Page 2 (1/2)
Anyway, I still type away at this battered old typewriter, and soes to read when they’re tired of the ets us They seldom talk to me about it; es back andthe truth because sure as hell I’d hear about it if I started writing nonsense We soldier girls—sorry, I mean Warrior Women or American A us noe’ve had about enough of people lying about us The folks who hate the idea of women soldiers tell one set of lies, the people who like the notion of women at war tell a different set of lies If you believe the one side, we’re nothing but a drag on the men, and the other side acts like on the war all by ourselves
We could probably get a pretty good debate going here on the women’s ward over the question of which set of lies we hate more—the one denies e’ve done; the other belittles what our brothers have done
We won’t have either
We wo to the traditionalists—which is to say 90 percent of the military But as much as we don’t want to be, the truth is we’re a symbol to people who think it’s about time for women and coloreds too to stand equal Woody Guthrie wrote that song about us Count yourself lucky you can’t hearit under my breath as I type
Our boys are all a-fightin’ on land, sea, and air,
But say, some of them boys ain’t boys at all,
Why, so hair
It may surprise, but I can tell you all,
When it coirls stand tall,
And Fascist supermen die every bit as fast,
Froh little lass
For our part, we sure as hell did not want to be a sy We wanted exactly what every soldier who has ever fought a war in foreign lands wants: anted to go hoo home, then by God anted hot food, hot showers, cold beer, and to sleep in an actual bed for about a week solid
But we’re just GIs, and no one gives a damn what a GI wants, male or female
Tunisia, Sicily, Italy, France, Belgiuhts you’ve never heard of and great battles whose nah history: Kasserine Salerno Monte Cassino Anzio D-Day The Bulge About all I od rules the lives of soldiers for keeping us out of that particular hell There’s a woman here, a patient on the ward, as a nurse at Anzio All she ever does is stare at her hands and cry Though the funny thing is, she can still play a pretty good gaure
Whatever the newspapers tell you, omen are neither weak sisters nor invincible A our job, which after Kasserine we’d begun to figure outGermans