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WOMEN WARRIORS: "WE'RE ALL ON THE FRONT LINE,"

TROOPS SAY -- Army Sgt. Ashley Crawford regularly

makes the dash to a bunker when insurgents

begin lobbing in mortar rounds.

 

                         U.S. Army Sgt. Ashley Crawford

 

Story here... http://www.bakersfield.com/102/story/93052.html

Story below:

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Women warriors

'We're all on the front line,' troops say

BY STEVEN MAYER, Californian staff writer
e-mail: smayer@bakersfield.com

U.S. Army Sgt. Ashley Crawford of Bakersfield, a respiratory therapist at a combat support hospital in Mosul, Iraq, regularly makes a headlong dash for the safety of an underground bunker when insurgents begin firing mortar rounds into the compound.

Army Sgt. Tracey Ford will never quite be the same after suffering a severe injury to her bladder when her truck convoy was hit by rocket-propelled grenades in Iraq.

And Ridgeview High School alumna Stephanie Browning knows what it's like to undergo nearly a dozen surgeries in as many months for wounds that will never fully heal.

For most of America's history, casualties from combat have primarily been men. But the war in Iraq has challenged stereotypes and changed the role of women who wear a military uniform. More than 155,000 women have served in Iraq and Afghanistan; hundreds of America's daughters have been wounded and scores have been killed in action.

Despite the pain and loss many have experienced, fighting women with ties to Kern County say they wouldn't have it any other way.

'Everything now is different'

Twenty-one-year-old Browning was athletic, an avid runner, but in November she underwent her 11th operation, this one to remove shrapnel that had lodged in her Achilles tendon.

The U.S. Army military policewoman from Bakersfield was seriously wounded in October 2005 when an improvised explosive device sent hot shrapnel screaming through her Humvee. Browning suffered burns; two bones in her right leg were shattered; and an artery and tendons in her left forearm were severed in the blast.

More than a year later, Browning is hoping for a medical discharge from the Army so she can move to San Luis Obispo and start her life anew as a student at a local community college.

"My perspective has changed," she said. "Not just since the explosion; it started before that. Everything now is different."

Women can do the job in Iraq, Browning said. That's already been proven. But can they do it in the company of men?

"The question of soldiering, the skills and abilities, it's not an issue," she said.

But placing men and women together -- that's another thing.

"Oh, yeah. We women would hold our gripe sessions about the men and how stupid they are," she recalled. "It amazes me. We are so different.

"The men would write this stuff about us in the porta-potties ... 'So and so is hot' or 'So and so has big boobs,'" she said. "You don't want to be looked at like that in a war zone. You're a soldier first. You don't use makeup. You don't worry about your hair. When you're out there, you just want to pull your own weight."

Stephanie's father, Steve Browning, admits it's difficult for him to discuss women in combat with any objectivity.

But he knows this much:

"Women are volunteering to serve their country during wartime and should be given fair consideration," he said. "Stephanie qualified expert in the rifle and pistol and was physically capable of performing all her duties."

There are no front lines in this war, "which means women are often in the cross hairs," Mr. Browning said. "A good soldier is a good soldier. Courage and loyalty are not gender-specific."

Courage under fire

As a woman soldier in Iraq, Tracey Ford had a lot to prove.

Her fellow soldiers nicknamed her "Psycho" for her gung-ho attitude and for the fearsome firepower she carried, a squad automatic weapon capable of firing up to 1,000 rounds per minute.

Sgt. Ford, whose connection to Bakersfield came through marriage (and later, divorce), drove a truck that hauled 68-ton Abrams battle tanks and other heavy equipment across the Iraqi desert. She often stayed on the road 12 to 16 hours at a time, constantly under threat of ambush or roadside bombs.

In February 2004, her convoy came under attack from insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades. Ford bailed out of the truck and landed hard, causing major trauma to her bladder. Within days, she was headed home.

Ford's love and loyalty to the Army is fierce and unconditional. But that love doesn't stop her from speaking out when she feels people at the top have fallen short.

"I'm married to the Army because it's been good to me--that's just how it is," she said.

Ford was one of the early voices from the enlisted ranks to publicly criticize the Bush administration and top military commanders for sending American troops into battle without body armor. Because of her selfless courage and the courage of others, body armor for troops in the field has become routine.

Now stationed in San Diego, the 34-year-old's internal injury continues to bedevil her. She has undergone several surgeries and expects someday to be fitted with an artificial bladder.

"It's harder for a woman to hold her urine" in combat situations and during those long treks across the desert, she said. "You hold it, and if you do get hit, you damage your bladder for life. You can die from that."

According to The Associated Press, the Veterans Administration found 29 percent of the women veterans it evaluated returned with genital or urinary tract illnesses. Part of the problem, Ford said, is that the military is run by men who don't think often enough about how to support female troops in extreme conditions.

"We need to get female soldiers what they need to survive there," she said. "You're there to serve your country, but your country should be there for you."

'We're all on the front line'

Centennial High School graduate Ashley Crawford works at the 399th Combat Support Hospital in Mosul.

"The best thing about my work is saving lives," Crawford said in an e-mail interview from Iraq. "It sounds cliche, but it gives you such a great feeling to fix someone when they are broken. We see a lot of Iraqi police and coalition forces come into our facility and the health care they receive in our hospital is better than anything they could get in their facilities."

But not everyone can be saved. And that can be heart-wrenching.

"By far the worst part is not being able to save someone," she wrote, "especially an American war fighter. There is nothing worse than that in my eyes."

Crawford and the people she works with often must scramble to their bunkers because of the heavy mortar fire they receive.

"Recently, the enemy have been hitting very close to the hospital," she wrote. "In fact, two attacks ago we had a mortar directly hit the hospital (I live less that 50 meters from the hit) and in the same attack an unexploded mortar destroyed one of the containerized housing units that we live in. The last mortar attack hit right behind our hospital in the middle of the day."

The 22-year-old adopts a matter-of-fact perspective when talking about the role of women in the military.

"We all knew what we were getting into when we joined the service or re-enlisted," she said. "We all signed willingly on the dotted line. Women are no different than men, we're not exempt from death because of our gender.

"I believe we are doing the right thing over here, and unfortunately, with war comes death. That is a risk we accepted when we took the job, man or woman.

"Today's version of war is very much changed and no one here in Iraq is safe," she said. "We're all on the front line."

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Larry Scott

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