>> the soviet union was invaded by hitler's germany. they betrayed the hitler/stalin pack. on a dime overnight the peace mobilization became pro-war, and they changed their name from american peace mobilization to the american people's mobilization. they didn't even change the acronym. they kept the acronym apm, and they started pushing vigorously for lend/lease, for aid to britain, for the united states to enter the war. fdr was no longer a fascist. now they could be cp-usa could

be pro-american, right? because now america would be allied with stalin. so it was really a great day for them. "the new york times"' article on the subject is titled, "clergymen group opposes war aid." that's the american peace mobilization, clergymen group. the communists would show up to say blessed are the peacemakers, all right? their blowing up -- they're blowing up churches and people especially on the religious left, the great book i said was there a particular group that was duped more than any other, and he said, yes, progressive

pastors. they're the biggest suckers of them all. and the american peace mobilization is a good example of that. yeah. go ahead. oh, he needed a microphone. >> al milliken, am media. in your analysis, how effective as propaganda do you see the way hollywood through films have picked the communist influence particularly, i depress, in the u.s.? >> yeah, great question, it's scandalous. it's horrible. it's absolutely horrible. and i would say that hollywood, they are still dupes for the communists because in the grave, if communists are in the grave now and hollywood is still protecting them. protecting them as if they were never communist to begin with. i mean, here you had october 1947, and these hollywood ten figures who were almost all party members we now know. they're called to washington to

testify, and they get a group of liberal hollywood actors and actresses who they lied to and told them, we're liberals and progressives just like you, we're not communists. humphrey bogart, lauren pa call. humphrey bogart said we checked every member of our group for we left to make sure there were no pinks, no reds anywhere. very, very careful about this. and there seems to be no sympathy among the left for the fact that the communists lied to the liberals on the left and tarnished their reputations. no problem with any of that. so they created this group called the committee for the first amendment. these hollywood liberals did. and they flew to the -- flew to washington. humphrey bogart, lauren baa call, danny kaye, judy garland, gene kelly, katherine hepburn, people were duped really, really, really bad. really bad. the daily worker, the cover of

the daily worker almost every issue, you know? crusaders for the first amendment, you know? >> here they are. and then they get to washington, and be john howard lawson and dalton and some of these other people are called up on is the stand and, boy, big surprise, congress actually has some evidence, you know? they're not just a bunch of red baiters who are just bringing people -- they bring them up there and john howard lawson here's the article you wrote for masses and mainstream, here's the article you wrote for daily worker, here's this, here's that. here's your communist party card number, five-digit, and they present all this evidence, and lawson and trumble, you know what they did? they stood up. fascist! nazi! american concentration camp! they'd be led out -- they did what the left always does when they're nailed, when they're caught, and when these guys are being caught -- caught as being

communists, they call them nazis and fascists. all these folks said, oh, boy, were we duped. were we lied to? lauren bacall. by the way, the airplane that they got on in the los angeles was called the red star. [laughter] and lauren bacall said right away i should have just thought, oh, no. but no concern at all for the -- and now this whole era is portrayed as joe mccarthy on a wild rampage, you know, witch hunter persecuting all these poor people. joe mccarthy wasn't even on the house committee in october 1947. he was a senator. he had nothing to do with this. but every new anti-communist was portrayed as a joe mccarthy. i quote one of the co-founders of the aclu, roger baldwin was one of the founders. by the way, read roger baldwin, aclu's founder 1928 book,

"liberty under the soviets." but one of the founders was harry ward who was a methodist minister. and i quote a piece that harry ward wrote for, i think it was protestant digest in 1940 or '41. and he's warning here a full decade and a half before joe mccarthy, he's warning about the next red scare. first it was alexander mitchell palmer, wood wilson -- by the way, both democrats. then it was martin dye of texas, democrat. then it was this guy and now this guy. so joe mccarthy, they would have found their joe mccarthy in any event, and that's not to defend any of mccarthy's excesses, please. but we now have the evidence of how many of these people were guilty and the way they lied and misled people was very disturbing. other questions? right there, yes. >> i wonder if you have any comment on the role of american corporations as dupes for

