Was about 45 minutes. Thank you, kelly, and want to thank the Veterans AffairsMedical Center here in cincinnati and the allwomens American Legion post 644 for making it possible for me to be here today. And i want to make a special thank you to booktv for helping us spread the word about the longburied treasure of americas military women. This program has given us an opportunity to tell you about a National Treasure which has been all but completely absent with leave from americas historical memory. Even when United States history was required as a summit in high school and subject in the high school and colleges and many universities, textbooks and courses had very little to say about women, how they had contributed to the winning of world war i, world war ii, the wars in korea and vietnam. As a writing team of a nurse and a psychologist, coauthor dr. Evelyn monahan, we have a combined 50 years of experience with the department of Veterans Affairs. Now, you may be as surprised as we were to learn that the agency and the majority of its employees knew little, if anything, about the service of of americas military women any more than the average person on the street. This is undoubtedly the main cause that in 1989 the va published a bulletin for veterans day that had only male veterans on the cover of that bulletin. It was evident to us that including women in military history had a long way o go. Our interest in World War Ii History started when evelyn and i were kids. Evelyn grew up in new jersey and hearing war stories from world war ii. On a weekly basis, she went to the vfw with her father and listened to the male veterans talk about their military experience in world war ii that they shared with each other. My experience was really different. I had two female cousins and an aunt who served in the world war ii. My aunt was in the army nurse corps, the cousin was in the wac, and the other one was in the marine corps. And i cannot remember anyone discussing their service at any of our tamly gatt family gatherings. I knew i little about what my own relatives had done in the war. Now, back then most veterans organizations did not accept women as full members of their organizations, and women who wanted to join were told they needed to join the ladies auxiliary thats primarily made up of veterans wives, and they would hold separate meetings that were apart from the real veterans. It took me a long time and a lot of research to learn that military women had served in every theater of war, had suffered the wounds inflicted by enemy fire and had been held as prisoners of war. Theres an old kenyan proverb that says until lions have their own historians, the tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter. As historians and authors, we have spent as much as two decades becoming the lions historians. We have spoken to active duty, reserve National Guard troops who have worn our countrys uniforms. We were hearing their stories and researching their units and interviewing and corresponding with thousands of women who have served in the United States military. Today i am pleased to share some of the history of americas military women who were kind enough to talk with us. Our fourth book is a few good women americas military women from world world war i to the wars in iraq and afghanistan. The most difficult part of getting ready for todays program was to decide which women that we wanted to talk to you about. Now, if you leave here today and you have a better understanding of how american women have contributed to the freedoms that we all enjoy today, i want you to go home and tell your friends and your relatives and neighbors about it. In 1999 at age 20, marine corps corporal patricia leavengood enlisted. That reserve unit was based in evans burg about 11 miles east of pittsburgh. The corporal arrived as part of an advance party in ramadi, iraq, and she was assigned to work at base operations at Unit Movement control center. Let me share pattys words with you. I was an e3 corporal, and i was taking over for a lieutenant and a staff sergeant. I was nervous about that. I was taking on ability way beyond my grade. The purpose of my job was to insure that the convoys that were either leaving our base or coming to our base did so safely. It entailed checking route safety, keeping track of the number of vehicles and personnel and then tracking them by satellite as they traveled. Now, the marine corps had assigned patty to that billet. After they evaluated her civilian Work Experience with computers and her military occupational specialty in transportation. She said, it was really tough. You were dealing with hundreds of lives, and if you made one tiny mistake, someone might get hurt or even killed. I coordinated over 300 to 400 convoys, and we had no losses. I was relieved. Today it is not unusual to watch a newscast on tv and to see the faces of female soldiers, marines, airmen, sailors and coast guardsmen intermingled with the military personnel serving in iraq and afghanistan. It is not unusual to hear the media speak now about our sons and our daughters stationed in baghdad, kandahar, kuwait and other places that are hard to pronounce, let alone find on a map. The air miles these women have traveled there the United States to their duty stations can easily be expressed in hours in flight or miles flown. The historical road women traveled is another story. From 1913 to 1923, daniels was the secretary of the navy. Daniels was a native of north carolina, had gone to law school there and passed the bar in 1885. President Woodrow Wilson appointed secretary daniels in 1913, and his assistant was franklin roosevelt. With war raging in europe, daniels became increasingly concerned about the preparations that they needed to make to insure that the