeli women only serve in 4 percent of combat positions even though one-third of all conscripts are women (SassonLevy 2011: 76). As stated before, the Marines will be the service branch where women will have more occupational specialties now open to them; however, only 6 percent of Marines are women currently. Whether the repeal of the combat exclusion policy will result in more opportunities for women to advance in the general ranks will not be discernible perhaps for another generation. Since this generation of female soldiers has been in the service while the ban was in place, their experience will still be viewed as non-combat. Therefore, it is unlikely that their theoretical non-combat occupational specialties, which in reality often entailed combat, will be considered by promotion boards. However, enlisted women, female ROTC cadets, and women attending the military service academies in years to come will now have many more choices available to them. Social science researchers should be focused upon tracking these women and analyzing the factors which may have impacted their decisions to choose ground combat occupational specialties. Participant observation research and in-depth interviews conducted during training and while U.S. military women are deployed will be the most effective methodologies in assessing whether these women will face signi¿cant obstacles in former all-male artillery and infantry units. From a theoretical perspective, the repeal of the combat exclusion policy is a victory for liberal feminism. Since liberal feminism emphasizes gender sameness, women’s full and equal participation in the public sphere should be positively impacted by egalitarian military service. Recall that liberal feminists also tended to advocate for the equal inclusion of women in mandatory Selective Service registration. Since participation in the defense of one’s country has often been equated as least in principle with full citizenship rights throughout history and within many country contexts, the possibility of egalitarian military service should be bene¿cial for the continued integration of women in the public sphere of life. Military service is no longer a required attribute to run for elected public of¿ce. In fact, the 113th Congress sworn into of¿ce in January 2013 contains the smallest number of war veterans since World War II. Two female veterans, Congresswomen Tammy Duckworth and Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) have vowed to make veterans’ issues critical parts of their time on Capitol Hill. Radical and difference feminists oppose the military in general because of its use of violence and deeply masculinist culture, which depends on the oppression of women. Women joining the military are therefore seen as strengthening a fundamentally immoral institution and perpetuating gender inequality. The aspiration to promote women in the military represents a “militaristic feminism that has internalized the masculine and rei¿es the armed forces as an institution that certi¿es citizenship” (Sasson-Levy 2011: 89). According to these feminist lenses, opening ground combat arms to women will do nothing to fundamentally rede¿ne the hegemonic masculinity endemic within the military. From this

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feminist standpoint, “A less militarized military would be one less imbued with an institutional culture of masculinized violence. It would be a military less committed to a hierarchical, threat-¿lled worldview” (Enloe 2007: 79). Women, who meet the physical requirements and pass aptitude tests for high combat probability occupational specialties, will not be challenging dominant masculine norms. Rather, these women will be institutionalizing those norms and emulating the performance of hypermasculine behaviors. Furthermore, it will be interesting to study whether women who voluntarily select ground combat occupational specialties are most likely to exhibit monoandrogynous behavioral and personality traits, as discussed in Chapter 1. In future research agendas, radical and difference feminists need to examine the following questions: ¿rst, are female soldiers who participate in United Nations and other multilateral peace-keeping operations still complying with dominant hegemonic norms? Or are these types of missions, which are sometimes viewed by men as inherently feminized since the use of offensive force is supposed to be kept to a minimum, different in some fundamental ways from female soldiers in traditional offensive ¿ghting units? Even though the U.S. armed forces has been historically resistant to participating in multilateral peacekeeping operations, the empirical research6 conducted on this question thus far does not appear to support the argument that women and men participating in peacekeeping operations are making de¿nitive progress in challenging gendered hierarchies, even in countries with signi¿cant legal gender equality and gender empowerment (Higate and Henry 2009; Whitworth 2004). Second, feminists need to fundamentally reconceptualize what a combat position means. In light of the increasing reliance and controversy surrounding drone technology, a female drone pilot can remotely register many more “direct kills” than a male infantry soldier. Studies have demonstrated, furthermore, that drone pilots are often dealing with PTSD and other psychological problems while they are “virtually” deployed. Third, it will be imperative for theorists to discuss whether the inclusion of more women in combat positions within the U.S. military has any impact on the high incidence of rape and sexual assault in the military. One out of every four women in uniform will face some type of sexual assault during their service. Radical and difference feminists have argued that the hypermasculinized norms and the general culture of the military create an atmosphere conducive to the domination of women in uniform (Cockburn 2007 and Enloe 2007). It will be imperative to assess whether the inclusion of women as “just warriors” within the U.S. military rather than “beautiful souls” to be protected and at times tragically violated by their fellow soldiers will translate into lower incidences of military 6௑See Carreiras, Helena. (2010), “Gendered Culture in Peacekeeping Operations.” International Peacekeeping, 17, 4: 471–85 and Sion, Liora. (2008), “Peacekeeping and the Gender Regime: Dutch Female Peacekeepers in Bosnia and Kosovo,” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 37, 5: 561–85.

