IU East is fortunate to have over 100 veterans as part of our student body, 52 of them women, including this year’s stirring commencement speaker, Brea Hunter. The perspectives and lived experiences of veterans and active-duty servicemembers adds immeasurably to the discussion in any classroom, from nursing to history to criminal justice. IU East seeks to grow this relationship, offering online Bachelor’s and Master’s programs targeted to help mobile service-members to complete their degrees, and returning something of value to those who bravely serve in our defense.
May is Military Appreciation Month, and contains Memorial Day and Armed Services Day, which give us the opportunity to reflect on the courage and selflessness of veterans. Women have been part of the United States’s military since 1775, although originally in civilian roles like nursing and cooking. Loretta Walsh was the first non-nurse enlisted in the U.S. military, joining the United States Naval Reserve in 1917, and eventually becoming a Naval Reserve petty officer. By the time of the Vietnam War, over ten thousand women formally served as air traffic controllers, intelligence officers, and clerks, and their involvement and scope of service in all branches of the military has only grown since then. Today, over 15% of West Point graduates are women, and ten women have risen to the rank of four-star general or admiral.
The library can support both scholarship and casual learning about women who serve. Several databases are exceptional on the history of the armed services, including Military and Government Collection and ProQuest Military. The library also offers ebooks like Women and Gender Perspectives in the Military: An International Comparison by Robert Egnell, Women in the United States Military: An Annotated Bibliography by Judith Bellafaire, Soldiers’ Stories: Military Women in Cinema and Television since World War II by Yvonne Tasker, Women at War: The Story of Fifty Military Nurses Who Served in Vietnam by Elizabeth Norman, Serving Our Country: Japanese American Women in the Military During World War II by Brenda Lee Moore, A Woman’s War: The Professional and Personal Journey of the Navy’s First African American Female Intelligence Officer by Gail Harris, Nancy Love and the WASP Ferry Pilots of World War II by Sarah Byrn Rickman, and Women at War by Elspeth Cameron Ritchie.
Or you can check out our display of books in the library, including The girls who stepped out of line: untold stories of the women who changed the course of World War II by Major General Mari K. Eder, Fly like a girl: one woman’s dramatic fight in Afghanistan and on the home front by Mary Jennings Hegar, Forgotten warriors: the long history of women in combat by Sarah Percy, Beyond the call: three women on the front lines in Afghanistan by Eileen Rivers, An army in skirts by Frances DeBra Brown, and Band of sisters: American women at war in Iraq by Kirsten Holmstedt.
Are you interested in discovering more military history? You can Ask Us at iueref@iu.edu or click this button:
