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| http://joshritter.com/pics/ |
“I got a girl in the war man, I wonder what it is we done…” Singer-songwriter Josh Ritter’s lyrics pierce my heart. How far we’ve come and yet how far we have not come. Women were fighting for equality in the workforce when my generation was cannon fodder-age. Now women are fighting alongside their brethren in Iraq and Afghanistan.
From the 60’s through the 80’s, women banged on doors and bumped their heads on ceilings to prove that we are capable of achieving anything a man can achieve. Fortified by civil rights legislation of 1964, women thrust themselves into work environments that were traditionally male domains. The US government led the new paradigm of equal opportunity employment. During the 60’s and 70’s over a third of the government’s work force consisted of uniformed armed services, thus the armed services became a litmus test for equal opportunity employment.
American women have always supported the military, but until the civil rights act, they stayed mostly in support duties behind the lines. During nearly 20 years of conflict, seven women died on the fields of Vietnam. In 1976, women were finally allowed to enter military service academies, thereby gaining access to the higher paid officer’s ranks.
Yea, baby, we’ve come a long way. Fourteen years later, nearly 41,000 women served in the Persian Gulf theater. During that six-month conflict, 13 women were killed and two were taken as prisoners-of-war. Ten percent of the forces serving in our current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are women. Death and injury statistics are available, but deeply buried in layers and layers of obfuscation.
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| http://www.wramc.amedd.army.mil/ |
Looking around the workforce today, I smile and recognize that women have made giant strides. The glass ceiling still exists, but the ceiling is higher than it was and it no longer blankets the entire workforce. However, we’ve all paid an enormous price for equality. Choice got lost as our economy absorbed all that nubile energy. Today, women —mothers— aren’t just welcome to work outside the home, it is expected of them and in most cases it is necessary to provide the family lifestyle we’ve come to expect. Now, mothers are super women who juggle the SUV, the smart phone, the play dates, power lunches, grocery carts, and after school activities alongside 40 – 50 hour work weeks.
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Lt. Dawn Halfaker
Tim Dillon, USA Today
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Resources: http://www1.va.gov/womenvet/
http://www.joshritter.com/
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-04-28-female-amputees-combat_x.htm
Rangewriter 
Very nice post, Linda. Yes, we send women off to war but we still have men in the military who treat them as second class citizens. And people defend the horrific behavior of commanders and other military leaders because, after all, THEY'RE patriots.
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Snoringdogstudio presents an interesting and valid point. There is this part of military service that caters to disenfranchised people. True of women today, various ethnic groups, Native Americans during WW2. We welcome these groups of people as potential cannon fodder, but respect doesn't necessarily accompany that welcome. Anyone else have some interesting thoughts on this. I think it could make for great discussion.
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I was raised military as a child (Marines), then went and lived in a commune-type environment for the next twenty years as an adult. Needless to say it's been a wrestling match, trying to figure out how to synthesize two such polarized sets of values. :-)One thing I'll say is that there's a huge contradiction that exists for those in the military. The training tends to engender a deep and very real self respect that exists independently of how they're treated either inside or outside the military. It's really extraordinary and something that would be valuable for anyone to have. However, there's also the reality that they ARE cannon fodder and they understand that. Which can be okay, as long as they're cannon fodder for a genuinely higher purpose. They accept that and I agree. I'd be okay with giving my life for a cause that I really, truly believed in, too. But because of the obedience training involved, there's really no way for active military personnel to accurately guage whether the purpose of the fight they're engaged in is higher or not.I think it's really the job of the rest of us to hold our civilian leaders to the highest possible standards, to make sure that the lives and futures of these young people are not wasted on stupid, greedy, corrupt wars. In my mind, war should be the absolute LAST option. After every other option has been exhausted. America doesn't tend to it that way however. We love waging war. We're very ferocious people.As far as how women and other disenfranchised groups are treated within the military itself, it's all over the map. There are definitely some real assholes but there are also a lot of great men and women. The military has been a very male entity for…well…ever, but it's evolving. Slowly. There was a time when I thought about joining and I think it would have been a good experience if I had. Having said all that, if I was advising a young Dia today? I'd definitely tell her don't do it. I'm appalled at the way our men and women in uniform are being used and then cast aside today. I think a special war tax should be levied and every single person in this country should pony up and pay for what we've made these people go through. I don't see it as only "the military" who's doing this. I think we're ALL responsible for it.My two cents worth…whew!Dia
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Dia, thanks, as always, for your carefully thought out and articulated comments. I agree that our country seems to fall into war at the drop of a…well…gun. I think the reasons for this are, as usual, many and complex. The most glaring reason is economic. While dedicated young Americans lose life and limb, huge industries thrive on suppling war hardware. Particularly in our upside down economy, the idea of pulling the plug on government military contracts would shake things as drastically as the AIG affair. I guess there's another whole blog topic right there.I like your idea of a war tax. Shiver my timbers…a tax, you say? Oh no, not another tax! But yes. It should be a war tax and it should be defined as such so everyone can see and feel it. Would that, I wonder, get people talking about the real issues at hand? Or would we just have more wild hyperbole and rhetoric? Given the response to "health care reform," I'm not too confident.
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