WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN THE NATION'S WARS Women's Participation in the Nation's Wars

Women's Participation in the Nation's Wars

Thesis statement

Service to one's country during wartime often becomes a defining moment of citizenship. Sacrificesbecome emblems of civic virtue and worthiness. Since the ultimate signs of service are bearing arms and risking death, women's contributions are frequently less valued than men's.They showed a great contribution in different nation's wars throughout the human history and proved themselves to an important part in history of wars.

Introduction

Conventional wisdom and popular perception attribute war to "men" or see it as a "masculine trait" whereas peace has always been seen as the weapon of the powerless precisely speaking women. Contemporary world still holds these centuries' old notions despite producing specific condition and at times selective positions for women warriors. Women though the lead actors in the war sufferings are treated as extras during the post war phase. Frequently women are silenced or remain invisible during disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) phases. War is the harbinger of death but along with a lot of destruction it brings along high morale, enthusiasm, the spirit to sacrifice, patriotic verve and the feelings of extreme love for one's country land and nation. The Vietnam War did all that and more. Along with men, women served in the war hand in hand. Their services and sacrifice cannot be overlooked but sadly there were no records kept regarding women veterans who served in the war until the eighties. This was probably because it is generally perceived that a warring world is a man's domain. There is still a lack of accurate data regarding the women serving in the Vietnam was probably because the efforts to collect data started a bit late. The statistics are available but the numbers differ according to sources for instance according to a study conducted in 1985 the number of American military women on active duty in Vietnam was about 11,000, while a 1990 study by the Department of Defense placed the number at 7,465. (Aspden 2009)

Apart from soldiers there are others who also served in the war at different positions such missionaries, teachers, journalists, flight attendants, entertainers, Red Cross or Special Services personnel, and private business contract employees. There is no data available regarding their number.The women in the military serving in the Vietnam War basically comprised of Army nurses and medical personnel. These had to face a highly dangerous and stressful situation as they worked in the Army field hospital system, which was a network of tent and Quonset hut field hospitals in Vietnam.Here wounded were sent directly from the non-specific front line and the nurses had to deal with them minutes after they were hit. Their highly taxing duties involved making decisions about the life and death of the soldiers, trying to separate clothing from burned flesh, working day in and day out to save lives till the last breath and putting dead bodies or their parts into bags for sending them back ...