“Unsung Heroes: The Story of America’s Female Patriots”
(2014, 65 minutes), directed by Frank Martin, plays at the U.S. Army Women’s
Museum (link) at Fort
Lee, Virginia, near Petersburg.
The film traces the gradually increasing contributions of
female members of the Armed Forces, which go back to the Revolutionary
War. But biggest change came during
World War II, with the “Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (later called WAC), to “free
the men to fight”, which today sounds like a challenging idea, but that was the
idea at one time behind the male-only draft (April 27). The military, however, didn’t provide full military
benefits to women until much more recently.
During WWII, women designed the targeting system for US
bombers, but were never allowed to get public credit; their contribution was
kept classified.
For Army nurses, at the beginning of 1941, the Philippines
was one of the most fun destinations, until Pearl Harbor. Suddenly the Japanese attacked, and the
nurses were taken POW, yet continued to work as nurses in the camps. One nurse was not allowed to get her
distinguished service cross until 2000.
The film contains a number of anecdotes from the Middle
East, including Desert Storm (1991) and then the mid 2000’s Iraq war. One helicopter pilot lost both her legs and
one arm to an IUD.
The film traces the history of lifting of bans for
combat: in 1991, women were allowed to
fly combat missions (after the Gulf War);
in 2013, women were allowed almost all ground duties in combat.
In the asymmetric modern world the idea of a “front line”
has become archaic.
At the end, one female soldier defines the word “sacrifice”:
to give something of lesser value out of oneself for the greater good”.
There is another DVD there, “A Legacy: Army Women’s
Contributions from 1775 to the Present”
I was able to get on the base by just showing a driver’s
license, but they will soon add requiring car insurance papers and vehicle
registration, and probably a second picture ID (a US passport is best).
There was no direct mention of lesbians or transgendered
persons in the Armed Forces, but the film seems to have been made after the
repeal of “don’t ask don’t tell” and we know of cases where people have served
even in Special Forces as men before becoming transgender.
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