Dead women. Fifty-four dead women. Has it really come to this? We know that American women die everyday. They die in hospitals, nursing homes, bedrooms, and cars. They die by accident, disease, murder, suicide, or natural causes. But why should any American women die in Iraq fighting a war? Yes, women. It is horrible enough when young men in the prime of their life have their arms and legs torn to shreds because of an encounter with an “improvised explosive device,” but it is absolutely hideous that we as a country countenance young women — young American women, some of them with children — dying the same grisly type of death. True, they enlisted in the military of their own free will. But where are the fathers, the brothers, and the pastors of these misguided and impressionable girls? What kind of slime do we have for military recruiters that would prey on these women? As I have argued many, many times before, no American soldiers — men or women — should be fighting in Iraq in the first place. Some Americans are aware that 2,475 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq; few Americans probably realize that 54 of them were women. The following table lists all of the women who have been killed to date in the Iraq war. The date given is the date of death, beginning with the most recent. Clicking the link on the name will bring up the official DOD news release about the woman’s death. Then follows a photo of the dead woman, her rank, her branch of service, and the cause of her death.
Along with a pacifist dog and an anti-war weenie, I have been called a coward for not supporting the war in Iraq. But even if the war is necessary, what kind of coward would countenance sending women to their deaths in Iraq when it is not necessary that any women go? If this war is really necessary then why don’t members of Congress go and fight or at least encourage their sons to enlist instead of sending women? How many members of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees are even aware of the number of female U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq? What kind of military do we have that sends women to die overseas? What kind of society do we have that would accept a woman with children flying a military helicopter in Iraq or anywhere else? Where were all the Bush apologists, Republican loyalists, Christian warmongers, and other supporters of this war when women were dying in Iraq? I suppose they were seated next to the armchair warriors. Dead women. Fifty-four dead women. It is a terrible tragedy that we send young men to die in this senseless war in Iraq; it is a horrendous evil that we send young women.
