When Janey Comes Marching Home: Portraits of Women Combat Veterans

by Laura Browder Narrated by Full Cast

Overview

Women are officially barred from combat in the American armed services, yet in today's wars, where there are no front lines, the ban on combat is virtually meaningless. More than in any previous conflict in our history, American women are engaging with the enemy, suffering injuries, and even sacrificing their lives in the line of duty.

When Janey Comes Marching Home juxtaposes forty-eight photographs by Sascha Pflaeging with oral histories collected by Laura Browder to provide a dramatic portrait of women at war. Women from all five branches of the military share their stories here-stories that are by turns moving, comic, thought-provoking, and profound. Seeing their faces in stunning color photographic portraits and reading what they have to say about loss, comradeship, conflict, and hard choices will change the ways we think about women and war.

Serving in a combat zone is an all-encompassing experience that is transformative, life-defining, and difficult to leave behind. By coming face-to-face with women veterans, we who are outside that world can begin to get a sense of how the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have impacted their lives and how their stories may ripple out and influence the experiences of all American women.

A Blackstone Audio production.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

In this powerful record, author and English professor Browder (Her Best Shot: Women and Guns in America) collects first-person accounts from dozens of military women who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, accompanied by vivid full-color portraits. Contributors span age groups, conflicts and military branches, and a number of issues: why they joined, their thoughts on spirituality, issues confronting them upon their return home, the dual challenges of being a soldier and a mother, being female in a field dominated by men, and more. Poignant, tear-jerking stories dominate; Sergeant Deidre Coley, deployed in the Gulf, lost an injured colleague-"the baby in the group"-because the locals that Coley asked for directions would not speak to women. Each chapter clusters around a different theme, including saying goodbye to friends and family, coming home to face unexpected complications, dealing with natives and supporting the mission. Candid and touching, with resonant photographs from Pflaeging, these brief narratives give voice to a too-often-overlooked aspect of female American experience.
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From the Publisher

Readers may be tempted to deify these women for their contributions to the continuing struggle for female equality, but their unflinching accounts unfold to a tangible and poignant humanity.—Library Journal



Candid and touching, with resonant photographs from Pflaeging, these brief narratives give voice to a too-often-overlooked aspect of female American experience.—Publishers Weekly



[A] wonderful volume. . . . A fitting testament and tribute to our country's uniformed . . . heroines.—America



This collection of images and stories of female veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan gets to the heart of issues such as loss, camaraderie, and conflict, as well as motherhood, marriage, and sexism.—Military Officer



Browder has compiled an eloquent documentary on the printed page from women whose views vary widely—and a tribute to and appreciation of their daily lives in war zones.—News Review



[This] book is essential both for serious scholars of the current conflict and for historians of gender relations in American society—Army History

Library Journal

With the strains placed on an all-volunteer force during an unpopular war and the shifting nature of modern warfare, women are being allowed more active roles than ever in America's armed forces. The official ban on women holding combat positions has been essentially unenforceable in Iraq and Afghanistan, where over 100 service women have been killed. Browder (English, Virginia Commonwealth Univ.; Her Best Shot: Women and Guns in America) and photographer Pflaeging here present the experiences of some of the service women returning from these combat zones by color portraits combined with their oral histories. Their project includes an exhibition of these portraits as large-scale prints, this accompanying book with 48 portraits, and a documentary film to come. Browder's introduction gives a historical and societal overview of women in combat, but the color portraits and oral histories take center stage. Initially, readers may be tempted to deify these women for their contributions to the continuing struggle for female equality, but their unflinching accounts unfold to a tangible and poignant humanity. VERDICT Recommended for adult readers, particularly those with an interest in women's studies or the history of Americans in combat.—Tessa L.H. Minchew, Georgia Perimeter Coll. Lib., Clarkston

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169895230
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	10/19/2010
Edition description:	Unabridged

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