The navy and tracy crowe, a former marine have put together an illuminating anthology of womens writings about their experiences in war titled its my country too womens military stories from the American Revolution to afghanistan its all documenting the courage, resourcefulness and resilience with which women have served in the armed forces. Women have been struggling to fight alongside men since the beginning of our country, really. Back during the revolutionary period women would sometimes follow their husbands into war out of necessity. Many could be found in military camps working as long crisis, cook said nurses. In the civil war, some functioned as spies and several hundred women disguised as men served as folders in either the union or confederate side. In world war i, women were allowed to join the military in limited roles and those roles expanded some during world war ii. Although, they still did not include combat duty. Not until 1976, where the first women admitted to the military Service Cadres and another 15 years past before congress in 1991 authorized women to fly in combat missions. Then, two years later women could serve on combat ships. In more recent years the number of Jobs Available to women has expanded rapidly. The pentagon finally opening all Ground Combat positions to women at the start of last year. So, clearly its taken women a long time to earn a permanent place among American Military and gain full access to assignment. Now, jerry herself retired from the navy nearly a decade ago after assignments that ranged from anti submarine warfare to attache duty at the us embassy in moscow. She is now managing editor of oh, dr. Dre, the literary journal of the veterans writing project. Traci joined the marines out of high school in the late 1970s and served for 10 years including stints as a Public Affairs officer and military journalists. She has a masters degree in creative writing and has taught the subject and has written a handful of previous books, one is a memoir eyes right and another is a guide to military writing titled on point. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming jerri though and tracy crowe. [applause]. This is jerri and mrs. Tracy. Wow, look at all of you. Welcome and im sorry if our backs will be you are not forgotten, i promise. Lets see. Give us just a second to get a little set up here. Are you comfy . Im comfy. Okay. On going to turn this whole thing over you no. Nice try. [laughter] lets see. What you need to know before we really share too much about this is that this book would not have been possible, not one word of it had it not been for my partner over here, jerri theyll jerri and i have known each other . Guest facebook yesterday three whole years. I guess it was about two years ago after a year of maybe stalking each other on facebook with you have a lot of the same friends. We were reading a lot of the same books by people and one day i got either a facebook message or email from you that said hey, if you are coming to dc anytime soon i would like to sit down with you and talk to you about a book idea i have. Well, what jerri did not know was that i had no intention after having already put together for military books of working on another military book. So, as it so happened my husband was actually a coach for the Washington National two years so i had to be in dc. So, i contacted jerri and said okay, we will meet for lunch and lets me see what i can do to help you with your book idea. Com. I took another friend, cj also former marine with me. We have known each other for 36 years and we are both in Public Affairs together out of Camp Pendleton when we were a lot younger. I said, cj, your task is to make sure that i do not say yes to jerri bell. [laughter] whatever you do, kick me under the table, kick my shins, whatever, dont let me say yes to jerri bell. So, there we were a sailor and the two marines walking into a bar. [laughter] two marines are no match for a sailor who is determined. [laughter] i had chosen tracy for a potential coauthor pretty carefully first because of her memoir and eyes right which i loved and italy she understood something about the risks and rewards of writing in womens military story. Second, because she had edited an anthology of military essays red white and true and surly because writing a book i fight might be really really hard and i might want to quit and i might need a kick in the butt and theres just no one who kicks sailors in the butt better than a us marine. [laughter] i figured that tracy was probably a sucker for a good sorry story took that was kind of how i reeled her in my telling her a good story and one of the ones i told her was the story of the first woman to take a leadership role read into enemy territory. That person kind of surprised her to come out with Harriet Tubman. In 1863, Harriet Tubman had gone down to South Carolina and was working in relief efforts for friedman, freed slaves supporting herself by selling gingerbread and root beer and making homemade medicine, but she also created a spy network of former slaves who told her that there were what they called torpedoes, but they were mind of the company river. So, eventually a colonel who had some expertise in guerrilla warfare took two gunboats and went up the river with Harriet Tubman, with a regimen of segregated africanamerican soldiers and they conducted a raid on plantations, on a bridge and on railroad. Tubman was illiterate, but she was a fantastic storyteller and she gave an interview to two journalists about 30 years apart and they were very very similar, almost verbatim in some places and so we were able to lay hands on that manuscript, which is in a museum in new york and i would like to share Harriet Tubmans story of the river raid in her own words. Page 27 if anyone wants to read along. They gave us, one of john browns men to commend expedition entry gunboats and all colored soldiers and we found where the torpedoes were as always could find another channel. When we went up the river in the morning it was about light. The fog