second class citizens so it's no surprise we're

second class soldiers is it? not to me
Why Are Women Still Treated Like Second-Class Soldiers?
By Helen Benedict, The Nation

Editor's Note: This article is adapted from The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq (Beacon Press).

Army specialist Mickiela Montoya was standing silently in the back of a Manhattan classroom while a group of male Iraq war veterans spoke to a small audience about their experiences as soldiers. It was November 2006, and she had been back from Iraq for a year, but was still too insecure to speak out in public. Anyway, the room was full of men, and Montoya had learned that a lot of men aren't much interested in listening to military women.

"Nobody believes me when I say I'm a veteran," she said that day, tucking her long red hair behind her ears. "I was in Iraq getting bombed and shot at, but people won't even listen when I say I was at war. You know why? Because I'm a female."

Montoya, who grew up in a Mexican family in East Los Angeles, served in Iraq for eleven months, from 2005-2006, with the 642nd Division Aviation Support Battalion. She was only 19 back then, but by the time she turned 21 she was as bitter as any old veteran, not only because of the lack of recognition she was receiving as a combat vet but because of the way she had been treated as a soldier--by her comrades, the army and by the Department of Veterans Affairs........

this article restates what we already know

and what i've posted about a LOT. i will never stop posting about this subject though. women in the military being raped and/or brutalized (i will NOT stop posting about lavena johnson either. i won't stop posting about lavena johnson until the truth comes out. until her family gets the TRUTH AND PEACE. lavena johnson did NOT commit suicide, SHE WAS MURDERED AND THE MILITARY IS COVERING IT UP



Culture of Unpunished Sexual Assault in Military

by Dahr Jamail

MARFA, Texas - Sexual assault of women serving in the U.S. military, while brought to light in recent reports, has a long tradition in that institution.

Women in America were first allowed into the military during the Revolutionary War in 1775, and their travails are as old.

Maricela Guzman served in the Navy from 1998 to 2002 as a computer technician on the island of Diego Garcia, and later in Naples, Italy. She was raped while in boot camp, but was too scared to talk about the assault for the rest of her time in the military.

In her own words she, "survived by becoming a workaholic. Fortunately or unfortunately the military took advantage of this, and I was much awarded as a soldier for my work ethic."

Guzman decided to dissociate from the military on witnessing the way it treated the native population in Diego Garcia. Post discharge, her life became unmanageable. The effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from her rape had taken a heavy toll.

After undergoing a divorce, a failed suicide attempt and homelessness, she moved in with her parents. A chance encounter with a female veteran at a political event in Los Angeles prompted her to contact the veteran's administration (VA) for help. She began seeing a therapist there who diagnosed her with PTSD from her rape.

She told IPS that the VA denied her claim nevertheless, "Because they said I couldn't prove it ... since I had not brought it up when it happened and also because I had not shown any deviant behaviour while in the service. I was outraged and felt compelled to talk about what happened."..............

i'm guessing this is a joke posting

i googled u of cal at san fran u.s. marines and the link below is the ONLY link that comes up (except for the OTHER kind of marine, the snail, the fish, etc)

soooooooooooooooooooooooooo i'm not quite buying this. of course the WOMEN in the story are the ones that are promiscuous and disease ridden and SLUTS. hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm well after all they ARE ONLY WOMEN

so even in humor women are second class citizens - where the focus is ONLY BETWEEN THEIR LEGS

U.S. Marine Corps an Orgy Palace of Stoned, Drunk, Horny Teens, New UCSF Study Suggests
By Matt Smith

While doomsayers bemoan America's ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, researchers at the University of California at San Francisco Medical Center may have turned up a brilliant silver lining.

Thanks to desperate recruiting methods required to staff those wars, the U.S. Marines may be turning military service into a male sexual fantasy land, where recruits are paid actual money to cohabitate with drunk, stoned, horny teenage girls.

UCSF scientists tested and surveyed 2,157 female U.S. Marine recruits -- out of 2,288 possible respondents -- with an average age of 19. Researchers found that the young women were more than twice as likely as non-military young women to be infected with venereal diseases. And the recruits were prone to engage in behaviors likely to get them sick again.
......................

i refuse to believe this

i absolutely believe when sarevil was mayor of wasilla, women had to pay for their rape kits. THAT i believe

i cannot believe or i will NOT believe the military charges for them (off base BUT that should not matter)

please, i beg you, tell me someone got their information wrong (although i know they didn't)

Raped in the Military? You'll Have to Pay for Your Own Forensic Exam Kit
By Penny Coleman, AlterNet.

