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Courtesy of MsTags.com*I am the author of this work of poetry, which is copyrighted. You may not display it without my written consent, nor may you use/claim it for your personal use. THESE ARE THE AMAZING MILITARY WOMEN, WHO SERVED DURING WARTIME AND PEACETIME, ALONGSIDE THEIR BROTHERS IN ARMS. During the Revolutionary War, and beyond, history raves about the heroics of men in war, but few instances are mentioned in which female courage was displayed. Yet during every conflict, and the peaceful years between, military women were there, too. Many stories have been written about unique Civil War women, including Sarah Emma Edmonds, alias Franklin Thompson. In Nurse and Spy in the Union Army, 1865, which is subtitled The Adventures and Experiences of a Woman in Hospitals, Camps, and Battle-Fields, the author chronicles her adventures and escapades as she gathers information and nurses the wounded. Some say that this book is a mix of fantasy and fiction. Historians have verified that Emma Edmonds, as Franklin Thompson, did serve in the units she mentioned at the times she said. Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, one of the nation's 1.8 million women veterans, was the only one to earn the Congressional Medal of Honor, for her service during the Civil War. When the Civil War broke out, she traveled to Washington and tried to join the Union Army. Denied a commission as a medical officer, she volunteered anyway, serving as an acting assistant surgeon -- the first female surgeon in the US Army. As an unpaid volunteer, she worked in the US Patent Office Hospital in Washington. Later, she worked as a field surgeon near the Union front lines for almost two years (including Fredericksburg and in Chattanooga after the Battle of Chickamauga). On November 11, 1865, President Johnson signed a bill to present Dr. Mary Edwards Walker with the Congressional Medal of Honor for Meritorious Service, in order to recognize her contributions to the war effort without awarding her an army commission. She was the only woman ever to receive the Medal of Honor, her country's highest military award.In 1898 when Teddy went charging up San Juan Hill, after the Battleship Maine blew up in Havana Harbor, sanitary conditions for the wounded soldiers were deplorable. There were typhoid fever epidemics in the camps and few qualified medical personnel. Congress quickly authorized the U.S. Army to procure female nurses but not with military status. They were hired as civilians under contract and over one thousand women were recruited to serve - for thirty dollars a month. From 1898 to 1901 more than 1500 women served in the states, overseas, and on a U.S. Hospital ship.During WWI, as the Army stumbled around bureaucratic red tape trying to figure out how to enlist women, the Navy simply ignored the War Department dissenters and quickly recruited women. Nearly 13,000 women enlisted in the Navy and the Marine Corps on the same status as men and wore a uniform blouse with insignia. The Navy's policy was extended to the Coast Guard, but personnel records from World War I contain scarcely any references to the Coast Guard Yeomanettes. A handful of them apparently were employed at the diminutive Coast Guard headquarters building in Washington. With the war's end, the Coast Guard Yeomanettes, along with their Navy and Marine Corps counterparts, were mustered out of the service. Thirty thousand women were there. During WW II, four members of the United States Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASP) receive final instructions as they chart a cross-country course on the flight line. Assigned to the ferrying division of the United States Army Air Transport Command, the women pilots belong to the first class of American women to complete a rigorous nine-week transitional flight training course in handling B-26 Marauder medium bombers. They have been given special assignments with the U.S. Army Air Forces as tow target pilots. U. S. Navy nurse serving in Korea. To the hundreds of women who flew air evacuation, caring for the wounded during every bumpy air mile, it was no luxury flight. During the Korean era over 120, 000 women were on active duty. In addition to the nurses actually in Korea, many women served at support units nearby, in Japan and other far eastern countries. Yet in researching women in war, and surfing the Internet for more information, it appears that the women who served during this campaign have become as forgotten as the war itself. Many of the web pages highlighting the Korean Conflict fail to mention them. During the Vietnam War, 1st Lt. Elaine H. Niggemann changes a surgical dressing at the 24th Evacuation Hospital. Almost ten thousand women served during the Vietnam War in country. After one of the most futile conflicts in the history of war, scorned by flag burners and shunned by citizens, G.I's returned to find respect for our troops hitting an all time low. The reaction of the American people to our military was despicable. It has taken years for many servicemen and service women to get over it- and some have not. What is truly unconscionable in the annals of American military history is the fact that little or no data exists on the women who served and, yes, were injured or killed, in Southeast Asia during the Viet Nam War. Accurate records on how many women were there, what decorations they earned, where they served - and most important - what after effects they have suffered - and continue to suffer -are