| |
||||
| |
|
|
||
| |
|
|||
| |
|
|||
| |
||||
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
||||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||||||
 |
 |
|
|||||||||||||
 |
|
||||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||||||
 |
 |
|
|||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||||||
 |
 |
|
|||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||||||
 |
 |
|
|||||||||||||
 |
 |
|
|||||||||||||
 |
 |
|
|||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||||||
 |
|
||||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||||||
 |
|
||||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||||||
 |
|
||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|
|||||||||||||
 |
|
||||||||||||||
 |
|
||||||||||||||
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Oral History Archive
Oral Histories from Afghanistan: Operation Enduring Freedom
CPL Jill Osowski, 972nd Military Police Company, MA ARNG, observing a vehicle driving by her perimeter during a presence patrol in Southeastern Afghanistan. (Photo by SGT Reeba Critser, Oct. 2002.) In Oct. 2001, the United States and Britain began air strikes against targets in Afghanistan in an attempt to overthrow the Taliban and to shut down the terrorist group, al-Qaeda.
Women were among the troops of Operation Enduring Freedom sent to Afghanistan as the battle against terrorism escalated. They are among the casualties and among the recipients of medals for distinguished service. But perhaps more than in any previous conflict, women of the US Armed Forces deployed in Afghanistan are interviewed, spoken about, photographed and thought of primarily as soldiers. The phenomenon of gender is secondary to their role in defense of freedom.
Recently the Foundation's Oral History Program was able to arrange interviews with servicewomen in Bagram, Afghanistan. Department of Defense photographs of other servicewomen who have served in Afghanistan offer an additional window on their environment and work.
MSG Pamela Smith, Army
SPC Heather Johnson from the 481st Civil Affairs speaks with children from the village of Loy Kazerak, Afghanistan. (US Army photo by SSG Kyle Davis. Released.) MSG Pamela Smith grew up on a dairy farm in Ohio. "I was raised to get married and have kids," she told her interviewer. “I wanted more for my life. ...” In Afghanistan, MSG Smith is in pubic affairs, serving as a media facilitator for Coalition Task Force 82.
Smith: Middle of the night. Pitch black. I'd just woken up, I was laying on the floor inside the aircraft crashed out for five hours and they were burning trash when I came out so I smelled the trash. ... You couldn't see anything, nothing at all ... it was just pitch black. ... I was really struck by how quiet it was, except for the aircraft I heard ... and the stars were amazing. I've never seen a sky like here because there's no light pollution whatsoever. And that was really beautiful but the next morning ... when I saw the snow-capped mountains all around the entire base, I was just like, “this is the most beautiful place I've ever seen and it's so sad that we're at war here. ...”
Smith: ... You have to have your weapon–you've got a loaded weapon–it kind of humbles me ... knowing that I might actually have to use that weapon. ... When [four women] went to Kabul, everybody stared at us because we're women in uniform. ... The children didn't want to come around us. The women wouldn't look at us. The men just stared openly. There were so many children running around without parents. You saw that some of them were missing fingers, some of them were missing arms, and it was just so sad. I wanted to adopt them all and take them home with me because they're such beautiful people ... and their country has been torn apart by war for so long. ... I hope that us being here, the Coalition task force, the United States, all the other countries that have come to help, I just hope that down the road that we can help the women of this country, make it a better place for them, make it more equal for them. ...
PVT Eileen Schnetzka of the 511th Military Police Company, 10th Mountain Division, Ft. Drum, NY, stands watch in a humvee at a checkpoint at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan. (Photo by PFC Jeremy W. Guthrie, 314th Press Camp Headquarters.) CPT Christy Hill Nyland, US Army
CPT Christy Hill Nyland is originally from New Orleans, LA. She joined the military when the Army ROTC program recruited her because of her outstanding academic record. “As each semester went by, I kept enjoying it more and more. ... [I knew] I really wanted to do this for real, full-time active duty.”
Nyland: We were all very tired because we traveled nonstop, seven-hour flight. ... When we stepped off [the plane] it was amazing how dark it was. There were no lights around here, but the sky was completely gorgeous, just full of stars. ... But the first thing I remember is stepping off a truck and being able to give my husband a big hug. [CPT Nyland's husband had deployed to Bagram three months earlier and was later redeployed to Kandahar.]
Nyland: I'm what you call a C2OPS Battle Captain. ... I'm responsible for taking all the intel[ligence] that comes out of this–what the enemy is doing, what we're capturing from the enemy, and putting it into a big picture to keep the commanders informed where they need to go and who they need to go after.
