Women in War

[Leobold]

frontiernet.net/~pendino/World...ar-II-Women.htm



WAVE - Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service

WAC - Women's ARMY Corps

WASP - Women's Air Service Pilots

WAFS - Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron

WAAC - Women's Army Auxiliary Corps

AWS - Aircraft Warning Service

Everyone forgets the contributions made by American women during World War II. Women moved beyond the image of "Rosie the Riveter".

More than 350,000 women donned military uniforms and 6 million women worked in defense plants and in offices. There was a shortage of men, so women took over all the jobs that were left behind by men. However, women were still treated as second-class employees.

Women became "LIBERATED"! They started to wear pants. On July 30, 1942, the Marine Corps Women's Reserve was established as part of the Marine Corp Reserve. On Nov. 10, 1943, a statue nicknamed "MOLLIE MARINE" was dedicated in New Orleans to honor all women Marines. And was made of marble chips and granite.

IN 1977 Congress finally recognized WASPs as veterans and were awarded veteran status from the United States Air Force. And in 1984, each was awarded the Victory Medal.

There is a memorial to the veterans in D.C. which reads:

IN TIME OF DANGER AND NOT BEFORE, WOMEN WERE ADDED TO THE CORPS, WITH THE DANGER OVER AND ALL WELL RIGHTED, WAR IS FORGOTTEN AND THE WOMEN SLIGHTED.

When the flag waving stopped and G.I. Joe came marching home, G.I. Jane was ignored. Women were forced to go back to being DOMESTICS! And millions of civilian women were literally kicked out of jobs, and again, became Second Class Citizens! The war was over and there was no place for women in the military, they could all go back to filling insignificant jobs. The demobilization moved faster than green grass through a goose.

However, a few visionaries refused to abolish the power of American Women! Women had proven that they could keep the war effort going strong on the Home Front and in the military.

The question of women as an essential part of the military went from S.N.A.F.U to F.U.B.A.R. Expressions that mean: - (SNAFU) - Situation Normal All Fouled Up - (FUBAR) - Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition.

Present day servicewomen owe a lot to Eleanor Roosevelt. Her motto was "BE ALL YOU CAN BE!"

Of course, analysis over women in the military continued. One of the most important issues of women in the military was the fact that men did not want to take orders from women. And heaven forbid that women ever become senior NCOs and Officers.

It was General Eisenhower who strongly recommended that women be a part of the military. And many senior officers praised the efforts of women during WWII. In June of 1948 The Women's Armed Service Act went into effect. It was a law that would not be allowed today. However, it opened the door for women to serve their country in peace time.

"WOMEN DID IT BEFORE AND WOMEN CAN DO IT AGAIN!"



KOREA

In 1950, the North Korean Communists crossed the 38th parallel which started the "The Forgotten War". Thousands of Americans lost their lives in a country we never heard of! Troops were ordered into South Korea. A few days later the first women, the Army Nurse Corps, arrived. Hundreds of women served at the Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals. Hundreds more flew air evacuations and cared for the wounded.

More than 120,000 women were on active duty and many served at support units in many eastern countries. America has forgotten the Korean War and the women who served during this campaign. There seems to be no mention anywhere about the American Women's contributions.

Up until now, more than a Million Women wore the uniform of the United States Armed Forces. They had been prisoners of war, been wounded, flew planes, planned strategies, nursed casualties and died for their country.

Women who died in the line of duty were buried WITHOUT military honors. Or did American military women have the same privileges of other veterans.

WOMEN WERE THERE !

VIETNAM

American Civilian and Military Women Who Died in the Vietnam War (1959-1975)

Military:

U.S. Army

2nd Lt. Carol Ann Elizabeth Drazba
2nd Lt. Elizabeth Ann Jones
Lt. Drazba and Lt. Jones were assigned to the 3rd Field Hospital in Saigon. They died in a helicopter crash near Saigon, February 18, 1966. Drazba was from Dunmore, PA., Jones from Allendale, SC. Both were 22 years old.

Capt. Eleanor Grace Alexander
1st Lt. Hedwig Diane Orlowski
Capt. Alexander of Westwood, NJ and Lt. Orlowski of Detroit, MI died November 30, 1967. Alexander, stationed at the 85th Evacuation Hospital and Orlowski, stationed at the 67th Evacuation Hospital, in Qui Nhon, had been sent to a hospital in Pleiku to help out during a push. With them when their plane crashed on the return trip to Qui Nhon were two other nurses, Jerome E. Olmstead of Clintonville, WI and Kenneth R. Shoemaker, Jr. of Owensboro, KY. Alexander was 27, Orlowski 23. Both were posthumously awarded Bronze Stars.

2nd Lt. Pamela Dorothy Donovan
Lt. Donovan, from Allston, MA, died of pneumonia in Qui Nhon on July 8, 1968. She was assigned to the 85th Evacuation Hospital in Qui Nhon. She was 26 years old.