america's foes such as henry ford and the ford corporation? and, also -- >> arm and hammer. yeah. >> and also now that the flow of corporate money into elections has become -- the floodgates have been opened, if you have any concern about american companies that want to do business with communist countries like china, either selling them products or buying raw materials there them. using their influence on american politicians which is only going to grow -- >> yeah. >> -- to force american policy in a direction that is more sympathetic to communist china and less sympathetic to the american worker. >> yeah. i'll cut you off because i haven't looked into it. i really haven't looked into it. i didn't, i didn't find much on -- although arm and hammer was originally on my i list, and i eventually -- i'm serious when

i say this could be a multivolume set. i'm telling you, it's an extraordinary thing. i mean, so many different people were manipulated. but, no, i didn't, i didn't look into any particular corporations. yes. go ahead. >> yes. i was just wondering what the, where the american socialist party plays in to the narrative with politicians like al smith were they duped, too, or were they sympathetic to the communist party? >> yeah, that's a complicated question. in fact, i have in the book a really interesting document i found in the oar kentuckys from the 1932 -- archives from the 1932 presidential campaign where communist party usa was just torching everybody. i mean, they hated the republicans, they hated fdr, they hated the socialists.

i mean, you know, so they were going after everybody. i mean, it's amazing, too, the anger that was there among american communists. i was really surprised by that. when you would see these documents, thuld see the -- you would see the fights they had among each other. so and so fraud, exposed in daily worker as a stool pigeon, you know, that would be the order from the latest meeting minutes. so they -- but, and also i would update this. in fact, to connect this to john's earlier question about modern-day progressives, one of the groups that i looked at that came up 2007-2008 was the group progressives for obama. and it's really starting to now cloud this whole progressive/liberal thing. i've always understood progressives and liberals to be on the left, but not on the communist left, right?

i mean, there's these variations. there's this full spectrum of beliefs. you've got the very far left, marxist/leninist over there. then you start to move over democratic socialism, maybe liberal -- but this group progressives for obama, one of the four initiators was tom hayden, the founder of sds who wrote the statement. one of the 94 signers was jane fonda, of course, we know what happened in vietnam. mark rudd who was with sds in colombia was one of the 94 signers. i mean, a lot of these people they weren't just student radicals, anti-war in the '60s, they were communists, right? they were followers of che or fidel. michael rudd wasn't a stalinist. but it's amazing how many of these people are now in academia, for one thing. but that they're now out calling themselves progressives for

obama. and so what do they really believe? the are they now just lifting the progressive label? have they changed their views? it's hard to say. i quote in the book a fascinating assessment from mark rudd of the 2008 election where rudd says, you know obama, he did it. he did it. he didn't blow it. he said just the right things and took the right policy positions to be able to attract just enough moderates and independents and cross-over voters. he didn't blow it. he did it, he says, and i agree with his strategy. any other strategy in this political environment invites sure defeat. obama did it. and it's fascinating that for rudd and some of these folks obama's the first democrat, democratic party presidential nominee they've ever supported. i mean, they hated jack kennedy. they hated lbj.

they dismissed carter as a born-again baffoon, that's the language that some of these people used. so they see in the obama somebody -- in obama somebody who's far enough to the left for them. it's interesting. very telling. and rudd's point, after the november 4, 2008, elections i do what i always do on a wednesday morning before i go to class, i got the printout of the latest exit poll data to see how americans, how they voted and how they self-identify. and every single one of these, it's been going on for 20 years now. the american public has described itself as conservative over liberal by 40 to 20%. in fact, gallup did a huge poll summer of 2009, 40-20%. by the way, academia is 90-10 liberal to conservative, and they preach diversity, okay?

