Operation Lioness, When Women Go To War

Female U.S. soldiers' role in Iraq war profiled
Documentary follows 5 troopers stationed in Ramadi in 2004
Marines preparing to leave west Iraq
Displaced Iraqis forced to live at Kirkuk Stadium
Training offers lessons in culture

By Tony Perry
Los Angeles Times

"Lioness," showing this week on PBS' "Independent Lens" series, is an up-close look at the evolving role of women in the U.S. military — not just in traditional roles as nurses and support personnel but as weapon-toting frontline troops.

The 82-minute piece, by veteran documentarians Meg McLagan and Daria Sommers, deals with five women attached to a Marine battalion in the middle of prolonged fighting in Ramadi, Iraq, in 2004.

Retired Navy Capt. Lory Manning, now of the Women's Research and Education Institute, says they were among the first U.S. women to experience combat on an essentially equal footing with men.

Federal law prohibits assigning women to direct combat, but that distinction has been blurred on the ground in the Iraq war. Among other things, U.S. troops, particularly in the combat-heavy phase of the war, were stretched thin and needed help. Also, there are Islamic cultural prohibitions against men searching Iraqi women or even talking to them.

As a solution, the Army began Operation Lioness, assigning female soldiers to accompany male troops on patrol and on checkpoint duty, although the women had not had infantry training.

Staff Sgt. Ranie Ruthig, a mechanic who never expected to fire a weapon, remembers a late-night mission in which troops forced their way into Iraqi homes to search for weapons and insurgents.

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