was rising and the people was doing their breakfast and going out to the feel. I was in the forward boat where the crew went captain and colored man was to tell us where the torpedoes were. The votes were quartermile apart what act together and just about light in the kernel blows the whistle and stopped the boat and the captain and company of soldiers went to shore took about a quarter of an hour after he done mode the whistle when the sun got clear so that people could see the boat you could look over the rightfield and see them coming to the boat from every direction. I never seen such a site someones getting their breakfast, taking their pots of price off the fire and they put the cloth on top of their head and set that on. Rice smoking, young one hanging on behind, one hand around the mothers forehead and another digging into the rice pot eating with all its might. Some had white like its on their heads. Some had a child in their arms, sometimes one or two holding onto the mothers dress and some carrying two children. It appeared like id never seen so many twins in my life. Some had bags on their backs with pigs in them, some had chickens tied by the legs and so a child squalling child squawking chickens grilling they all come running to the gunboats through the rice fields like a procession. Thinks i, this puts me in mind of the children of israel coming out of egypt. And they got to the sure they get in the rowboat and start for the gunboat, but others would run and hold on so they could not leave sure. The soldiers beat them on the hands, but they would not let go. They was afraid the gunboats would leave them. At last the captain looked at them and called me. Said he moses, come here and speak to your people well, they was not my people anymore than they was his because i didnt know anymore about them that he did, so i went when he called me on the gunboat. They didnt know anything about me and i didnt know what to say. I looked at them for about two minutes and then some to them, come from the east, come from the west, among all the glorious nations this glorious was the best. Come along, come along, uncle sam is rich enough to give you all a farm. They began to rejoice and shout glory in the rowboat would push off. I kept on scene. We got 800 people that day and we tore up the railroad and fired at the bridge. We went up to a big house and catch to pigs and made the white named the light pink bow regard in the black pig jeff davis. When we got back to hilton head, 900 to brent contraband. So, there we were at the bar a day at lunch. Actually, it was over Near National park and jerri is telling me this story about Harriet Tubman and then shes telling me another story and another story and im so enthralled listening to all of these because what she had done was already an entire years worth of research before she even invited me to lunch to talk about this book idea, so she had already been researching these archives and oral histories and everything , so i was thinking, jerry, where we getting this information . Why would we build this book or how will you build this book at this point and well, if we just allow the women to tell their own story and i heard that and i was like theres a little bell that went off. She said, they need to be able to tell their own story in their own words, so i went to look at the archives. I to find diaries and journals and published memoirs, unpublished memoirs come oral histories newspaper interviews, congressional testimony, depositions, all of this and i kept waiting for the kick from cj and it never came and i think she would probably tell you that she was just as excited as i was because as jerri talked i was at the stage of well, you dont really need me. I just help in any way that i possibly can peer this is your idea work you have already worked on this and researched a whole year. You dont need me, i mean, i will just try to open a door and inside them going pick me pick pick me. You need me. You need me on this book [laughter] she really didnt need me. She said she did. Tracy only things i did a lot of research. I thought i had a one of the first things i did was call the curator at the women in military service for america memorial and when tracy said there was people that we could never written a book without the staff of the womens memorial. We have about 30 books that we need to go over and read and when we showed up there were almost 200 books on the table and she said you can tell these stories, also. So, it was far from my research. The book would not happen without the womens memorial and if there are military women in this audience and you have not registered, just go get it done. Story after story she shared with me what she had already uncovered and as i set my heart was leaping and i was thinking i have got to be part of this. I wanted to be part of this. Pick me pick pick me. You need me. And fortunately she really did think for some reason she needed me on this and so i was fortunate enough to play some small role in it, but this book would not have been possible without her idea, her conviction and just a devotion and dedication mostly to this idea that for so long womens stories, womens military stories have just been discounted or appropriated by others and so she just felt like the timing was right pick it is time to give these women a voice and that really got my attention. As a former journalist and at the time i think we both feel like weve been able to give these women a voice. One story in particular that really captured me that they was the story of a young woman named cornelius fort. Does that amy about with anyone . Cornelia ford. If you have seen one of the many pearl harbor movies, possibly you have seen one version that has a young woman flying a plane by herself when she comes across an entire squadron of japanese planes. Have you seen that version . Does that ring a bell . That woman was Cornelia Fort. She was one of the first people to actually spot the japanese flying towards pearl harbor. So, what i would like to do is share a little