nonexistent. However, from anecdotal reports, letters, from books by those who were there, from research papers by military historians, and from the excellent text "Women in the Military - An Unfinished Revolution", by Major General Jeanne Holm, USAF (Ret), we can glean the following overview:1~ Over five hundred Women Army Corps were stationed in Vietnam.2~ Women Marines were in Vietnam.3~ Over six hundred Women in the Air Force were there.4~ Army, Navy and Air Force Nurses and Medical Specialists numbered over six thousand.5~ Untold numbers of Red Cross, Special Services, Civil Service and countless other women were there. Women served in Vietnam in many support staff assignments, in hospitals, crewed on medical evacuation flights, with MASH Units, hospital ships, operations groups, information offices, service clubs, headquarters offices, and numerous other clerical, medical, intelligence and personnel positions. There were women officers and enisted women; there were youngsters in their early twenties with barely two years in service and career women over forty. Women suffered the same hardships as the men in many cases and were often in the line of fire from rockets and mortars, particularly during the Tet offensive with the Viet Cong attacks on Saigon. The accomplishments of the military nurses, and the other support services where they served, has barely been recorded for future generations. Yet women were there - they sloshed through the same mud and blood as the men, witnessed the same horrors of war, and suffered the same ignominous treatment and indignities upon their return to the country that sent them there. Women were awarded the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star, Commendation Medals, and Unit Citations. Among the casualties of the Vietnam War, women, too, made the ultimate sacrifice by giving their lives so that we may remain free...Mobilization for the Gulf war included an unprecedented proportion of women from the active forces (7%) as well as the Reserve and National Guard (17%). It was the largest female deployment in U.S. history. Over 40,000 US military women served in key combat-support positions throughout the Persian Gulf Region. Women in Desert Storm did everything the male troops did except engage in ground combat - they could essentially get fired upon - they just weren't, by existing regulations, theoretically allowed to shoot back! The service women of the '90s served in the mainstream of the mission goals of Desert Storm and demonstrated that women perform as well as men. With the so-called art of war becoming so much more technological and so much less individual ground combat, the exclusion of women from any position in the military is ludicrous. The old fashioned thinking of military planners and congressional leaders has to catch up with the advent of the 21st century. The artificial parameters placed on women in the military, and in society as well, are as antiquated as the barefoot and pregnant mind set of centuries ago. Oppression by antiquated religious, patriarchal, and the misogynous has to be relegated to the garbage dump from whence it came. Opportunities for intelligent capable enthusiastic women should not be denied by policy makers whose thinking is back in the 19th century. During Desert Storm, 16 women gave their lives and 2 were held as POW's...Since Desert Storm, women in the military have been quietly and effectively performing their jobs world wide. According to the Defense Manpower Data Center over 1,000 women participated in U.S. military operations in Somalia between 1992 and 1994. In 1995, over 1200 women were deployed to Haiti for peacekeeping duties. To date over 5,000 women have served in the peacekeeping operations in Bosnia. Today, our young women and men are still serving in Bosnia - over 6,000 of them.Women in the U. S. Armed Forces continue to do their jobs, continue to serve their country, and wonder why there is so much hue and cry, signifying nothing, over their willingness to serve. They perform with pride as soldiers, sailors, airman and marines - and if that job is in a combat zone or on the moon - women will do it as well as men. All they ask is a chance to be an integral part of the Armed Services of the United States of America...nothing more... nothing less including making the ultimate sacrifice for our country...As a US Air Force Vietnam veteran, I beg you~ do not let anti-war protestors do to our children who have completed their last patrol in Iraq and Afghanistan be dishonored like our courageous Vietnam War Veterans! *90 MILITARY WOMEN HAVE GIVEN THEIR LIVES IN IRAQ as of December 2007...Maj. Gloria Davis, 47, of St. Louis, MO; was assigned to the Defense Security Assistance Agency, Washington, D.C. died Dec. 12, 2006 from a non-combat related incident in Baghdad. Davis, an 18-year U.S. Army veteran, was deployed to Iraq in September 2006.Staff Sgt. Kimberly A. Voelz, 27, of Carlisle, Pa. was killed Sunday, 14 Dec, in Iskandariyah, Iraq, responding to an explosive ordinance disposal call.Pfc. Nichole M. Frye, 19, of Lena, Wis., died Feb. 16 in Baqubah, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device struck her convoy. Frye was assigned to Company A, 415th Civil Affairs Battalion, U.S. Army Reserve, Kalamazoo, Mich. Cpl. Jennifer Parcell, 20, of Bel Air, MD was assigned to Combat Logistics Regiment 3, 3rd Marine Logistics Group, III Marine Expeditionary Force, Okinawa, Japan. She died Feb. 7, 2007 while supporting combat operations in Anbar province, Iraq. Cpl. Parcell