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RECOLLECTIONS: A Women Vet Speaks

By VVAW

"Don't Tell Me Women Don't Know About War..."

remember you on your way home from the war. We met in the Pacific. There were so many of you. I was part of the surgical team that worked around the clock to save your life and tried to save your limbs. Some times we did and some times we didn't. And I remember the holes in your guts. We sewed those up too.

You don't remember me, but I remember you. I held your hand when they brought you to the Operating Room while they put you to sleep. Many times I was the only female on the surgical team trying to hide my emotions.

How could I forget you? The faces you had and the faces you didn't have. Some of you came back so many times to haunt me with your faces blown off. And for some of you there was so little we could do for you. We gave you more skin grafts when what you needed was a whole new face. The despair and hopelessness I felt I saw in your face and I saw in your eyes. I remember changing your dressings and the roaches that came crawling out of the wounds of your stumps. The roached that were eating you alive and you didn't know it. I tried to hide the roaches from you and stop from vomiting and still provide you with nursing care all at the same time. Yes, those were difficult days, for me too. And I remember your screams when they had to amputate your legs. I had compassion for you and cared about your recovery. I held your hand then, too. After the surgery was over I cleaned the blood up in the Operating Room and then had to carry your amputated leg to the laboratory and prepare the room quickly for the next case, all day and sometimes all night. There were so many of you. There were days when I felt haunted from the constant stress of taking care of so many of you.

Don't tell me women don't know anything about war because we weren't out on the "front lines." I had battle fatigue, too. From those grueling years in surgery; it was a war zone there, believe me. There were days when the stress and strain and blood and guts almost had to equal what you experience.

I went home to a lonely apartment and started drinking to kill the pain I had in caring for you. That hurt me even more. After awhile I didn't feel anything and fooled myself and thought I was coping better. But the alcohol was slowly taking its deadly toll on me.

The Army trained me well for the surgical team to help take care of your war-torn bodies, but they didn't train me for that "other war." The one we had. When you turned on me. You turned on me with your unrelenting sexual harassment and assaults. You battered me. I met you on Army post after Army post. Some of you were black and some of you were white but you were all male. Maybe you were frustrated from the war or maybe the Army trained you that way, I don't know. There were days when I felt terrorized by the psychological warfare going on between us. Then there was the added unrelenting stress of working in surgery all those long days and nights. I'm still damaged. The Army never recognized that war, either. I felt trapped. I tried to ignore the harassment and hoped you'd leave me alone. I felt so powerless to cope being a woman in a man's army. There was no where to turn for help with a male chain of command. I tried though. Women only made up 2% of the Army population back then. I thought if I worked hard, you'd stop your harassment. The Army never trained me to fight back either—only to save your life. So I was at a terrible disadvantage and not prepared for your ruthless attacks. I was stunned and felt helpless. I was devastated. I drank more. I isolated myself. My problems got worse.

When I got out of the Army 4 years ago I came home with some of the same problems you did. Alcohol, antisocial behavior and isolation from family and friends. I had a hard time holding down a job, too. I also had to change occupations—I couldn't go back to surgery. Like you I was misunderstood by society, too. No one took my military service seriously either because I was a woman. So in one way it was easier for me than for you to quietly hide out when I got home. Then a year ago I came down with a severe depression and anxiety and was hospitalized. I was exhausted and suffered fatigue—and I still never talked about my experiences in the military. Maybe I was suffering with delayed stress syndrome, I don't know. The scars are still there and they're deep.

After all these years I'm just now starting to cry. I've cried for days. And I'm starting to feel again. I'm hoping that maybe I'll recover from the emotional trauma I held inside me for so long from all those years of taking care of you and all that abuse that women have to put up with in the Army that seems built into the system.

I want the American people to know I'm not going to hide out anymore. It is not easy for me to write this letter—and I hope you will print this letter in its entirety.

I recovered from the alcoholism but I desperately need psychiatric care for a full recovery. I tried to get help at the VA but they don't have programs for women—and I'm a service-connected veteran, too! I'm worried that if I don't get the help I need and soon, I may lose a fine job that I value very much.

After serving in the armed forces for so many years, and helping to save and mend so many lives, not I need help and there is no place for me to go for help. And I am angry.

I urge all American, and especially women veterans who came home from those war years as shattered and battered as I did to put some pressure on the VA to recognize the special problems women have in coping with the shattering experiences they had while they were on active duty. Special programs should be provided by the VA for women because they are urgently needed.

The VA and the American people need to know that women need help too. We've been silent too long. We count too, after all, we volunteered our services and took time out of our lives to help save other lives and to serve our country, too.

And if we can't get help at the VA we'll just have to go to the Veterans Outreach Centers in the community and start our own groups.

But please, women veterans, come out; we've been hiding too long. It's the only way we're going to recover.

Judy Marron, writer of the "Woman Vet Speaks Out," took her own life by leaping from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. While the books will say the she killed herself, the above article makes it clear that she was in fact the victim of the sexism of the U.S. military, and the neglect of those government agencies whose job it is to help veterans. We of VVAW can only express our feeling of sorrow that another valuable part of the struggle is no longer with us, and our hope that the goals expressed in the article can be reached by others. That is, as ever, the most lasting memorial we can help to build.