In The Plight of Women Soldiers, Helen Benedict, writes about the Plight of Women Soldiers in the US Army; some selected quotes:

… More women have fought and died in Iraq than in all the wars since World War II put together. Over 206,000 have served in the Middle East since March 2003, most of them in Iraq; and over 600 have been wounded and 104 have died in Iraq alone, according to the Department of Defense. In Iraq, one in ten troops is a woman.

“A lot of the men didn’t want us there,” Montoya said about her time in Iraq. “One guy told me the military sends women soldiers over to give the guys eye-candy to keep them sane. He told me in Vietnam they had prostitutes, but they don’t have those in Iraq, so they have women soldiers instead.”

Some soldiers and commanders show their hostility by undermining women’s authority, denying them promotions, or denigrating their work. Others show it through sexual harassment, assault, and and rape (of which there is a shockingly high rate in the military). These problems occur throughout the military, on US bases all over the world, as well as at war. … The double traumas of combat and sexual persecution may be why a 2008 RAND study [previous post] found that female veterans are suffering double the rates of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder for their male counterparts.

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