Women Warriors "What so proudly we hail"

While it appears the blog world is abuzz with either McCellan's tell all or McCain's invitation to Obama to go to Iraq, there is much that is being missed. The fact a VA psychiatrist came out saying that rapes and sexual assaults do not cause PTSD, has all but been avoided. Sure, there are a few hundred jumping on the rise in PTSD cases in the DOD but there has been really nothing new in news on that front. It's just and endless cycle of what we already knew was coming. Some may find it shattering, disgraceful, whatever, but to me it's just more of the same type of treatment the veterans and the troops have been receiving for far too long. It was to be expected, yet we should be grateful the media has finally paid all of this the attention it is due.

I want to go back on something that was said by McCain the other day when he was speaking out on being against women in combat. He actually said there is no history of women in combat. While I did a small post on this yesterday, today I was spending more time thinking about it because of the news the VA has a psychiatrist denying PTSD can be caused by sexual attacks. For Heaven's sake, the population of the world knows it can so how can someone supposedly listed as a professional in mental health within the VA does not seem to be clued in at all?

Women are just as human as males in the military, but women are more likely to be sexually assaulted than men are. Yes, there are some men who have been assaulted as well, but a tiny fraction. We cannot diminish their contribution to the nation. As such, here are just two more parts to what I began yesterday. When you read their names and some of their stories, think about if their lives are being honored when rapes and sexual assaults are passed off and ignored within the military and now a psychiatrist denies their wound from it all together.



So Proudly We Hail!
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
So Proudly We Hail! is a 1943 film made by Paramount Pictures, directed by Mark Sandrich, and starring Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard (who was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance), George Reeves and Veronica Lake.
An effective sample of wartime propaganda, the film follows a group of military nurses sent to the Philippines during the early days of World War II. The movie was based on a book written by nurse Juanita Hipps[1] a WWII nurse who served in Bataan and Corrigedor during the time when McArthur withdrew to Australia which ultimately led to the surrender of US and Philippine troops to Japan. Those prisoners of war were subjected to the infamous Bataan Death March. The movie was based on LTC Hipps' true story "I Served On Bataan."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_Proudly_We_Hail!


ACCOMPLISHED WOMEN BURIED AT ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY
Commander Beatrice V. Ball, b. December 2, 1902. d. October 21, 1963. U.S. Coast Guard Reserve. She was a senior officer in SPARS (Women's Coast Guard unit) founded in World War II.

Lt. Ollie Josephine B. Bennett, b. March 27, 1874. d. February 4, 1953. Pioneer woman doctor in World War I.

Lt. Kara Spears Hultgreen, U.S. Navy -- Was the first female pilot killed after the Department of Defense Risk rule was rescinded. Lt. Hultgreen was one of the first U.S. Navy female combat pilots.

Commodore (Rear Adm.) Grace Murray Hopper - 1906-1992 U.S. Navy -- Was a mathematician, and a pioneer in data processing and computer science. Admiral Hopper invented COBOL and coined the term "bug" in computers. When she retired from the Navy in 1986, at the age of 80, she was the oldest officer on active duty.

Captain Winifred Love, USN, of Newport, Rhode Island, 1914-1999 In 1967, Captain Love, who was among the first group of Navy women officers selected to the permanent rank of Captain, reported to her last command as director of training publications for the operating Fleet. In 1973 she retired after 30 years of distinguished service to her country. Captain Love has awards and decorations that include the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, the American Campaign Medal, World War II Victory Medal, and the National Defense Service Medal.

Maj. Marie Therese Rossi During Desert Storm the first woman pilot gave her life while flying in a combat zone. Major Marie T. Rossi died at age 32 on March 1, 1991, when the Chinook helicopter she was piloting crashed near her base in northern Saudia Arabia. The unit she commanded was among the very first American units to cross into enemy held territory flying fuel and ammunition to the rapidly advancing 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions. Major Rossi is buried in Arlington Cemetery where her simple epitaph there reads "First Female Combat Commander To Fly into Battle."

Constance Bennett -- Acted in more than 50 films, including 1937 "Topper" married Brig. Gen. Coulter.

Jane Delano -- Second superintendent of Army Nurse Corps 1909-12, active with the Red Cross during World War I.

Ruth M. Gardiner, b. May 20, 1914. d. July 27, 1943. One of the first Army Nurses killed in WWII.

Lillian Harris, b. May 6, 1913. d. April 15, 1998. She was a member of the original WAC ( Women's Army Corps) and graduated in its first class. She served as an executive officer during World War II in North Africa. She retired in 1968, she was the recipient of the Bronze Star and Legion of Merit award.

