WOMEN'S MEMORIAL WELCOMES PACK OF LIONESS
Women in Combat in Iraq Show Documentary at Summit Reception at Memorial

Members of Team Lioness joined male soldiers in search and patrol missions. Lioness Documentary Still Photo.

The military may not permit women in combat, but necessity trumped policy almost from the beginning of the war in Iraq. Army commanders in the field realized that they needed female soldiers with them on searches and raids to help diffuse the culturally charged reality of male soldiers having to search and/or even be in the same room as unescorted women. In 2003, a random group of 25 women soldiers—Team Lioness—was formed from a variety of military occupational specialties (MOS) and sent with infantry units on search missions and raids.
   
The women didn't just see combat, they engaged in it, Lionesses explain in a newly released documentary, Lioness, which was previewed June 20 at the Women's Memorial. Three of the five women featured visited the Memorial for a preview and discussion of the film during the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) National Summit on Women Veterans' Issues, June 20-22. The documentary was shown in full during the Summit in Washington, DC, and is being scheduled for broadcast on public television's Independent Lens Nov. 13, 2008. (To learn more about the film, visit the Lioness Web site. More information about the Summit will be available on the VA's Web site.)

Army supply clerk, SPC Rebecca Nava from Queens, NY, was among the women soldiers chosen to be part of Team Lioness in Iraq in 2003. Lioness Documentary Still Photo.

The 82-minute film details the Lioness experience, in war —where Lionesses engaged in some of the fiercest firefights
of 2003 in Ramadi
and Falluja, Iraq—
and at home, where the battle continues
in other ways.

"What you see on the History Channel, we were right there beside them," said Specialist Shannon Morgan, an Army mechanic from Mena, AR.

Lionesses added that their presence was critical in helping to calm women and children in homes that troops entered to search for weapons and insurgents.

"When the women realized I was a woman too, you would see them relax a little," Specialist Rebecca Nava, a supply clerk, from Queens, NY, said during a June 20 reception at the Women's Memorial.

	Women In Military Service For America Memorial Foundation President Brig. Gen. Wilma Vaught (USAF, Ret.) talked with Lioness former Army SPC Rebecca Nava after the documentary film depicting her and her sisters-in-arms in Iraq debuted at the Women's Memorial during the VA Summit on Women's Veterans' Issues in Washington, DC, June 19. Women's Memorial Photo.

The Women's Memorial Foundation was also part of the documentary's making, said producers Daria Sommers and Meg McLagan as they introduced the Lionesses to the Summit crowd June 20. Foundation staff provided them with background about women in war and about issues women have faced during and from service in wars past. The staff also connected Sommers and McLagan with women veterans who could talk about war situations they endured and issues they faced when they assimilated back into civilian and family life.

Lionesses told the Memorial crowd that the transition home is a continual process for women soldiers of this war too.

Combat changes any soldier forever, Lioness Morgan said. As she told filmmakers in the documentary, "When you take another person's life, you kind of lose yourself too. I know that God forgives me for everything I do, but you never get over it. You get on with it."

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(July 2008)