Military Expert: Pentagon Should Review Policies That Put Female Soldiers at Risk
by Jenni Parker and Chad Groening
February 10, 2004
(AgapePress) - A military pundit says recently released videotape of two tortured female soldiers captured in Iraq should convince the Pentagon to rethink its policy of allowing women service members to be put in harm's way. Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, says just before the new year began, a video was released to the media showing PFCs Jessica Lynch and Lori Piestewa during their captivity at the hands of the Iraqis. The CMR spokeswoman says the video recording clearly shows the two women were mistreated by their captors. She notes that the Pentagon is aware of the tape, even though many Americans may not have seen it when it was broadcast.
"It was so quickly on the air on NBC, a lot of people missed it," Donnelly says. But she asserts that the tape shows unmistakably that Lynch and Piestewa went through a terrible ordeal. "These two women were suffering. They were beaten up," the military readiness expert says.
Both women belonged to the Army's 507th Maintenance Company, which was deployed to Iraq from its base at Fort Bliss, Texas, in February 2003. Their unit was attacked March 23 after it made a wrong turn near Nasiriyah. Although U.S. commandos rescued Lynch, wounded but alive, from a local Iraqi hospital, Piestewa died in captivity as a result of a serious head injury sustained during the ambush. The 23-year-old single mother of two was the first American servicewoman to die in the war.
The tape shows the unconscious Lynch, in bandages and with a cut lip, as well as the bloody and bruised Piestewa, her head loosely bandaged, also unconscious but still alive for a time after the attack. The identities of Lynch and Piestewa were verified for NBC by another fellow 507th member, former Army Specialist Shoshana Johnson, who survived her own 22-day ordeal as a prisoner of war in Iraq, and was also wounded during her capture. Johnson, who is also a single mother, said it was "a little shocking to see Lori" on the videotape, but it gave her some peace to know that Piestewa received medical attention before she died.
A Call to Review the Rules of Risk
Although women are still barred from ground combat positions in the military, in 1994 Les Aspin, Bill Clinton's Secretary of Defense, relaxed the definition of "direct-ground combat" and eliminated "inherent risk of capture" as one of the prohibiting factors. Aspin also did away with the Risk Rule that prevented women from serving in combat-support units that could be expected to encounter many of the same dangers direct-combat units face.
Donnelly hopes the military's powers that be will change the policy that puts female service personnel at risk. "What you saw there [on the videotape] were two women who were treated brutally," she says. "To look at that vision and say that it's okay to send young women off to combat knowing that risk of capture will be very high -- I think that's wrong."
CMR's spokeswoman feels that U.S. military policymakers should review the regulations regarding the placement of female armed services personnel in or near dangerous areas of armed conflict, and she says those policymakers should not allow glamorous media portrayals of women soldiers to influence policy as they often do influence public opinion.
"Every time there's a female pilot story, it's always very glamorous," Donnelly says, "but enlisted women on the ground, their needs, and their opinions need to be listened to as well."
Johnson, who served in the Army for five years and was awarded the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart, and the Prisoner of War Medal for her service in Iraq, decided to leave the service and was discharged this past December.
