Military Women Worked Hard For The Country

Time to treat military women right!
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
July 9, 2015

When you think about women serving in the military, it is all too easy to forget how much they do in fact contribute as well as risk. The get killed and wounded, but we don't talk about that very much.

"She Works Hard For The Money"
Original Song by Donna Summer
She works hard for the country
So hard for it, honey
She works hard for the country
So you better treat her right

Twenty-eight years have come and gone
And she's seen a lot of tears
Of the ones who come in
They really seem to need her there
It's a sacrifice working day to day
For too many hours too little pay
But it's worth it all
To hear them say that they care

She works hard for the country
So hard for it, honey
She works hard for the country
So you better treat her right

Already knows, she's seen her bad times
Already knows, these are the good times
She'll never sell out, she never will
Not for a dollar bill
She works haaaaard

She worked hard for the country
So hard for it, honey
She worked hard for the country
So you better treat her right

I was driving home from work with that song stuck in my head at the same time I was thinking about next month. A group of us decided that it was time to honor military women/veterans simply because "She Served" and earned a lot more attention than they have been getting.

In the process of talking about what we're up to, I talked about Mary Edwards Walker and how she received the Medal of Honor during the Civil War. (You, know the war that everyone is talking about when it it comes to the Confederate flag but not talking much about the men and women fighting during it.) Anyway, folks have been befuddled hearing about this. A woman with the Medal of Honor? Why not since they have received every other award as well plus sacrificed their lives since the beginning.

Who was the first military woman killed in action? Although women have served in the US Armed Forces only since 1901, women served on the battlefield with the armed services from the time of the American Revolution. On Dec. 11, 1775, Jemima Warner was killed by an enemy bullet during the siege of Quebec.

Military women have been killed in action throughout every war.

More than 400 U.S. military nurses died in the line of duty during World War I. 543 WWII, 17 nurses were killed in Korea, 8 during Vietnam and 16 during Desert Storm.

Back to the Medal of honor. The first woman to become a prisoner of war was also the first and only woman to receive the Medal of Honor.

Only Woman Medal of Honor Holder Ahead of Her Time
When the Civil War started, the Union Army wouldn't hire women doctors, so Walker volunteered as a nurse in Washington's Patent Office Hospital and treated wounded soldiers at the Battle of Bull Run in Virginia.

In 1862, she received an Army contract appointing her as an assistant surgeon with the 52nd Ohio Infantry.

The first woman doctor to serve with the Army Medical Corps, Walker cared for sick and wounded troops in Tennessee at Chickamauga and in Georgia during the Battle of Atlanta.

Confederate troops captured her on April 10, 1864, and held her until the sides exchanged prisoners of war on Aug. 12, 1864.

Walker worked the final months of the war at a women's prison in Louisville, Ky., and later at an orphans' asylum in Tennessee.

The Army nominated Walker for the Medal of Honor for her wartime service. President Andrew Johnson signed the citation on Nov. 11, 1865, and she received the award on Jan. 24, 1866. Her citation cites her wartime service, but not specifically valor in combat. Walker's citation reads in part that she "devoted herself with much patriotic zeal to the sick and wounded soldiers, both in the field and hospitals, to the detriment of her own health. She has also endured hardships as a prisoner of war for four months in a Southern prison while acting as contract surgeon."

The War Department, starting in 1916, reviewed all previous Medal of Honor awards with the intent of undoing decades of abuse. At the time, for instance, the medal could be freely copied and sold and legally worn by anyone.

Past awards would be rescinded and future ones would be rejected if supporting evidence didn't clearly, convincingly show combat valor above and beyond the call of duty. Mary Walker and nearly 1,000 past recipients found their medals revoked in the reform. Wearing the medal if unearned became a crime.

The Army demanded Walker and the others return their medals. She refused and wore hers until her death at age 87 in 1919.

President Jimmy Carter restored Mary Walker's Medal of Honor on June 11, 1977. Today, it's on display in the Pentagon's women's corridor.

Dr. Mary Edwards Walker

Deborah Samson Gannett, from Plymouth, Massachusetts, was one of the first American woman soldiers. In 1782, she enlisted under the name of her deceased brother, Robert Shurtleff Samson. For 17 months, Samson served in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. She was wounded twice. She cut a musket ball out of her own thigh so a doctor wouldn't find out she was a woman. Years later, in 1804, Samson was awarded a pension for her service. Also during the Revolution War, in 1776, Margaret Corbin fought alongside her husband and 600 American soldiers as they defended Fort Washington, New York. In the Mexican War, Elizabeth C. Newcume dressed in male attire and joined the military at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. In 1847, she battled Native Americans in Dodge City. Ten months later, she was discharged when her gender was discovered. In July 1848, however, Congress paid her the land and money she was owed for her service. A History of Women in the U.S. Military

Oh but there are so many more.

Distinguished Service Cross, 6 women

Navy Cross, 4 women

Silver Star, 3 women. Mary Roberts Wilson, WWII, Sgt, Leigh Ann Hester, Iraq and Spec. Monica Brown Afghanistan.

Air Medal, Lt. Reba Whittle WWII and three crewmembers of a surveillance plane

Col. Ruby Bradley, most decorated military woman served during WWII. She was a POW in a Japanese prison camp. 2 Bronze Stars, plus 32 more. But she wasn't the first. That was 1Lt Cordelia Cook, an Army nurse during WWII.

You can read the rest here at Women Medal Recipients showing, contrary to popular belief, women have earned every medal for their service to this country.

Demographic Characteristics Department Veterans Affairs
• According to data from the 2009 American Community Survey, 1.5 million Veterans in the United States and Puerto Rico were women. Women represented about 8 percent of the total Veteran population in 2009.

• Twenty-nine percent of all living women Veterans served only during times of peace. Almost half of all women Veterans have served during the Gulf War Era (August 1990 to the present).

• The median age of women Veterans in 2009 was 48, compared with 46 for non-Veteran women.

• In 2009, 19 percent of women Veterans were Black non-Hispanic, compared with 12 percent of non-Veteran women. In contrast, the percentage of women Veterans who were Hispanic was half that of non-Veterans (7 percent compared with 14 percent).

• Women Veterans were more likely to have ever married than non-Veteran women. In 2009, 83 percent of women Veterans were currently married, divorced, widowed, or separated compared with 74 percent of non-Veteran women.

• In 2009, 23 percent of all women Veterans were currently divorced compared with 12 percent of non-Veteran women.

• Thirty-nine percent of all women Veterans under the age of 65 had children 17 years old or younger living at home in 2009, compared with 35 percent of similar non-Veteran women.

The list of what women have done in our military is far too long for a post. There are simply too few hours in a day to truly do these women justice.