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The story of women at war – as told by women

Women troops have served in unprecedented roles in Iraq and Afghanistan – and, now that they’re coming home, are telling their stories.

That may not be obvious to all (see this review and this op-ed), but there’s an increasingly impressive body of work that pays high honor to the many female officers and enlisted troops from all branches of service and a wide variety of backgrounds who have served.

Want to learn more? Here’s a short list to get you started:
Hesitation Kills by Jane Blair details her experience as a female marine officer in Iraq.
Heidi Kraft tells the lessons she learned as a Naval officer working in a combat hospital in Rule Number Two.
I’m Still Standing by former soldier Shoshana Johnson tells the story of her experience as the first African-American female prisoner of war.
Former Air Force Col Kim Olson tells her story of working on the reconstruction in Iraq and Back.
Shade It Black, by Jess Goodell, tells her story of serving in a Marine Mortuary Affairs unit in Iraq – and the psychological wounds that followed.
Miyoko Hikiji details her service as a woman soldier in Iraq in All I Could Be.
Blogs by military women like GI Kate (who has also written for VA and NYT) and those posting at Captain Molly capture a wide range of experiences.
Michelle Wilmot not only blogs about her experience as a woman of color in the military, she also wrote the novel Quixote in Ramadi and creates visual art.
Women writers are well represented at O-Dark-Thirty, in both its online and print collections. Ron Capps, director of the Veterans Writing Project, tells me that about 40% [...]

By |April 4th, 2014|Uncategorized|7 Comments|
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Dear Military Spouses: I’m Sorry

I have a confession to make: I was a terrible Army wife, an awful military spouse.
My entry into that group came late and from what seemed like an odd direction. I enlisted in the Army at 22 and deployed to Iraq a few years later. When I came home after a year in a combat zone, and saw bumper stickers in the commissary parking lot that read “Army Wife: Toughest Job in the Army,” accompanied by a drawing of a rose, I rolled my eyes. “No one is shooting at you,” I would mutter under my breath. “No one is dropping mortars on you. It can’t be that bad.” Ah, hubris. A single woman with no kids – how little I knew.
Within a year, I was married to another servicemember, a soldier who had sustained a penetrating traumatic brain injury (TBI) in Iraq and subsequently developed post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). When my five years in the Army was up, I got out and joined him at Walter Reed Army Medical Center to help him on his road to recovery. The transition from soldier to spouse, sergeant to civilian, team leader to caregiver was a difficult one for me. The first few months, every time I had to show my new salmon-pink dependent ID card to get into the commissary, I blurted out, “I was in the Army, too!” to the befuddled employees who couldn’t have cared less. I missed doing PT, missed the comforting uniformity – and cargo pockets – of my uniform, missed the camaraderie of working with troops I’d been to combat with. In a new city at a new installation, I felt isolated and alone.
If there were [...]

By |February 25th, 2014|Uncategorized|13 Comments|
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Plenty of Time When We Get Home playlist

When I was speaking at a university a few years ago, a student who DJ’d at the local college radio station and had read my book asked me to come on as a guest. He had me put together a list of music I listened to in Iraq, and then interviewed me between songs. It was a really cool experience for me to revisit my deployment through music – and, I think, a fun learning experience for him; it was obviously his first time interviewing someone live.

So I put together a couple of playlists,* one on my time in Iraq and for my relationship with Brian. You can listen on Spotify, search for me as Kayla M. Williams and find the Plenty of Time When We Get Home playlist, or piece it together yourself from the below. This is the music that goes with that book – the relationship I have with Brian, the challenges of homecoming, and through to today. Enjoy!

1. “I Put a Spell on You,” Natacha Atlas, Ayeshteni – I like Arabic music, and think Natacha Atlas does a cool modern / fusion version. This cover of a traditional song done with a twist is fun, and I connected with the slightly-crazy feel of the lyrics.

2. “Dance Along the Edge,” Concrete Blonde, Concrete Blonde – when Brian was having a Code Black incident, sometimes the only way he would communicate with me was by sending obscure song lyrics. I responded with lyrics from this song. And “Joey.” And “Caroline.” Yeah, I listened to a lot of Concrete Blonde when things were rough – it seemed to capture bad relationships well.

3. “My Own Worst Enemy,” Lit, A Place in [...]

