Raw Anti-Iraq-War Words of Female Soldier Back from Iraq

[RamboLiberal]

New Book out, Love My Rifle More Than You (Young and Female in the U.S. Army) by Kayla Williams, Sgt in Military Intelligence. Just started reading the book because I wanted to know what it's like for a female soldier in Iraq and I wanted to hear it from someone who had been there.

Here's some interesting words from her:
I thought this war was wrong, didn't want to go. The lies that got us there, that killed some of us, that wounded and maimed more of us: Only the most messed-up-patriotic-head-up-his-ass-blind-faith-my-country-right-or-wrong soldier believed them.

I came home, and the only things people were interested in were things just beyond my comprehension. Who cared about Jennifer Lopez? I was watching CNN one morning and there was a story about freaking ducklings being fished out of a damn sewer drain - while the story of soldiers getting killed in Iraq got relegated to this little banner of the screen. Ducklings got pulled out of a sewer. How was this important to our country?

How was I willing to go and die for these fucking people who wear sweatshirts with little kittens on them?

It was a year of my life. And what the fuck for? What was it all about? Not having an answer for that makes it hard. Makes it feel dirty. ...I knew even then that at least some of it was bullshit.

The fact that the war was based on lies destroys some of the sense of purpose for me. It degrades some of the goodness of our efforts.

She goes on to say very few of the soldiers she served with will reenlist. At most they will only do one more tour.

Like I said - this is a very raw book written in the language of a soldier. I probably won't like all I read, but it seems Sgt. Williams is telling it truthfully, unlike the jerks that sent her to Iraq. She got out of country Feb 2004.

A brutal and honest account of being a woman among men in the United States Army.

"A woman soldier has to toughen herself up" writes Kayla Williams in this fiercely honest account of what it's like to be part of the female 15% of today's Army. "Not just for the enemy, for battle, for death. I mean to toughen herself to spend months awash in a sea of nervy, hyped-up guys…."

By turns irreverent, vulnerable, angry, and humane, Williams describes what it's like for a young woman to be surrounded by an ocean of testosterone, respected for her skills and qualifications, but treated variously as a soldier, a sister, a mother, a bitch, and a slut.

During her five years of service—including a year of deployment to Iraq during and after the invasion—Williams and her female peers navigate both extreme physical danger and emotional minefields. As a specialist in Military Intelligence, fluent in Arabic language skills, Williams finds herself at the forefront of the troops' interaction with local people. Brave and patriotic, with a strong sense of duty to her country and her fellow soldiers, she is unafraid to level complaints and criticism against the inefficiencies and errors of the military—sketching a blunt portrait, inspired by Ayn Rand, of the U.S. Army as "a vast communist institution."

Taking us from Baghdad to Mosul to a remote mountainous outpost on the Syrian border, Williams demonstrates a keen eye for the complexity of the U.S. military's evolving and ultimately deteriorating relations with the Iraqis. Before she leaves the country, she witnesses death up close and sees soldiers cross the line in the handling of prisoners.

Through it all—the violence, boredom, and fear as well as the light-hearted moments of humor, comraderie, and flirtation—Kayla Williams brings home with vivid intensity and empathy what it is like for a woman soldier to serve her country today.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393060985/qid=1124855820/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-0941934-0334511?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

[opihimoimoi]

1. Based on lies, need any more be said???

[BiggJawn]

2. Bet the sight of all those yellow magnets cheered her right up...

"How was I willing to go and die for these fucking people who wear sweatshirts with little kittens on them?"

But it's HARD! HARD WORK, I say! going to Wall-Mart EVERY day and buying clothes with pissed-off-looking eagles on them and Made-in-China "GAWD Bless MURKA!" signs for the front yard...

I'm glad she got back OK, and *I* appreciate her following her Orders, even if those who issued the orders are dihonest...

[driver8]

3. "How was I willing to go and die for these fucking people who wear

sweatshirts with little kittens on them?"