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sexual assault. Will the fact that male soldiers will now be more likely to serve with women in the infantry, armored units, and even perhaps elite Special Forces have any impact on decreasing sexual assault and rape? Of course, we must recognize that it will be impossible to empirically prove a causal relation if there is a decrease in sexual assault in the military. Moreover, we must recognize that we are often relying upon Pentagon numbers for these statistics, and many cases of sexual assault will continue to remain unreported in spite of changes mandated by the Department of Defense. At the spring 2013 graduation ceremonies of West Point and the Naval Academy, both President Obama and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel discussed the deluge of troubling statistics and high-pro¿le incidents of sexual assault and rape plaguing the academies and the military at large. In addition to numerous congressional hearings and internet discussion boards on the issue, all the wellintentioned theoretical and policy discussions will fall short for many of the women in uniform. Even if women represented 50 percent of all ground combat military occupational specialties, it is highly unlikely that military sexual assault and rape will cease. It may be lessened, which certainly would be a welcome development; however, the U.S. military will continue to rely on gendered hierarchies and acceptable militarized femininities (Sjolander and Trevenen 2010; SassonLevy 2011). In other democratic countries, where the ground combat exclusion for women has been repealed due to legal challenges or as a result of military policy, gender inequalities continue to be perpetuated. Therefore, we should anticipate similar outcomes in the United States; however, empirical research in future decades will need to examine these processes closely. For Marxist feminists, the repeal of the combat exclusion policy will not affect their view on the reasons why women may ¿nd the military an attractive or economically necessary career track in the ¿rst place. Despite the fact that more U.S. women than men are enrolled in colleges and are being awarded bachelor’s degrees, the higher rates of academic achievement do not translate into gender parity in corporate boardrooms and the political sphere. It will be imperative to study whether there is a certain pro¿le, however, of women who are drawn to ground combat occupational specialties? Will minority women or women of lower socio-economic means be more inclined to these positions, or will educational attainment, race, and other demographic variables be irrelevant? Finally, for post-modern feminists, we again must be careful in making any type of generalizations about “women in the military.” Paying attention to women soldiers, who choose to enlist in combat occupational specialties, will necessitate deep narrative research. There is nothing intrinsically superior or inferior about this group of women; rather, power operates in many facets and women are as capable of being exploitative, caring, compassionate, or violent as men. There are no inherent or stable identities much less universalizing truths about women and men waiting to be uncovered by social scientists. What may be interesting to study in the future, however, is how female soldiers in combat occupational specialties interact with and perceive women in non-combat occupational specialties? As

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stated in Chapter 1, the hegemonic femininity of the non-military sphere of life (hetereosexual, non-violent, compassionate, emotional, and often associated with motherhood or care-taking) will perhaps be turned on its head by women who enlist in combat occupational specialties. On the other hand, a subordinated femininity in the non-military public and private spheres of life will be the very attributes and characteristics preferred in the combat occupational specialties. How will individual women negotiate these femininities? Will women who are more likely to express so-called subordinated femininities in the non-military public and private spheres be more likely to be drawn to these types of occupational specialties and in fact excel at them? Finally, in the changing nature of warfare, where linear battle¿elds are a thing of the past and technological pro¿ciency and situational awareness become even more critical to being a soldier, how will these attributes impact how we think as a society about the supposed intrinsic assets and de¿cits men and women bring to the debates surrounding war preparation, execution, and analysis? Concluding Thoughts The main argument presented throughout the various chapters on U.S. military women as soldiers, veterans, fatalities, and in the future ground combat soldiers it that no single feminist lens can capture all the theoretical and empirical complexities of U.S. military women’s lived experiences. The debates, however, within various literatures on women and the military, militarism, and gendered organizations are often focused upon dense theoretical arguments. While these debates are critical, the aim of this book has been to integrate into our analysis the individual military women often left out of these academic treatments, or the women at the margins in the U.S. military who often remain nameless and faceless. The guiding endeavor of this research has been to bring these women to the center of empirical analysis vis-à-vis undertaking a scholarly assessment of autobiographical narratives, conducting interviews with the families of U.S. female fatalities, and synthesizing secondary literatures on a number of related topics. The future of U.S. women’s involvement in war, diplomacy,7 and peace activities8 surrounding America’s two longest wars to date has been exempli¿ed 7௑See Clinton, Hillary Rodham. (November/December 2007), “Security and Opportunity for the Twenty-First Century.” Foreign Affairs. Accessed online at www. foreignaffairs.com. Myers, Steven Lee. (June 27, 2012), “Hillary Clinton’s Last Tour as a Rock-Star Diplomat.” The New York Times. Accessible online at http://www.nytimes.com on June 29, 2012. 8௑See Carty, Victoria. (Spring 2009), “The Anti-War Movement: Versus the War Against Iraq.” International Journal of Peace Studies, 14, 1:17–39. Montgomery, Bruce. (January 2011), “The Archives of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.” Peace & Change, 36, 1: pp. 97–104. Pois, Anne Marie. (Autumn 1999),

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by the various lenses of feminism. Female soldiers have been working for decades to fully integrate themselves into the U.S. armed forces. Many female soldiers would probably not identify themselves as feminists; however, the obstacles they have faced and continue to endure are exemplary of the gendered nature of warfare and the gendered hierarchies of the military as a sociological institution. Women’s involvement in foreign policy making, and especially the planning, execution, and assessment of war-making will continue to increase in this century. No one theoretical framework exists or is appropriate to analyze the multi-faceted roles U.S. military women occupy in this most masculinized of human endeavors and follies—war. Rather, we must study U.S. military women in all their capacities to truly capture the many ways in which sex, gender, and social structures both permit and restrict women, as individuals and as a class, to impact U.S. foreign policy and ultimately international relations.

“Perspectives on 20th Century Women’s International Activism: Peace, Feminism, and Foreign Policy.” Journal of Women’s History,11, 3: 213–22. Riley, Robin. (2005), “So Few of Us, So Many of Them: U.S. Women Resisting Desert Storm.” International Feminist Journal of Politics, 7, 3: 341–57.

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