By |February 10th, 2014|Uncategorized|0 Comments|
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Book Tour Details

Per request, here are the details of upcoming speaking engagements (links when available):

Tuesday, February 11th, 2014, 7:00 pm, Politics & Prose, Washington, DC

Wednesday, February 12th, 2014, 7:00PM, Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Cincinnati, Ohio

Thursday, February 13th, 2014, 7:00PM, Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Lexington, Kentucky

Monday, February 17th, 2014, 4:30PM, Country Bookshop, 140 NW Broad Street, Southern Pines, North Carolina

Tuesday, February 18th, 2014, 7:15PM, Georgia Center for the Book at DeKalb Public Library, Atlanta, Georgia

Wednesday, February 19th, 2014, 7:00PM, Book People, Austin, Texas

Thursday, February 20th, 2014, 6:30PM, World Affairs Council, Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas (note: requires pre-registration)

Friday, March 14th, 2014, 7:00PM, New York Military Affairs Symposium, New York, New York

By |January 30th, 2014|Uncategorized|0 Comments|
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Love My Rifle playlist

When I was speaking at a university a few years ago, a student who DJ’d at the local college radio station and had read my book asked me to come on as a guest. He had me put together a list of music I listened to in Iraq, and then interviewed me between songs. It was a really cool experience for me to revisit my deployment through music – and, I think, a fun learning experience for him; it was obviously his first time interviewing someone live.

So I put together a playlist – you can listen to it on Spotify, search for me as Kayla M. Williams and find the Love My Rifle More than You playlist, or piece it together yourself from the below. This isn’t limited to my time in Iraq, but is evocative of both my deployment and homecoming. Hope you enjoy it!

1. “Mirror Song,” Live, Mental Jewelry – I started listening to Live in high school and have fond memories of seeing them play. For some reason, the lyrics came into my mind often in Iraq, always making me feel a little melancholy.

2. “Sorrow,” Bad Religion, The Process of Belief – this album came out while I was at DLI, and I listened to it throughout the summer of 2002 while I was at AIT in Texas. Once we got to Iraq, this song in particular made me ache.

3. “Story of My Life,” Social Distortion, Social Distortion – This is one of my favorite albums. Went to see them play in Dallas the summer of 2002 – and spent the whole time feeling a little alienated from civilians. As for this particular song, I left my hometown when [...]

By |January 29th, 2014|Uncategorized|0 Comments|
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Better Old than Female?

“Women are too weak to be in the infantry.” That’s one of the main arguments I hear against integrating women into ground combat jobs and units.

Let’s leave aside for a moment the fairly obvious point that four-time World Ironman Champion Chrissie Wellington is very obviously physically more of a badass than, say Jack Black. Those are somewhat extreme examples, but the point more generally is that on the bell curve of physical abilities, there’s a great deal of overlap, and some women clearly can do what some men definitely can not.

Instead, I want to look at current Army PT test standards for serving Soldiers. I want to state upfront that I do not think the PT test is a valid measurement of overall fitness, much less of combat abilities. But it contains available, current, published standards on push-ups, sit-ups, and running that we can look at.

The requirements to get a maximum score on push-ups and sit-ups are shaped somewhat like an inverted V (with a really long tail), getting harder at age 22 and hardest in the 27-31 year old age group before progressively falling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What it takes to simply pass, however, gets steadily easier with each age group.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The run times required to max (attain the maximum score) stay steady in the first age group and then fall a little more slowly at first, then much more rapidly; the scores required to pass fall more quickly.*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you assume everyone joins at 18 and then participates in a regular exercise routine, the inverted V for push-ups and sit-ups makes some sense: people should become fitter with practice, but beyond a certain point the ravages of age / military service could overcome effort. But look again at [...]

By |December 19th, 2013|Uncategorized|0 Comments|
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“You’re Really Pretty for Being in the Army”

“This is great – you can help counteract the stereotype that only big bull dykes join the Army just by being there,” the recruiter said (yes, really).

That was one of my first introductions to how much my appearance would constantly be noticed – and openly discussed by others – as a female soldier. I had signed up to do Hometown Recruiting (between initial entry training and going to your first permanent duty station, you can spend a week helping local recruiters out for a few hours every day without getting charged leave, while still having your evenings free). Instead of going back to my hometown, I’d decided to visit a friend in New York City, and the station I was assigned to apparently thought my key asset was not looking the way they apparently assumed lesbians look.

Later in my military career, people regularly told me, “You’re really pretty for being in the Army.” This baffling pseudo-compliment made me uncomfortable, and I developed a joking stock response: “What, all the pretty girls join the Air Force?” … while at the same time wondering if what they meant was that as civilians go, I’m ugly. It was further confirmation that at least initially, my appearance was a key part of how people would form opinions of me as a soldier.
 *
Recently, an internal email from the female officer* heading an Army study on how to integrate women into previously closed ground combat jobs and units to the public affairs office was leaked and much of it published by Politico. In it, she urged that public affairs personnel choose photos of “average looking women” to illustrate generic stories. I’m not thrilled with all her word choices, [...]