u. S. Navy could operate at the maximum efficiency if and when america entered the war. In the early 1917 in early 1917 concerned about having enough navy men to man the ships, daniels asked his advisers about having enough navy about the word in the navy regs. He said, now, does the asterisk before the word male before be u. S. Citizen allow him to enlist women in the navy . And with a thumbs up from those advisers, daniels ordered the u. S. Navy to enlist women. And women flooded to recruiting stations, and they signed up, and they were sworn in to the navy. After world war ii ended, the United States congress decided to change what they saw as an error in the navy regulations. And they changed it back to, from u. S. Citizen, they put the word male in front of that. Now, this is an example of what a difference the presence or the absence of a single word means in the United States official document. Just as the words in the United States constitution are extremely important when granting full rights to citizenship to men and women in our country. The words u. S. Citizen automatically include women when rights and privileges are conveyed. However, both the use of the single word men beplacing the word male before those words excludes women. However, daniels had crossed a ruin rubicon in enlisting women to serve in the United States navy and the u. S. Marine corps. Now there was a record of the military service of women in the United States armed forces, a record that testified to the patriotism, the courage and the contribution that helped mightily to the u. S. Numbers and for the winning of the war. In fact, one could argue that military service of women in world war i was a significant turning point in giving american women the right to vote. Once again women were barred from serving in the u. S. Military, and the battle to change that fact was just beginning. As in a game of monopoly, women were told they had to go back to the starting point as if their service in world war i had never happened. The battle for the rights of americas women to serve in the u. S. Military was just beginning and had a long way to go. In 1941 the battle was joined again when representative edith north rogers from massachusetts, one of nine women in congress at that time, wrote and presented a bill on christmas eve, 1941, to include women as a permanent part of the United States army. To say that congresswoman rogers received little and grudging cooperation from a large part of the army and the United States congress is putting it mildly. Members of congress rose to object to the real idea of taking women in to the United States military with statements such as, i think it is a reflection upon the courageous manhood of the country to pass a law inviting women to join in the armed forces in order to win a battle. Translation in the vernacular, this would be damaging to the image of men by saying they need the help of women in things masculine. Take the women into the Armed Services, who then would do the cooking, the washing, the mending, humble homey tasks that every woman has devoted herself . Translation, who will take care of the men and the children if women go into the military . Think of the hue humiliation. What has become of the manhood of america . Translation, theres no way that the male ego can deal with losing face by having women in an institution that has been maledominated since it began. We need to keep the status quo. From the u. S. Army and navy nurses who were serving in the military field hospitals in the philippines and in may 1942 when they, the nurses were taken prisoners of war, congress argued and the legislation dragged. When a version of the bill passed on 15, may, 1942, the Womens Army Auxiliary Corps was established. Women would serve with the army, not in the army. This meant that members of the wac had no official military status, they would have a separate system of grades and ranks different from men, they could not be placed in charge of any job or mission that involved men, and they couldnt give orders to men, and they did not rate a salute. It would soon be apparent that the women in the waac just like the women in the army and Navy Nurse Corps could serve in combat zones but were not afforded the military protections, privileges and rights enjoyed by males in similar situations. Meanwhile, legislation to create the womens sea services had come to the attention of congress. This bill would establish womens branches in the u. S. Navy, marine corps and coast guard. Edith north rogers along with Eleanor Roosevelt had put the fear of god into the Navy Admirals back in december of 1941. So the navy supported the bill that passed, and it was signed into law on 30, july, 1942. Of now, guiding the creation of these new womens Military Branches was the womens Advisory Council. Members of the they were civilian educators who represented the five sister colleges which included Mount Holyoke and Smith College in northampton, massachusetts, where women marines and women accepted for voluntary Emergency Service were trained. The women of the Advisory Council were some of the brightest and most welleducated women in the country. The chairman of the council was virginia, dean of barn ard college who overheard who was overheard at one point in the deliberations regarding the acceptance of women in the navy, she said now, if navy could possibly have used dogs or ducks or monkeys, either of those certain admirals, the older admirals, would certainly have greatly preferred them to women. In november of 1942, the waacs and can the army chief of staff, george c. Marshall, found out exactly what it meant to not have full military status. Five waacs in an advance party flew to england and took a ship to north africa because they were told it was too