Sarah Palin's decision not to pay for rape kits when she was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, was an issue in the campaign for the White House. But allow me to introduce the large pink elephant that has been sitting quietly in the corner of the room: TRICARE, the Pentagon's Military Health System that covers active duty members, doesn't pay for off-base rape kits, either.

Spec. Patricia McCann, who served in Iraq with the Illinois Army National Guard from 2003 to 2004, raised the issue at the Winter Soldier Investigation in March. McCann read a memo issued to all MEDCOM commanders clarifying that "SAD kits" -- which are forensic rape kits -- "are not included in TRICARE coverage." *

That would put Alaska and the military in a very special category.

Women in the military are twice as likely to be raped as their civilian counterparts. In fact, "women serving in the U.S. military today are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq," Congresswoman Jane Harman, D-Calif., told the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs in May.

Harman said, "The scope of the problem was brought into acute focus for me during a visit to the West Los Angeles VA Health Center where I met female veterans and their doctors. My jaw dropped when the doctors told me that 41 percent of the female veterans seen there say they were victims of sexual assault while serving in the military, and 29 percent said they were raped during their military service."

In July, a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee hearing subpoenaed Kaye Whitley, director of the Pentagon's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office (SAPRO), to explain what the department is doing to stop the escalating sexual violence in the military. Her boss, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, ordered her not to appear..................

well now the msm jumped on the bandwagon

perhaps NOW something can and will be done? perhaps one or two of those meetings where people testify before congress will happen. then another bunch of people will talk about it and meet and finally after months or years decide women getting harassed and assaulted in the military (or anywhere) is not a GOOD thing. of course almost nothing will be done (as usual). seems like this has been documented FOR YEARS. yet, it's not only still going on, it's being swept under the rug.
(take lavena johnson for example. her parents were told she committed suicide. while even a kindergartner could determine she was sexually assaulted and then murdered. what an insult to not only the parents of a war hero BUT THE WAR HERO HERSELF)

from 2004 One Hundred Twelve Women Assaulted in Iraq, Afghanistan

from 2006

Military Hides Cause of Women Soldiers' Deaths

i have NO idea when this article came out Women assaulted in military suffer depression, alcohol problems

from 2007

The private war of women soldier

from 2003 Sexual Assault Pervasive in Military, Experts Say

from august 2008

Sexual Assault in the Military: A DoD Cover-Up?

from 2003 Factors Associated With Women’s Risk of
Rape in the Military Environment

from 2007

Report: Sexual assault of women soldiers on rise in US military

from 2005

Violence Against Women in the Military

from 2007 Scandal Bigger than Walter Reed
The Rape, Assault and Harassment of Women in the Military
from july 2008

Women in Military Struggle to Overcome Sexual Assault

from 2007

The private war of women soldiers

from 2006 Military recruiters sexually assaulting young women

i'll stop now, but i could post links ALL day. anyone notice a pattern?

does anyone know why new articles (like the following) keep appearing daily? SHOULDN'T SOMETHING HAVE BEEN DONE ALREADY? SHOULDN'T IT?

and from yesterday:

Alarming Sex Assault Rate Found Among Vets

CBS Evening News: Records Show 1 In 7 Female Iraq And Afghanistan Veterans Treated By The VA Suffered Sexual Trauma

(CBS) For a soldier, the wounds of war can be felt long after a tour of duty ends, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports, and not all of them are inflicted by the enemy. Tuesday, researchers reported that an alarming number of female soldiers have sought treatment for sexual assault committed by fellow soldiers.

A Veterans Administration study found that one in seven female veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan seeking medical care from the VA suffered sexual trauma - everything from harassment to rape.

Medical records of 125,000 war veterans, both men and women, showed 15 percent reported sexual trauma. That works out to nearly 2,600 veterans, almost all women.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg, since the study covered only a fraction of the 870,000 veterans who have fought - and none still on active duty.

"I do feel that it is much higher than that, and if they could get the records of all the women that have returned that had been sexually assaulted, those afraid to come in, they would find that it's a lot higher," said Wanda Story.