By |December 2nd, 2013|Uncategorized|0 Comments|
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Music, Fashion, and the Civil-Military Divide

My husband Brian and I were incredibly honored to be part of the Bob Woodruff Foundation’s 2013 Stand Up For Heroes fundraiser last night. The foundation has raised millions of dollars to support nonprofits that support wounded warriors and their families; this star-studded performance is their signature event. This year included performances by comedians Jon Stewart, Bill Cosby, Jim Gaffigan, Jerry Seinfeld and musicians Roger Waters and Bruce Springsteen.

The entire experience was a special and meaningful one. We got a private tour of the 9/11 Memorial with a group of other wounded warriors and their family members, which was particularly poignant for my husband: he lost two cousins in the attacks and was able to spend a solitary moment commemorating them at the panel on which their names are inscribed. There were receptions and dinners that gave us a chance to get to know other families like our own – including a vet who had the same neurosurgeon as my husband. I got “styled” and Brian got a fresh haircut. Wounded warriors and their family members were honored with great seats for the performance.

But amidst the flurry of activities, I also ended up pondering the much-touted civil-military divide – and the little ways we can chip away at it.

My aunts have told me that during WWII, they used eyeliner to make it appear they were wearing stockings – actual pantyhose were unavailable due to rationing of nylon because of the war effort. In previous conflicts, regular citizens supported the troops in various ways, from buying War Bonds to planting Victory Gardens and collecting peach pits for gas masks (seriously!). After 9/11, however, no shared national sacrifice was called for: the President urged us, instead, [...]

By |November 7th, 2013|Uncategorized|0 Comments|
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My Deployment Was Worse Than Yours: The Veteran-Veteran Divide

My social media feeds recently lit up with a Daily Mail article about an upcoming Glamour essay by a woman US Air Force officer talking about her challenges reintegrating post-deployment. I hesitated to comment without having read the essay itself – who knows what was taken out of context? But it’s now available online, and having read the source material, my feelings are still mixed.

First, the ugly:

As someone who spent the vast majority of my own deployment to Iraq outside the wire and ate only MREs for many months, I found it hard to empathize with her complaints about “drab meals of dry meat and soggy vegetables.” As a former enlisted Soldier, I was practically overpowered by the urge to make snarky comments about the soft life Air Force officers have (insert Chair Force joke of your choice). As a woman who experienced unwanted sexual contact and constant sexual harassment, it was eye-rollingly annoying to read about her “paranoia” based only on statistics and “vulgar talk.”

Now, my pushback against my own gut reactions and the voluminous vitriolic comments directed against Ms. Johnson online:

Who are we to judge?

The evidence shows that people with previous exposure to trauma are more likely to develop PTSD, and there may be a genetic component as well. I don’t know her background or DNA.

And I respect that Ms. Johnson acknowledges feeling that others are more justified in having problems. Given the stigma that still surrounds admitting any mental health conditions, I also admire her for publicly sharing her diagnosis of chronic adjustment disorder and for sharing that getting help improved her life.

Most of all, I just hate the feeling of oneupsmanship that pervades this conversation. The sneering online comments about [...]

By |October 11th, 2013|Uncategorized|0 Comments|
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Unintended Consequences of MST Prevention

“At this point, I will never be alone with a woman soldier.”

“I never touch women troops these days. I won’t pat one on the shoulder or even make uniform corrections.”

“I don’t joke around with women. I keep it strictly professional.”

A group of senior military men casually dropped these statements in front of me when we were discussing sexual assault in the military not too long ago. More recently, one of my friends got back from a trip overseas and told me, “When I was in Afghanistan with a bunch of Marines, they totally ostracized me. I was completely ignored and isolated.”

These admissions have started making me nervous about the unintended consequences of what I see as two fantastic developments: more attention being paid to sexual assault in the military and the announcement that the DoD ban on women being assigned to combat arms jobs and units has been lifted. Although in the long term I remain convinced that both of these shifts will lead not only to improved opportunities and environments for military women but also to a stronger and more effective military, in the short term fear and backlash may lead to a new set of problems. Many military men have expressed concerns about false accusations of sexual harassment and assault. Some small percentage of men may also be angry that women could soon be integrated into currently closed combat arms jobs and units, previously all-male havens.

As women are integrated into those currently closed combat arms jobs and units, this exclusionary behavior raises the extremely troubling possibility of a pattern of exclusion from mentoring and other relationships that are vital for both true unit cohesion and long-term individual success. Informal relationships – friendships, [...]

By |September 25th, 2013|Uncategorized|0 Comments|
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