dangerous for women to fly by aircraft at that point. And they were to set up the clerical support at general eisenhowers headquarters in north africa. And give support to the casablanca conference. One day out of that north african port, their ship was to torpedoed at sea. Now, along with the other passengers, the five waacs were adrift in lifeboats throughout the night, and their nights activities were pulling survives out of the survivors out of the water and onto the raft and rowing. They were rescued by ship the next morning and taken into port and to general eisenhowers headquarters. There they met general George Marshall, the army chief of staff who was there for the casa conference. He met the waacs and he said to them, i will, we will have your gear and your uniforms and all of your personal belongings that you lost at sea, have them replaced. So when George Marshall got back to washington, d. C. And checked with the army, he learned that this could not happen. The waacs were an auxiliary. They were not in the army. Marshall paid out of his pocket for the gear that he had promised he would replace as well as to ship it back to africa. Now, the waacs had no protection of the geneva convention, no military life insurance, no veterans benefits, no g. I. Bill and no dependents benefits. Edith north rogers crafted the Womens Army Corps bill, the wac, and introduced it to congress in this january 1943. It passed into law in july 1943. The waacs had to rejoin the Womens Army Corps through a three month window. The Womens Army Corps lost 25 of those women who had been in the auxiliary because they had, the army had changed the physical examination standards. There had been a major Slander Campaign which you can read about in our book, a few good women, and there were families and boyfriends and husbands that did not want these women to go into the Womens Army Corps. After world war ii ended, legislation to continue the womens branches was introduced into congress. During congressional debates about this legislation, some of the legislators were not happy to grant permanent status for women in the military. Representative Margaret Chase smith in exasperation, no doubt, said the issue is simple either the Armed Services have a permanent need for Women Officers and enlisted women, or they do not. If they do, then the women should be given permanent status. I am convinced that it is better to have no legislation at all than to have legislation of this type. Now, id like to introduce some of the outstanding women that we included in our book, a few good women. During world war ii, jean holme joins the waac. She was a young 19yearold who was from oregon. And while jean was in basic training, she stood out from some of the others because she knew what closeorder drill was because shed belonged to oregons womens ambulance corps before shed joined the army. Well, jean trained as a truck driver, and she found that she really thrived on army life. When world war ii was over, jean was discharged in this 1945, and she went off to college. Meantime, this legislation did go through on the permanent corps for the Womens Services and recruiting of women whod served in world war ii for these corps, now, was going full tilt. So in 1948 jean holm got a got a postcard that describes the air force, she told us that i thought that sounded very nice. It was something new and exciting so i checked off the air force and a box and i put the postcard in the mail and went back to college and forgot all about it. Well when the next break in college came up she decided she wanted to go back to the army. She had a friend named evelyn who also served rea. They discovered decided they were going to drive to virginia. At night along the way when they stop they slept in the car all the way up ross country. Virginia arrived at jean was recognized by the kernel of the fort. And her friend got sworn into the army at fort lee. Jeans commission had not come through. She said what has happened to my commission . Onel called washington and told her she was not going to commission, you are on the list for an air force and the are not going to let you go. I her ways to the air force base jean met some men who were traveling to the base and they were telling her they had an assignment to go to the depot. Base and sheo the was asked where she wanted to be stationed so she talked about the supply depot which was in germany. They said you want to go there . Nobody wants to go there. They were collecting some of the wreckage of world war ii and storing it there. Guns and theyher said ok. There are three posts available. Which do you want . There is a make attendance off cer or aenance offi war plans officer. She decided that she wanted to do that. The russians had just blockaded berlin at that time. Herjean having war plans as job she had to get busy and apply the war plans to the supply depot. She said it was common sense that i was able to do that. She said the one thing that was difficult was trying to take care of the evacuation, she told us that here she was with this top security clearance in the secret war plans and the russian blockade of berlin had started. We were expecting the russians just to walk in the door at any minute and take us prisoners. We were the most forward base in europe. Well, as war plans officer, she knew she had to get that evacuation plan figured out. She had an army friend who was there near munich as well stationed, so she and he went out, and they rode all over the back roads of between munich and the swiss border, and they finally mapped out an exit route in case their base got overrun that they could get there people out and to switzerland. Years later when jean holm became directer of the womens air force and when she was awarded her second star, she became