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What can military women expect with the impending invasion into Iraq? Those who will be in close vicinity or who will travel into the country of Iraq can expect to vanish into the darkness and horror of unspeakable death, sickness, rape, addictions, nightmares, and the seduction of the overall experience#including possible suicide. They can expect to be stalked and raped by their own troops, killed by sniper fire, turned into glass from the intense heat of a nuclear blast, or fired on by one of their own jet fighters (so-called "friendly fire"). They can expect to be caught in the crossfire of a potential World War III. They can expect to be killed, maimed, captured, and raped by hostile troops. They can expect to kill women and children if they are close enough to any type of fight.
This military operation is not a video game. It is not the mythic flag-waving hoopla of World War II movies. This new first strike strategy of the United States is not one of defense but offense. The U.S. will be the "naked aggressors," the invaders bombing and attacking a nation with more firepower than ten Hiroshimas. The U.S. will seek to remove the Iraqi leaders from office and replace their government with a foreign military dictatorship charged with the task of rebuilding all that will be destroyed#which will be everything rebuilt from the first Persian Gulf War and anything else in the way. And the only ones who will be liberated are the defense and oil contractors, not the people of Iraq.
What can military women expect? They will experience regret, despair, and the pain of discovering, years later, the lies of their own military and political leaders.
This is fast becoming America's Nazi Germany and women will be very much a part of it. Some will relish the attention, the sexual gratification with other military members, and erotic dreams. Some will even enjoy the killing and will bring home their own trophies. This is the poison, narcotic, and seduction of war#the abyss of muck and mire of madness and total destruction beyond human comprehension. Women will not be immune from the temptation of it all.
Don't get me wrong#there will be fun times, great letters, new songs of support, and yellow ribbons. There will be care packages of whiskey, vodka, and pretzels. There will be great T-shirts and fun comics with Hussein kneeling on a prayer rug with his ass in the air and an incoming cruise missile with the snippet, "this SCUD's for you!" There will be video games and computer time spent playing solitaire and casino to fill twelve-hour duty days.
The women will get a chance to see sandstorms, vipers and scorpions, and wild, starving dogs tearing at the charred flesh of dead carcasses. They will find out about the intense heat, gun accidents, and who hides during an alarm or attack. They will get the opportunity to know what oil smoke and death smell like.
This is the ultimate experience, and I am so glad that women now have the right to walk through the shadow of death and breathe the fires of hell firsthand. I am exhilarated to see that they will get the opportunity to cross the line from creator to destroyer. Perhaps when enough of them have the experience firsthand they will join in the fight for humanity and help put an end to America's military madness and the threat of global extinction.
Chante Wolf is a Persian Gulf War I veteran who spent twelve years in the U.S. Air Force.
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Word UP!
"Of the 1.2 million female veterans in the United States, approximately 25 percent were raped while in the military, according to a study by the Archive of Family Medicine. Reported incidents of sexual harassment in the military have doubled since the 1980s, the same study said. Another study by the medical journal Psychiatric Services said 12 percent of women who served overseas in the military said they experienced enemy fire, the stereotyped starting point for post-traumatic stress disorder, but 43 percent reported rape or attempted rape."
–– Reid Forgrave, Seattle Times, September 26, 2001
Resources for the Military
Support Group Forming
Do you have a loved one who has been deployed with the U.S. armed forces to fight this war? Interested in forming a support group? Contact Nancy White at 651-646-8564 or Veterans for Peace at 612-821-9141.
Survivors Take Action Against Abuse by Military Personnel (STAMP)
500 Greene Tree Place
Fairborn, OH 45324
866-879-2568 (hotline)
937-879-9304 (phone)
The GI Rights Hotline
630 Twentieth Street #302
Oakland, CA 94612
800-394-9544 (toll-free hotline)
215-563-4620 (phone)
510-465-2459 (fax)
email: girights@objector.org
online: girights.objector.org
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