Women Return From War
Picking Up The Pieces
Women Veterans Battle To Mend Themselves
Raquel Ramirez, a young veteran who returned from deployment with the U.S. Army in Kabul, Afghanistan, could not adjust to living back at home. She ended up homeless, sleeping in her car, suffering from anxiety, anger, road rage and drinking heavily. She didn’t know her problems were triggered by post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD, a common condition affecting war veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, struggling with change and past trauma.
“I knew what the normal was in Afghanistan. I knew what to look for. But for some reason those things were abnormal over here,” she says, describing how her mind worked when she was speeding on a California freeway, having flashbacks about explosions.
Whanja Brown only thought about joining the military when her partner left her deeply in debt. Now she has to learn again the basics of civilian life. Sue Max, Gwen Chiaramonte and Mary-Ann Rich were sent to Iraq as reservists, deployed for the first time in a war zone just before retirement age. Daniela did not get to deploy, because she was brutally raped in the military base at home. She tells a disturbing story of a female soldier in the male-dominated institution of the U.S. military.
Join American female veterans on a journey where they give a brave and profound account of their deployment in the military and in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with constant pressure of random attacks and inability to return to civilian routines. Their journey led them to personal struggles with PTSD.
They describe the experience of war from the female perspective: being a minority in the combat zone, but also about war and its consequences. They tell about the loneliness and trauma that breaks the souls of possibly hundreds of thousands of American soldiers. They explain about the hatred many soldiers start to feel towards the nationals in the crisis zone, feeling confused about the goals of the war effort. The aggression has led to well-documented cases of torture. Gwen Chiaramonte supported soldiers who needed mental support. She explains how she feared her depressed fellow soldiers could go on a killing spree on the base.
The veterans talk about lack of support from commanders, the bullying, and isolation in the ranks under pressure. At home, they could not share their experiences with loved ones or neighbors who are far removed from their anguish. The war is imprinted in their nightmares about black trash bags where they collected body parts of the wounded in a hospital or which could be filled with explosives on roads in the crisis zone.
One in five new military recruits are women. Over 220,000 American women have served in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. Until recently, they were not regarded as having been in combat, although in contemporary war zones the front line is everywhere.
All of them tell a story that cries out for individualized support for returning combat veterans over a long period of time. The veterans did not recognize their PTSD symptoms when they returned home, only much later.
From this page, you can take three paths to follow the veterans’ often harrowing journeys to war and personal struggles with PTSD. You can follow the timeline through specific parts of their journey: before the military, during deployment, traumatic return and solutions they have found to adjust back to civilian life. Alternatively you can read the individual stories from beginning to end. The information path leads to an overview of the veterans’ journeys and to specific issues related to female veterans. Women speak for themselves in the videos at the top of the pages. You can also navigate to specific videos with hyperlinks in related parts of the text.
You can also follow stories of reservists who were sent to war for the first time, although they were near retirement age. A reservist nurse, Sue Max, had to carry vast sums of money in the middle of Baghdad inside her uniform and visit local contractors to pay them.
One in five new military recruits are women. Over 220,000 American women have served in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. Until recently, they were not regarded as having been in combat, although in contemporary war zones the front line is everywhere.
All of them tell a story that cries out for individualized support for returning combat veterans over a long period of time. The veterans did not recognize their PTSD symptoms when they returned home, only much later.
From this page, you can take three paths to follow the veterans’ often harrowing journeys to war and personal struggles with PTSD. You can follow the timeline through specific parts of their journey: before the military, during deployment, traumatic return and solutions they have found to adjust back to civilian life. Alternatively you can read the individual stories from beginning to end. The information path leads to an overview of the veterans’ journeys and to specific issues related to female veterans. Women speak for themselves in the videos at the top of the pages. You can also navigate to specific videos with hyperlinks in related parts of the text.
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