at book_tv or posted to our facebook page facebook.com. /book tv. book tv on c-span2, television for serious readers. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> that evening. i am bradley graham, co-owner of politics and prose along with my wife and on behalf of the entire staff, welcome and thank you for coming out. we have a very interesting discussion ahead about the evolution of the roles of women in the us military since the founding of the us. to military veterans, jerri bell who served in

the navy and tracy crowe, a former marine have put together an illuminating anthology of women's writings about their experiences in war titled "it's my country too: women's military stories from the american revolution to afghanistan" it's 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 it's 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 attaché 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 master's 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 i'm sorry if our backs will be-- you are not forgotten, i promise. let's see. give us just a second to get a little set up here. are you comfy? >> i'm comfy. >> okay. on going to turn this whole thing over you-- no. >> nice try. [laughter] >> let's 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 they'll 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 e-mail 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, don't 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 co-author 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 women's 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 there's 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 african-american 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 tubman's story of the river raid in her own words. page 27 if anyone wants to read along. they gave us,, one of john brown's 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 quarter-mile 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 right-field and see them coming to the boat from every direction. i never seen such a site someone's 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 mother's forehead and another digging into the rice pot eating with all its might. some had white like it's on their heads. some had a child in their arms, sometimes one or two holding onto the mother's dress and some carrying two children.

it appeared like i'd 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 didn't know anymore about them that he did, so i went when he called me on the

gunboat. they didn't know anything about me and i didn't 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 she's telling me another story and another story and i'm so enthralled listening to all of these because what she had done was already an entire year's 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 there's 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 archive's. 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 don't 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 don't 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 didn't 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 women's 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 women's 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 women's stories, women's 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

we've 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 women's 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 women's auxiliary flying squadron. on the morning of december 7, 1941, civilian instructor pilot cornelia 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, didn't-- then just 23 to join the women's auxiliary squadron later merged with the women's air force service pilots or whop. here's a little expert-- excerpt. i knew i was going to join the women's 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. add-on 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 30-pound parachute. you are either cold or hot and if you're 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. it's a something different for each of us i can't 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. that's all the luck i ever hope to have. isn't 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 fort's 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 women's 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 women's 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 didn't 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 join armed forces took i object to the word aloud. we were not allowed. we took what we wanted and an example of that is doctor mary edwards walker, trained physician and surgeon who at the beginning of the civil war went to washington dc and demanded a spot with the army as an army contracted surgeon. she was turned away, but she did not care. she went on to the indiana hospital in washington dc and made herself one of the two surgeons treating wounded. she went to the battle of fredericksburg to evacuate wounded there and then she went down to as a volunteer and so

impressed that assistant surgeon general of the army that he gave you for the commission on ohio regiment. she made her own uniform with a pair of bloomers underrate skirt and went down to north georgia where not only was she treating civilians across confederate lines, she was also conduct-- conducting espionage mission in the process. she was captured by confederate forces and taken to the infamous libby prison in richmond, virginia, and eventually was treated for a male confederate surgeon. however the conditions were so bad that she suffered from malnutrition and i damage because of the gas lighting in the present and she was never able to perform surgery again. she was awarded the medal of honor, which at the time had different criteria for being awarded and it does now. two years before her death congress rescinded about 900 and those

medals of honor's including her. she refused to give it back and wore it until she died. no one allowed her to do anything. women also fought from within for the right to serve at their fullest capacity. they were turned away from volunteering for different sorts of jobs and in 1946, even though there had been a women's army corps there was discussion about making it regular, making in a reserve component and some folks in the department of the navy decided they only wanted women to be reserved subject to indefinite recall if there are any reservists in the room i'm sure you know how wonderful that would be. a senator republican from maine, margaret chase smith decided that

was not good enough and she made a full regular women's component of the navy. carl vinson, a representative republican from georgia reinvented the bill to make it reserve only and put it on the consent calendar implying it had been unanimously approved and smith got word that and objected to it and forced it onto the floor of the house for full debate. ..

.... .... .... >> make no mistake about it. it is temporary. the senate voted and the house armed services committee refused to give regular status. the house bill definitely dodges the issue.

