The New York Times Week in Review - Sep 24, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/weekinreview/24alvarez.html
Jane, We Hardly Knew Ye Died Sixty-five American female soldiers have died in Iraq or Afghanistan. By LIZETTE ALVAREZ LT. EMILY J. T. PEREZ, 23, a West Point graduate who outran many men, directed a gospel choir and read the Bible every day, was at the head of a weekly convoy as it rolled down roads pocked with bombs and bullets near Najaf. As platoon leader, she insisted on leading her troops from the front. Two weeks ago, one of those bombs tripped her up, detonating near her Humvee in Kifl, south of Baghdad. She died Sept. 12, the 64th woman from the United States military to be killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Eight died in Vietnam. Despite longstanding predictions that America would shudder to see its women coming home in coffins, Lieutenant Perezs death, and those of the other women, the majority of whom died from hostile fire (the 65th died in a Baghdad car bombing a day later), have stirred no less and no more reaction at home than the nearly 2,900 male dead. The same can be said of the hundreds of wounded women. There is no shortage of guesses as to why: Americans are no longer especially shocked by the idea of a womans violent death. Most dont know how many women have fallen, or under what circumstances. Photographs of body bags and coffins are rarely seen. And nobody wants to kick up a fuss and risk insulting grieving families. The public doesnt seem concerned they are dying, said Charles Moskos, a military sociologist at Northwestern University who has closely studied national service. They would rather have someone else's daughter die than their son. Whats more, no one in the strained military is eager to engage in a debate about women and the risks they are taking in Iraq because, quite simply, the women are sorely needed in this modern-day insurgent conflict. As has happened many times in war, circumstances have outpaced arguments. They are sure to be taken up again at some point, only this time, the military will have real-life data on the performance of women in the field to supplant the hypotheticals. Like most soldiers on the job, Lieutenant Perez, who will be buried at West Point on Tuesday, was focused on her mission, not on her groundbreaking role in a war that seems to have dispelled a litany of notions about women warriors. For the first time, women by the thousands are on the ground and engaging the enemy in a war that has no front line, and little in the way of safe havens. In this 360-degree war, they are in the thick of it, hauling heavy equipment and expected to shoot and defend themselves and others from an enemy that is all around them. They are driving huge rigs down treacherous roads, frisking Iraqi women at dangerous checkpoints, handling gun turrets and personnel carriers and providing cover for other soldiers. See profiles of all the female KIAs (as of Sep 245, 2006) here: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/23/weekinreview/24FemaleCasualties2002.html It is not so much the job titles that have changed the policy shift that allowed women to serve in combat support units close to the front lines occurred in 1994. Rather it is the job conditions. We are asking far more of our female soldiers than ever before in history, said Elaine Donnelly, director of the Center for Military Readiness, a conservative think tank. But a line in the Iraqi sand exists. Under the 1994 Pentagon policy, women were still barred from serving in ground combat forces infantry, armor, field artillery but are allowed to serve as fighter pilots and on warships. In Iraq, women were not involved in the initial invasion; they did not clear insurgents from Falluja; they dont drive tanks or, in most cases, kick down doors in house searches. They are also barred, technically, from co-located units that support combat troops. A woman can serve as a medic, for example, but not as a medic in a unit that co-locates and remains or accompanies a unit on the front line, like an infantry unit. In reality, though, this so-called co-location is taking place, analysts say, although it is unclear how widespread it is. The Pentagon has stretched the language of the policy, mostly because there are not enough troops, men or women. It has done so because the language is fuzzy. An effort by some House Republican leaders last year to challenge the practice was beaten back by the Pentagon, which argued that it could not sustain the mission without women in these jobs. It says you can have female medics, but they cant see combat, said Capt. Megan OConnor, who served in Iraq for a year and a half in the New Jersey Army National Guard as a medical operations and plans officer. Its all combat in Ramadi. Its so gray. They put the rules down on paper. It looks good. It reads good. But for a commander to implement, its impossible. The women were itching for it, she added, and accumulating commendations and medals for bravery along the way. Ms. Donnelly said the Pentagon was openly flouting current policy and sending women out directly with combat troops, with no debate, no hearings in Congress and, so far, no consequences. She has no qualms about women, who make up 10 percent of the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, doing the jobs they are assigned in dangerous circumstances. That is standard. But to send them out with combat troops is illegal, she said. I have enormous respect for these women, said Ms. Donnelly, who opposes allowing women into ground combat forces. My criticism is not of the women in the military. They are fulfilling their responsibility to the greatest degree, and that, too, is unprecedented. The policymakers should not be ordering them into areas that are not gender integrated. But the fact that the Army is successfully using women in this way is likely to lead policymakers to revisit the rule, some analysts say. Its that policy that when this war is over is going to have to change, even if we have to keep women out of the infantry per se, said Lory Manning, a retired Navy captain who is the director for the women-in-the-military project at the Womens Research and Education Institute, a nonprofit public policy group. The next door to open is ground combat. Thats the last frontier. A lot of the social conservatives have powerful feelings about training mothers to kill. Conventional wisdom has long dictated that women were not suited to the battlefield too frail, emotionally and physically, to survive combat pressure. Men, it was said, would crumble at the sight of a bloodied female soldier, or put themselves at risk to protect her. The public would not stomach women coming back in body bags or suffering life-changing wounds. And mixing men and women with all the sexual and emotional pitfalls would strain the unit dynamic, which can lead to deadly mistakes. Those