[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 62 (Thursday, May 18, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E870-E872]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        WOMEN IN THE IRAQ WAR: A DIFFERENT KIND OF MOTHER'S DAY

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 18, 2006

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise to enter into the Record an article 
published in the Washington Post of April 18, 2006 ``Limbs Lost to 
Enemy Fire, Women Forge a New Reality'' and to offer my heartfelt 
gratitude and good wishes on Mother's Day to the women serving in the 
United States Armed Forces who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan and 
come home with life-changing physical or mental injuries. Some of these 
women might not be mothers themselves yet; some may

[[Page E871]]

never enjoy the precious gift of motherhood because of their injuries, 
but they all have mothers. I send the mothers of injured female troops 
a wish for the speedy recovery of your child and for a healing of your 
heart.
  For the mothers of women who have died in combat I offer my humble 
apology and heartfelt sorrow. Your grief as a mother is more than I can 
ever understand but I grieve with you and for this Nation. The loss of 
your child, a brave woman and a blessing you delivered to this country 
is a loss to us all.
  I wished to enter the particular article I cite above about women 
amputees because it is not widely enough known that the Iraq war is the 
first to make amputees of women in combat. The story in the Washington 
Post is subtitled ``Women After War: The amputees.''
  The Post features the story of Dawn Halfaker, a 26-year-old retired 
Army Captain, whose right arm and shoulder were ravaged by a rocket 
propelled grenade that exploded in her Humvee in 2004. According to the 
Post, she was one of the newest soldiers ``To start down a path almost 
unknown in the United States: woman as combat amputee.''
  Retired Captain Halfaker underwent multiple surgeries, learned to eat 
on her own and write with her left hand. ``She was part of a new 
generation of women who have lost pieces of themselves in war, 
experiencing the same physical trauma and psychological anguish as 
their male counterparts.''
  But there is a difference from male amputees for these women who have 
lost limbs in combat. They do not know how society will view them as 
society has never experienced female amputees. They do not know how 
they will view themselves. Body image is an important part of every 
female child, teenager and woman in this country, more so and 
differently than it is for men. Society knows women will starve 
themselves to be ``thin'' because a thin body is important. They 
undergo implants, botox injections, and plastic surgery to make sure 
they look like society's favorite model or celebrity. Girls in their 
teens are susceptible to life threatening bulimia and anorexia for fear 
of ``getting fat.''

  On April 18, 2006, when the Washington Post published the story about 
women amputees, the numbers were ``small.'' In 3 years of war there 
were only 11 female amputees. On that same date there were 350 male 
amputees.
  Dawn Halfaker was on night patrol in Baqubah, Iraq on June 19, 2004, 
when her vehicle was hit. Another soldier's arm was sheared off in the 
same accident and went flying past her head. As the medics worked to 
stabilize her, she warned them not to cut off her arm. She had been a 
strong athlete, a basketball standout at West Point, a starting guard 
through 4 years of college. When she was at Walter Reed, she did not 
want to know what she looked like. She asked her mother to cover the 
mirror in her room with a towel.
  One of the more shocking aspects reported by this article in the 
Washington Post is the following information from historian Judy 
Bellafaire of the Women in Military Service for America Memorial 
Foundation, which researches such issues. Ms. Bellafaire is quoted as 
saying: ``We're unaware of any female amputees from previous wars.'' 
More shocking still is the report from the Post that follows: 
``Surprising many political observers, the fact of female casualties 
has produced little public reaction. Before Iraq, many assumed that the 
sight of women in body bags or with missing limbs would provoke a wave 
of public revulsion.'' Yet the Post quotes Charles Moskos of 
Northwestern University, a leading military sociologist: According to 
Moskos, ``The country has not been concerned about female casualties.'' 
Moskos goes on to say, politically the issues of female casualties 
``are a no-win political issue. Conservatives fear it will undermine 
support for the war if they speak out about wounded women, and liberals 
worry they will jeopardize support for women serving in combat roles by 
raising the subject.''
  In a section of the article entitled Motherhood Redefined, the Post 
article tells the story of Juanita Wilson, a mother of a 6-year-old 
girl. Ms. Wilson returned from Iraq with her left arm in bandages and 
her hand gone. At first she did not want to see her daughter but would 
only talk to her by telephone. It was 4 weeks before Ms. Wilson would 
allow her husband and daughter to visit her. For this visit, she 
insisted the nurse help her with makeup and stow her IV in a backpack 
for an outing to Chuck E. Cheese. When she finally was home, she was 
disturbed to learn she could not make her daughter a sandwich.
  My Mother's Day wish for our female troops is that you come home 
soon, safe and to the life you dreamed of and if you are changed, you 
find the political will of your country has made your return as 
comfortable and satisfying as possible. You deserve no less.

