The Girls Come Marching Home: Stories of Women Warriors Returning from the War in Iraq

by Kirsten Holmstedt

Book Overview

In her award-winning Band of Sisters: American Women at War in Iraq, Kirsten Holmstedt described how female soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines are fighting on the front lines in Iraq despite the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811705161
• ISBN13: 9780811705165
• Release Date: June 2009
• Publisher: Stackpole Books
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Another Insightful Book on Women and War!

I was already a huge fan of author Kirsten Holmstedt after I previewed her first book "Band of Sisters" for "The Military Writer's Society of America" (MWSA) and eventually gave it "The Founder's Award" for 2007. So, I was expecting something very special from her when I picked up a copy to her new book "The Girls Come Marching Home: Stories of Women Warriors Returning from the War in Iraq". I was not disappointed at all and in fact, I was actually blown away at the level she has taken her insightful writing to. Truly this book is not just a follow-up book to her award winning book - but is a major step up in emotion, intelligence, creative writing and in human insights. This is a great book and it will serve as an emotional touchstone for historians, women warriors, and for military families. This has all the energy of a major military classic and will influence future generations to come. The writing is very sensitive and strong. It is easy to see how Kristen got emotionally entangled in the web of story telling while writing this book. She took the full power of all emotional hits from all of those she listened to so attentively and compassionately. She became the secondary victim by telling this tale of war and adjustment. Her writing speaks loudly of both the outer, as well as, the inner wounds of these women and what obstacles they faced. She honors their spirit by capturing the essence of their full experiences and presents them with both honesty and empathy. The book is on my list of "The Best 25 Military Books" ever written about the current war on terrorism! This should be a must read for career military personnel and for those who wish to gain some understanding and insight into today's military culture for women. This book receives my personal endorsement and fullest recommendation. It is a 5 Star Star Book!

A Salute to our Women Warriors

I have been researching women in the US military for over two years in preparation for my dissertation, and Holmstedt's narratives back up everything I am reading in both research articles and general media. As I read each woman warrior's story I felt enormous pride for their ability "under fire" and then enormous sadness because of the way so many were treated by a male oriented military. Military Sexual Trauma (MST) and general harassment is a continuing problem in the military. Many women are embedded into units where they may be the only woman or where there are only a few women. Women service members have a high probability of experiencing other traumas, including MST which increases the probability that they will experience PTSD. The rate of MST among women in the military varies from a low of 22% reported by Kimmerling, Gima, Street & Frayne (2007) to 71% in women seeking disability for PTSD (Murdoc, Polusny, Hodges & O'Brien, 2004). The stories of these women reflect the statistics: the VA reported that between 2002 and 2006 more than one third of 23,635 women veterans serving in OEF/OIF had a preliminary diagnosis of a mental disorder. If these women had similar experiences to the women portrayed in this book, no wonder the statistic is so high! Rosen, Knudsen & Fancher's article "Cohesion and the Culture of Hypermasculinity" suggests that while the military can grant women the same opportunities as men, it is still primarily a male dominated and hypermasculine culture. Non-gendered professionalism is practiced by the finest of our military leaders and must become the standard for our military as women become an ever larger percentage of enlistees. There must, also, be real consequences for those who either condone or practice MST or gender harassment. Many non-research based articles suggest that the the level of MST is much higher than what has been documented. Our military can no longer function without women, it is time that this is recognized so they receive the support they need both in the military and at home.

Important

We still overlook the experiences of women who have served--and are returning from millitary service. Society has visually intergrated the presence of women into many other capacities. We know that women are serving as police officers and firefighters. But we're subconciously reluctant to acknowllege that women are serving and admirably in combat. So their experiences and post-war needs can get accidentally overlooked when the nation attempts to have a discussion about 'veterans concerns' or 'veterans issues'.

Required reading for our time.

The Girls Come Marching Home: Stories of Women Warriors Returning from the War in Iraq "For those who have fought for it, freedom has a taste and price the protected will never know." From the first page of Kirsten Holmstedt's book, I am reminded again why I've never been a fan of fiction. When the Girls Come Marching Home, Ms. Homstedt's latest release, shares compelling stories of real women as they battle for their country, their comrades, and then for their own restoration. Gut wrenching, thrilling, and true. As a peacetime Marine veteran married to a Marine veteran, I am quick to connect sacrifice to freedom, but these accounts recharged my appreciation for and resolve to protect the interests of our nation's returning veterans. Kirsten's vivid accounts draw us out from our lives of ease into a world only poorly depicted in the news accounts of our day. This book is required reading for the rest of us. Semper Fi and God Speed to our veterans and to the author.

Joys and sorrow of coming home

I happened to receive a copy of this book "fresh off the press" almost 48 hours ago. This is an outstanding book! It tells the stories of a dozen or more women serving in the U.S. military and what their experience was of coming home from war. A few of the stories recount transitions that, relative to most of the stories, were triumphantly smooth. Most of the stories, though, tell of pain, sadness, frustration and obstacles of many kinds that complicate the process of adjusting to life outside the combat zone. I was educated about and astounded by how difficult it is for a vet to get medical attention. I had no idea how gruelling was the process of shifting one's identity from first sergeant to full-time mother. Even those stories, however, end on notes that are to various degrees uplifting. The never-say-die spirit that the women in this book display triumphs in the end in almost all cases. I read and enjoyed author Kirsten Holmstedt's "Band of Sisters." This is a perfect hand-in-glove partner to that book. I can imagine the two books sold as a set, in a nice slipcase! I encountered a few passages in "Marching Home" that need a bit more precision in description or narration. But apart from those moments, the writing is clean, cogent and coherent. In "Marching Home," Ms. Holmstedt does a superb job of differentiating these soldiers, Marines, sailors, "Coasties" and USAF specialists from one another--both in terms of military duties and wartime experiences, the different cultures of their branches of service, and most of all, their personalities. One can keep the people and the stories straight from one another--they do not seem like one story repeated a dozen times. The photos and the writing introduce us to a group of women who are smart, witty, bold, indomitable...beautiful Americans inside and out, filled with heart. I think Ms. Holmstedt must be the same kind of person--in the final chapter she recounts her own fight against secondary trauma...which is the tendency to absorb and gradually exhibit in one's own mind and actions the feelings, perceptions, fears and isolation that trauma survivors report. Counselors, relatives and close friends of combat veterans, who love and support those veterans, often experience secondary trauma ... as Ms. Holmstedt did after months of compassionately and empathically listening to the stories of the women in the book. All of this is epic stuff. Earlier today, after having just finished the book, I noticed myself looking at young women I saw at the gas station and supermarket, and wondering, "Is she a combat vet? She COULD be." How many of us did that before the publication of "Band of Sisters" and, now, "The Girls Come Marching Home"? Ms. Holmstedt's books are incrementally transitioning us as Americans into people who routinely and without surprise see women as fighters for our country...thereby adding another nuance to what Shakespeare called woman's "infinite variety."