this legislation does not give women any security in their military service because it discriminates against women and results only in not getting women a desirable caliber for the armed services. i am convinced this is radical decision and legislation is trying to get railrodarailroadeh on the consent calendar. smith found out they were meeting with the chairman of the house armed service committee with with congress vincent and they were going to amend the bill yet again and she finally went over their heads so hard and so fast she left tracks on their scalp and went state to the secretary of defense and

basically wrote him a letter saying who do we believe? >> i would describe 1641 as an act to establish the women's army corps. [inaudible] the house will note that the word regular army and regular navy are predominant in the bill. this is misleading as it is reported out on armed services and in no respect establishes women in the regular army or navy. make no mistake about it, it's temporary, one year reserve belt. the senate voted to give women regular status as well as reserve status, but the house armed services committee refused refused. the house bill dodges the issue. the issue is simple. either they have an ability to enlist women or they do not. if they do, then the women must be given permanent status. the only possible permanent status is that of regular status. the senate granted the request to give reserve status. this does not give women any security in their military service because it discriminated against women. it does not give women a desirable caliber. i'm convinced this is extremely unwise legislation when there is such a radical difference between the senate version and the house version, it's surprising they are getting this railroaded through. so, in the meantime, while the debate was continuing, smith found out that some legislative liaison were meeting enclosed executive sessions and with congressman vincent and they were going to amend the bill yet again and she finally went over their heads so far and so fast, she went straight to the secretary of defense and basically wrote a letter and says who'd we believe, who has integrity. is it people making statements on the floor that there will be a full women's regular component or is it the people talking in the back room. he immediately sent letters to the house and the senate supporting the establishment for regular woman's component and harriet truman signed the armed services act in 1948, making

women a permanent part of the regular army. when we were first talking about pulling this book together, it seemed obvious, at first that we would divide the stories into the various sections of war and conflict. there's a section for the revolutionary war and stories from those women who actually cross-dressed as men for the opportunity to serve and then came the civil war when we had women who served as spies and their stories are harrowing in the book. you talk about some gutsy women, wait until you read those stories. they had some really gutsy women. then there is a section on the famous american war, world war i, world war ii, the korean war, vietnam and then it goes into desert storm and then of course the current wars that we are in the middle of at this moment. what we realize something was still missing. even with all of those sections covered with stories, we were still missing a really important part.

we knew we needed to add an entire chapter about the cold war, for example, and we have some fascinating stories in there for you to read about women who served during the cold war. we also knew there was another piece we're missing which is about this gender war so we decided that we would have one separate chapter just for that, and i would like to share part of one of those excerpts with you at this time. i am on page 229 for those of you who would like to follow along. i'm to read a little section by victoria hudson. let me tell you a little bit first about victoria. she's the author of no red pen, riders writing group and critique and her bachelor of fine arts from st. mary's california in 2008. for poetry and essays have been

published in a variety of online print literary journals and she sponsors an annual engine registration scholarship for one writer to attend. she's an urban farmer, reader and photographer, she coaches women's and youth rugby and is a mom and a wife. in 2012 she retired after 33 years of service. >> this section, by victoria, is titled my army wife. in a way, 911 solidify, helped solidify my relationship. when the towers went down, monica and i had been dating about nine months and the u-haul hadn't been pulled up to the door yet. i was packing and checking my field gear, getting ready to mobilize right after the attack when we had a discussion about being gay in the military and

what that might mean for us. i pretty much said, if you can't do this, break up with me now, and no, we can't be friends if we do. three years later, we got married. we had a year engagement and wedding and a congregation in st. louis missouri where i had been stationed on my second recall to active duty after 911. two weeks before our wedding, they decided to allow same-sex marriages and the night before valentine's day in 2004, i asked her if she wanted to get married the next day. surprise is not the word, given my military status, getting married to someone of the same gender was a specific prohibition in military regulation. two weeks later we had a religious ceremony. i wore civilian suit with my military metal on the lapel and cut the cake with my officers sword. we spoke at the reception about

how the very act of wedding, both events were acts of civil disobedience and grounds for my discharge from the service. i will skip ahead, down to the bottom. when our daughter was born, a new issue with the military came up. how to register her as a dependent without outing myself at the same time. i had to register her before she turned a year old. we spent the year trying to find the best way. if i adopted her, monica would be required to renounce her parental rights. that certainly defeated the point of our marriage intended to secure parental rights. we tried to do a special adoption where monica would not have to just give up her rights, but no judge would assist with that process. in either course, a new birth certificate would've been issued without monica listed as the

mother. this would have protected me from the military, but how can i deny her daughter, her own biological mother. skipping ahead. monica was also listed as friend on the dd 93 emergency data form. that is a document that provides direction when a servicemember is killed or wounded in service because i decline to list any related kin and had no spouse, i was required to receive counseling regarding my unusual choice of beneficiary for my death. i found this particularly insulting and offensive given the ten years we have been together. monica, like every other military spouse, like every other army rights, steadfastly supported me what i deployed to war and otherwise served the nation. she took over and cared for all aspects of my life while i was gone, paid my bills, fed and

cared for my pet, took care of our home, raised our child while i was gone. i was gone on duty. it was the support that enabled me to serve without worry about the home front, and she did it all alone. no family support group, no phone calls to check in and see if she needed anything, no lifeline of unofficial information via the family readiness group grapevine, no one to talk with about her fears and worries when she didn't hear from me for a few days or longer while i was on a war zone. all alone. the dd 93 is a form that tells the service who to notify. i was not allowed to list my spouse will not form as a spouse which would ensure that she would receive the respect, courtesy and dignity of a family

