CAPTAIN COOK AND LISA WILLIAMS
ISSUES
www.bh.org.il/Links/ Jewish Women .asp - This is quite a bit of a site, and I am highlighting it for very important reasons. Men would be right, women don't or are not a large percentage of the army in Australia I believe just over 10% and this site is not listing hordes of women but yet listen to their stories and you will see, the female Rabbi who served in Dessert Storm indeed has a family and it is particularly interesting to read about her views on war.
I believe serving in war to me means that we love our men and support them as much as we can, and this is what came across reading what the Rabbi had to say.
Women have unofficially served in the American Army since the birth of the United States.
In the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, women often fought disguised as men. During World War I, women were finally accepted by the Navy, the Marines, and the Coast Guard. The Army, however, only admitted women to serve in the Nurses Corps. Several thousand women also served as drivers, secretaries, clerks, and telephone operators during World War I, but they worked under civilian contracts, and were not officially in the Army.
When World War II broke out, women were desperately needed by the Army to fill important administrative jobs in order to release men for combat. All branches of the armed forces conducted massive publicity campaigns urging women to volunteer and "Free a Man to Fight." In addition, the Army and Navy Nurses Corps heavily recruited civilian nurses to meet their own expanding needs.
Today, women are involved in all aspects of the military, from nursing to combat.
In all of America's wars, nurses have worked near the front lines of battle. Under frequent enemy fire in field hospitals, evacuation hospitals, hospital trains, hospital ships and medical transport planes, military nurses in wartime are faced with daily situations of grave danger.
Military nurses are involved in a broad range of activities. They are expected to adopt innovative solutions to a broad range of medical problems with limited support, to move and set up field and evacuation hospitals amidst enemy fire, and to teach and supervise new trainees and medical personnel to save lives under dire circumstances.
The work of the following women encompasses the many tasks assumed by military nurses throughout the last 150 years:
Phoebe Yates Levy Pember (Civil War)
Ethel Gladstone (WWI)
Yetta Moskowitz (WWII)
Frances Slanger (WWII)
Gertrude Shapiro (WWII)
Marita Silverman (Vietnam)
In May 1941, a bill was introduced in Congress to create the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps. The bill languished for several months until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941) signaled the need for a dramatic mobilization effort. On May 14, 1942, The Women's Army Auxiliary Corps was officially established.
From the outset, the WAAC was beset with problems: Not officially part of the Army, WAAC's did the same jobs as soldiers but did not receive the same pay, rank, legal protections, injury benefits, or other military entitlements. While women were anxious to serve their country, these inequities severely inhibited the Army's ability to recruit. By the spring of 1943, many WAAC training facilities were sitting idle.
In July1943, President Franklin Roosevelt signed into law the establishment of the Women's Army Corps with full military status. In the ensuing months, thousands of American women - Jew and Gentile alike - answered the call to serve. By the war's end, the glowing record of achievement and dedicated contributions toward victory on behalf of America's women motivated President Harry Truman to establish the WACS as a permanent part of the United States Army and Reserve.
Twelve Jewish American women were included among the first graduating class of WAAC officers at Fort Des Moines, Iowa on August 29, 1942. Other women active in these corps include:
Matilda and Bernice Blaustein (WWII)
The history of women serving in the United States Navy began in the Civil War when nuns of the Roman Catholic religious orders came aboard hospital ships to assist the wounded. While the first trained nurses served in the Navy during the Spanish-American War, it was not until 1908 that the Navy Nurse Corps was officially established and produced over 12,000 women who served during World War I. The Navy "WAVES" or Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service force was officially established on July 30, 1942. The WAVES were created to initiate a rapid buildup of Navy personnel at the outset of WWII to address an acute shortage of manpower. With the establishment of a women's reserve force, Congress hoped to enlist a total of 10,000 women and 1,000 officers to aid in the war effort.
Women in the Navy have included:
Of all the branches of the armed forces, the Air Force has been, from the beginning, the most receptive toward recruiting women.
