Please send encouragement to this sister in arms

So, I was in Beaufort, SC, this past weekend interviewing a young female Marine for my next book, When the Girls Come Marching Home. I want to tell you a little bit about her in the hopes that you will shoot off an e-mail to her with a word or two of encouragement. She's a good person who has had it rough. She has a beautiful smile and can light up a room with it. Amidst great sorrow, I saw that smile this past weekend. Incredible!

Stacy is a young black woman from Detroit. She joined the Army reserves. Served two one-year, back-to-back tours in Iraq. In other words, she was in Iraq for two years straight. She lost a couple of buddies over there. By the middle of her second tour, she didn't have much left to give. She came back to the States, got out of the Army, and spiraled into drugs and alcohol. When she hit bottom, she joined the Marine Corps to save her life. So far so good.

This past weekend, the night before I met her, her Marine boyfriend was at a party. Another male Marine, thinking his gun was empty, put it to Stacy's boyfriend's head and shot him. When I met Stacy, she had just come from the hospital. They had taken her boyfriend off life support. He died soon after.

You can reach Stacy at ---
litediamond21@yahoo.com

Please reach out to her. She needs your thoughts, prayers, and kind words.
She has a light within her. Help her keep it lit in these tough times!!

thank you!
kirsten

Female Service members -- Is the Price to High??

I just received an e-mail and wanted to get your input.

The writer acknowledges that women are capable of serving in combat, but wonders if the price is too high? "I think about their priceless children and the sacrifices they are forced to make while their parent(s), sometimes both of them, are in Iraq. We have not yet seen how children are affected and if they will ever heal from it all. What will surface in later life for the children? I have seen the effect of an abusive childhood. Will the stress these children are in be even more devastating?"

The writer goes on to say that while the legacy of the Iraqi war will be that women are very able to do whatever they are called to do, it will also show that sending women off to war is just too devastating on the children.

Finally, she notes that women are 40 percent more likely to experience the devestating ramifications of combat than men. I don't know where she got this figure and whether it's true. But it raises the question of whether women are more vulnerable and less resilient to the horrors of war.

Hope you will weigh in on this discussion. I don't have the answers but I think it's interesting and important to explore.

Are you a mom who served in combat? How did your deployment positively or negatively impact your children?

And do you feel that you suffer from your experiences on the battlefield more than your brothers in arms who have had similar experiences.

Take good care!
kirsten