AFGHANISTAN - Book Highlights Elite Band of Female U.S. Soldiers

"The sister soldiers who assisted Special Ops in Afghanistan" PBS NewsHour 4/22/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  In Afghanistan, an elite band of female U.S. soldiers were deployed on risky night raids with one of the toughest special operations units.  Margaret Warner talks to Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, who recounts their story in her book, “Ashley’s War.”

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Next, the newest addition to the NewsHour bookshelf, women in war.

They were an elite band of sister soldiers deployed on insurgent-targeting night raids with one of the toughest special operations units in Afghanistan, the Army Rangers.  Their story is recounted in “Ashley’s War,” a new book by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon.

Margaret Warner recently talked with Lemmon at Busboys and Poets, a bookstore in the Washington area.

MARGARET WARNER (NewsHour):  Gayle Lemmon, welcome.

You profile some remarkable women in this book, but first explain what the theory was behind creating these all-female teams that went out on some of the riskiest missions in the Afghan war.

GAYLE TZEMACH LEMMON, Author, “Ashley’s War”:  They were the cultural support teams, which were created to fill a security breach, which is that American soldiers could not go into quarters that were inhabited by women.  Right?

So, to have a sense of what was happening in the women’s rooms and among women and children, you really needed female soldiers.  And so, in 2010, Admiral Olson, who was then the head of Special Operations Command, had this idea.  A little bit later, Admiral McRaven, then running Joint Special Operations Command, actually says, we need these female out there with the Ranger regiment and the other special operations teams.

And by the start of 2011, there was a recruiting poster that said, female soldiers, be part of history.  You know, come support special operations on the battlefield.