Invisible Soldiers

Photo courtesy of The U.S. Army via Flickr
Photo courtesy of The U.S. Army via Flickr

The women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are the first generation of female soldiers to endure the horrors of war at close range--and they bear the physical and psychological scars of that experience. Yet when they come home, many are treated as though they had been tucked safely behind a desk. Women's Health talks to three such women about their postbattle suffering... and their fight to feel safe and happy again.

"I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to take that pen."

LaTisha Bowen reaches across the restaurant table and swipes the ballpoint from my hand. The pen I had been clicking unconsciously and, apparently, incessantly. She sets it down on the table next to my tape recorder and flashes a shy smile, the first I've seen from her all evening. "It's just that I...well...sometimes little noises like that set me off. You can understand?"

I think I can. I have been around dozens of veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who suffer from varying degrees of post-traumatic stress. I've laughed with them, played ball with them, clinked glasses with them, and sometimes cried with them. Those veterans all had one thing in common: They were men. This is my first experience with a woman on whom the military conflicts have left lasting psychological scars.

The Defense Department specifically prohibits women from assignments "whose primary mission is to engage in direct combat on the ground." But in reality, such an edict is nearly impossible to enforce in the Iraq and Afghanistan combat zones, where there is no front line and the piece of ground you occupy can, at any moment, turn into a battlefield.

The consequences: For the first time in history, women are facing the same deployment dangers as men. But unlike their male counterparts, they come home to family and friends who can't comprehend what they've been through and an outdated veterans' support system that is scrambling to meet their needs.

Outside, a savage snowstorm is lashing Cleveland, LaTisha's hometown. But tonight the 32-year-old nursing assistant and former U.S. Army specialist is dressed in khakis and a yellow blouse adorned with red and violet orchids, more appropriate for a Caribbean beach party. Her only nod to the weather is the blue silk scarf she continuously adjusts across her broad shoulders. She speaks so softly I have to lean in close to make out her words. I recall what her sister told me about LaTisha's trauma, how it affected what had once been a loud and boisterous voice.

LaTisha is one of the more than 26,000 female U.S. military veterans who have returned home from war since 9/11 and been diagnosed by the Department of Veterans Affairs with symptoms consistent with serious mental health pathologies, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depression.

Although civilian and military experts admit there is still much to learn about how the minds of women react differently to combat than the minds of men do, there is growing concern that female soldiers may become more withdrawn than their male counterparts. And according to a recent study by the RAND Corporation think tank, women are more likely than men to experience PTSD symptoms.

LaTisha suffers from a form of PTSD that is characterized by acute anxiety disorder, which manifests itself in frequent migraine headaches, an inability to focus on mundane tasks, a hypersensitivity to noises (such as, say, a clicking pen), gastrointestinal problems, and, most distressing, uncontrollable fits of temper.

"I used to be the fun auntie to my nieces and nephew," she says. "My brother's children loved to play with me. But once I got back, I started yelling at them all the time, throwing things when they annoyed me. I've never hit them, but I've wanted to. They were just being kids, but I would get mad at the littlest thing. I didn't think anything was wrong with me at first. Finally, my family-- my sister especially--convinced me to seek help."

In fact, no one was more alarmed by the abrupt changes in LaTisha's personality than her sister, who says, "LaTisha has become so withdrawn, so timid. Before she went over, she was outgoing, the family leader. She told me she's actually thought about hurting herself. That's not her."

The product of a broken home, LaTisha enlisted in January 2001, seeing the peacetime Army as a way to pay for college and perhaps a medical degree. She wanted to become a pediatrician. Eight months later, 9/11 changed everything. She was deployed at Camp Danger, outside the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit, from September 2004 to June 2005 in the Army's 350th Psychological Operations Company. Her original assignment--developing and distributing information to Iraqis about the U.S. mission-- succumbed to the ever-changing demands of the conflict.

Consequently, instead of performing the job she had trained for, LaTisha became an administration and supply specialist and spent much of her deployment driving Humvees in convoys over some of the most dangerous roads in the world. "I had no idea what I was in for," says LaTisha, who had never even been overseas before. "We used to take a lot of 'casual artillery.' Mortars. Rockets. The roads were laced with IEDs [improvised explosive devices]."

Outnumbered 10 to one by her male colleagues, and largely cold-shouldered by them, LaTisha was left frightened, isolated, and melancholy. "Knowing what could happen at any minute was nerve-racking," she says. "I wanted to represent my country. But some of the men never got used to working with a female. When they ignored me, it made it doubly hard. I felt like I was fighting not only my country's enemy but my own people too. I became sullen. Sometimes I didn't even talk to the other female soldiers."

Having been to Iraq and Afghanistan myself on multiple reporting assignments, I have often witnessed how some of the Army's old-school officers treat women on the battlefield as a nuisance. I have seen officers actively encourage gender isolation among their subordinate male "war fighters." As one infantryman told me: "When we inevitably find ourselves working with women, most soldiers don't know how to handle it. So we just ignore 'em and hope they'll go away."

Yet, as there is nowhere to "go away" to in Iraq, many women soldiers turn so deeply inward that they return home feeling uncomfortable around other people. When LaTisha and I had first entered the near-empty, dimly lit steakhouse together, she looked noticeably relieved. "Oh, good," she'd said. "I was afraid it would be too crowded. I used to love being around lots of people. At clubs. At parties. I was so happy. Iraq changed that."

LaTisha turns her head and directs a vacant stare across the deserted restaurant. I wait in silence. "They don't know what to do with us," she says finally in her tiny voice. "They just don't know."

Underestimated and Underserved: Read the Moving Stories of Soldiers Jennifer and Aimee

A Question of Honor
The grit that drew LaTisha Bowen, as well as Jennifer Hunt and Aimee Sherrod (see link above) and thousands of women like them to enlist in America's armed forces is the same grit that undoubtedly motivates them to improve their mental, physical, and intellectual health.

LaTisha probably spoke for most female veterans when she told me that despite her suffering, she was most proud that the Army had taught her "the true meaning of loyalty, duty, honor, commitment, and respect." Over the past four years, through a combination of medication and therapy, she has been able to harness her temper and has graduated from Kent State with a degree in health studies; she recently returned to school to pursue her nursing degree. Jennifer overcame her physical wounds to earn a degree in political science from American University, and Aimee has carved out enough time in her hectic life to earn college credits toward her social work degree.

"Fair or unfair, things are hard for female soldiers," Aimee had said to me as she corralled her two children. "But we're women. And women are generally tougher than men. We'll deal with it."

The VA's deputy chief of mental health services Antonette Zeiss recites party line when she says that her agency is "at least 80 percent of the way" toward fully addressing female-specific veterans' issues. "We've made great strides."

It's a start, I suppose. Yet with more than 26,000 women warriors diagnosed with serious mental-health issues, with a 17 percent rate of military sexual trauma among female veterans, and with women who have served nearly three times as likely to divorce as their male counterparts, these members of the military are looking for more than a start.

They're looking for a finish.

--By Bob Drury, Women's Health


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