Story, who was raped twice during her military service 20 years ago, now heads the United Female Veterans of America. ................

more on women in the millitary

domestic abuse, violence, misogyny, rape, MURDER.

and please please please i implore you - write your senators and congress people about lavena johnson. she was murdered in iraq (most likely by a contractor). yet the military claims she committed suicide. just google her name and read about what was done to her. you will not only be horrifed at that BUT the lies her parents were told (her father is a doctor for goddess' sake) PLEASE

Military Town Newspaper Challenges US Military on Murder of Military Women

by: Ann Wright, t r u t h o u t | Report
"In a way, it's surprising that there aren't more bodies piling up at military bases all over this nation" - The Fayetteville Observer

The October 14, 2008 editorial in the Fayetteville, NC Observer "Our View: Military Domestic Violence Needs More Aggressive Prevention," focused on the murder of four military women in North Carolina and contained a startling comment: "In a way, it's surprising that there aren't more bodies piling up at military bases all over this nation." The Observer is the newspaper that serves Fort Bragg, one of the military's largest bases.

The editorial was in response to the vigil held on October 8 at the gates of Fort Bragg to commemorate the murder of four US military women in North Carolina in the past nine months, and to call for action to prevent more murders by members of the US military.

In a nine-month period from December 2007 to September 2008, four US military women were killed by military men near the Army's Fort Bragg and the Marine Corps's Camp Lejeune, two military mega-bases in North Carolina.........

lest you think the article i am going to link to

was written by some commie upstart military hating, man hating babe who doesn't know shite about the military life OR anything else, let me tell you right now, that is NOT the case here:

...........Ann Wright is a retired Army Reserve colonel and a 29-year veteran of the Army and Army Reserves. She was a diplomat in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. She resigned from the Department of State on March 19, 2003, in opposition to the Iraq war. She has written several articles on violence against women in the military, including "Sexual Assault in the Military: A DoD Cover-Up?", "U.S. Military Keeping Secrets About Female Soldiers' 'Suicides'?" and "Is There an Army Cover Up of Rape and Murder of Women Soldiers?". She is also the co-author of the book, "Dissent: Voices of Conscience."..............

i always MUST mention lavena johnson (I WILL ALWAYS MENTION LAVENA JOHNSON UNTIL THE ARMY ADMITS SHE WAS MURDERED AND HER MURDERED IS FOUND AND CONVICTED) when stories of women in the service come up. ann wright's article (below the video) is eye opening. nothing we don't already know but nothing anyone is doing anything about either.

our military women (and men) deserve honor. they and their families do not deserve the bullshite they are getting

"My Daughter's Dream Became a Nightmare": The Murder of Military Women Continues

by: Ann Wright, t r u t h o u t | Perspective
"My daughter's dream became a nightmare," sadly said Gloria Barrios, seven months after her daughter, US Air Force Senior Airman Blanca Luna, was murdered on Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas.

On March 7, 2008, Senior Airman Luna, 27, was found dead in her room at the Sheppard Air Force Base Inn, an on-base lodging facility. She had been stabbed in the back of the neck with a short knife. Luna, an Air Force Reservist with four years of prior military service in the Marine Corps including a tour in Japan, was killed three days before she was to graduate from an Air Conditioning, Ventilation and Heating training course.

When she was notified of her daughter's death, she was handed a letter from Major General K.C. McClain, commander of the Air Force Personnel Center, which stated that her daughter "was found dead on 7 March 2008 at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas, as the result of an apparent homicide." When her body was returned to her family for burial, Barrios and other family members saw bruises on Blanca's face and wounds on her fingers as if she were defending herself. One of the investigators later told Mrs. Barrios that Blanca had been killed in an "assassin-like" manner. Friends say that she told them some in her unit "had given her problems."............

i don't know

this article sort of says the military is only doing something because there are a lot of women in the service. is that true or is it cnn's slant? i personally don't think the military is doing ENOUGH. not only for women but for veterans AND active troops alike. equipment, treatment for troops returning from (unjust, immoral and illegal) war zones (well ok, ANY veteran) and of course the protection of women (not even mentioning the don't ask don't tell bullshite. a person who wants to serve and is CAPABLE of serving shouldn't be judged on their sexuality)

Sexually assaulted female troops struggle to recover

YORK, Pennsylvania (AP) -- It took Diane Pickel Plappert six months to tell a counselor that she had been raped while on duty in Iraq. While time passed, the former Navy nurse disconnected from her children, and her life slowly unraveled.

Carolyn Schapper says she was harassed by a fellow Army National Guard soldier in Iraq to the extent that she began changing clothes in the shower for fear he'd barge into her room unannounced, as he had on several occasions.

Even as women distinguish themselves in battle alongside men, they're fighting off sexual assault and harassment. It's not a new consequence of war.