Nyland: The best part is actually feeling we are making a difference here. ... Over here you see your work get accomplished, you know, you help plan an operation. You send it forward to the guys on the ground and you see the results of it. You know, we see us capturing the bad guys. We see the bad guys being denied the terrain. So it's just really encouraging and self-satisfying to know that your work is actually making a difference in keeping everybody back in the States safe and they don't have to worry about everything that we're going through over here.
Air Force SSgt Crystal Whittaker visits with an Afghan child at Jangadam Village while providing perimeter security during the 455th Expeditionary Operations Group's delivery of humanitarian supplies Dec. 31. (US Air Force photo by TSgt Brian Davidson.) A1C Linette Grote, US Air Force
A1C Grote grew up in a small town–Bailey, CO, the youngest of four children in a family that valued patriotism. Restless after two years of college, she decided, “My grandfather was passing away ... so I kind of wanted to follow in his footsteps and do something patriotic. ... I felt that joining the Air Force was a good bet.” After basic training and a year of duty in South Carolina, she deployed to Afghanistan, assigned to satellite communications.
Grote: When I first got here ... the dust. You could feel it in your nose. You could feel it in your throat, in your hair, on your skin, everywhere you went there was dust. You couldn't get away from it. As far as visuals, I felt like I was in a movie, in a war movie with everything having been blown up, everything being pretty worn down.
Grote: I do not directly work with any other females. I live in a tent at my workstation with four other guys and another female. ... We have separated wooden walls.
Grote: Here the locals seem to be fairly used to women in the military, but when I was in Bamiyan, you go downtown and they would follow you. They would stare at you. They were just so interested in what you were doing. Especially with me being blond. ... They were just completely at awe with the whole idea of a female in uniform. When I was in Bamiyan we had to be careful of what we were wearing. I could not wear very revealing clothes. I tried to keep my hair up as much as I could. I tried to hide it and to blend in with the males.
Army SPC Jessica Briskie gives a box of clothing to an Afghan gentleman in Bagram, Afghanistan, on Oct. 30, 2002. Members of the 339th Combat Support Hospital, Pittsburgh, PA, and the surrounding community donated hundreds of school supplies, clothing and perishables to the children of Bagram. (DoD photo by TSgt Steve Faulisi, US Air Force. Released.) MAJ Patricia Ann Jones, US Army
MAJ Jones is a fourth-generation soldier in the Army, but she joined the military “on a fluke, I guess you could say. I was homesick in college ... and walked into the ROTC building just because I wanted to speak to someone in [uniform].” She ended up joining ROTC. Although she planned to stay on active duty for only four years and then return to school for a graduate degree, “here I am sixteen years later and still in the military.” In Afghanistan, she works in intelligence.
Jones: My present assignment is building intelligence target folders and situation development. ... Everything that we produce here at the division level is to help focus ... combat operations in our area of operations. I don't really work with a lot of women. I have two young women on my staff. ... I try to give them opportunities to get out and see the culture, see the countryside and also push them to realize that they're on an equal standing with their male counterparts that they're working with because there isn't a huge female presence here within the division task force.
Jones: On my free time I don't do much except run. I work about a sixteen to eighteen hour day. I try to assure myself a two-hour break where I run for an hour. ... My soldiers know that if I don't get my run for the day that I'm pretty irritable and they have to deal with that. So they try to block my schedule so they can get me out the door for at least an hour!
I live in a tent with anywhere up to fifteen females. Right now there's only four of us. I joke because I never see it ... except to lay down for about four or five hours.
CPT Mary Literski, a nurse with the 452nd Combat Support Hospital, treats a young Afghani girl injured by a landmine. (Photo by SGT Stephanie Hall, Aug. 28, 2003.)
Jones: I think the hardest thing being a senior female officer in Afghanistan is I would want to go into a situation or a meeting and do the talking and ask the questions and in this environment where women are seen and not heard you really can't do that. ... You don't have the respect. ... So I always make sure that I have a counterpart, a male, that will start that discussion up with the local leader. ... And it works through an interpreter also. I can have a male interpreter with me and try to lead the questions. It's just the nature of their society ... they're not used to seeing a female as a leader and I don't take that personally. ... I have realized that there are limitations in what I can bring to a meeting and that I do need to respect their culture.
Jones: The best part has been the mission and actually being able to do my job and doing it in a real world environment ... and being able to see that my intelligence products and the analytical work we do benefit the combat forces on the ground ... knowing that the intelligence that we have fed to them has been validated by them. My being able to say that our threat assessment was true.
