COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Service: Women
Raising the Stakes for Female Troops
Philadelphia Inquirer
May 15, 2006
Riding in a supply convoy through Baugi, Iraq, Army Spec. Nicola Harvey was on the lookout for trouble: a rocket-propelled grenade, a roadside bomb, sniper fire.She found it.
As the trucks left a crowded flea market, an Iraqi pickup cut in front of her vehicle and exploded, sending tiny pieces of shrapnel into her eyes, face and arms.
Temporarily blinded, the Atlantic City woman was evacuated for treatment, recovered, and returned home with her New Jersey National Guard unit in April 2004 to a hero's welcome.
"You had to depend on each other to survive," Harvey, a Purple Heart recipient, said at a homecoming ceremony.
The 30-year-old guardsman is one of nearly 400 female service members who have been wounded in Iraq during a war where women have been more exposed than ever to combat. At least 11 have had amputations. More than 50 others have been killed, according to the Defense Department.
Although barred from direct frontline fighting roles, female Soldiers have often been under fire at base camps, scurrying for bunkers as mortar rounds rain down. Many others have been attacked in supply convoys.
The longtime debate over the role of women in the military has grown heated since the war in Iraq began, and especially since Jessica Lynch's much-publicized ordeal put a female face on a Soldier in combat.
"Should women go into a combat situation? We're already there. It's a moot point," said Army Capt. Carmen Lugo-Martinez, 36, a Lawnside resident and member of the New Jersey National Guard's 119th Corps Support Battalion in Hammonton. She has served in Iraq.
In the bloodiest day for female servicewomen, four were killed and 11 injured in a suicide-bomb ambush on a convoy in Fallujah in June.
That attack and mounting casualties since the war started in March 2003 have underscored the dangers military women face in Iraq, where there is no classic front line.
The losses stand in contrast to other wars, such as Vietnam, where eight female military nurses died -- only one of them to hostile fire -- and women were usually assigned to areas well out of the line of fire.
Today's increased combat risk follows 14 years of Defense Department policy changes. In 1992, the Air Force allowed women to fly some missions exposed to combat. The next year, the Navy allowed women on combat ships. And in 1994, female Soldiers in the Army were no longer barred from positions that posed a substantial risk of capture.
The policy said service members "are eligible to be assigned to all positions for which they are qualified, except that women shall be excluded from assignment to units below the brigade level whose primary mission is to engage in direct combat on the ground."
Although not assigned to ground combat units, women fly helicopters, serve in bomb-disposal squads, drive trucks, handle checkpoints, and treat the wounded on battlefields -- leaving them open to lethal fire.
"We're definitely more exposed," said Iraq veteran Brenda Coston, 52, of Elizabethville, Pa., a retired first sergeant in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard. "There are no safe areas.
"But the way I look at it, I knew what I was putting my hand up for. You don't like it [combat], but it's part of life, part of the military."
Maj. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Army National Guard pilot, knew she was taking a chance as she flew her Black Hawk helicopter north of Baghdad in November 2004. Duckworth lost both legs when a rocket-propelled grenade struck the cockpit. She helped land the aircraft, passed out, and woke up 10 days later at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.
Today, the 38-year-old veteran is running for the U.S. House and hopes to shape decisions about deployments. "When it comes to making decisions about sending our young people to war," the Democrat said, "we need strong voices in Congress who understand the consequences of those decisions."
For Army Pfc. Linda Romano of Pine Hill, the consequences of going to war included mortar attacks on her base camp near Tallil.
"I remember working in the technical operating center and heard pretty big thumps outside," said Romano, 28, a member of the 119th Corps Support Battalion. "We have a lot of bunkers, and everybody is commanded to get into them. It's reality over there."
She said women were doing many jobs once done solely by men -- and facing the same risks. "If you're a truck driver and you're on the road, you're going to be susceptible to higher levels of risk," said Romano, who rode along in a couple of convoys. "But it's acceptable. I don't see why a woman can't do it."
Army Maj. Laura Ann McHugh, 37, of Pine Grove, Pa., said her company of tractor trailers had come under attack several times as it moved supplies to U.S. bases in the country.
"I went out in convoys eight to 10 times," said McHugh, who was then a captain and commander of the 131st Transportation Company, headquartered in Williamstown, Pa. "We did two million miles; 95 percent of our missions were in Iraq from the Syria border to the Iranian border."
McHugh, whose husband is serving in Iraq, said women received the same training as men but did have physical limitations. "We are in a supporting role," said the major, who has an 11-year-old son and a 7-year-old daughter. "We're not supposed to be in the line of fire.
"I don't think females should be in direct combat. I wouldn't want it for myself, but I think women should be given the option... . I have no desire to go back" to Iraq.
First Sgt. Michael Vey, who served with Harvey in the New Jersey National Guard's 253d Transportation Company in Iraq, said most of the 27 women in his 160-member unit "did their jobs and were outstanding Soldiers." The 253d is headquartered in Cape May Court House, N.J.
"I think women have some physical limitations, but if they can drive a truck and fly a chopper, they can serve their country," said Vey, a veteran of the Vietnam and Gulf Wars and a sergeant with the Wildwood Crest (N.J.) Police Department. "My 27 did, and we had only one wounded. God smiles on the 253d."
Women make up about 15 percent of the active-duty force, 12 percent of the Guard and reserves, and 8 percent to 10 percent of the force in Iraq, Defense Department officials said.
The number of women in the military has increased and their role has expanded as the nature of war changed, said Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, a Pentagon spokeswoman.
"You can see this is a different war. The methods and tactics are different," she said. "And we haven't seen the Guard and Reserve mobilized to this extent since World War II."
Many of the women joined the Guard and reserves for educational and training benefits and were called up for duty in Iraq, leaving children and husbands behind.
"The role of women in the military has changed dramatically in the 21st century," said U.S. Rep. James Saxton (R., N.J.). "Women in uniform serve all over the world in harm's way in the global war on terrorism. They have become a critical part of our professional military."
Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Wilma Vaught, president of the Women in Military Service for America Memorial Foundation and a Vietnam veteran, said women should have the option of a military career.
"I think if you're a citizen, you are a full 100 percent citizen," she said. Women "should have the opportunity to choose what they would like to do. If they choose military service, they have to take what comes with it, and that may be serving in harm's way."
Added Lugo-Martinez: "It's honor, duty, loyalty and country. I don't think women are limited in the roles they can perform in the service."
American Female Casualties of Wars
World War I: At least 359 servicewomen died, mostly from influenza and vehicle and aircraft accidents.
World War II: 543 died, mostly from vehicle and aircraft accidents. Sixteen Army nurses died from enemy fire.
Korean War: 17 died, mostly from vehicle or aircraft accidents.
Vietnam War: 8 died, one from hostile fire, one suicide, and the rest from vehicle and aircraft accidents.
Gulf War (Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm): 16 died, mostly from vehicle and aircraft accidents and hostile fire.
Iraq war: 52 have died from hostile fire, and 378 have been wounded in action.
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