Women Coalition Soldiers Killed in Iraq

Filed Under Gender and Sexism, Uncategorized by Rachel

I was reading my local newspaper recently, and I came across something that caught my eye. In each edition of the paper, they print the names of Armed Services members who died in the line of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. I usually read the names and hometowns of the soldiers, but this time something caught my eye–I noticed that there were more women listed than men. I stopped and read the profiles of the two women: Kamisha Block and Alicia Birchett. We don’t often hear of the women who die in military service, partly because women make up a small percentage of the dead and partly because stereotypes encourage us to think of soldiers as men. According to the most recent statistics, 88 of the 4058 coalition deaths in Iraq are female soldiers. Below, I put the names of the last 11 women to die in Iraq below with links to their biographies.

You can get some sense of who they are by reading their stories. Many of them are mothers. Two of them are British. The others are Americans. They are Black, Latina, Native American, and White. Many of them are from small towns. Some of them saw joining the military as a calling; others seem to join out of a sense of family obligation; and for others the stories don’t reveal their motivations.

For more information on women soldiers who have died in Iraq, you can check out this site called the Mother’s Day Project. This site lists the names of the women coalition soldiers who died in Iraq. Of course, when I think about women in Iraq my mind also focuses on the numerous Iraqi women, who have died; most of whom are nameless and faceless in our media. There’s something about seeing the faces and hearing the stories of the victims of war that make the violence more real to those of us who are so far away from the daily tragedies in Iraq. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose your loved ones so tragically.

Comments

6 Responses to “Women Coalition Soldiers Killed in Iraq”

Ann on September 17th, 2007 11:39 am

Thank you Rachel for this post.

You are right.

Many people think of men when they think of the military, especially in times of combat.
And most definitely is this also seen when injuries are taken into consideration.

The response towards men who lose limbs in combat is different from the response towards women who lose limbs in combat.

When men are injured, they carry their wounds and battle scars proudly as testament to their surviving a roadside bomb (IED). When men lose an appendage and civilians see them going about their daily lives, people look at military men with pride that these brave soldiers were willing to put their lives on the line knowing what could happen to them in battle.

When women are injured in battle, it is different for them.

The scars that women soldiers are left with are not something they show-off. Not saying that men do, but, women are more reticent when it comes to their battle scars.

And unlike men, women are looked at for their physical attributes more so than men. For a wounded woman warrior, healing can be complex and painful, physically as well as psychologically.

Society wants women to look a certain way, and when they lose an arm or leg in combat, that hits home strongly.

And injured military women are a side of this war that many people do not see.

The women soldiers do not sit around feeling sorry for themselves just as the men soldiers do not, and these brave women move on with their lives, but, moving on is harder for women soldier amputees because they do not get the instant recognition or moral support that many men soldiers get.

When people see a young man who has lost a limb, is wearing an “Operation Free Iraq” t-shirt, or is sitting in a wheelchair because he is a double-leg amputee, most people may go up to him and may ask him, “Did you serve our country?” But, women soldier amputees do not get this recognition. But, then again, how many people think of women soldiers when they think of military amputees?

That’s also partly because there is a difference in how men and women soldiers wear their wounds.

For men, their war wounds are a badge of courage. For many women soldiers, they try to cover up or blend in with their wounds. Many men soldiers are seen wearing shorts that reveal a prosthetic leg, or an arm that shows a prosthetic hook. Women soldiers injured are more likely to wear a life-like looking prosthetic arm out in public. These women are not ashamed of their injuries, they wear their scars on the inside as well, but, I am sure there are times when they must be overwhelmed not just from their physical scars, but, also their psychological scars. I am sure that there must be times when for these women the psychological pain of what they have experience can get to them, just as it does the men soldiers.

I can only imagine what it must be like for them to lose an arm or leg.

Their injuries may be forever, but, still, they are all determined to battle the inner scars, as well as the physical scars, that hopefully in time, will heal.

On the issue of the Iraqi women, yes, they are all but forgotten in this unjust war. This so-called WMD war. This war for oil travesty.

Thousands of Iraqi women have been killed by this war, many along with their children.

The mental anguish this toll is taking on them is also lost in the shuffle.

Seeing husbands, sons and daughters shot to death and blown to bits before their eyes is unimaginable.

Iraqi civilians are the forgotten ones in this so-called war: unnamed and unnoticed. And this callous disregard is shown by the media and by the some American military commanders. Especially what this general stated during the Afghan War.

From the mouth of general Tommy Franks:

“We don’t do body counts.”

Cost of war.
Collateral damage.
Torture lite.

The casualties of this war concentrate mainly on dead American military, and ignore the enormous loss of life the Iraqi people have suffered. Years of “anniversary” articles in the American media adding up the so-called “cost of the war” in Iraq have focused exclusively on Americans killed, American dollars spent, American military hardware destroyed, with barely a mention of the Iraqi dead as part of that “cost.”

Publishing or pronouncing the names of the American dead everyday without ever mentioning the names of the Iraqi dead sends a powerful message that only American dead, or dying matters.

American soldiers pictures are shown in the media.

But, not so the faces of the tens of thousands of Iraqis who have been killed.

American soldiers names are said on the nightly news.

But not any mention of the many mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers who have lost loved ones to the senseless and un-called for war.

But, thankfully, there are watch groups which do keep an accounting of how this savage war is taking its horrific toll on the many Iraqis whose country has been torn apart by this so-called war started by President Shrub.

Those organizations are the following:

http://www.antiwar.com/casualties

http://www.iraqbodycount.org

http://www.brookings.edu/iraqindex

http://www.hrw.org

If anything, by all indicators, the quality of life for the Iraqis is worse today than they were in the last 5 to 10 years of Saddam’s rule.

Coalition forces killed more Iraqi civilians than the insurgents did in the early months of the war, now insurgents are killing many more civilians than coalition forces.

Of course this does not matter to many of the average Americans.

But it should matter.

America wrongly entered into this war against Iraq looking for terror that was supposed to be from the reign of Saddam.

America has only created more terror, more misery, more suffering for the Iraqi people.

And nowhere is that more evident than in the tremendous loss of Iraqi civilian life ever since this so-called war was started by that cowboy in the White house.
Anne on September 17th, 2007 9:46 pm

I agree with absolutely everything Ann has put forth in her comment. As the originator of The Mother’s Day Project, I would like to explain that the intent of the project is not to ignore the deaths of male soldiers, Iraqi security forces, or the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians - men, women and children - who have died as a result of our country’s illegal occupation of their country.
Instead, our intent is to make this war personal. I can tell you, as can any of the over 160 volunteers involved in The Mother’s Day Project so far, that once a personal connection has been forged with just one soldier, it is impossible to read about all of the other dead and wounded victims with detachment. The act of “witnessing” a single name is a powerful antidote to the “forgetting” that the Bush Administration would have us practice by spending our time at the shopping mall pretending that our lives can remain normal and untouched by this war.
Thank you for including this topic in your blog.
Ken on September 17th, 2007 11:57 pm

I second Ann’s points on Women in the military and on the Iraqi people.

Now, we all know that the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the USA and her ‘allies’ was/is illegal, motivated by unhumanitarian reasons and sold to the voting population by lies and scare-tactics seemly aped from the playbooks of Goebbels.

But besides lamenting the dead and wounded of Iraq and the arrogant antics of Americas conservative ruling class, I lament the prudishness that the citizens of alledgedly civilized nations in possession of inordinate military power (such as the USA, France and India) demonstrate in their un/willingness to pressure their governments to overthrow dictatorships and other forms of illigitimate governance.

We can and do go to the shopping mall untouched by the suffering of women and men who live in places ruled by tyrrany like the PRC, Turkministan, Togo, Burkina Faso,Zimbabwe,Belarus and elsewhere.

Wait.. our trips to the shopping mall are *enhanced* by their suffering insofar as we purchace goods discounted by their stolen labor.

In fact our general wellbeing is enhanced without a feeling of duty towards the oppressed, without a sense of urgency in pressuring leaders to use military might responsibly.

Well, I hope that history will judge the conservatism of George W. Bush as an ideological savant whose negligent use of military power ended up being the straw on the camels back..the camel being military unenforcement of the UDHR.
Noonie on September 18th, 2007 11:44 am

Sadly your count doesn’t include the American civilian women who died there also. There are actually 92 US female casualties in Iraq alone. Check out my website http://www.nooniefortin.com to learn more about all our American women who died during this war and others.
jeff on October 3rd, 2007 4:26 pm

What a crock! To Ann: Where have you been for the last twentyears when women were authorized to be in harms way? What did you say to your congressmen when they voted to include women in combat roles. Shame on you, it’s kind of like closing the barn door after the horses got out.
M Canales on October 3rd, 2007 8:53 pm

This is an importnat soure and a worthy topic.

I am a composer active in the Las Vegas area and I have just recently finished composing a music dram called:Modern Women Stupid War, which is about the Iraq war from vaious female perspectives, mothers, religious figures and especially the Female American Combat soldier, a new tragic element of this war.

Thank you for providing this information.