#servicewomen

[she-wolf09231982]

A War Miniseries of Their Own

Help set a timeless example that serving with pride is also a woman's prerogative in every branch of the military. Sign the petition link attached to support A War Miniseries of Their Own!

Just signatures! Not asking for any money!

This is my own personal petition I’m pushing for. I’m a veteran who is looking to do the HBO War series justice by retelling the story of the military women in America’s history. Who better to play the part than a veteran who’s already been through the training? Please support your fellow Tumblr girl and sign 💚🪖🫡

(Just imagine the fanfics you could write if this takes off!) 😉

[schneidt79]

Do you care about veterans & servicemen & women under the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act)? Do you care about their rights? Do you care about doing right by disabled vets?

(I don't like the word 'disabled' cuz it implies these people are less than they are but I haven't found a word that fits. Not a fan of special-needs either. Maybe differently-abled but that's a mouth full.)

Vote for U.S. veteran Amanda Valdes to be on the cover of Inked Magazine. Her prize will be used, in part, to help fight for these vets & current servicewomen & men.

[kwistowee]

I AM A VETERAN by Andrea Christensen Brett   You may not know me the first time we meet  I’m just another you see on the street But I am the reason you walk and breathe free  I am the reason for your liberty   I AM A VETERAN   I work in the local factory all day I own the restaurant just down the way I sell you insurance, I start your IV I’ve got the best-looking grandkids you’ll ever see   I’m your grocer, your banker Your child’s schoolteacher I’m your plumber, your barber Your family’s preacher But there’s part of me you don’t know very well Just listen a moment, I’ve a story to tell   I AM A VETERAN   I joined the service while still in my teens I traded my prom dress for camouflage greens I’m the first in my family to do something like this I followed my father, like he followed his   Defying my fears and hiding my doubt I married my sweetheart before I shipped out I missed Christmas, then Easter The birth of my son But I knew I was doing what had to be done   I served on the battlefront, I served on the base I bound up the wounded And begged for God’s grace I gave orders to fire, I followed commands I marched into conflict in far distant lands   In the jungle, the desert, on mountains and shores In bunkers, in tents, on dank earthen floors While I fought on the ground, in the air, on the sea My family and friends were home praying for me   For the land of the free and the home of the brave I faced my demons in foxholes and caves Then one dreaded day, without drummer or fife    I lost an arm, my buddy lost his life   I came home and moved on But forever was changed The perils of war in my memory remained I don’t really say much, I don’t feel like I can But I left home a child, and came home a man   There are thousands like me Thousands more who are gone But their legacy lives as time marches on White crosses in rows And names carved in queue Remind us of what these brave souls had to do    I’m part of a fellowship, a strong mighty band Of each man and each woman Who has served this great land And when Old Glory waves I stand proud, I stand tall                      I helped keep her flying over you, over all   I AM A VETERAN Copyright Andrea C. Brett  2003 All rights reserved

My sweet friend, Andrea, wrote this to honor veterans and it is available in book form with beautiful illustrations HERE.

[sheilamurrey]

March 10th - See the world through another's eyes

It’s March 10th, 2024; Here’s an original piano song for you. It’s all about seeing the love of God through your child’s eyes. The protagonist’s story of seeing the world through the eyes of his baby girl. She’s rolled away the stone from his heart and he’ll never be alone while viewing the world through her eyes. It’s a familiar story for many who served their country. I can relate (a tiny…

[deborahdeshoftim5779]

In memory of all those servicemen and servicewomen who have died fighting for the United States. 

[america-patriot07041776]

Hey Lady Patriots!!!Inwas informed we don’t make enough Veteran designed apparel for you all so we’re releasing a few to dip our toe in the waters. Check them out at https://america-patriot.com/collections/womens #ootd #ootdfashion #america #american #patriotic #servicewomen #armygirl #armygirls #women #smallbusinessowner #veteran #veterans https://www.instagram.com/p/Cntcmw5uoP_/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[67-romeo]

American servicewomen during Vietnam war, mid 1960s to early 1970s.

[foolscapper]

Saint Joan of Arc, Patroness of Servicewomen

Feast Day: May 30th

From the SAINTS FOR GIRLS STICKER BOOK

[labyrinthofstreams]

"The first five African-American servicewomen of the American Red Cross to arrive in Britain during World War II, October 1942.

They are in the UK to run the American Red Cross Club on Great George Street - a club for black servicemen only, and the first of its kind in Britain."