notification. i volunteered for the service. she just volunteered to love me. so the other story that we had been told from the beginning of our time in the service was that women increased roles were a social experiment pushed on arms forces by famine nazis. it wasn't famine nazis pushing anyone on anybody. she joined the air force, she was commissioned directly and served concurrently for eight years while she was a sitting senator. people like vicki hudson were hiding in plain sight, just doing their jobs as well as they could. those were the woman women who

pushed open the doors, just by doing a good job. we are not a social experiment. we were soldiers and sailors and we ended up in iraq and afghanistan doing the same jobs, in many cases, as the men, and coming home to a country that did not recognize many of us as veterans, but with the same physical and moral injuries as the men. often times, until late, women in iraq and afghanistan are not even equipped with the proper fitting uniform so that was also a major issue for them. i'm going to skip ahead to page 309 for anyone who's following. i want to tell you a little bit about brooke king. brooke king was born in 1985 and she was in the u.s. army. she was from tampa florida and served as a vehicle mechanic, machine gunner and recovery specialists. do you know the recovery

specialist is? show less text >> a recovery specialist and someone who goes with the team to recover those who suffered from an ied explosion and they are there to pick up bodies and the corpse. she was part of that team. she was the wife of a fellow veteran and mother to twin boys who were conceived in iraq. who says there's no sex in a war zone. she began writing about her unique experiences as a way to cope with ptsd. this piece is called redeployment packing checklist. pack your army combat uniforms first, military role, cram the

backcountry and black under armour sports bras, the lucky convoy socks around the bottom of your green army buckle back. past the laminated photo into the bag, but don't look at it. you don't want to look at it. it's the picture you held after your first recovery mission where you bagged intact three soldiers who were burned alive after their striker rolled over a pressure plate ied. your brother smirk and your father's grin, your look of disenchantment. these were taken when you are on r&r. all three of you standing in front of the house, each one of squa you pretending that nothing had

changed since you left for iraq. it helped you fall sleep, you can't help yourself, you unpack the photo to look at it once more. the corner edges are falling apart. the girl in the photo used to be you, but that's not the face you see in the mirror anymore. pack your camo covered army bible, the pages have to be rubberbanded shut otherwise it opens to psalm 23. pack your notebook, the name and rank of every soldier you ever put into a black body bag. letters to your father that you never mailed, packed the marine prayer rug you stole well rating a house. unpack the prayer rug. neil on it while you pack the empty magazines, the pistol holster and desert combat boots. pick up your aviator gloves, the feel of manning the 50 cal machine-gun. pick up the shell casing from

your first confirmed kill when a 67.62 bullet that you fired into a 15-year-old chest. he was shooting an ak-47 that you. you shouldn't have the shell casings, you shouldn't have the gloves. women weren't supposed to see combat. pack it all into the duffel. pack the hours spent in a cement bunker waiting for mortar rounds to stop whistling. pack the hate and anger. pack the fear, packed the shaman disenchantment for a job done too well. pack the back to back months spent going out on convoy without the day off. pack the rest of your dignity, packed the mall next to the army core values and the promise that your government need to protect

innocent civilians. pack your copy of hemingway, the sun also rises. the tattered american flag you picked up off the ground outside of the grave. fold over the flaps, shut it up tight, locket, heave it onto your back, carry it all home. now we would like to end with questions from the audience so that everybody can hear, there is a microphone so if you have questions or comments, please come up select from. [applause] >> we are not that good. surely there are questions. i have one question. >> i have one question.

when did margaret join the military? >> i believe it was late 1949 or 1950. she is better known for her declaration of conscience, in addition to joining the air force, she was the first person to challenge the american committees. her speech declaration of conscious is something everyone needs to read. >> i would like to know from each of you what stories did you grapple with the mouse that had

the deepest impact on you that you struggled with the most? show less text 00:47:48 unidentified speaker >> i think for me, there were two stories that were really hard for me to read. one of them is a narrative and i believe there may be nurses who were interned during world war ii by the japanese, and when i was reading those stories, it made me furious that nobody in naval history class, nobody in my chain of command ever thought tommy that women have been prisoners of war, not just in world war ii, but all the way

back to the american revolution. the other story that was very hard for me to read was linda's memoir, home before morning. she wasn't army nurse in vietnam vietnam, and because as a small child, i watched a lot of footage of vietnam, i had a suspicion. [inaudible] those stories were very hard and felt very real to me because i felt like i knew some of those people. >> i would concur with everything jerry said. one of the things that we would do, i had never worked with another author. i had always works so low. part of the challenge was how do we share things and go back and forth, and when that happened to look back at our facebook messaging and if we were to print that out, i bet it would be over 500 pages of messages because she would write, do you