but it's been 40-20. and with the election of obama who national journal had called in 2007 the most liberal member of the senate to the left of barbara boxer, ted kennedy, hillary clinton, you name it, so i'm thinking when i woke up the morning of wednesday, november 2008, i'm going to finally see a change. it's going to be 40% liberal, 20% -- because it's got to be, right? the 40-20 again. so you had this incredible situation where a self-identifying and self-professing conservative electorate by a margin of two to one goes in and decisively votes for president a man the national journal ranked the most liberal member of the senate in 2007. it's quite unprecedented. and how did that happen? well, you've got to go in to the reasons why bush lost, why people didn't like bush or why john mccain lost, many ways a vote against mccain was a vote against bush. i think a lot of people, too, were taken by this concept of

change. what does change mean? but the progressives for obama people, man, they were thrilled. with this. the american public finally voted the way that tom hayden and jane fonda and mark rudd and these folks have wanted them to vote. the same people who, by the way, in the 1968 targeted the democratic national convention -- not the republican, the democratic convention in the chicago. democrats, liberals. the communists are not your friends. quit defending them. [laughter] but as james burnham said, right? for the left the preferred enemy is always to the right. so it's the anti-communists that consume their outrage more than the pro-communists. some of them are pro-communists but anti-communists are knee

ander that woulds. i don't like them. >> one more? >> one more, sure. it's not that they actually think joe stalin is worse than joe mccarthy, but in their lectures they complain about joe mccarthy and not joe stalin. hi. >> hi. i'll be very -- i'm coming from a country that left, you know -- [inaudible] nobody has communist sentiments except the communists themselves. so for me it's stunning. i worked in a -- [inaudible] and found some interesting material. for me it's not just stunning, but shocking to see a young person in the united states holding the slogan saying socialism is an alternative. >> yeah. >> but on the other hand, i can see angela davis who was darling of soviet kgb still teaching. >> >> yes. >> so i'm just so stunned how can it be possible?

and i also can tell russia today, probably russian propaganda channel in english they have, like, 500 people right now working in d.c. during 12-minute interview with the current american communist party chairman who was promising revolution to come in the u.s. twelve minutes on the prime time. so they still doing, so i just really, i grateful for you, and i hope you can brainwash, re-brainwash those young people -- de-brain watch the young people who are so badly brainwashed. >> well, thank you. and lee edwards is here, google victims of communism memorial foundation. great web site, and they're doing, they're helping to educate people on this as well. but the problem is that we're not learning this past. i mean, that's what it comes down to. i did a review of about 20 high school civics texts a few years

back. basically, the main 20 that are used across the united states. i did it for the state of wisconsin. but it's incredible. in fact, this was right about the time, this was three or four years after the seminal book by harvard university press, the black book of communism, had come out which documented 100 million dead under communist governments. i couldn't find that figure in a single textbook. not one. i couldn't find any figures at all. none what whatsoever. by the way, the black book of communism only, only has about 25 million dead for the soviet union. when, in fact, it's probably 60-70 million. alexander, his yale university press book, he was one of gorbachev's principle reformers, and he was tasked with the duty of trying to figure out how many victims, how many people were actually killed by the communists. he says 60-70 million killed

under stalin alone. alexander used numbers like that. and we know that mao probably killed about 70 million. so really numbers are probably not 100 million, it's probably about 140 million when you really go up there. but as a conservative figure, it's at least a hundred million. these numbers start to run together. just think about this: take all the dead in world war i which was the most destructive war in history up to that point, take all the dead in world war ii, combine them -- world war i and world war ii -- combine 'em, double 'em and only then are you approaching the number of dead victims of communism. everybody in here has an uncle who died in world war world war ii? about 300,000 americans died in world war ii. the communists killed over 100 million people, 100 million people, and it's something we don't even know about. and if you read the communist manifesto -- boy, i shouldn't

give an endorsement for markism.org -- but it's free. i hear this nonsense all the time. i get called by other students at other universities who say can you, please, come here and give a talk on why communism is bad, okay? because we don't know, we don't have any idea. and i get up there and you hear again and again, well, you know, stalin and these guys were an aberration, i mean, you know, they did -- communism is really a good idea if you read it in theory -- no. read the communist manifesto. it's 50 pages long, you can read it in two hours. it's a horrible book. read marx's ten-point plan. read the one little paragraph that says marx wrote, right, the entire theory of the communist may be summed up in a single sentence -- abolition of private property. my 3-year-old daughter can tell you that you're going to have to kill people if you do that, okay? abolition of private property?