But the large number of women serving today in Iraq and Afghanistan is forcing the military and Department of Veterans Affairs to more aggressively address it.

The data -- incomplete and not up-to-date -- offer no proof that women in the war zones are more vulnerable to sexual assault than other female service members or American women in general. But in an era when the military relies on women for invaluable and difficult front-line duties, the threat to their morale, performance and long-term well-being is starkly clear.......

women:

you can't live with 'em, you can't (obviously) live without 'em (if you can't tell that's sarcasm, just click that little "X" in the upper right hand corner of your screen right now





women can and should do what men can (and should) do - in the armed services that is. here is a stunning example of the bravery of an 18 YEAR OLD WOMAN
they ended up pulling pfc brown out of afghanistan JUST BECAUSE SHE DOESN'T HAVE A PENIS. well i'm glad she's out, but i think if women want to join combat regiments they sure as hell should be allowed to do so.


Woman Gains Silver Star -- And Removal From Combat
Case Shows Contradictions of Army Rules



By Ann Scott Tyson Washington Post Staff Writer


KHOST, Afghanistan -- Pfc. Monica Brown cracked open the door of her Humvee outside a remote village in eastern Afghanistan to the pop of bullets shot by Taliban fighters. But instead of taking cover, the 18-year-old medic grabbed her bag and ran through gunfire toward fellow soldiers in a crippled and burning vehicle. .........





,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, She is the second woman since World War II to receive the nation's third-highest combat medal.
Within a few days of her heroic acts, however, the Army pulled Brown out of the remote camp in Paktika province where she was serving with a cavalry unit -- because, her platoon commander said, Army restrictions on women in combat barred her from such missions.
"We weren't supposed to take her out" on missions "but we had to because there was no other medic," said Lt. Martin Robbins, a platoon leader with Charlie Troop, 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, whose men Brown saved. "By regulations you're not supposed to," he said, but Brown "was one of the guys, mixing it up, clearing rooms, doing everything that anybody else was doing." ...............





Army Spec. Monica Brown's case shows that the need for women in combat roles is at odds with Army rules intended to bar them. Photo Credit: Photo: Ann Scott Tyson/Post Photo

these are startling figures

they are probably UNDER reported too - as in civilian life. what is the answer? kick women out of the military some would say. i would say, PUNISH THE RAPISTS - just like in civilian life. women are NOT objects. no is no here there and everywhere. no is no to your next door neighber, to your fellow soldiers AND to your commanding officer or your doctor.

let's let congress continue to investigate steroids in mlb and ignore rape in the military.

Rapists in the ranks
Sexual assaults are frequent, and frequently ignored, in the armed services
By Jane Harman
The stories are shocking in their simplicity and brutality: A female military recruit is pinned down at knifepoint and raped repeatedly in her own barracks. Her attackers hid their faces but she identified them by their uniforms; they were her fellow soldiers. During a routine gynecological exam, a female soldier is attacked and raped by her military physician. Yet another young soldier, still adapting to life in a war zone, is raped by her commanding officer. Afraid for her standing in her unit, she feels she has nowhere to turn.These are true stories, and, sadly, not isolated incidents. Women serving in the U.S. military are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq. The scope of the problem was brought into acute focus for me during a visit to the West Los Angeles VA Healthcare Center, where I met with female veterans and their doctors. My jaw dropped when the doctors told me that 41% of female veterans seen at the clinic say they were victims of sexual assault while in the military, and 29% report being raped during their military service. They spoke of their continued terror, feelings of helplessness and the downward spirals many of their lives have since taken.Numbers reported by the Department of Defense show a sickening pattern. In 2006, 2,947 sexual assaults were reported -- 73% more than in 2004. The DOD's newest report, released this month, indicates that 2,688 reports were made in 2007, but a recent shift from calendar-year reporting to fiscal-year reporting makes comparisons with data from previous years much more difficult. ..........

yesterday while driving home from work

i heard some woman (wwuh the university of hartford radio station i think it was naomi wolf but i cannot be sure Does Susan Faludi's Terror Dream Oversimplify Post-9/11 America?) talking about jessica lynch. the REAL story of ms lynch and what and how the media portrayed her. most of what the speaker was saying was true. however, i did feel uneasy because i felt the speaker was USING ms lynch just like the government and msm used her.