L-R: Sydney Taylor Brown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Henrine Ward of Chicago, Illinois; Carol Jarett of Denver, Colorado; Magnolia Latimer of Atlanta, Georgia; and Gladys Edward Martin of Topeka, Kansas.

Photographed by Gerti Deutsch.

[theworldofwars]

Servicewomen from the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) carry their tinned rations in German helmets at Etaples, 26 April 1918.

[princesscatherinemiddleton]

The Duchess of Cambridge, alongside the Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry, hosted a Party at the Palace for the children and families of deceased servicemen and servicewomen | May 13 2017

[godlovesdykes]

the biggest hurdle in our relationship, i think, is that i am devotedly pacifist (and have become even more so over the past year), while she grew up wanting to join the military because that was her option as a butch in the country. and it scares me to hear her say that she’d join to protect me if there was a war. i wouldn’t want to be protected. i believe that each human is god’s image and that taking any human life for any reason is wrong. i know that it’s a privilege to be in a peaceful country where i can believe that easily but i really do think i would keep those beliefs under fire. god has called me to radical, foolish forgiveness in my own life and my politics are forever affected by it.

so when she says that the soldiers who went to iraq and afghanistan did it to help the little guy, i think of abu ghraib. and when she says she wanted to join up i think of the sexual assault statistics for servicewomen. and it scares me to think my lover could point a gun.

[therealslimshakespeare]

That is how I see both of these things existing together. No one is a total island and if having friends back up your decisions makes you less of a girl boss than we should all retire.

Yes ok this makes sense! For me, I was also worried when I read the original ask about Maureen cause it was sort of giving one person swooping in and playing the hero 😅 And I’m just not the biggest fan of that in these sorts of situations cause I sort of was invested in this plot for Lu since this is her big moment where she falls apart

Fully agreed! It’s a genuine pet peeve of mine as well, in fact, in plots like these!

If I were to write this whole arc out, it would have its penultimate crescendo being Lu kicking him to the curb and her victory in that. That’s curtain call, end of chapter and story. Then, for the other, it’s a blurb or portion of a story that takes place later and is far more of a buddy cop sorta postwar shenagins between these ex servicewomen in the cause of someone they love and against someone who has it coming

[transwolvie]

"Anti colonial veterans are just as rare as anti-police ex police"

Y'all know there are actually like. Quite a lot of those right.

Like you know that Serpico makes a statement every year when the NYPD tries to give him a medal and he reiterates that the PD are the ones who left him for dead?

I can think of like 5 very active ex police that discuss prison abolition and getting rid of the police. A lot of them are brown, or women. They were spat out by the force or literally fired for being whistle-blowers.

This is NOT rare. Anyone who goes into the police force and doesn't become evil likely either quit, got fired, or got killed by other police. Take your fucking pick. Our institutions are traumatic and vile. People who survive them speak out.

I'm also deeply uncomfortable with grouping all soldiers together when we know that servicewomen are extremely likely to get raped, assaulted, and murdered by other US soldiers while in training or in service—another large contributor to veterans that are anti-military, because they spent all their time in the US military getting raped.

I think y'all genuinely forget that police and military are NOT all white men, and those non-white people and non-men are put under the same target, and this leads to the ones that survive becoming pretty loud advocate for tearing down these systems.

It is NOT that rare for ppl to be spat out by American institutions and turn around and rail against those institutions. In fact, ex police and veterans are really useful allies without ex police and vets that take our side, we would probably NEVER know the extent of abuses that happen behind closed doors.

[captain-price-unofficially]

Servicewomen of the Medical Section, 3561st Service Unit, Women's Army Corps, playing outside with small dog mascot "Corporal Khaki", kept by the WACs at Camp Atterbury, Indiana. 22 June 1943

[mariacallous]

Editor's note: This article is part of “Party platforms unpacked,” a series that compares the differences between the two major American political parties on important issues of the day.

There is a dichotomy, almost a contradiction, in comparing Donald Trump to Kamala Harris on matters of defense and the military. At one level, national security policy appears to be an area where there is more accord, and less debate, between the candidates than is the case in many other policy realms. However, national security policy may also be the place where there is the greatest potential for divergence based on the characters, personalities, and decision-making styles of the two candidates, should the nation face a crisis and have to consider the use of military force.