sorts of arguments were revived last week when the former Navy secretary James Webb, running for Senate in Virginia, was reminded of his assertions 30 years ago that women could not, and should not, fight, assertions he has distanced himself from. None of this, so far, has come to pass. They are pulling their own weight and performing as well as men, Ms. Manning said. And the American public is not any more upset about women coming home in body bags than men. Mady Wechsler Segal, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland and the associate director for the Center for Research on Military Organization, said succinctly, If they werent doing a good job, we would be hearing about it. Certainly, women in Iraq and Afghanistan face different challenges, both at war and at home. Incidents of sexual harassment on military bases are common enough, and fending that off without offending peers and superiors is tricky. Sexual assault, while less common, only intensifies combat stress, leading to greater vulnerability. It also leads to new complications. What if your attacker is also the person you must defend, or must defend you? A whole crop of veterans are suffering from post-traumatic stress and lost limbs, circumstances that sometimes prove more difficult for women who often fill the role of nurturers to their families. And there are practical considerations. Women on smaller bases in Iraq often share sleeping quarters with men. Equipment in womens sizes can sometimes be harder to come by. Some women use newer forms of birth control to make their periods less frequent. Even urinating can become a problem. The military has disbursed portable contraptions the women affectionately call a weenus, for use on long truck drives. Women also face resistance among some male commanders, who are not keen to put women at risk, some women who have served in Iraq say. But many commanders, they added, treated them no differently. Capt. Tammy Spicer, who commanded a transportation company for the Missouri National Guard, said women were often being watched to see if they are up to the job. Driving trucks is dangerous work in Iraq, and her company drove a million and a half miles with no enemy-related casualties. If anything was taxing, she said, it was in 2003 in Kuwait, when she and four other women shared a tent with 45 men. The women shared showers with men, on rotation, and always got the worst hours, she said. Their bickering, their cursing, their body noises, she said, laughing. They would leave their food out and we would have rats. There was no relief from men. Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company *** 2nd ANNUAL ECHO PARK MUSIC FESTIVAL ECHO PARK LAKE, LOS ANGELES, CA (1020 Glendale Blvd., Los Angeles, Ca. 90026 ) Saturday Sept. 30th & Sunday Oct. 1st 10am-8pm A FREE concert featuring an All-Echo Park line-up of musicians and ensembles including: James Lumb aka Electric SkyChurch Future Pigeon Mezklah Why?Things Burn Listing Ship Atomic Sherpas Dreaming Ferns Downbeats Puttanesca Visions of Hildegard and more . . . Echo Park is one of the oldest neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Located about two miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, Echo Park is an incredibly diverse and culturally rich neighborhood that is more than a century old. Neighborhood landmarks include its namesake Echo Park Lake , Angelus Temple , Elysian Park and Victorian-era Angelino Heights . In the past, many musicians thrived here including Marilyn Horn, and Art Pepper. Rumor has it that Woody Guthrie and even Neil Young once lived in the Echo Park hills. Today, many musicians, visual artists and poets live in this "poor man's Laurel Canyon" and the Music Festival is an opportunity for community members to come out and sit by Echo Park Lake, enjoy a picnic and a live performance by many of the bands who make their homes and create music here. Organized by violinist and EP resident, Varoujan Nalbandian, the Festival has the support of local businesses and community groups including the Echo Park Improvement Association, the Greater Echo Park Elysian Neighborhood Council, Department of Recreation and Parks, Council Member Eric Garcetti's office and the LA Alternative Press (which is the exclusive media sponsor.) Please visit www.echoparkmusicfestival.com for more info. *** Josh Silver, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Official FCC Hearing in L.A. Next Week The Federal Communications Commission is at it again. They're trying to change the rules so that a handful of Big Media companies can swallow up even more local newspapers, radio stations and TV stations. When they tried this in 2003, millions of Americans rose up in protest -- leading Congress and the courts to reject the new rules. So now FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has promised to "hold public hearings in diverse locations around the country to fully involve the American people." The first two of those hearings are scheduled be held October 3 in Los Angeles. All five FCC commissioners are expected to be there, and so are plenty of Big Media lobbyists. We need to make sure the public gets the chance to speak out against more media consolidation. Here's the information we have now: Official FCC Hearing on Media Ownership Los Angeles Tuesday, Oct. 3 Part 1: 1:00p.m.- 4:30 p.m.University of Southern California (USC) Davidson Conference Center, Embassy Room 3415 So.Figueroa St. Los Angeles, CA 900896: Part 2: 6:30 p.m.-10:00 p.m.El Segundo High School 640 Main St. El Segundo, CA 90245 Hearing Format: USC: 1:00 p.m. Welcome/ Opening Remarks 1:30 p.m. Panel Discussion - Creative Community / Independent Programming 2:30 p.m. Public Comments 4:15 p.m. Wrap-Up 4:30 p.m. Temporary Adjournment El Segundo High School: 6:30 p.m. Opening Remarks 6:45 p.m. Panel Discussion - Market Overview / LA Case Study 7:45 p.m. Public Comments 9:45 p.m. Wrap-Up 10:00 p.m. Adjournment For too many years, the rules governing our media have been written behind closed doors without any public input. We need to make sure Chairman Martin and the other FCC Commissioners know that we want more local coverage and a diversity of voices on the public airwaves. We must send a message back to Washington: Big Media is already big enough. Join us on Oct. 3. Make your voice heard -- before it's too late! Onward, Josh Silver Executive Director Free Press www.freepress.net P.S. We'll post any new information on the hearing and regular updates at www.stopbigmedia.com/=lahearing Visit the web address below to tell your friends about this. Tell-a-friend! If you received this message from a friend, you can sign up for Free Press ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." -- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 16, 1953 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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