The Radical Idea

27th May 2012

Link with 3 notes

Remembering Our Servicewomen →

If one were to do a little research, one might discover that women do pay part of the price in wartime.  During the Vietnam war, there were 8 women who were recorded as casualties, but this does not account for any of the women nurses who might have died for one reason or another during the war (and there were many, many female nurses serving in Vietnam).  This is not really the place where I really want to get into how we value the use of force and military service over nursing, but this is something to keep in mind.  The Vietnam War Memorial in DC only lists 7 women’s names, and ignores the sacrifice of any other women who we lost over the course of that campaign.

Of course, it does not stop there. Women may make up a statistically less significant proportion of the military forces we have on the ground, but the women who are there today are at risk and sometimes do pay a price.  Over 300 servicewomen died in WWI; over 500 perished during WWII.   17 women died in Korea and 16 during the first Gulf War. (Source available here)  The numbers may not be as significant as those assigned to men, but their lives were no less important.  Women make up about 16% of the forces on the ground in Iraq/Afghanistan, but account for 2.4% of all fatalities between the two theaters.  The Iraq War had the HIGHEST female fatality rate of any war in US history (Source:CNN).

And don’t think that death alone is the only price that people pay in wartime.  As of 2008 (I had trouble finding more recent statistics, but assume the numbers have risen), the Army had at least 533 women wounded in action (WIA) in Iraq and Afghanistan; the Marines had 41 WIA and the Air Force had 47 WIA (Source available here).  We have had women go missing in action, women who needed amputations, women who got sick and needed to be hospitalized…the list goes on.  Just because women have not been allowed on the front lines does not mean that women have not sacrificed for the USA.

(You can read more on this by following the click-through link in the title)

Tagged: memorial dayservicewomenwomen in warvietnam wariraq warafghan warsacrificeAmericanism

26th May 2012

Link reblogged from Truth with 61 notes

Federal Judge Finds DOMA Unconstitutional | ThinkProgress →

Last night, U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken in California ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional in a case called Dragovich v. U.S. Department of the Treasury. The Clinton-appointed federal judge found that DOMA violates the Constitution’s equal protections clause due to the fact that, along with a provision of the state’s tax law, it limits same-sex couples and domestic partners from fully participating in the California Public Employees Retirement System. This marks the first federal court decision on DOMA since President Obama announced his endorsement of same-sex marriage on May 9. Two other judges and a bankruptcy court have similarly ruled DOMA unconstitutional.

Source: sarahlee310