that's a good idea? i mean, that's, that's craziness. i could look at that right there in 1850 and say do you know how many people are going to have to die, you're going to have to kill to pull that off? not a good idea in theory which is why almost everywhere it's been tried whether in asia, africa, latin america, eastern europe, wherever, widespread bloodshed and tragedy again and again. the professor at the university of california berkeley says that in each of these cases, too, in each of these cases where communism has been tried, the massive annihilation of human beings and repression and basic crimes and carnage far outdid anything in the previous experience or nationality or history of any of these countries. all right? this was an entirely new thing. whether it's in the cambodia or the soviet union or china or

cuba, whatever, you name it. again and again and again. and we're not learning any of it. and the reason why is the wretched, wretched states -- state of our universities. that are not teaching this stuff, that are horribly biased, do not believe in ideological diversity and, by the way, are way overpriced while we're at it. [laughter] i'll stop there, how's that? the. [applause] >> this event was hosted by the heritage foundation here in washington d.c. to find out more, visit heritage.org. >> rosemary niedel-greenlee, a former member of the u.s. navy nurse corps, presents a history of american women in the armed forces. she talks about the efforts made by women to fully serve in the u.s. military going back to world war i and discusses the challenges still faced by women serving in the iraq and afghanistan today. this event was hosted by the

cincinnati va medical center. it was about 45 minutes. >> thank you, kelly, and want to thank the veterans' affairs medical center here in cincinnati and the all-women's 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 long-buried treasure of america's 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 america's 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, co-author 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 america's 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 that's 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. there's 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 country's

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 america's military women who were kind enough to talk with us. our fourth book is a few good women: america's military women from world world war i to the wn iraq and afghanistan. the most difficult part of getting ready for today's 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 patty's 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. 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 ha testified to the -- 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

america's women to serve in the u.s. military was just beginning and had a long way to go. in 1943 the battle -- 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, there's no way that the male ego can deal with losing face by having women in an institution that has been male-dominated 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 women's 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 couldn't 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 women's sea services had come to the attention of congress. this bill would establish women's 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. [laughter] 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 women's military branches was the women's 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 well-educated 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. [laughter] 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 eisenhower's headquarters in north africa. and give support to the cat da blank ca conference. casa blank ca conference. one day out of that north african port, their ship was to have torpedoed at sea. now, along with the other passengers, the five waacs were adrift in lifeboats throughout the night, and their night's 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 eisenhower's headquarters. there they met general george

marshall, the army chief of staff who was there for the casa blank ca 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

women's 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 women's army corps through a three month window. the women's 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 women's army corps. after world war ii ended, legislation to continue the women's 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, i'd 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 19-year-old who was from oregon.

and while jean was in basic training, she stood out from some of the others because she knew what close-order drill was because she'd belonged to oregon's women's ambulance corps before she'd 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 -- in 1945, and she went off to college. meantime, this legislation did go through on the perp innocent corps -- permanent corps for the women's services and recruiting of women who'd served in world war ii for these corps, now, was going full tilt. so in 1948 jean holm got a letter from the government, and it included a postcard which had the women's new permanent corps lists on it. and the newest one on there was the air force. and jean holm told us, well, i

thought that sounded really nice. like it was something new and exciting, so i checked off the air force in the little box, and i put the postcard into the mail and went back to college and forgot all about it. well, when the next wreak in college came -- break in college came up, jean decided she really did want to go back into the army, so she had a friend named evelyn who had also served. so the two of them decided they were going to drive jean's 1940 chevy from oregon to ft. lee, virginia. so they had to borrow $600 from jean's grandma because they were broke. so at night along the way when they stopped, they slept in the car all the way across the country. when they arrived at ft. lee, virginia, jean was recognized by the colonel smith who was in charge of ft. lee at that time, and she'd known her in her previous military service. so jean and a friend got sworn in to the army and were at ft.