bit of an excerpt that was published in womens home companion. Are you ready . Are not quite as cornelius jerry. Lets go to page one of 22 for those of you following along and i will read a bit of her bio first. Cornelia ford was born in 1919 and she died in 1943. She was part of the us womens auxiliary flying squadron. On the morning of december 7, 1941, civilian Instructor PilotCornelia Fort was airborne with a student pilot at an interstate cadet monoplane over pearl harbor. She sought military aircraft fly directly at her. She took the controls and pulled up over the oncoming plane only then did she see the rising sun emblem on its wings. Moments later she realized that pearl harbor was under attack. Japanese zeros straight her plane, but she landed and ran to safety with her student pilot. In 1942, Nancy Hartness love invited for it, didnt then just 23 to join the womens auxiliary squadron later merged with the Womens Air Force Service Pilots or whop. Heres a little expert excerpt. I knew i was going to join the womens auxiliary ferrying squadron before the organization was reality. Before it had a name, before it was anything but a radical idea in the minds of a few men who believed that women could fly airplanes, but i never knew it so surely as i did in honolulu on december 7, 1941. Addon that morning i drove from waikiki to the john robbers civilian airport right next to pearl harbor where i was a Pilot Instructor and short after 6 30 a. M. I began landing at takeoff practice with my regular student and coming in just before the last landing i looked around and saw a military plane come directly towards me i jerked at the controls away from my student and jammed the throttle wide open to pull above the oncoming plane. He passed so close undress that our celluloid windows rattled and i looked down to see what kind of plane that was. The painted red balls on the tops of the wings shone brightly in the sun and i looked again with complete and utter disbelief, honolulu was familiar with the emblem of the rising sun on passenger ships, but not on airplanes. I looked quickly at pearl harbor in my spine tingle when i saw billowing black smoke, still i thought hollowly it might be some kind of questions or maneuvers. It must be. For surely dear god and then i looked way up and saw the formations of silver bombers riding in , something detached itself from an airplane and came glistening down my eyes followed her down and even with the knowledge pounding in my mind, my heart turned convulsively when the bomb exploded in the middle of the harbor. I knew the air was not the place for my little baby airplane and i set about landing as quickly as ever i could. A few seconds later a shadow passed over me and simultaneously bullets splattered all around me. Suddenly, that little wedge of sky above the field and pearl harbor was the busiest, fullest piece of sky i had ever saw. I will skip you forward a bit. Because there were so many disbelievers in women pilots especially their place in the army, officials wanted the best possible qualifications to go with the first experimental group. All of us realized what a spot we were on. We had to deliver the goods or else, or else there would never be another chance for women pilots in any parts of the service. We had hopes of replacing men pilots, but we can each release a man to combat to faster ships to overseas work delivering a trainer may be as important as delivering a bomber to africa if you take the long view. We are beginning to prove that women can be trusted to deliver airplanes safely and in the doing server the country, which is our country to. I had yet to have a feeling which approaches any satisfaction that of having signed, sealed and delivered at airplane for the us army the attitude that most non flyers have about pilots is distressing and often acutely embarrassing. They chatter about the glamour of flying. Well, any public can tell you how glamorous it is your quicken up in the cold dark in order to get to the airport by daylight. We wear heavy cumbersome flying close in a 30pound parachute. You are either cold or hot and if youre female your lipstick wears off and her get straighter and straighter. You look forward to the bath you will have in the stake work well, we get the bath, but seldom the stake. Sometimes we are too tired to eat and fall into bed. None of us can put into words why we fly. Its a Something Different for each of us i cant say exactly why i fly, but i know why as i have never known anything in my life. I for one am profoundly grateful that my one talents, my only knowledge flying happens to be of use to my country when it is needed. Thats all the luck i ever hope to have. Isnt that lovely . What really got to me about Cornelia Fort story is that this was published posthumously. I will share with you why. On march 21st, 1943, cornelia let a flight of six new mail graduates on a 90 day fighter Training Program carrying bt 13 trainers to dallas. Although very pilots were for bid to flying close formation pilot frank stamm s began flying close to forks played in pulling up to god one pass his landing gear collided with the tip of Cornelia Forts left wing. The wing tip broke away with 6 feet of leading edge attached. For its plane went into a vertical dive and impacted the ground nose down. Went for it became first woman pilot to die on active duty she was one of the most Accomplished Women pilots in the us. She had logged 1100 hours. Stennis only 267. So, this article was published posthumously from womens home home companion in june, 1943. Tracy and i initially went into the project thinking that for each of the wars we needed just a little bit of Historical Context about womens status in the armed forces and what we started actually doing the research through some of the scholarly volumes and there are some good ones is that we didnt know our own military story despite 30 years in armed forces. We have been told from the type that we were in training that women only served in support and administrative roles, that women were allowed to j