MILITARY WOMEN

A few things triggered this article today…above all, a personal memory I need to share before it’s forever lost…and I dug up some interesting historical facts also.

My triggering memory today is a conversation of maybe ten minutes on a U.S. Army bus in Koblenz, West Germany in 1960 when I was ten years old. It concerns a German bus driver who had served in Russia during Hitler’s invasion in World War Two, and he had some horrific stories to tell about Russian female soldiers. “They were by far the scariest, more so than the men,” he said (I am paraphrasing from long ago memory, but the point will come across).

* * *

How did I arrive at that moment in 1960 as a 10 year old U.S. boy?

Warning: this is a tiny anecdote (which should make your spine crawl) but part of a huge context for me.

* * *

Context: My connections with the U.S. Army go back to the moment of my birth at a former Wehrmacht hospital that became a U.S. Army Station Hospital in Nuernberg, West Germany in 1949.

Side bar: evidently, it was dedicated by Adolf Shitler himself in 1937 as a Wehrmacht Standort Lazarett (I think meaning main local army hospital) for his soldiers and SS goons. That was all over by the time I arrived in June 1949 (as I like to say nowadays, mid-70s, getting funny looks from a clerk at the bank or somewhere: that’s “A.D., not B.C.”). World War Two was over by mid-1945 in Europe (V-E Day) and in Nuernberg they then had the famous war crimes trials; apparently my birth hospital, which went through a long chain of renaming and re-purposing, was also used to treat both Allied witnesses and Enemy prisoners during the trials.

I was an Army brat living almost entirely in Europe for my first ten years, until my father (a senior NCO and decorated veteran of World War Two in the Pacific, and later a liaison in various capacities in Europe after the war. He retired in 1960.

The person of interest is a German bus driver named Peter (that’s all I remember; his first name). Koblenz (named by the Romans almost 2,000 years ago for the confluence or confluentia of two major rivers there, the Rhine and the Moselle) has twice been part of the French Zone of Occupation following German defeats, in World Wars One and Two.

Zooming in: Koblenz was a U.S. Army Subpost, meaning we did not have a huge garrison there like in many other places in Europe. In fact, in my childhood we were stationed not only in West Germany but also in Verdun, France. My parents separated for some years, and my mother took me home to Luxembourg (the sovereign nation, not the Belgian province) to live with her parents. In that time, my father was also stationed in Vietnam 1957-8 as one of the first U.S. advisors there (300 advisors, 300 weapons recovery specialists at MAAG Saigon, as I recall being told much later). He was also stationed in Paris for a time… and of course we know that Mr. De Gaulle tossed us out in the 1960s and reduced France’s NATO cooperation (but did not end it because I think De Gaulle was a brilliant enough military commander to understand the folly of ending Europe’s united stand versus the gangsters over in the Soviet Union. Long story, not my point today. But as I tell this brief but striking little story, it will be good (I think) to give you a little background. Just think: I was born a U.S. citizen in a U.S. Army Hospital, so I was a little U.S. boy in Luxembourg and that was my first language in life. I still have cousins over there, and I still speak the language (among others).

However (another little anecdote as I think of it) I remember in first or second grade, in the Luxembourg City grammar school, that we received a daily ration of hot milk in a glass bottle (each, a little bottle) as part of the Marshall Plan. That was around 10 a.m. every morning during a break… and my biggest treat in all that was that, once a week, it was chocolate milk! Yowie…

My parents got back together after my grandparents died, and by 1960 we were stationed in Koblenz. As I said, that was in the French Zone of Occupation, so we lived in a section of French Army housing leased from the French Army by the U.S. Army someplace (I don’t remember where, except it was near one of the two confluent rivers, the Moselle I think).

