Integrated Combat: Female Soldiers

 Revised: May 27, 2008

With technological advances changing the face of modern warfare, there is no longer a defined front line.

When U. S. troops were attacked while still at the port in Dhahran, female soldiers were among the casualties.  It should be noted that a Signal Battalion's mission tasks its support elements to be spread out across a theater of operations from the front lines to the rear echelons.  This is significant  because of the fact that Signal MOS's allow female soldiers to learn and train for a wartime environment.

During Operation Desert Shield, as the U. S. press debated if females had a place in combat zones, the 143rd Signal Battalion females deployed to Saudi Arabia side by side with their male counterparts.

Women in yesterday's Signal Corps

by Carol Stokes, Army Communicator

Women's jobs, roles

by Carol Stokes, Army Communicator

WAAC "One-shot" McGraw was Army's first woman photographer

by Ted Wise, Army Communicator

WAC recalls Pacific theater service

by Ashley Nix, Army Communicator

Women Veterans and VA Benefits-Link to VFW Magazine story:

With women making up an increasing share of all veterans, VA has had to adapt to some of their needs by instituting special programs. By Shannon Watson

Female general makes history

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, July 27, 2001) -- Army Reserve Brig. Gen. Coral Wong Pietsch achieved two notable firsts with her promotion July 20 at the Pentagon.  by Lt. Col. Randy Pullen

See a US Army video interview with PFC Rosemary Snider [Ortíz], filmed in Kuwait, in 1991, then come back here for the rest.

[Webmaster-If you have any information regarding females in the 143rd any era or females in the Signal Corps in general, please contact us via the site FEEDBACK form .]

A great image of a female signal soldier.

Have any of you read this book?

Love My Rifle More than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army

I read it, thought it reminded me of our unit and some of the stupid things that went on during the war.

If you've read it, what'd you think?

Dan

Love My Rifle More than You

Young and Female in the U.S. Army

Kayla Williams With Michael E. Staub

http://www.wwnorton.com/catalog/fall05/006098.htm

A brutal and honest account of being a woman among men in the United States Army.

 

SMART, ATTRACTIVE, and full of insight, Kayla Williams was part of the 15 percent of the United States Army that is female. She is also a great storyteller with a voice that leaps off the page—fiercely funny, tough, vulnerable, and humane. She tells of why she enlisted and how she came to be assigned to learn Arabic; of her fractured relationship with a Palestinian boyfriend and later her failed marriage to a civilian; of her experience watching 9/11 unfold on Arabic television and the drunken parties at her army base in the weeks leading up to her deployment to Iraq.

 

While deployed, Williams is immersed in bravery and bigotry, strength and fear, sexism and loyalty. She witnesses death up close and sees soldiers cross the line between interrogation and torture. She befriends locals but finds herself pointing her weapon at an Iraqi child. An unsparing self-portrait of a rebellious patriot, Williams's story offers an unprecedented and no-holds-barred young woman's perspective into the U.S. Army.

 

KAYLA WILLIAMS was formerly a sergeant in a military intelligence company of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). She lives in the Washington, DC, area.

 

September 2005 / hardcover / ISBN 0-393-06098-5 / 8 pages of photographs / 288 pages / MEMOIR

*MacNelly [Chicago Trib] 1990 Editorial Cartoon: Mid-east meets Midwest.