listed her mom as her hero in an online profile. She was identified by the Defense Department as the fifth female Marine killed in Iraq since 2003.Helicopter crew chief instructor Staff Sgt. Lori Anne Privette, 27 died when a UH-1N Huey helicopter crashed during a training flight. SSgt. Privette joined the Marine Corps in August 1994 and just returned from serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom.Air Force Senior Airman Alecia S. Good, 23, Broadview Heights Ohio, was one of two airmen to die when two helicopters crashed into the Gulf of Aden, Africa. Airman Good was assigned to the 92nd Comm. Sq., Fairchild AFB, Wash. All of the service members killed were deployed to Djibouti as part of the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa.Spc. Isela Rubalcava, 25, of El Paso, Texas, died May 8 in Mosul, Iraq,when a mortar round hit near her. Spc. Rubalcava was assigned to the 296th Combat Support Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division(Stryker Brigade Combat Team), Fort Lewis, Wash.Petty Officer 1st Class Regina R. Clark, 43, of Centralia, Wash., died June 23 in a convoy that was attacked by a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device in Fallujah. She was a culinary specialist deployed with Naval Construction Region Detachment 30, Port Hueneme, Calif., and was temporarily assigned to II Marine Expeditionary ForcePetty Officer 2nd Class Jaime S. Jaenke, 29, of Bay City, Wis., died June 5 as a result of enemy action when her HMMWV was struck by an improvised explosive device in Al Anbar province, Iraq. She was assigned to Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 25, Fort McCoy, Wis.Army Sgt. Denise A. Lannaman, 46, of Bayside, N.Y., died at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, on Oct. 1 from a non-combat incident. Sgt. Lannaman was assigned to the Army National Guard's 1569th Transportation Company, Newburgh, N.Y. and was on her second tour in the Middle East.Command Sgt. Maj. Marilyn L. Gabbard, the first woman to obtain her rank in the Iowa Army National Guard, was killed when an Army Black Hawk helicopter crashed, killing all 12 people on board.Sgt. Major Gabbard, 46, of Polk City, was a full-time member of the Iowa National Guard and was based at Camp Dodge.Naval Academy graduate Marine Captain Jennifer Harris, 27, was killed while piloting her CH-46E Sea Knight helicopter north of Baghdad. The helicopter was reportedly shot down by enemy fire.Army PFC Lori Piestewa,23, was the first Native American woman killed by enemy action in our nation's wars. On March 23, 2003, PFC Lori Piestewa and her company, which included PFC Jessica Lynch, were ambushed near Nasiriyah, Iraq. She and her company were considered MIA. Piestewa, a Hopi Indian from Tuba City, AZ, died in southern Iraq. She was a single mother with a son, 4, and a daughter, 3.Pfc. Analaura Esparza Gutierrez, 21, of Houston, Texas, was killed on Oct. 1 in Tikrit, Iraq. Pfc.Esparza Gutierrez was in a convoy that was hit by rocket propelled grenades. SPC Karen N. Clifton, 22, of Lehigh Acres died Thursday, June 21, 2007. Clifton died after suffering from wounds when her vehicle was hit with a rocket propelled grenade in Baghdad, Iraq. Clifton's MP company was headquartered in Germany. SPC Clifton's deployment in Iraq was to end this month. Spc. Carrie L. French, 19, of Caldwell, ID died in Kirkuk, Iraq, when an improvised explosive exploded and hit a convoy vehicle in which she was riding. French was assigned to the Army National Guard’s 145th Support Battalion, Boise, Idaho. SPC French served during Operation Iraqi Freedom and died on June 5, 2005. Sgt. Trista L. Moretti, 27, of South Plainfield, NJ was killed in Nasir Lafitah, Iraq, on Monday June 25, 2007 when her unit was attacked by insurgents. She was a member of the 425th Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, Fort Richardson, Alaska. Staff Sgt. Anissa A. Shero, of Grafton, WV, was 31 years old when she died on June 12, 2002 in Operation Enduring Freedom. Her unit was the 16th Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field, FL. She died in the crash of an US Air Force MC-130 H in Paktika province. She was the first US Air Force women to die in service to her country in Afganistan. CPL Michelle Ring, 24, of Martin, TN was assigned to the 92nd Military Police Battalion, Fort Benning, GA. She died July 5, 2007 of wounds sustained from enemy mortar fire in Baghdad. Ring was a single parent with a country at war. She wanted to make a difference. So, she enlisted and went to boot camp. Late last year, she shipped out from Fort Benning, GA to Baghdad. CAPT. Maria Ortiz, 40, of Bayamon, Puerto Rico who was assigned to Kirk U.S. Army Health Clinic, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD died July 10, 2007 in Baghdad of wounds sustained from enemy indirect fire. At Kirk, Ortiz was the chief nurse of general medicine for 18 months. She left in September 2005 for Iraq where she served with the 28th Combat Support Hospital, 3rd Medical Command.WWII poster depicting U. S. Armed Forces Nurses on Corregidor being held in a Japanese POW camp...IN MEMORY OF OUR BELOVED FALLEN ON SEPTEMBER 11
Courtesy of MsTags.com
Courtesy of MsTags.com
Courtesy of MsTags.com
Courtesy of MsTags.com
Courtesy of MsTags.com
America's Heroes
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We must always remember our military troops, and those who give their lives for us.I salute you...
Remember Me
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