We had several locations in Koblenz including a U.S. Army barracks whose name I forget…some liaison offices with the French and West German armies at a huge park near the Rhine River…and of course the inevitable, wonderful U.S. Army Post Exchange or PX (known as a BX or Base Exchange in Air Force locations, and a NEX or Navy Exchange with the Navy and Marine Corps bases). I already knew a good deal of German (I was a voracious reader) and some French plus exposure to Catholic Church Latin, which is important from a linguistics standpoint). I had to learn English from scratch, and so I also fell in love with grilled cheese sandwiches, chocolate milkshakes, and Mason Mint bars to name just one of many temptations. They had magazine and book stands in there, so I also moved from my absorption with Tintin (the Belgian cartoon master pieces, 23 books in all, by Georges Rémi who used the pseudonym Hergé) to a new absorption with U.S. comics like Superman etc. Oh, and I must mention that I was already an avid Mickey Mouse fan by age six, and waited eagerly outside our local magazine store on Wednesdays when the weekly Mickey Mouse (Mickey Maus, I think) edition was delivered. Long story, all that, another day, another article, more memories from my jumbled life that was by turns dark and light, difficult but interesting.

The point is: the Army provided transportation in cities like Verdun or Nancy, France and Koblenz, West Germany when we were not in heavily U.S.-occupied cities like Kaiserslautern, where I was later stationed for five years.

* * *

And that is how I met Peter, the German bus driver.

Peter drove a U.S. Army olive-drab bus between several locations for the convenience of military personnel and their dependents. Those included a major West German Army hospital, where I ended up once getting my forehead stitched up after being hit in the head by another child on a swing at the playground in our French Army housing area.

Mind you, that was upscale. I remember around age 3 or 4 in Nancy, where we stayed for a few days in a dingy flat beside a very smelly open sewage canal, the Army provided deuce-and-a-half trucks (2.5 ton jobs), you know, olive drab with a huge white star on each door…and privates (Beetle Bailey types) would help women and children into the back while (some) looked up the women’s dresses… yeah, we were roughing it for sure.

Back to our French Army housing area in Koblenz:

Speaking of that area, I’ll never forget one day I was walking down the main street there, and heard what sounded to me like a horrible, scary grinding noise almost like a drill going in to wood. I stared around until I saw, in a row of French Army housing, on the third floor or so, and French Army housewife hanging out her clothes on the clothesline. She had her radio (in the apartment) turned up to max volume, and what I was hearing, echoing for a mile around like an enemy airplane attack, was Edith Piaf singing “Je Ne Regrette Rien!” (I regret nothing!). You can imagine it sending chills up and down my ten year old (clueless!) spine as it echoed:

“Zhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Naaaaaaaa Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrregrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrette Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrien!”

To catch the full impact, as best possible, turn your speaker up to full volume here:

Ooh! I twitch my shoulders even now while I laugh at the memory. There are a lot of wonderful songs from Europe, but that was never one of my favorites.

Actually, now that I think about it, I might just do an article soon about my favorite French singers, including the late (1944-2024) Françoise Hardy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7oise_Hardy

Give a quick listen (no RRRRAAA…)

So, back to my anecdote (if you’re still here, my friend!).

* * *

We must have gotten on the bus driven by Peter, and we rode to various locations in Koblenz where the U.S. Army had some activity going on. We also drove by the West German Bundeswehr hospital where I’d gotten my head stitched. Oh, and after being hit by the swing, I was unconscious, and a Bundeswehr ambulance came to pick me up for transport to the West German army hospital. Lots of cross-NATO cooperation going on there…

Peter drove us around, stopping for about fifteen minutes to wait outside a military shopping complex. As we waited, I lit a cigarette and spoke in German with my mother who, as a Luxembourgeoise, could speak several languages. I understood his German, and here is the story he told of being with a German Wehrmacht infantry unit in Russia. As you know from your history, the Germans (of Hitler’s time) did even worse in Russia than Napoleon did over a century earlier.

The French in 1812 under Napoleon undertook a disastrous invasion that got them as far as Moscow, but then the Russian WINTER set in, and it was all that the French could do to stagger back through the snow to their homeland. Of the estimated nearly 1,000,000 soldiers and 50,000 horses plus untold artillery and equipment, only some 20,000 soldiers managed to crawl out of Russia. The 50,000 horses were all lost, as were the artillery and supplies.

