Is public talk about PTSD making it harder for vets? Over the last few years, veterans’ advocates and media outlets have called attention to how PTSD is a normal reaction to the abnormal and profound realities of combat. This message was intended to help veterans recognize it is okay to seek counseling while readjusting to [...]
Female Iraq War vet leads Legion post: Melissa Knight became the youngest — and first female — commander of American Legion Post 714 in Gilbertville [Iowa]. The 26-year-old Iraq war veteran followed two uncles and two grandfathers into combat. In July, she became the top vet at the post her grandfather, James Johannes, co-founded and [...]
3 female World War II veterans recall their time in service: Dee Abbott of Hattiesburg joined the U.S. Navy during World War II because she didn’t have a brother who could serve. “It was my duty,” Abbott, 90, said. On a lighter note, she chose the Navy because, “I thought I would look better in [...]
No man’s land – Inside the lives of female (British) soldiers on the frontline: The female soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq are increasingly demanding frontline duties like their male colleagues. The photographer Lalage Snow meets the women determined to break through the Army’s last barrier. Female fighters – We won’t stand for male dominance: [...]
US Army General challenges the military to embrace new media at Milblogging Conference: “We need to change the organisational culture of our military. A culture that emphasises control of all pertinent events within our battlespace. And yet the stark realisation is that we cannot control all aspects of this new media…” Click the link to [...]
An Ethical Dilemma: I have a small sum of money, collected by force from US taxpayers, given to me for the expressed purpose of spending it on the Iraqi Army in order to improve their performance in some essential way. As General Petraus says, “Money is bullets in Counter-insurgency.” No problem. I am all over [...]
Helping War Widows on Road Ahead: When your husband dies at war, the things he carried show up in six black boxes. Each pair of socks, each T-shirt, each love letter is inventoried on 20 sheets of paper. Everything has been washed, so when you breathe in the scent of a shirt, it doesn’t smell [...]
While reports of racial discrimination and sexual harassment are down and more Marines feel good about their jobs, too many Marines are bothered by offensive jokes and gestures and too few tap into existing support systems to resolve or handle their complaints, according to the Corps’ latest Climate Assessment Survey. Conducted last year using online [...]
(Same article link, different topic…) …the attention always focuses on the women: where they were when assaulted, their relations with the assailant, the effects on their mental health and careers, whether they are being adequately helped, and so on. That discussion, as valuable as it is, misses a fundamental point. To understand military sexual assault, [...]
…the attention always focuses on the women: where they were when assaulted, their relations with the assailant, the effects on their mental health and careers, whether they are being adequately helped, and so on. That discussion, as valuable as it is, misses a fundamental point. To understand military sexual assault, let alone know how to [...]
Okay, now that I’ve made all male Marines sound like untrustworthy acquaintances, which is not what I intended, think about it this way, men: Say you are a man who works in a small office that’s part of a large company building, with lots of friendly interaction between all the smaller offices. Let’s say it’s [...]
Perhaps it is my personal experience of growing up in a family of veterans that grieved for the loss of a son in Vietnam that pushes me to believe that every war-time generation has secrets it does not wish to pass on to the next generation. I know first hand how graphic descriptions can take [...]
Master Sgt. Wu first female NCO to complete U.S. Marine Corps training: Wu Hsiao-lin became the first female non-commissioned officer of the ROC Marine Corps to complete the grueling training for master sergeants in the U.S. Marine Corps. She was also broke ground as the only female foreign military personnel to graduate from the 80-member [...]
Sexualized violence comes with the territory of war. It is an age old tactic and also a byproduct of the pressure of war and the insistence on overt misogyny. So it is no surprise that according to the AP 15 percent of women that have served have experienced some form of sexual trauma. That shouldn’t [...]
Salon has published quite a bit about how American women in the military sometimes face more danger from their fellow soldiers than from their enemies, but the stories never seem to stop. And all too often, they go largely ignored by the media, as with the case of Pfc. LaVena Johnson. In July 2005, 19-year-old [...]
I am a female Marine currently in the Individual Ready Reserve. I like to sleep, travel, read, eat, explore, and take photographs. I read lots of news and I like reading about life in other countries. I am easily amused and my dream job is to be snoozing in a warm patch of sunlight, hopefully with a piece of tasty cheese nearby for when I wake up hungry.
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