               [From the Washington Post, Apr. 18, 2006]

          Limbs Lost to Enemy Fire, Women Forge a New Reality

                         (By Donna St. George)

       Her body had been maimed by war. Dawn Halfaker lay 
     unconscious at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, her parents 
     at her bedside and her future suddenly unsure. A rocket-
     propelled grenade had exploded in her Humvee, ravaging her 
     arm and shoulder.
       In June 2004, she became the newest soldier to start down a 
     path almost unknown in the United States: woman as combat 
     amputee.
       It was a distinction she did not dwell on during days of 
     intense pain and repeated surgeries or even as she struggled 
     to eat on her own, write left-handed and use an artificial 
     limb. But scattered among her experiences were moments when 
     she was aware that few women before her had rethought their 
     lives, their bodies, their choices, in this particular way.
       She was part of a new generation of women who have lost 
     pieces of themselves in war, experiencing the same physical 
     trauma and psychological anguish as their male counterparts. 
     But for female combat amputees has come something else: a 
     quiet sense of wonder about how the public views them and how 
     they will reconcile themselves.
       Their numbers are small, 11 in 3 years of war, compared 
     with more than 350 men. They are not quite a band of sisters, 
     but more a chain of women linked by history and experience 
     and fate--one extending herself to another who then might 
     offer something for the next.
       They have discovered, at various points of their recovery, 
     that gender has made a difference--``not better or worse,'' 
     as Halfaker put it, ``just different.''
       For Halfaker, an athlete with a strong sense of her 
     physical self, the world was transformed June 19, 2004, on a 
     night patrol through Baqubah, Iraq. Out of nowhere had come 
     the rocket-propelled grenade, exploding behind her head.
       Another soldier's arm was sheared off. Blood was 
     everywhere.
       ``Get us out of the kill zone!'' she yelled to the Humvee 
     driver. She was a 24-year-old first lieutenant, a platoon 
     leader who two months earlier had led her unit in repulsing a 
     six-hour attack on a police station in Diyala province. As 
     medics worked to stabilize her, she warned: ``You bastards 
     better not cut my arm off.''
       In the hospital, there had been no other way to save her 
     life.
       At first, in the early days, she tried to ignore the burns 
     on her face, her wounded right shoulder, the fact of her 
     missing arm. She had been a basketball standout at West 
     Point, a starting guard through four years of college. She 
     was fit, young, energetic.
       Suddenly, she was a disabled veteran of war.
       ``I didn't want to know what I looked like,'' she recalled 
     recently. She asked her mother to get a towel and cover the 
     mirror in her hospital room.


                        new terrain, new perils

       The Iraq war is the first in which so many women have had 
     so much exposure to combat--working in a wide array of jobs, 
     with long deployments, in a place where hostile fire has no 
     bounds. In all, more than 370 women have been wounded in 
     action and 34 have been killed by hostile fire.
       The war has created what experts believe is the nation's 
     first group of female combat amputees. ``We're unaware of any 
     female amputees from previous wars,'' said historian Judy 
     Bellafaire of the Women in Military Service for America 
     Memorial Foundation, which researches such issues.
       Surprising many political observers, the fact of female 
     casualties has produced little public reaction. Before Iraq, 
     many assumed that the sight of women in body bags or with 
     missing limbs would provoke a wave of public revulsion.
       ``On the whole, the country has not been concerned about 
     female casualties,'' said Charles Moskos of Northwestern 
     University, a leading military sociologist. Politically, 
     Moskos said, it is a no-win issue. Conservatives fear they 
     will undermine support for the war if they speak out about 
     wounded women, and liberals worry they will jeopardize 
     support for women serving in combat roles by raising the 
     subject, he said.
       In the hospital, female combat amputees face all the 
     challenges men do--with a few possible differences. Women, 
     for example, seem to care more about appearance and be more 
     expressive about their experiences, hospital staff members 
     said. Among the women, there also was ``a unique 
     understanding or bond,'' said Capt. Katie Yancosek, an 
     occupational therapist at Walter Reed.
       The advent of female combat amputees has left an enduring 
     impression on many hospital staff members. ``We have learned 
     not to underestimate or be overly skeptical about how these 
     women will do,'' said Amanda Magee, a physician's assistant 
     in the amputee care program. ``Sometimes they arrive in 
     really bad shape, and people are really worried. . . . But 
     we've learned they can move

[[Page E872]]

     on from a devastating injury as well as any man.''