Marguerite "Maggie" Higgins - 1920-1966 -- Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, only woman correspondent during the Korean Conflict. She also reported from the battlefields of WWII - where she witnessed the liberation of Dachau and covered the Nuremburg Trials.

Juanita Hipps -- Wrote I Served on Bataan, best seller in 1943 and basis for movie "So Proudly We Hail," World War II Army Nurse.

Juliet O. Hopkins -- "Florence Nightingale of South" during the Civil War.

Dr. Anita Newcomb Magee - 1864-1940 -- First woman Army surgeon in 1898, assigned to secure and train nurses for the Spanish American War. When the war ended she organized the Army Nurse Corps under the U.S. Surgeon General and served as its first director and the first woman assistant surgeon general.

Katherine Marshall -- Wrote Together, an autobiography about her life with Gen. George C. Marshall.

Anna C. Maxwell, Army Nurse Corps

Barbara Allen Rainey - 1948 - 1982 -- First woman pilot in the history of the U.S. Navy, earning her gold wins in 1974. She was killed while training another pilot, in an air accident at Middleton Field near Evergreen, Alabama.

Mary Randolph -- First person buried on grounds that became Arlington Cemetery, cousin of Mary Custis, wife of Gen. Robert E. Lee, wrote The Virginia Housewife, a best seller in late 1700s .

Vinnie Ream - 1847 - 1914 -- Sculpted Lincoln statue in Capitol at age 18. First woman artist to be commissioned by the government and last artist whom Lincoln sat for before his death; sculpted many other statues including Sappho, the poetess, above her grave.

Mary Roberts Rinehart - 1876-1958 -- America's first woman war correspondent during World War I for the Saturday Evening Post; wrote mystery novels, including The Circular Staircase and The Bat; in 1921 was referred to as "America's Mistress of Mystery."

Lt Commander Catherine Dodson "Cay" Callahan, US Navy (Ret) World War II veteran whose duties included service as a legislative liaison officer to the U.S. Congress. She began her naval career as a member of a graduating class of WAVE Midshipmen from Smith College in 1943. As a young communications officer, she served on the staff of Fleet Adm. Ernest J. King throughout World War II.

Fay Bainter -- Actress during silent films (wife of Lt. Cmdr. Reginald Venable).

Captain Winifred Quick Collins, USN. 1912-1999 Captain Collins served 20 years in the Navy, beginning in the early period of World War II. Most of her career was in personnel positions, related to the integration of women into the Navy. She served in Hawaii, San Francisco and Washington. Her decorations included a Bronze Star and the Navy Commendation Medal. After retiring from active duty, Captain Collins served as vice president and director of the National Navy League. She was the first woman to hold that position. In 1997, the University of North Texas published her book, "More Than a Uniform: A Navy Woman in a Navy Man's World."
Colonel Geraldine Pratt May, WAF Director, USAF. 1895-1997.

Col. May joined the newly formed Women's Army Auxiliary Corps in July 1942 to attend officer candidate school at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. May received her commission in August 1942 and the following March was among the first women officers assigned to the Army Air Forces where she served as WAC staff director of Air Transport Command, With the enactment of the Women's Armed Services Integration Act in June 1948, May received a reserve commission in the newly created Air Force. She was appointed director of Women in the Air Force with the rank of full colonel, the first woman in the Air Force to hold that rank and the first to hold this post. As WAF director, May advised the chief of staff and the Air Staff on the formulation of the plans and policies for integrating women into the regular and reserves of the Air Force.


Colonel (Retired) Bettie J. Morden died of breast cancer on Friday, October 12, 2001 at her home in Arlington, Virginia. She was a pioneer Army woman, acclaimed historian/writer and tireless supporter of the Women's Army Corps Museum (now the Army Women's Museum). Colonel Morden has been described by Army senior leaders past and present as the "best of the best". Funeral services were held at the Fort Myer Old Post Chapel on Monday, November 5, 2001 at 9 AM. She was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. Memorial contributions may be made to the United States Army Women's Museum Foundation (formerly WAC Foundation), P.O. Box 5030, Fort Lee, Virginia 23801-0030 or to the Hospice of Northern Virginia, 6400 Arlington Boulevard, Suite 1000, Falls Church, Virginia 22042.
Capt. Helen Krystopik Garrison , is buried at Arlington. She was a Bellevue Nursing School graduate who served in England, and France during WWII, and later Norfolk, Virginia and Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, immediately after the war. She was buried in Arlington in 2001.
http://userpages.aug.com/captbarb/arlington.html