In World War II, the Army Air Force recruited an astounding 40 percent of all women in the armed forces! Under the AAF, women were assigned to highly responsible positions including jobs as weather observers and forecasters, cryptographers, radio operators and repairmen, sheet metal workers, parachute riggers, link trainer instructors, bombsight maintenance specialists, aerial photograph analysts and control tower operators. WACS in the AAF were also assigned flying duties.
In today's Air Force, women regularly pilot bomber planes and are permitted to engage in strategic air strikes.
"From the time my mother took me on a two dollar airplane ride in Asbury Park, New Jersey in the 1920's, I fell in love with flying and I knew I was going to become a pilot someday," says Selma Kantor Cronan. She fulfilled her wish in 1943 when she was certified as a pilot. Since that time, Selma flew for the WASPs, for the Civil Air Patrol, in competitions and for the sheer pleasure of it. Fifty-five years later she still takes the controls from time to time.
After World War II, Selma's flying career really took off. She entered numerous flying competitions, among them three All Women's Transcontinental Air Races across the United States, better known as "Powder Puff Derbies."
In 1990, Selma attended an international conference of women fliers in Russia. Thirty former WASP pilots met with Russian women pilots who served in the Soviet Air Force in World War II. Known as the "Night Witches," many of these Russian women flew bombers on night raids against German targets.
The conference also included a visit to Kiev in the Ukraine. Kiev, practically an all-Jewish city prior to World War II, was virtually destroyed by the Germans. Selma placed a wreath at the memorial at Babi Yar , where 60,000 Jews were massacred. "This experience strengthened my identity as a Jew as nothing had before," Selma said.
These days Selma is active in women's flying associations, especially the International Association of Licensed Women Pilots. "Flying is easy; all you have to do is get the hang of it. I can't think of anything better than taking the controls and soaring into the sky like a bird with the earth down below."
Lisa Stein (Desert Storm) Lisa Stein wore the traditional black gown of Saudi women, though she refused to cover her hair.
In 1983, Lisa Stein of Plantation, Florida obtained a military scholarship to attend the University of Miami because she "thought it sounded like fun and they would foot the bill for school." Upon graduation in 1987, Lisa was commissioned into the United States Air Force. Along with the surprise to her family that she had joined the Air Force, Lisa was also discouraged by her ROTC commander, who informed her that there were only nine navigator slots in the whole country open for women. "Boy, was he surprised when I got in," Lisa said.
Following basic training, Lisa was assigned to AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control Systems). For eight to ten months a year, her unit was deployed worldwide. Some of Lisa's missions included flying unarmed over hostile enemy territory; tracking the Soviets on their practice bombing runs toward North America; protecting Saudi interests during the Iran-Iraq War, and drug interdiction in South and Central America. By 1990, Lisa had accrued over 1,800 hours of combat flight time; this, despite the then existing rule that women could not fly combat missions.
Deployed to Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Shield in 1990, Lisa discovered that the Saudis opposed the presence of both women and Jews. For diplomatic reasons, American women were asked to wear traditional black gowns and cover their hair. Military officials also asked Jewish soldiers to " use discretion" when practicing their religion in Saudi Arabia.
In 1984, Reconstructionist Rabbi Bonnie Koppell became the first woman officially endorsed as a chaplain in the United States military, while serving in the Army reserves. It was not until 1992, however, that the late Rabbi Chana Timoner was appointed the first full time active duty female chaplain in the United States military.
Describing her role as a military chaplain, Rabbi Koppell stated:
Chaplains are noncombatants - we do not carry weapons, we are not trained to fight. We are there to minister to the religious needs of the troops and, as such, we are an essential part of the military force. No one likes war, no one wants war. No one prays for peace with more fervor than the soldier who stands ready to lay down his or her life for our country.
Yet, I am not a pacifist; I believe that there are times when war is justified. War is always a horrible tragedy, but it is not necessarily immoral. I am proud to consider among my many identities as wife, as mother, as rabbi, as teacher, as friend, yet another - as an American soldier. G-d forbid the need should arise, our Jewish soldiers deserve to have rabbis who are trained and ready to deploy alongside them, to be there to offer all the support they will need. I am proud to be among those who stand ready to go with them.