So Adolf Shitler thought he was smarter, eh? He made sort of a Putin-Trump agreement with Stalin to avoid war, then betrayed his Russian tyrant & mirror image… invaded Russia… and that was his undoing, as Russia had been for Napoleon back in 1812-1813.

Peter, the bus driver, was about 50 years old. I remember him as a solid man, gray-haired, wearing that standard German work hat (also a military cap)… my mother and I were sitting in the front seats, while he moved from the driver’s seat to the dashboard-like section under the front windshield, and that is how he told us his story.

I don’t know what triggered his memories that day. He was one of the lucky ones who escaped death near Stalingrad, and I think he must have escaped injury as well.

Here are the two snippets that I remember from when I was a ten year old boy. I’m telling this story because it is worth telling, and should not be lost when I (…whatever).

* * *

First story:

The Germans had a tough time fighting Russian partisans, who ambushed them from all sides. Peter, then probably about 20 years old, was with a Wehrmacht unit that arrived at a bridge where Russian partisans (civilian resistance fighters) ambushed a company or battalion of Wehrmacht and slaughtered them.

This was Peter’s indelible memory:

The Russian fighters were all women. They slaughtered the Germans and then, to make a point, left the bodies scattered all over the bridge and on the road at each end.

Key memory: They shaved the German soldiers’ heads, took all their medals and decorations, and used hammers to pound the medals into the dead (or still living?) soldiers’ skulls and brains.

They got their point across, as we see from Peter and his lifelong memories. Yes, the Germans did a lot of horrible stuff, but I think in this case it was the unexpected horror that stood out for him amid all the gruesome and cruel moments in their surprise invasion of the U.S.S.R.

End of first snapshot.

* * *

Second Story:

Yes, Peter said, the Russian women were the most scary soldiers to be reckoned with.

He knew of another situation in while German artillery shot down a Russian military cargo plane… probably in a meadow amid deep forests all around.

A German Wehrmacht squad was sent to kill the pilots and whoever else might be on board.

What they did not expect was the fierce resistance coming from inside the plane, which was probably a U.S. cargo plane given to the Soviets, with red Russian hammer and sickle markings and white Cyrillic lettering on dark blue-green surfaces.

As the plane lay crippled in the meadow, the Germans were cut down… and called for help.

Soon, an entire battalion of Wehrmacht and SS troops surrounded the plane, firing into it relentlessly night and day for several days, and taking heavy return fire from the plane’s broken doors and windows. Add to that a few German Panzer tanks… and finally there was no more return fire.

As the Germans cautiously advanced amid eerie silence and the smells of smoke and burning meat, they came across an astounding scene. Inside the aircraft, aside from some supplies and equipment, were the bodies of at least two dozen Russian women. There were no men. The women (including the pilots, who were often women) had fought to the last bullet, the last breath, the last gasp of love for homeland and hate for the Germans.

In so doing, they tied up an entire German battalion plus several tanks and who knows what else for a week. That’s before even the Russian winter set in to annihilate the Germans completely.

End of Second Story.

* * *

Peter drove us to our destination, probably our French Army housing area. That’s all I remember from that day. We never saw him again.

It is impressive to read about the Germans’ terror of female Russian combat pilots known as Nachthexen in German, meaning Night Witches in English.

Here is a Wikipedia article about Soviet women in World War Two:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_women_in_World_War_II

This (Polikarpov Po-2) is one of the obsolete biplanes they often flew to drop bombs or do reconnaissance at great danger to themselves.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polikarpov_Po-2

* * *

Besides being deadly night pilots in rickety old planes, Russian female troops also distinguished themselves (often tragically) as snipers. They were the terror of German generals and colonels, and often dueled barrel to barrel with secretive German army snipers…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roza_Shanina

One of the many impressive stories is that of Roza Shanina. She, like many Russian sniper women, ended up committing suicide when all was lost or capture (and torture) by enemy Germans was about to happen.

And of course the Red Army medical units and support units were full of eager young female soldiers.

* * *

So what about other nations and their female warriors?

In the world today, one national entity that stands out in my mind are the Kurdish people, who have been fighting for their independence from Turkey (formerly the Ottoman Empire).

