In the ensuing war against terrorism (Operation Iraqi Freedom), I began to see the increased importance of the role of women Marines, and in February of 2005, at the age of 70, I went to Iraq to embed with the 1st MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit) to personally interview women Marine officers and enlisted personnel for a non-fiction book. I wrote about the women I encountered in The Few. The Proud. Women Marines in Harm’s Way. (Praeger Security International, 2007)
What’s it like to be a woman in the United States Marine Corps—one of the most notorious guy’s gun clubs? Why would a woman want to be a part of that macho band of warriors? The business of Marines is war. Isn’t it counterintuitive for American women to be associated with fighting wars? After my son joined the Marines 15 years ago and I became intrigued with that exclusive branch of our military, these were the questions that I wanted answers to.
Is it dangerous for the women Marines serving in Iraq? Yes. There are no front lines in the war—the entire country is a war zone. There is not one place in all of Bagdad, including the highly fortified Green Zone, that is safe from rockets, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), or suicide bombers. Marines live on bases frequently shelled by insurgents. Travel between bases, to and from and BIAP (Bagdad International Airport) is over roads that witness IED explosions 3 to 5 times a week. The airspace is equally as dangerous. In a country about the size of California, there are as many as 1,500 civilian and military ( U.S. and Iraqi) casualties a month.
U.S. Government policy forbids women to participate in combat, and thus they are barred from the combat units such as infantry, artillery, or Special Forces. But there are over 900 Military Occupational Specialties (jobs—called MOS) open to Marines, in general areas including administration, human resources, health care, transportation and material handling, electronics, construction, public affairs, maintenance, and hundreds more.
In Iraq I interviewed women who had been in combat, intentionally or not. To them, it’s part of being a Marine—doing the job, achieving the goals of the mission. A 2nd lieutenant, who was commissioned as a Marine officer at twenty-one after receiving a degree in business, led a unit of Marine combat engineers in the Battle of Fallujah in 2004. Her job was to build strong points—vehicle control points, bridges, housing and latrines for the Marines while they were working at the edge of the battle. It also entailed demolition—blowing up weapons caches, and unsafe houses. She told me, “We were constantly in danger, because we were visible. Our work was out in the open. We got drawn into fire fights pretty often.” This required her to return fire with her M16 rifle and the 9mm pistol each officer carries.
A lieutenant colonel, a graduate of a small Southern Baptist all-girls school, led a Marine Corps unit of Military Police escorting the supply trucks going north to in the invasion of 2003. For 30 days, because the issue of weapons of mass destruction hadn’t been resolved, she and her men wore full MOPP gear—thick, chemical-biological protective full-body suits, boots, gloves, and oxygen masks. They drove, walked, ate, and slept in the gear. No part of their body was exposed. They went without hot food, showers and a change of clothes the entire time, sleeping in the open. They carried with them all their own ammunition, food and water. “Luckily,” she told me, “we never came under fire. But this was before the war broke open and the insurgents went wild.”
Working with Marine units breaking down doors in villages and towns and hunting for insurgents was the job, for a while, of a woman Marine, a staff sergeant, who was along to question and search Iraqi women. No men who are not closely related to them are allowed to speak to, or touch Iraqi women. Even though searching for the bad guys was a combat operation, the U.S. Marines honored Muslim cultural tradition by taking a woman Marine along to work with the Iraqi women. “It was combat,” she told me. “It’s not supposed to be my job, but that’s why I’m a Marine—to do the job, whatever it is.”
The Marine Corps, the smallest branch of the military, is currently at about 179,000 troops, of which a little over 6%, or nearly 11,000, are women. Of those, about 1,700 are deployed in . Marine Corps deployments are for 9 months. Many of the women I interviewed were on their 2nd deployment.
A Huey helicopter pilot, a 1st lieutenant from a military family who joined after getting a degree in education, flies reconnaissance and air support for combat missions. She has seen her share of downed aircraft and taken hits herself. “Nobody at home, not my family, not my friends, understands what’s really going on over here,” she says.
A graduate, now a Marine lieutenant colonel, likes to read the history of the Civil War battles, drawing from them ideas about how to prepare her Marines, who set up and maintain all the Marine Corps communication systems in al Anbar province, for being shot at while doing a job that is support, not combat. “They want to know they’re crucial to the battle, keepings comms open between the officers and the combat teams, and information flowing no matter what the challenge.”
In general, it takes seven Marines in non-combat MOS to support each combat Marine. That means that the maintains several large bases of support staff and war materiel. Many of the staff are women Marines who blow off the suggestion that it’s dangerous. They don’t think about it. Working 14 to 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, their life is about as opposite that of American women, at home in the States, as can be imagined. Deployed women Marines don’t choose what to wear each morning, or commute to work, and they don’t stop at Starbucks on the way. They don’t do laundry, shop, cook, clean, or pay bills. Unless it’s their job, they never drive a vehicle. They are never alone—they have no privacy. A bubble bath? Forget it. They don’t meet friends for a beer or a glass of wine, ever. They don’t carpool kids or go to parties. They never have a date, wonder what to do on weekends, or use a cell phone. They don’t spend time surfing the Internet or go out to the latest movies. They live for nine months in a very dangerous war zone, without sex, alcohol, privacy or family. They are too focused on their mission to think about danger. They are Marines who happen to be women.
Sara Sheldon is the author of The Few. The Proud. Women Marines in Harm’s Way. Praeger Security International, 2007. The book is also available through Amazon.com and from the author at www.SaraSheldon.com . After a career in arts administration, including founding and directing the Festival of the Arts in the 1970s, Sheldon’s interest turned to current affairs. As a writer who came of age prior to the advent of feminism, she documents the extensive change, over the past 50 years, in women’s lives as artists and as warriors. Born and raised in Oak Park, Illinois, she attended The Colorado College, receiving degrees in Studio Art and Art History. Later, she switched fields entirely and did graduate work in Chinese language, history, political economy, and comparative socialist politics at the University of Colorado, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Denver Graduate School of International Studies. She is currently associate director of the Leanin’ Tree Sculture Garden and Museum of Western Art, in Boulder, Colorado. She is available to speak about her experiences, welcomes interest from readers, and may be reached through her website.