                          motherhood redefined

       Two months after Dawn Halfaker was wounded, Juanita Wilson 
     arrived on a stretcher at Walter Reed, her left arm in 
     bandages, her hand gone. It was August 25, 2004, just days 
     after a roadside bomb went off under Wilson's Humvee. She 
     came to the hospital as the Iraq war's fourth female combat 
     amputee--the first who was a mother.
       From the beginning, Wilson decided she did not want her 
     only child to see her so wounded. She talked to the 6-year-
     old by phone. ``Mommy's okay,'' she assured the girl. 
     ``What are you doing at school now?''
       It was only after four weeks that Wilson allowed her 
     husband and child to travel from Hawaii, where the family had 
     been stationed, for a visit. By then, Wilson was more mobile. 
     She asked a nurse put makeup on her face, stowed her IV 
     medications into a backpack she could wear and planned an 
     outing to Chuck E. Cheese's.
       ``Mommy, I'm sorry you got hurt,'' her daughter, Kenyah, 
     said when she arrived, hugging her. And then: ``Mommy, I 
     thought you died.''
       The sort of mother who mailed her daughter penmanship 
     exercises and math problems from the war zone, Wilson wanted 
     Kenyah to stay focused on school and the ordinary concerns of 
     being 6. ``I wanted it to be like I was going to be okay when 
     she saw me,'' said Wilson, 32.
       Changes revealed themselves one at a time.
       Wilson remembered that her daughter eyed a plate of 
     croissants in the hotel-like room where the family stayed at 
     Walter Reed that first time they were together again. The 
     child asked her mother for a sandwich.
       ``I realized, `Oh, I can't even make a sandwich,' '' she 
     said. ``It was a hurting feeling, your kid asking you to make 
     her a sandwich and you're saying, `You'll have to make your 
     own sandwich' to a 6-year-old.''
       In November 2004, she heard that a female pilot had just 
     been shot down in her Black Hawk helicopter in Iraq. Within 
     days, Tammy Duckworth arrived at the hospital missing both 
     legs, her right arm in jeopardy. She lay in a coma, her 
     husband and parents at her bedside. ``You care about 
     everybody, but somehow amputees connect to amputees,'' Wilson 
     said, especially if they are women. ``It was a big deal to 
     me,'' she said.
       Wilson headed to the pilot's room to sit with her family. 
     She found herself returning to Duckworth's bedside again and 
     again--arranging her get-well cards, decorating her room, 
     kissing the top of her head. One day, when Duckworth, now 37, 
     was conscious, Wilson rolled up her sleeve to reveal her own 
     amputated arm.
       In a soft voice, Wilson said, she reassured her that 
     another soldier was with her now. Wilson told her she could 
     not imagine exactly how she felt but that she cared deeply.
       She could not hold the pilot's hand because Duckworth was 
     too injured.
       Instead, Wilson stroked her hair.


                          the sky is the limit

       By mid-2005, Juanita Wilson was back to the rhythms of 
     daily life with her husband and daughter. The couple bought a 
     house in the suburbs of Baltimore. She took a new job with 
     the Army, is a staff sergeant and is up for a promotion.
       At 6:30 one winter morning, Wilson was cooking Cream of 
     Wheat on her stovetop--taking great care to pour with her 
     prosthetic and stir with her other arm. In her life as a 
     woman, a mother and a wife, there are limits she once didn't 
     face and could not even imagine.
       ``Kenyah,'' Wilson called.
       When the child came down the stairs in bright pink pajamas, 
     she saw her mother's trouble: Wilson was in uniform, almost 
     ready for work, but she needed help with her hair.
       Wilson sat on a chair as Kenyah brushed gently, and then 
     brought her mother's hair up in a bun. She is ``a happy 
     helper,'' Wilson said.
       The girl, now 7, tells all her friends about ``handie,'' as 
     she has nicknamed Wilson's artificial limb. ``My daughter is 
     definitely not bashful about telling anybody,'' Wilson said. 
     ``She tells other kids at school. Kids don't judge you. They 
     think it's the coolest thing that I have a robotic arm.''
       But Wilson continues to shield her daughter from the 
     discomfort and anguish of her injury. ``I didn't want to take 
     her childhood away. That's my focus--that she is happy and 
     enjoying life and not thinking about me. She'll ask me 
     questions, and I'll say, `Oh that's not for children to worry 
     about' ''
       On that winter morning, Wilson had already tied her combat 
     boots, her right hand doing most of the work and her 
     prosthetic holding the loop before it is tied. ``I want it to 
     be known that just because you're a female injured in combat, 
     you don't have to give up your career and you don't have to 
     look at yourself as disabled,'' she said.
       She added: ``I haven't met any female soldier yet who feels 
     she shouldn't have been there.''
       How the world sees war-wounded women like her, she said, is 
     a little harder to pinpoint.
       ``When you're in Walter Reed, you're in a bubble. I could 
     walk around with my arm off. It's acceptable. Everyone there 
     knows. . . . But when you walk out that gate, it's a whole 
     different world. No one knows what I've been through, no one 
     probably cares, and to avoid all of that, I never come 
     outside without my [prosthetic] arm. Never.''
       Wilson added, ``I have noticed that when you're a female 
     walking around as an amputee, everybody's mouth drops.''
       Lately, she has set new career goals, aiming high, perhaps 
     even for the Army's top enlisted job. She listened with glee 
     to the news that Tammy Duckworth--at whose bedside she had 
     prayed--had decided to run for Congress in Illinois.
       Soon after she learned about her friend's new political 
     life, she called Duckworth, joked that she would serve as her 
     assistant in Congress, and then reflected: ``It definitely 
     says the sky is the limit.''