1st Lt. Sharon Ann Lane
Lt. Lane died from shrapnel wounds when the 312th Evacuation Hospital at Chu Lai was hit by rockets on June 8, 1969. From Canton, OH, she was a month short of her 26th birthday. She was posthumously awarded the Vietnamese Gallantry Cross with Palm and the Bronze Star for Heroism. In 1970, the recovery room at Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver, where Lt. Lane had been assigned before going to Vietnam, was dedicated in her honor. In 1973, Aultman Hospital in Canton, OH, where Lane had attended nursing school, erected a bronze statue of Lane. The names of 110 local servicemen killed in Vietnam are on the base of the statue.

Lt. Col. Annie Ruth Graham, Chief Nurse at 91st Evacuation Hospital, Tuy Hoa.
Lt. Col. Graham, from Efland, NC, suffered a stroke in August 1969 and was evacuated to Japan where she died four days later. A veteran of both World War II and Korea, she was 52.

U.S. Air Force

Capt. Mary Therese Klinker
Capt. Klinker, a flight nurse assigned to Clark Air Base in the Philippines, was on the C-5A Galaxy which crashed on April 4 outside Saigon while evacuating Vietnamese orphans. This is known as the Operation Babylift crash. From Lafayette, IN, she was 27. She was posthumously awarded the Airman's Medal for Heroism and the Meritorious Service Medal.

American Red Cross

Hannah Crews
Died in a jeep accident, Bien Hoa, 1969.

Lucinda Richter
Died of Gillian-Barre disease, Cam Ranh Bay, 1971.

Army Special Services

Rosalyn Muskat
Died in a jeep accident, Bien Hoa, 1968.

Dorothy Phillips
Died in a plane crash, Qui Nhon, 1967.

Catholic Relief Services

Gloria Redlin
Shot in Pleiku, 1969.

Central Intelligence Agency

Barbara Robbins
Died in the bombing of the American Embassy, Saigon, 30 March, 1965.

Journalists

Georgette "Dickey" Chappelle
Killed by a mine on patrol with Marines outside Chu Lai, 1965.

Phillipa Schuyler
Killed in a firefight, Da Nang, 1966.

Missionaries

Carolyn Griswald
Killed in a raid on the leprosarium in Ban Me Thuot during Tet 1968.

Janie A. Makel
Shot in an ambush, Dalat, 1963. Janie was five months old.

Ruth Thompson
Killed in a raid on the leprosarium in Ban Me Thuot during Tet 1968.

Ruth Wilting
Killed in a raid on the leprosarium in Ban Me Thuot during Tet 1968.

POW/MIA

Evelyn Anderson
Captured and burned to death in Kengkok, Laos, 1972. Remains recovered and returned to U.S.

Beatrice Kosin
Captured and burned to death in Kengkok, Laos, 1972. Remains recovered and returned to U.S.

Betty Ann Olsen
Captured during raid on the leprosarium in Ban Me Thuot during Tet 1968. Died in 1968 and was buried somewhere along the Ho Chi Minh Trail by fellow POW, Michael Benge. Remains not recovered.

Eleanor Ardel Vietti
Captured at the leprosarium in Ban Me Thuot, May 30, 1962. Still listed as a POW.

Operation Babylift:
The following women were killed in the crash, outside Saigon, of the C5-A Galaxy transporting Vietnamese children out of the country on April 4, 1975. All of the women were working for various U.S. government agencies in Saigon at the time of their deaths with the exception of Theresa Drye (a child), and Laurie Stark (a teacher). Sharon Wesley had previously worked for both the American Red Cross and Army Special Services. She chose to stay on in Vietnam after the pullout of U.S. military forces in 1973.


Barbara Adams, Clara Bayot, Nova Bell, Arleta Bertwell, Helen Blackburn, Ann Bottorff, Celeste Brown, Vivienne Clark, Juanita Creel, Mary Ann Crouch, Dorothy Curtiss, Twila Donelson, Helen Drye, Theresa Drye, Mary Lyn Eichen, Elizabeth Fugino, Ruthanne Gasper, Beverly Herbert, Penelope Hindman, Vera Hollibaugh, Dorothy Howard, Barbara Kauvulia, Barbara Maier, Rebecca Martin, Sara Martini, Martha Middlebrook, Katherine Moore, Marta Moschkin, Marion Polgrean, June Poulton, Joan Pray, Sayonna Randall, Anne Reynolds, Marjorie Snow, Laurie Stark, Barbara Stout, Doris Jean Watkins, Sharon Wesley

DESERT STORM

The deployment of women in the Gulf War was the largest in the history of the United States. A proportion of women came from the Active Forces, Reserves and the National Guard.
Over 40,000 United States military women served in key combat-support positions throughout the Persian Gulf Region. Women in Desert Storm did everything the male troops did except engage in ground combat.

There were sixteen women who lost their lives and two were held prisoner.

AGAIN, WOMEN WERE THERE!

Thousands of women also worked stateside in essential mission support roles. And demonstrated that women could perform as well as men! The exclusion of women is ridiculous because of war becoming more technological with less ground combat needed. Men must realize that this is the 21st century and women refuse to be antiquated as "barefoot and pregnant" as they were centuries ago......

Opportunities for intelligent capable enthusiastic women should not be denied ever again!

[Arrow]

Really nice post. Thank you...

Nice format too...