Who are the Kurds? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurds

Kurdish women have distinguished themselves as fierce and courageous fighters in the recent wars. I’m running out of time and pixels here, so if you’ll do a search on “Kurdish woman fighter” you’ll find a number of interesting results like this one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_Protection_Units

Another example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia_Ramazan_Antar

The above is a photo of the late Asia Ramazan Antar, a fighter who died at 17 or 18 fighting in the Syrian Civil War. She was an exemplar of a brand of Kurdish feminism amid the Islamic world. It’s called Jineology:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jineology

* * *

What about the United States military?

Maybe the top story of heroism among female military personnel is that of U.S. Senator from Illinois Ladda Tammy Duckworth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammy_Duckworth

You can read her full story at the Wikipedia page.

I could write another whole article about her glorious life, including how she lost both legs and partial use of an arm as a U.S. Army helicopter pilot hit by an enemy projectile while on active combat duty in the Iraq conflict in 2004. After many other achievements, she now serves as U.S. Senator (Democrat) from Illinois.

* * *

I knew a lot of female U.S. Army troops in my two enlistments, in all ranks from enlisted to warrant officer to warrant. That’s not my primary reason for writing …

I served in the U.S. Army as an enlisted soldier in West Germany (USAREUR) at a major logistics command for five years 1975-1981. Had my ups and downs like virtually all soldiers, lucky not to have been in combat (you go where Uncle Sam sends you, and do what you’re told)…

I was stationed in a headquarters command, surrounded by combat brigades on all sides. In fact, Kaiserslauten then, and now, has been known as the largest community of U.S. citizens outside the United States. As I recall, there were about 250,000 U.S. service members, dependents, and Civil Service types in K-town. My impression of the women was that they measured up in every way to the men’s standards. Yes, there were some sub-par men, and there were some sub-par women, but overall they tend to be dedicated, patriotic, and effective in every way.

That said, one of my worries about women in combat is that they would certainly be molested if captured (alive) in battle. There are stories about that coming from the women-hating regions of the Islamic world, although I think it’s possible in any environment. For example, a U.S. Navy officer (of Rear Admiral rank, as I recall) told a story of a plane load of captive U.S. female military personnel, some 240 or so, having been liberated in the war against Saddam Hussein, were flown back to where every U.S. military evacuated person makes their first stop: Landstuhl Army Medical Center outside Ramstein AFB and K-Town. The admiral’s comment was that all had been molested by their Iraqi captors.

* * *

Here is the heroic and tragic story of Lori Ann Piestewa, a U.S. soldier and Native American killed in action in the Iraq area (city of Nasiriyah, Iraq) at age 23 in 2003.

https://www.thenmusa.org/biographies/lori-ann-piestewa/

See next story: Jessica Lynch, also an enlisted soldier in Iraq, was with Lori Ann Piestewa, driver of a Humvee, when their vehicle was assaulted along a road in Nairiyah by enemy troops.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Lynch

Jessica’s story ends well.

A parting note I have is that a mountain trail in Arizona, near Lori Ann Piestewa’s home, was renamed, and this story is of great significance also.

The mountain was named Squaw Peak, I believe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squaw_(disambiguation) The word squaw, from a Native American language, is an ethnic and gender slur for female genitalia, like ‘pussy’ or worse. In recent years, a number of U.S. locations with names like ‘Squaw Valley’ (meaning, basically, Indian cunt valley) have been thankfully renamed. There is still a lot of work left to accomplish on that score!

Near Lori’s home, Squaw Peak is now named after her: Piestewa Peak.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piestewa_Peak

* * *

Time for me to wrap it up, and you also, dear reader, if you are still here. There is a lot more to be said on this topic, but we’ll have to save it for another day.

This looks like an interesting article to part company today: Female U.S. Air Force pilots from the 3rd Wing walk to their F-15 Eagles at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. The stride, the confidence, the good humor… can there be any more doubt about women’s ability to serve in the military?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_military

John T. Cullen JTC

johntcullen.substack.com

https://www.johntcullen.com

https://www.galleycity.com

MARA Make America Real Again

MUSARAL Make USA Real At Last