21st Anniversary: Women at War

Twenty-one years ago today I was deployed to Desert Shield/Desert Storm and what is now known as the First Persian Gulf War.  Women soldiers then were more of an oddity.  Though women had been nurses in Vietnam — China Beach starring Dana Delaney was airing in prime time– there was nothing like what the military was experiencing for Desert Shield.  We would be truck drivers, supply sergeants, fuel handlers, clerks, and any other job the military could put us to work on.

From the day the news announced that Saddam Hussein had invaded Iraq, everyone in my company knew we were going — just not sure when.  No one would tell us anything.  There was this unspoken acceptance among all the soldiers that it was in our future, despite all the rumors that flew about so fast that it put Star Trek‘s warp speed to shame.

Getting deployed overnight is better than waiting for it to come.  Newspapers and TV news shows sensationalized everything.  Makes for great ratings, but hard on soldiers who are thinking about what might happen to us.  We were treated to a non-stop parade of news about Iraq planning to gas the soldiers.  One particularly memorable op-ed drawing in USA Today showed a soldier in a kevlar helmet and uniform with a skull where the face should be.

And we were going over to that?!!

The women soldiers were also given briefings by an Arab male soldier who told us what we would be facing once we landed in Saudi Arabia.  Even showing our forearms was considered a big no-no, and the covers on romance novels — well, my best buddy lamented the future destruction of her book covers.  Threaded through the instructor’s training was how much he disapproved of women going over there at all.  He didn’t say it, but it came across in way he talked.  We were all outraged by his attitude.  It wasn’t that he wanted to protect women; he thought we weren’t capable of being on the battlefield at all because we were women.

On October 25, we all got up for our final formation in the United States and marched to a nearby gym.  USO workers were standing by with lunches for us as we boarded a bus for a nearby Air Force base.  We were a quiet bunch.  Gone was the false bravado the guys had displayed while we waited for deployment news.  We were going, and we didn’t know what would be there when we arrived.

It was a little like leaving home for the first time — that fear that the lines have been cut, and we’re on our own.

The only difference was that the unknown we were going into might kill us.

Have you ever been in a situation where you didn’t know what you were getting into until you got there? What did you experience?  Tell us about in the comments.

 

A Female Soldier’s Life During War

My book for the week is The Girls Come Marching Home: Stories of Women Warriors Returning from the War in Iraq by Kirsten Hoimstedt.  It’s been a difficult book to read because, though it’s a different war than mine, the same issues are there.  The books contains stories about women soldiers who have been wounded, experienced post traumatic stress syndrome, or have been sexually harassed.  The book is a unique look into what life is like for a woman in the military and made me think about what it was like to be a soldier (Desert Shield/Storm 1990-1991).

Once a soldier deploys to a war zone — “Boots on the Ground” — she is in a different world.  She is surrounded by 20, 30, or 100 people she will see every single day and night. She might be the only woman in the company, or at least one of the few.  That’s her entire world.

The Army teaches soldiers to rely on their squad leaders and platoon sergeants, and to turn to them for help.  It’s one of the first things we learn in basic training and continues into active duty.

But war changes people.

Sometimes for the better.

Sometimes for the worse.

Then something goes wrong, and the soldier’s world shrinks to a world of one.  Here, in the civilian world, if something happens, there’s a lot of options.  But when in the middle of the desert, the only option becomes somehow surviving.

Then someone looks at the soldier when she returns and says, “You grew up.”  Looks at another soldier who was torn apart.  “She grew down.”

Do you know a female soldier, sailor, or marine?  Tell me about her.  And don’t forget to pick up a copy of The Girls Come Marching Home and Kirsten Holmstedt’s earlier book Band of Sisters.

I hope you’ll have a look at my story Grateful for a Gift to ‘Any Soldier,’ published in The Washington Post.  Also check out Voice of a Soldier: Operation Liberty, an anthology of stories about soldiers.  My story “Clarity” is featured in the book.