First, here are some of the areas where they (mostly) agree: Both the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the Trump-Pence administration under Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and the 2022 National Defense Strategy of the Biden-Harris administration under Secretary Lloyd Austin prioritize roughly the same things. Both promote a focus on great-power rivalry and deterrence over the emphasis on “rogue states” and terrorist organizations of the previous three decades. Trump focused in equal measure on Russia and China; Biden emphasized China more, calling it the “pacing challenge” rather than an adversary but clearly underscoring that given its resources and size, it was the potential challenger to watch most closely. Few that I know in Trump world would disagree with the Biden/Austin tweak to Mattis’ strategy; few in the Biden-Harris administration have anything critical to say about Jim Mattis and his earlier 2018 document as well as the budgetary priorities that went along with it. Neither Trump nor Biden sought to enlarge the military; both sought to modernize it more quickly than had been the case in recent decades to make it more lethal, survivable, and resilient.

The 2024 party platforms provide few differences of opinion as well. Both prioritize troop pay, the strengthening of the defense industrial base, and the modernization of the American nuclear deterrent. Trump’s platform places more emphasis on an expanded national missile defense “dome” and on expunging “woke” Democrats from the ranks of the national security community. The Democratic document inherited by Harris makes a (slight) nod to arms control and also criticizes Trump’s earlier occasional disparaging remarks about American servicemen and servicewomen. Trump promises to demand more equitable military burden sharing from allies; the Democrats celebrate the strengthening of alliances on their watch. These are all important points, but I find the areas of accord more striking than those of disagreement (unless and until Trump actually takes seriously the idea of breaking off U.S. security commitments to allies that fail to do enough burden sharing, as he has sometimes hinted he might).

Neither platform nor candidate is specific about what, if any, defense budget increases they might advocate. The track record is that Trump increased defense budgets notably on his watch, above and beyond the rate of inflation, whereas Biden and Harris, inheriting those increases, kept the real-dollar or inflation-adjusted defense budget steady. So, Trump’s legacy is slightly more “pro-defense” than that of Biden and Harris, but the differences are slight, and the pledges about where either candidate would take the defense budget going forward are imprecise and thus, indistinguishable.

So, as best I can tell, the real differences boil down to civil-military relations and also to possible decisions on the use of force.

First, to be fair to Trump, his tendency towards bellicosity in his rhetoric and his political style was not matched by his actual decisions on the use of force as president. He threatened to go to war with North Korea but later tried summitry with Kim Jong Un. He inherited a strategy to defeat ISIS that was showing promise, doubled down on it, and succeeded. He authorized the killing of Iranian terrorism mastermind Qasem Soleimani but otherwise avoided new uses of force for the most part. 

To be fair to Biden, although the Afghanistan withdrawal went badly, it was a decision on a given timeline that Trump had initiated, so if you don’t like the results of that withdrawal (and I don’t) you should probably blame both recent presidents (and I do). Also, Biden and Harris and team have done a generally good job in building and sustaining a coalition to help Ukraine fend off Russian attacks without risking direct American intervention in that war. They have also managed their way through several crises with China, over Taiwan and the South China Sea, that a less careful team might have misplayed. In his first term, to give Trump credit, he also managed to keep problems with China from blowing up into dangerous crises. But he had hired professionals in his first term—Mattis, Mark Esper, H.R. McMaster, John Bolton, Rex Tillerson, Mike Pompeo—that should get lots of the credit. However, eventually, he fired most of the people on that list, and it is not clear that he would hire equally competent national security officials in a second term. So, on crisis management, I give the nod to Harris not because she is a Democrat but because she fits in the modern bipartisan American tradition of studious consideration of options with a team of top-notch professionals before making momentous decisions on the possible use of American military force. Trump does not; he wings it based on personal instinct and intuition. My worries here are somewhat mitigated by my sense that Trump does not relish violence the way that some belligerent leaders in world history (or Vladimir Putin today) seem to. But they’re only somewhat mitigated.

Finally, there is the matter of civil-military relations. Trump had very tense relations with his second chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Mark Milley, largely over the events of January 6, 2021, but also in regard to the Lafayette Square incident after the killing of George Floyd and on other occasions. Trump has also been disparaging towards members of the military, as the Biden-Harris platform document reminds us. Trump did not fire lots of generals and admirals in his first term, to be fair, and also his disparaging commentary about the troops did not seriously damage military recruiting or retention on his watch (COVID-19 proved the bigger challenge on the recruiting front for both Trump and Biden). Yet Americans benefit enormously from a professional and de-politicized military today; it would be a shame if that were jeopardized by a future president.

Bottom line: On policy and spending, there is probably only modest difference of opinion between Trump and Harris. But on decision-making style on matters of war, peace, and civil-military relations, there is an enormous gulf between them that could have important consequences for how the United States handles any national security crises that might arise on the next president’s watch.