i coincidentially came across this article and wanted to post the link
Former POW Jessica Lynch Recalls Her Captivity in Iraq
Lynch, Shoshana Johnson, and Patrick Miller talk to U.S. News about moving on
By Anna Mulrine
In the popular Bertolt Brecht play that bears its lead character's name, Galileo recants his beliefs under threat of Vatican torture. That prompts a compatriot to note, "Unhappy is a land that breeds no heroes." No, Galileo replies: Unhappy is the land that needs heroes. Five years ago, America needed heroes. Just three days into a polarizing war with Iraq, the 507th Maintenance Company, the last in a column of 600 vehicles making its way toward Baghdad, got mired in sand with jammed weapons. Over a period of 60 to 70 hours with little rest and limited communications, the company, composed in part of welders, mechanics, and cooks, was isolated and stretched to its limit. Then it got lost. As the 507th soldiers, members of a Patriot missile support group, drove through the city of Nasiriyah—the result of a navigational error—Iraqi residents appeared more stunned than hostile. When the unit made a U-turn and passed through the town again in an effort to rejoin its convoy, it ran headlong into what the U.S. Army's official report of the day describes as a "torrent of fire." Of the 33 soldiers from the 507th who were involved in the attack, 11 were killed, nine were wounded, and seven were taken captive.
The Army's official report called the event a tragedy, one that spurred early criticism among military officials that the war plan had considerably underestimated troop requirements, leaving supply lines overextended and vulnerable to attack. It was the first indication that this would not be a telegenic, first Gulf War kind of fight..........

sara corbett

NEW UPDATE: MARCH 26, 2007 AT 6:37 AM

i just came across this War story told by former sailor disputed in the navy news.

i felt it was important i linked to this story as well

Deployment to Iraq not in personnel record; paper issues correction
By Robert Hodierne - Staff writerPosted : Sunday Mar 25, 2007 12:34:28 EDT

The March 18 Sunday New York Times Magazine cover story was a gripping account of the emotional problems some female veterans suffer as results of their war experiences, sexual assaults or both.
One of the women featured in the story was a former builder constructionman Amorita Randall, 27, who served six years as a Seabee. Randall told the Times that while in the Navy, she was raped twice — in 2002 while she was stationed in Mississippi, and again in Guam in 2004. She also told the Times that she served in Iraq in 2004, which the Times reported as fact but which it now appears was not the case............



wrote an amazing and thorough piece, The Women’s War, in the ny times magazine

ms corbett tells a story we may not be quite familiar with. a story from the WOMEN who have been sent to iraq and afghanistan. the story of unwanted and unwelcome sex (did you know nearly 1/3 of all women vets who sought treatment from va hospitals have said they were raped or someone had attempted to rape them???) and ptsd at far greater rates than their male counterparts. a story of being ignored or pushed aside if the women attempt to get justice.

it's a long read, but worth it.

....................No matter how you look at it, Iraq is a chaotic war in which an unprecedented number of women have been exposed to high levels of stress. So far, more than 160,000 female soldiers have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, as compared with the 7,500 who served in Vietnam and the 41,000 who were dispatched to the gulf war in the early '90s. Today one of every 10 U.S. soldiers in Iraq is female.
Despite the fact that women are generally limited to combat-support roles in the war, they are arguably witnessing a historic amount of violence. With its baffling sand swirl of roadside bombs and blind ambushes, its civilians who look like insurgents and insurgents who look like civilians, the Iraq war has virtually eliminated the distinction between combat units and support units in the military. ''Frankly one of the most dangerous things you can do in Iraq is drive a truck, and that's considered a combat-support role,'' says Matthew Friedman, executive director of the National Center for PTSD, a research-and-education program financed by the Department of Veterans Affairs. ''You've got women that are in harm's way right up there with the men.''...........

............Two years after deployment to the gulf war, where combat exposure was relatively low, Army data showed that 16 percent of a sample of female soldiers studied met diagnostic criteria for PTSD, as opposed to 8 percent of their male counterparts. The data reflect a larger finding, supported by other research, that women are more likely to be given diagnoses of PTSD, in some cases at twice the rate of men............

..............Rape, in particular, is thought to be the most likely to lead to PTSD in women (and in men, in the rarer times it occurs). Participation in combat, though, he says, is not far behind.
Much of what we know about trauma comes primarily from research on two distinct populations - civilian women who have been raped and male combat veterans. But taking into account the large number of women serving in dangerous conditions in Iraq and reports suggesting that women in the military bear a higher risk than civilian women of having been sexually assaulted either before or during their service, it's conceivable that this war may well generate an unfortunate new group to study - women who have experienced sexual assault and combat, many of them before they turn 25..............