Soldier Girls

Soldier Girls
Author: Helen Thorpe
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2014-08-05
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1451668120

“A raw, intimate look at the impact of combat and the healing power of friendship” (People): the lives of three women deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq, and the effect of their military service on their personal lives and families—named a best book of the year by Publishers Weekly. “In the tradition of Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Richard Rhodes, and other masters of literary journalism, Soldier Girls is utterly absorbing, gorgeously written, and unforgettable” (The Boston Globe). Helen Thorpe follows the lives of three women over twelve years on their paths to the military, overseas to combat, and back home…and then overseas again for two of them. These women, who are quite different in every way, become friends, and we watch their interaction and also what happens when they are separated. We see their families, their lovers, their spouses, their children. We see them work extremely hard, deal with the attentions of men on base and in war zones, and struggle to stay connected to their families back home. We see some of them drink too much, have affairs, and react to the deaths of fellow soldiers. And we see what happens to one of them when the truck she is driving hits an explosive in the road, blowing it up. She survives, but her life may never be the same again. Deeply reported, beautifully written, and powerfully moving, Soldier Girls is “a breakthrough work...What Thorpe accomplishes in Soldier Girls is something far greater than describing the experience of women in the military. The book is a solid chunk of American history...Thorpe triumphs” (The New York Times Book Review).

The Hello Girls

The Hello Girls
Author: Elizabeth Cobbs
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2019-05-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674237439

In 1918, the U.S. Army Signal Corps sent 223 women to France at General Pershing’s explicit request. They were masters of the latest technology: the telephone switchboard. While suffragettes picketed the White House and President Wilson struggled to persuade a segregationist Congress to give women of all races the vote, these courageous young women swore the army oath and settled into their new roles. Elizabeth Cobbs reveals the challenges they faced in a war zone where male soldiers wooed, mocked, and ultimately celebrated them. The army discharged the last Hello Girls in 1920, the year Congress ratified the Nineteenth Amendment. When they sailed home, they were unexpectedly dismissed without veterans’ benefits and began a sixty-year battle that a handful of survivors carried to triumph in 1979. “What an eye-opener! Cobbs unearths the original letters and diaries of these forgotten heroines and weaves them into a fascinating narrative with energy and zest.” —Cokie Roberts, author of Capital Dames “This engaging history crackles with admiration for the women who served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps during the First World War, becoming the country’s first female soldiers.” —New Yorker “Utterly delightful... Cobbs very adroitly weaves the story of the Signal Corps into that larger story of American women fighting for the right to vote, but it’s the warm, fascinating job she does bringing her cast...to life that gives this book its memorable charisma... This terrific book pays them a long-warranted tribute.” —Christian Science Monitor “Cobbs is particularly good at spotlighting how closely the service of military women like the Hello Girls was tied to the success of the suffrage movement.” —NPR

Girl Soldier

Girl Soldier
Author: Faith J. H. McDonnell
Publisher: Chosen Books
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2007-06-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1441217010

For several decades a brutal army of rebels has been raiding villages in northern Uganda, kidnapping children and turning them into soldiers or wives of commanders. More than 30,000 children have been abducted over the last twenty years and forced to commit unspeakable crimes. Grace Akallo was one of these. Her story, which is the story of many Ugandan children, recounts her terrifying experience. This unforgettable book--with historical background and insights from Faith McDonnell, one of the clearest voices in the church today calling for freedom and justice--will inspire readers around the world to take notice, pray, and work to end this tragedy.

Bush Wives and Girl Soldiers

Bush Wives and Girl Soldiers
Author: Chris Coulter
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2011-03-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0801457246

During the war in Sierra Leone (1991–2002), members of various rebel movements kidnapped thousands of girls and women, some of whom came to take an active part in the armed conflict alongside the rebels. In a stunning look at the life of women in wartime, Chris Coulter draws on interviews with more than a hundred women to bring us inside the rebel camps in Sierra Leone.When these girls and women returned to their home villages after the cessation of hostilities, their families and peers viewed them with skepticism and fear, while humanitarian organizations saw them primarily as victims. Neither view was particularly helpful in helping them resume normal lives after the war. Offering lessons for policymakers, practitioners, and activists, Coulter shows how prevailing notions of gender, both in home communities and among NGO workers, led, for instance, to women who had taken part in armed conflict being bypassed in the demilitarization and demobilization processes carried out by the international community in the wake of the war. Many of these women found it extremely difficult to return to their families, and, without institutional support, some were forced to turn to prostitution to eke out a living.Coulter weaves several themes through the work, including the nature of gender roles in war, livelihood options in war and peace, and how war and postwar experiences affect social and kinship relations.

Soldier Girls in Action

Soldier Girls in Action
Author: Michael Grant
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 32
Release: 2017-01-17
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 006234224X

In this first digital original novella set in the world of the Front Lines series, Michael Grant showcases the real-life female journalists of World War II who became the first women war correspondents in history. When fierce reporter Anne “Spats” Patrone joins the front lines, she gains access to the female soldiers of Second Squad, Fifth Platoon, Company A, 119th Division, including Rio Richlin. During her journalistic investigation on the front lines she will discover that women are capable of much more than fighting. But what starts out as a pursuit for a story turns deadly when Germans attack. Will Spats make it out alive?

Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army

Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army
Author: Kayla Williams
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2006-08-29
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0393329224

An account of the experiences of women soldiers relates the author's decision to enlist, her relationship with a Palestinian boyfriend, her witness to the events of September 11 as portrayed on Arabic television, and her deployment to Iraq.

The Grand Illusion

The Grand Illusion
Author: Caralyn Frooman Lipschutz
Publisher: iUniverse
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2019-03-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1532053746

In 1861, 15 yr. old Alexandra is sent to Virginia to learn how to be a proper lady. The country is already in the grips of Civil War when a battle begins nearby. Eager to observe and not be detected, she borrows a young man's clothes. Hidden behind trees, Alexandra watches as the first Battle of Bull Run unfolds before her. After the devastating clash, she is drawn onto the field when a Union officer mistakes her for an out-of-uniform soldier. Alexandra makes the decision to carry on the charade and joins the fight disguised as Alex, the Union soldier. In the American Civil War, over four hundred women dressed as men to serve as soldiers and spies. The character of Alexandra is based on the real life experiences of Sarah Edmonds Seelye, Sarah Rosetta Wakeman, and the other women who disguised themselves as men to serve as soldiers in the American Civil War.

Ashley's War

Ashley's War
Author: Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2015-04-21
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0062333836

The New York Times–bestselling account of an elite team of female soldiers is “compelling. . . . In battle as in life, these women refuse to quit” (Christian Science Monitor). In 2010, the Army created Cultural Support Teams, a secret pilot program to insert women alongside Special Operations soldiers battling in Afghanistan. Their presence had a calming effect on enemy households, but more importantly, the CSTs were able to search adult women for weapons and gather crucial intelligence. They could build relationships—woman to woman—in ways that male soldiers in an Islamic country never could. In Ashley’s War, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon uses on-the-ground reporting and a finely tuned understanding of the complexities of war to tell the story of CST-2, a unit of women hand-picked from the Army to serve in this highly specialized role. The pioneers of CST-2 proved for the first time that women might be physically and mentally tough enough to become Special Ops. The price of professional acceptance was personal loss and social isolation: the only people who really understand the women of CST-2 are each other. At the center of this story is a friendship and the shared perils of up-close combat. At the heart of the team is the tale of a beloved and effective soldier, Ashley White. “An unforgettable story of female soldiers breaking the brass ceiling. . . . This book will inspire you.” —Sheryl Sandberg, #1 International bestselling author of Lean In “A tremendous story. . . . Very moving.” —The Daily Show with Jon Stewart “Ashley’s War shares the remarkable stories of one of the first teams of women serving in the U.S. Army Special Operations Command.” —Senator John McCain

Girl at War

Girl at War
Author: Sara Novic
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2016-03-22
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0812986393

For readers of The Tiger’s Wife and All the Light We Cannot See comes a powerful debut novel about a girl’s coming of age—and how her sense of family, friendship, love, and belonging is profoundly shaped by war. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BOOKPAGE, BOOKLIST, AND ELECTRIC LITERATURE • ALEX AWARD WINNER • LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE FINALIST • LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION Zagreb, 1991. Ana Jurić is a carefree ten-year-old, living with her family in a small apartment in Croatia’s capital. But that year, civil war breaks out across Yugoslavia, splintering Ana’s idyllic childhood. Daily life is altered by food rations and air raid drills, and soccer matches are replaced by sniper fire. Neighbors grow suspicious of one another, and Ana’s sense of safety starts to fray. When the war arrives at her doorstep, Ana must find her way in a dangerous world. New York, 2001. Ana is now a college student in Manhattan. Though she’s tried to move on from her past, she can’t escape her memories of war—secrets she keeps even from those closest to her. Haunted by the events that forever changed her family, Ana returns to Croatia after a decade away, hoping to make peace with the place she once called home. As she faces her ghosts, she must come to terms with her country’s difficult history and the events that interrupted her childhood years before. Moving back and forth through time, Girl at War is an honest, generous, brilliantly written novel that illuminates how history shapes the individual. Sara Nović fearlessly shows the impact of war on one young girl—and its legacy on all of us. It’s a debut by a writer who has stared into recent history to find a story that continues to resonate today. Praise for Girl at War “Outstanding . . . Girl at War performs the miracle of making the stories of broken lives in a distant country feel as large and universal as myth.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editor’s Choice) “[An] old-fashioned page-turner that will demand all of the reader’s attention, happily given. A debut novel that astonishes.”—Vanity Fair “Shattering . . . The book begins with what deserves to become one of contemporary literature’s more memorable opening lines. The sentences that follow are equally as lyrical as a folk lament and as taut as metal wire wrapped through an electrified fence.”—USA Today

Soldier Girls

Soldier Girls
Author: Helen Thorpe
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2014
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1451668112

First published in hardcover by Scribner in 2014.