Women in the US Military - Research Paper Example

Download file to see previous pages Women brought water to the soldiers, provided the soldiers with food and clothes, and also served as nurses, roles that were considered auxiliary (Simon 154). These services that they played were not formally included in the list of roles for the uniformed personnel. However, women were not formally included in the military but, continued to play these roles up in anticipation of the phase of the Civil War or during the 20th Century. Ever since, women have assumed powerful positions in the defense system of America, and currently a good number of them play crucial roles in the Army operations and seem to be more dedicated and willing to share in the great sacrifice of protecting the nation. In this essay, I have sought to exemplify the historical contribution of women in the US military, as well as the roles women have played in the US Military. This shall be through the analysis of the concept based on various dynamic sub-titles (Zeigler & Gregory 145). Women as nurses in military During the Spanish-American war conducted in 1898, thousands of American soldiers had yellow fever, typhoid, and malaria (“Highlights in the”)....
Among the requirements for the inclusion of women into the army in the earliest times was that they were required to masquerade themselves as men, and use aliases of men’s names in order to be enlisted in the Army, especially at around the period of World War I. For instance, about 12,000 women were enlisted in this war with the numbers increasing to about 350,000 women in the World War II. However, in these two wars the women mostly played the roles of nursing by attending to the wounded soldiers. This they achieved by serving in organizations like the American Red Cross Society and the United Services Organizations (Strebe 89). Deployment of women in the combat zone The number of American women that participated in the First World War was over 35000 (“Early Women Soldiers”). As a result of war, American military forces saw a shortage of male recruits. That was when the US Navy and Marine Corps actively solicited women to serve in the combat troops in an attempt to fill up the gap. Thousands of women applied for positions as Marine Corps Yeoman whereas the call of Navy to become Yeomanettes was responded to by over 11,000 women (“Early Women Soldiers”). In 2013, long-stayed ban on the inclusion of women in the combat positions was lifted. The lifting of this prohibition can be accredited to the fact that women today are an integral part of the US military and have been showing their interest in undertaking physically demanding roles in military as tough as performance in the combat zone. Women in the American army have found themselves increasingly in the combat’s reality during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “It's clear to all of us that women are contributing in ...Download file to see next pagesRead More