lee. six months later jean holm's commission hadn't come through, so she went to colonel smith and said, hey, you know, what's happened to my commission? colonel smith called the pentagon, and then she called jean holm into her office, and she says, you're not going to get an army commission. you are on the list for the air force, and they're not going to let you go. finish on her way to lackland air force base, jean holm met some men who were traveling to lackland, and they were telling her that they had an assignment to go toeredding air force depo. so jean got to lackland, and they said to her, well, where do you want to be stationed? she didn't know anything about the air force, and she said, oh, well, i'd like to go to erding supply depo. it was in germany. and they looked at her, and they said, you want to go to erding?

nobody wants to go to erding in germany. they were collecting up some of the wreckage of world war ii and storing it there, so it wasn't too exciting. at erding -- jean stuck to her guns, and they said, okay, there are three billets available. which one do you want? there's billet for maintenance officer, supply officer or there's the wing war plans officer. and jean told us, well, that sounded interesting. i didn't know anything about war plans, so i decided i'd like to do that. well, the russians had just blockaded berlin about that time, and now with jean having war plans as her major job, she had to get busy and apply the army's war plans to the erding supply depo. well, she said, it was just common sense. i was able to do that. but she said the one thing that was difficult was trying to figure out how to do the evacuation.

so she told us, well, here i was with these top security secret war, top security clearance in the secret war plans and the russian block aid 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 women's air force and when she was awarded her second star, she

became the first woman in the united states military to claim two stars, major general. the cold war heated up when north korea was invaded by the -- south korea was invaded on 25, june, 1950, and 134,000 north koreans swarmed across the 38th parallel. reserve units in the united states were called up, and they had a tough time finding some of the women because women had gotten married and their names had changed. they had children by now, and they'd moved, and they were just really hard to find. well, they did locate a number of them, and they were called up for the korean conflict. but there were m.a.s.h. hospitals and m.a.s.h. units and military hospitals supporting the war in korea, and the 24th

infantry division landed on the west coast of korea, and with them came the fourth army field hospital. anna may mccabe was the daughter of salvation army parents who lived in buffalo, new york. and she was a veteran of the china/burma/india campaign of world war ii. when we interviewed general hayes, mccabe hayes, she told us we went in with a 30-foot tide. i remember climbing down the side of the ship on a rope ladder and getting into the landing craft. the marines had gone in first and secured the area as far as it could be secured. then the army troops went in, and then we entered. that was probably the worst war for me because it was so cold. we had little water and firewood and a few supplies. it was so cold, we wore pile

jackets under our scrubs in the operating room. in 1956 anna may mccabe was the head nurse at the emergency room at walter reed army medical center. when she was pulled by the chief nurse, reassigned, to stand a special watch on the president of the united states, dwight d. eisenhower. during that long illness, eisenhower and mccabe became friends. and as a result of that, mccabe was a friend of the eyesen hours, really, for the rest of her life. when anna may mccabe-hayes became the first woman in the united states' history of military history to reach the rank of brigadier general, mrs. eisenhower presented the stars that had been pinned on her husband when he made general years before.

anna may hayes told us, i was very touched by mrs. eisenhower's kindness and generosity. now, years later coast guard captain jane hartley had laughed at the very idea that she would ever have joined the military. she told us, i'm a child of the '60s, the thought of going into the coast guard or any other military branch was about as far from my mind as it could get. however, during a dinner party at their home her husband's boss kept insisting that she should think about joining the coast guard because he said they really needed women, especially one with a master's degree in environmental biology. well, she said, anyway, i couldn't get this guy to shut up. and i needed to serve dessert. so i told him i would check out the coast guard in the very near future. well, she did. and that is how it came to be that lieutenant jane hartley

happened to be at the port of well mington, north carolina, the jumping-off spot for the majority of troops and supplies and equipment that were deploying to the middle east for operate desert shield and desert storm in 1990. the united states government had planned a naval bloc aid to expect vessels that were in the iraqi or kuwaiti waters. the u.s. navy had asked the coast guard to provide cutters and crews to aid the naval blocade. lieutenant hartley was aware of the major decisions being made regarding port safety and the coast guard mission in operation desert shield. she said, the navy asked for coast guard ships and crews and was not happy when they looked at the crew rosters. they wanted the coast guard to take the coast guard to replace the coast guard women who were in positions of leaderships on