know what i just found, you're not going to believe it. then i would say no, guess what i just read. and then we would send each other e-mails that were marked, i cob, in case of bust. in case one of us was ever struck by that proverbial bus, then the other would have the rest of the story in the mission could carry on. we were exchanging these things all the time, and i used to joke with jerry who is the mother of two beautiful teenage boys, and wife of a handsome, adorable husband who is here. i used to say, you know what, you're going to need therapy after this book because urine house with three men and we are reading all of these stories about these women who, to a large degree have been dismissed and really discounted and it's painful to read that. i was lucky because my husband was a coach in baseball and he was gone for nine months.

he wasn't even in the house when i had to go through all this, but jerry had to go through this experience with three men in the house. i'm sorry. but maybe you understand more now. show less text 00:50:50 unidentified speaker >> she was always saying how supportive you are. the cornelia fort story, does that not touch your heart? that one really hit me hard. and then, from everything that we were able to do and ascertain from that, that young man's career, he was pretty much saved. he was really trying to show off off, probably trying to get her attention and it ended up killing her. it was just very heartbreaking to read. that one really, really hurt. i think one of the reasons why linda's memoir about vietnam really touched me was because she was incredibly brave to write that memoir. in fact, i believe she was probably one of the first women to really tell the story about women suffering posttraumatic stress. when the book came out, she was vilified for having shared her story and about what really happened in a war zone over there. she is a nurse and everything she saw, everything she experienced, it was so heartbreaking to realize, and she ended up dying very young from lupus or ms or some

autoimmune disease that was not identified. it really touched me that she had been so brave in telling her story. she was ahead of her time for doing so. she ended up very vilified as a result. that story really got to me as thanks for the question.

>> it sounds like, with all the research you've done that there will have to be a second book. i was wondering, as you are saying, the women being able to tell their stories, some of the more current women, is this like they've been waiting for this chance a little bit, are things getting better where they feel? do you feel like this was something that is still so needed and will continue to be or do you see a bright future. >> one of the questions that often comes up at riders conferences when we get the groups together is why are women better and writing fiction. there's been some short

published fiction and no women better and out of the conflict in iraq and afghanistan has published a critically acclaimed novel yet. there has been some that has been on a short list. i think one of the reasons that's happening is because background truth, that memoir, making people believe that the really women there is necessary before we can start writing fiction and going beyond yes, dammit, i was there and did the job to turning it into fiction. the second book that i would love to see is a similar history for african-american women and the other women of color. we thought we couldn't do justice to that, and that story deserves to be told on a separate story by person of color who feels it in way that tracy and i did.

i think there are more account. >> one of the exciting things for women right now, and for a lot of our veterans is the g.i. bill. because of the g.i. bill, we do see a lot of young men and women returning and going into writing programs, because what we've discovered and we both teach writing in different places, what we've discovered is that writing, like a lot of the arts is really a pathway toward a level of healing. veterans are finding that telling their story, whether they're doing it for self reflection or family legacy or whether they hope to publish it, they are finding that writing is very helpful in helping them control the memory. what i believe we're probably going to see, to answer your question is we are seeing a lot of these young men and women coming out of these writing

programs at university, and one of those is brooke king. the woman veteran, the last one that i just read, wasn't that mesmerizing? brooke is a product of the g.i. bill, one of the writing programs at a university in the country, and now teaches creative writing herself at saint leo college down in florida. i believe that we will start to see more and more these, and i believe this book, along with others another memoirs that are out there will actually encourage more women to come

forth with their stories. we were disappointed that we couldn't find very many coast guard stories. we need more african-american stories and more coast guard's stories. do we have any here? oh my goodness. we have one. young lady, we want your story. i teach writing. so does terry. we will help you write your story. [inaudible] sydney we were military officers. >> dealing with pregnancy and god help us all for good reasons that it would be too expensive to have a women's component in the army.

this has come for me to anybody this week? it was nonsense then. it's nonsense now. whether it applies to women or whether it applies to our comrades in arms who are transgender. show less text 00:58:44 unidentified speaker >> one of my personal favorites alfred cashier or jenne ha jars. albert cashier lived 50 years

after his service in the civil war as a man. his comrades from this regiment kept it secret that he was biologically female. they encouraged him to live as a man. in a nursing home he was forced into women's clothing and his health deteriorated rapidly which shouldn't surprise anybody and he only lived a couple more years after that. he was buried as alfred cashier, a man with full military honors. we thank you so much for coming out tonight and taking this trip through her story with us. thank you so much and if you've got any other questions we'd be happy to take them up here. thank you all. [applause]

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