                     scars farther from the surface

       Long out of Walter Reed, Dawn Halfaker is also deeply into 
     a life remade. It has been 17 months since she was wounded, 
     and her favorite yoga tape is playing on a small VCR in an 
     apartment in Adams Morgan. Halfaker barely seems to notice 
     her image, which once was difficult to bear and is now 
     reflected back at her from a large mirror: red hair and trim, 
     athletic build, one arm extended perfectly above her head.
       In place of her missing limb is a T-shirt sleeve, empty, 
     hanging. Following along with the yoga tape, Halfaker 
     visualizes that she still has a right arm; it helps her 
     balance.
       She retired from the Army as a captain--a tough choice only 
     four years out of West Point, but one she made as she tried 
     to imagine fitting back into military culture. Without her 
     arm, she could no longer do push-ups, tie her combat boots, 
     tuck her hair neatly under a beret.
       She still has friends in Iraq, although one was killed in 
     December. But the Bronze Star that she was awarded last year 
     for her role at the Diyala police station is tucked away in a 
     box. That day, she was in charge of 32 soldiers during the 
     sustained firefight, taking a position on the roof with a 
     grenade launcher, then quelling a jail riot.
       Lately, she works at an office in Arlington, mostly as a 
     consultant to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. 
     She has applied to graduate school in security studies, 
     bought a condo in Adams Morgan and co-wrote a book proposal 
     about postwar recovery.
       To get to this new place, Halfaker has made all sorts of 
     adjustments. She types on a computer one-handed. Drive a car 
     with a push-button ignition. Uses her knees to hold steady a 
     peanut butter jar she wants to open. To write a note or a 
     letter, she learned to use her left hand, practicing nightly 
     at Walter Reed as she penned her thoughts in a journal.
       ``You don't think about how many times you have a lot of 
     things in your hands, like for me just carrying my coffee 
     from cafe downstairs up to my office on the seventh floor is 
     a total battle every day,'' she said. She has to hold the 
     coffee cup, scan her identification badge, open doors, press 
     elevator buttons. Sometimes she spills. Sometimes the coffee 
     burns her.
       In her apartment, Halfaker bends and stretches into yoga 
     poses, her artificial arm lying beside the mirror. More 
     functional prosthetics did little good for her type of 
     injury, she found. So she persuaded prosthetic artists at 
     Walter Reed to make this one--lightweight and natural-
     looking, easier on her body, allowing her to blend in with 
     the outside world.
       Halfaker goes without a prosthetic when she is exercising, 
     jogging through the streets of Washington or snowboarding in 
     Colorado or lobbing tennis balls around a court.
       ``I never really wanted to hide the fact that I was an 
     amputee,'' she said, ``but I never wanted it to be the 
     central focus of my life.'' For some men, she said, it seems 
     a badge of honor that they do not mind showing. ``For a 
     woman, at least for me, it's not at all. . . . The fact that 
     I only have one arm, I'm okay with that, but I want to be 
     able to walk around and look like everyone else and not 
     attract attention to myself. ``
       Last year, a guy she met on the Metro asked her out, saying 
     that he thought she was pretty. She agreed to meet him for 
     lunch but felt nervous about mentioning her missing limb. It 
     turned out that he was no less interested, she said. In the 
     fall, she started dating an Army anesthesiologist, to whom 
     she has become close. He is deployed in Iraq.
       As a woman in her twenties, ``I want to look as good as I 
     can look,'' she acknowledged. ``I think that's very much a 
     female perspective, based on the roles that society has put 
     men and women in.''
       Even more, she said, ``I don't want to be known for being 
     one-armed. I want to be known for whatever it is I do in my 
     life.''

                          ____________________