all those vessels. hartley explained that the coast guard was a small service compared to the navy, the army and the air force and could not afford to squander their people and their talent because they needed that in shaping the best possible coast guard that they could have in order to complete the mission. in james' words, the navy got its underwear in a bunch because we had ships going to operate desert shield and desert storm with women as leaders in the theater, and that was a real shake-up for them. they said, you can't do that. and when we said, well, then you'll have to -- then you can't have the ships because you can't, cannot take the commanding officers off the vessels. another military woman accustomed to standing her ground was colonel carolyn

carroll. for many years the army did not permit single women to have underage children and join the army. at that time carolyn carroll was a 19-year-old divorced mother, and she wanted to enlist in the army. well, the army recruiter advised her, he said, well, join the national guard and then you can transfer to the army. so carolyn was planning to enlist in the national guard and then do what he said. but then she discovered that this recruiter had never submitted her application paperwork to the army as he said he would, nor her test scores as he said he would. and she decided he had some plans of his own for her. so carolyn learned that she could enlist in the civilian-acquired skills program, go to basic training two or three weeks and then return to the guard unit as an

e3 with two years of college or two years of experience in her mos. further, she learned that she could do six months on the job training in this her mos and then receive an automatic promotion to e4. well, when the first opportunity arose, carolyn moved forward with her plans and joined the national guard. now, in 1976 for the first time women could attend the state national guard noncommissioned officer academy called -- and there was a course, and it was basic leadership training for ncos. bnoc was a three-week summer course, and there were about 300 people attending that course. carolyn did very well physically, academically and in her leadership evaluations. she also won the land navigation competition. carolyn was so outstanding that

she was nominated as distinguished graduate by her peers and the faculty. the sergeant major of the academy told carolyn, we will not have a woman as a distinguished graduate. carolyn appealed to the state agitant general, the only other woman in this class happened to be the secretary, so she called her boss and explained what had happened over the phone and told him what had gone on. carolyn went through with the closing ceremony as the distinguished graduate. the battalion personnel section back at the national guard headquarters where carolyn worked had never had a female nco. despite the fact that carolyn had had her e5 stripes pinned on her at that bnoc celebration and graduation, when she returned to

her unit, she was told that she would be a specialist 5, not a sergeant. she told us, i said, no. i earned those stripes. it was, like, you can't be a female in charge. you look good, and you're smart, you've got it, but you're still a woman. i was a feisty young kid, and i was, like, in your face. i said, you're not going to take my stripes away. carolyn got to keep her stripes. when lieutenant carroll transferred to the u.s. army, she excelled in her army career. she was accepted as -- for flight training in helicopters. when she graduated from fort rugger, she was rated on a cobra, front seat on a cobra. later, she flew the huey, the blackhawk, the kiowa, and when carolyn was assigned to her role in war games later on, she flew

the soviet helicopter, the hip. in august 1990 major carroll deployed to operation desert shield/desert storm where she was executive officer of her unit and with the attachments to this unit, 300 military soldiers. on the day that the u.s. and coalition troops started moving across the desert in the direction of baghdad, major carroll flew her cobra helicopter above and in front of the advancing american and ally troops. a sight she would never forget. she said, i was in desert storm in the first infantry division. they led the attack across the burn. i think one of the most exciting things that i did was i actually flew missions on the ground attack. it was like a world war ii movie because you had tanks and ammo carriers and big tracks and refuelers moving across the

desert in a line, and it was like the whole world was rumbling. in 2005 colonel carolyn carroll deployed to afghanistan. she worked closely with american soldiers and special forces. she was executive officer of a nato unit for the canadian army. she was acutely aware of the dangers that were inherent in iraq and afghanistan war zones. she said, there's a chance that every time you go out, there's a chance you might not come back. now, all these women who have served in the u.s. military have traveled many ground miles and can point to their military service in thousands of miles on maps. however, their journey along the road of military history has far outdistanced all physical miles and leads, clearly, into the

future. even so, women are still fighting for equality in the military and as u.s. citizens. all of these military women who we interviewed could not be included in this today's program, of course, due to time constraints, but they have of earned our respect -- they have earned our respect and admiration. ..