Jessica Goodell & John Hearn by Shade It Black: Death & After in Iraq

Author:Shade It Black: Death & After in Iraq [Death, Shade It Black: & Iraq, After in]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: History, United States, Repatriation of War Dead, Iraq War; 2003, Social Science, Iraq War (2003-), Personal Narratives; American, Iraq War; 2003- - Repatriation of War Dead, Women Marines, Iraq War; 2003- - Casualties, Other, Bisac Code 1: HIS027130, Death & Dying, Military, Iraq War; 2003-, General, Veterans, Goodell; Jess, Biography
ISBN: 1612000010
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
Published: 2011-05-20T05:00:00+00:00

Parents tried to protect their children however they could. (Photo courtesy of David Leeson)

15

Mothers, Sisters, and Daughters

NEW BERLIN, Wis.—With three daughters serving in Iraq, John and Lori Witmer had a family Web site with photos from Baghdad, notes to home and messages of encouragement.

“Keep praying! They’re almost home!” a recent entry says. But the top notice, dated Sunday, carried grim news: “We regret to inform you that Michelle Witmer was killed in action April 9th …”

The 20-year-old private died when her Humvee was ambushed in Baghdad, making her the first woman in the Wisconsin National Guard to die in combat.

Her family is asking the military to stop her sisters from being sent back to Iraq after this week’s funeral.

“I can’t live another year like I’ve lived this one,” John Witmer told The Associated Press. “The sacrifice that this family’s made can never be understood by someone who hasn’t gone through it … It’s a burden I can’t bear. My family can’t bear it.”

—James A Carlson, Associated Press, April 12, 2004

At the same time that female Marines are sexual objects, they are mothers, sisters, and daughters. It’s not a secret. If a female is waiting in line to use a phone, chances are good she’ll be talking to her mom or dad. If she’s leaving the Internet café, she probably just emailed a parent or a sibling. The care packages she receives are from her family. If she is a mother, the primary topic of her conversations when off the job is her kids. Moreover, this is how they are first known by the male Marines, before these men enter the military, when they are still young boys. Back then, as kids, they learned, to some degree and among other things, to perceive females as extensions of the women in their own lives, and to care about and to care for them, and to protect them too. And most of the Marines still feel this way. Not all of them, and, among those who do, not all the time. But many of them do. When the men are in this protective mode, they see female Marines less as objects to be harassed and more as mothers, sisters, and daughters to be protected.

A female Marine may fall out of a run early and not be verbally sanctioned like a male Marine would be. She’s given a break, like a little sister might be if she can’t keep up with her older brothers on a long walk. A male Marine may carry some of a female Marine’s gear through the latter half of a 12-mile hump, and nobody says anything about it.

Even though The Sir wasn’t much more than fifteen years my senior and was still a young man, he had a tendency at times to treat me as though I were his daughter. In the middle of one long night when I had duty watch, The Sir appeared holding a cup of hot chocolate. “Here you go, Goodell,” he said and he disappeared back into his room.

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