That's just it. Our soldiers aren't dying for people who wear sweatshirts with kittens on them. They are being sent to die for people with their hands in the cookie jar; who want to fill up their bank accounts by robbing our country blind. They are being sent to die by thugs and criminals with a radical political agenda.

This war has nothing to do with protecting America and her people. This war is all about helping a select few...no matter who suffers for it.

[Beam Me Up]

4. THANK YOU! God how I love it when people tell it like it is.

:thumbsup:

[RamboLiberal]

5. Here's another one I have to read

I think this was the guy Keith Olbermann had a blurb from tonight who says it's about time we debate the war.

The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell : An Accidental Soldier's Account of the War in Iraq (Hardcover)
by John Crawford

John Crawford's story might be something out of Hollywood (indeed, with the new FX series, `Over There', now playing, Crawford's story seems almost as if it had been lifted for that drama). Crawford is like many others - he joined the National Guard for college money, not to go abroad and fight a war (whatever happened to the days when the National Guard stayed at home? but I digress...) He was nearing graduation, newly married, and suddenly thrust into the middle of a war that was controversial at the start, and increasingly unpopular at home as it dragged on.

Crawford spent three years in the 101st Airborne division, and then enlisted in the National Guard as he entered college, primarily for the tuition assistance. In Fall 2002, he was activated and had to go. Like many, his expectation of a short tour of duty was frustrated - the promise of `three months, six at most' turned into more than a year abroad.

Crawford's tales are riveting and engrossing. Like many men and women abroad in the conflict, he had varying access to email and internet facilities, and was encouraged by an embedded journalist to submit his tales (those of his own experience, and his writing on the experiences of others who were also around him at the time) to places around the country.

Some stories are now familiar to people in the States - problems with equipment, problems with personnel, problems with understanding their role vis-à-vis the locals. Crawford says that his unit was so underequipped that they even had to get vehicles from other units; at one point, they had a confiscated SUV from which they'd knocked the doors out, and mounted a machine gun on it. Not military issue at all. Their flak jackets were Vietnam-era technology, and their rifles were decades old. He also talks of the scavenging and improvising that took place, including digging through landfills for spare parts. Crawford even said that the only way to get replacement uniforms and boots was to order them online - soldiers then had to pay for these themselves, unreimbursed. Tough conditions, indeed.


http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/157322314X/qid=1124858525/sr=8-4/ref=pd_bbs_4/102-0941934-0334511?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

[Beam Me Up]

7. I know. The neocons want to DISTROY our military. That is part of what all

this is about. I wonder how long before the American people wake up to what TREASON is being done to them. They want to leave the United States of America not only destitute but defenseless against an increasingly hostile and unpredictable international environment. A geopolitical landscape that UNITED STATES IMPERIALISM AND CAPITAL HEGEMONY has shaped since the end of the Second World War. Now, the neocons have control of our Executive, our Congress, and our Media. They have eviscerated much of our domestic and foreign intelligence gathering capacity while simultaneously engaging our military in a quagmire of monumental proportions. Hell, they've just gotten started.

If we could fully grasp it we would see that what we are witnessing is the emergence of another Global war. It isn't "coming" -- it is HERE. We are IN IT. Not only that, WE ARE PARTICIPANTS IN IT. Edit: And we are the primary target. More than any other people on this planet, it is OUR responsibility to take control of this situation.

Note what I'm speaking of has nothing to do with guns or violent weapons of any kind and everything to do with minds. However the masses BELIEVE their future can be, THUS THEY WILL BE. We must show them THERE IS A REAL POSSIBILITY beyond the illusions sold to them by corporate despotism.

EITHER THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA THROWS OFF THE SHACKLS OF FASSCISM AND BECOMES THE DEMOCRACY IT HAS ALWAYS BELIEVED ITSELF TO BE OR IT WILL PERISH, DEVOURED FROM WITHIN BY ITS OWN GREED.

[shadowknows69]

6. I just got done interviewing a rock band

which counts an iraq veteran as one of their members. got some very candid anti-war stuff from him that' ill make sure to post once i get it cut up.

[Beam Me Up]

8. Don't let me miss that.

Thanks.