Download or read book A Woman Soldier s Own Story written by Bingying Xie and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Xie struggled against the constraints of Chinese society in the early twentieth century and went on to become a soldier, a writer and a feminist.
Download or read book A Woman Soldier s Own Story written by Bingying Xie and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2001-09-18 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time, a complete version of the autobiography of Xie Bingying (1906-2000) provides a fascinating portrayal of a woman fighting to free herself from the constraints of ancient Chinese tradition amid the dramatic changes that shook China during the 1920s, '30s, and '40s. Xie's attempts to become educated, her struggles to escape from an arranged marriage, and her success in tricking her way into military school reveal her persevering and unconventional character and hint at the prominence she was later to attain as an important figure in China's political culture. Though she was tortured and imprisoned, she remained committed to her convictions. Her personal struggle to define herself within the larger context of political change in China early in the last century is a poignant testament of determination and a striking story of one woman's journey from Old China into the new world.
Download or read book In the Trenches written by Tatiana L. Dubinskaya and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2020-03-01 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tatiana L. Dubinskaya’s autobiographical novel of life in the Russian army marked the first major work published by a female World War I soldier in the Soviet Union. Often compared to All Quiet on the Western Front, Dubinskaya’s stark and unsparing story presents a rare look at women in combat and one of the few works of fiction set on the eastern front. Zinaida, a Russian schoolgirl, runs away from home to join the army. Sent to the front, she endures the horrors of trench warfare and the hardships of military life. Undercurrents of revolutionary thinking filter into the ranks as morale begins to crumble. Zinaida must come to grips with the havoc unleashed by the czar’s overthrow and the new socialist government’s attempts to impose revolutionary reforms on the army. Destabilization and desertion follow, and her regiment joins the chaotic mass retreat of the Russian army in the summer of 1917. In addition to Dubinskaya’s original novel, this edition includes selections from her 1936 autobiographical work, Machine Gunner, which she rewrote to satisfy Stalinist censors.
Download or read book Ashley s War written by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2015-04-21 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times–bestselling account of an elite team of female soldiers is “compelling. . . . In battle as in life, these women refuse to quit” (Christian Science Monitor). In 2010, the Army created Cultural Support Teams, a secret pilot program to insert women alongside Special Operations soldiers battling in Afghanistan. Their presence had a calming effect on enemy households, but more importantly, the CSTs were able to search adult women for weapons and gather crucial intelligence. They could build relationships—woman to woman—in ways that male soldiers in an Islamic country never could. In Ashley’s War, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon uses on-the-ground reporting and a finely tuned understanding of the complexities of war to tell the story of CST-2, a unit of women hand-picked from the Army to serve in this highly specialized role. The pioneers of CST-2 proved for the first time that women might be physically and mentally tough enough to become Special Ops. The price of professional acceptance was personal loss and social isolation: the only people who really understand the women of CST-2 are each other. At the center of this story is a friendship and the shared perils of up-close combat. At the heart of the team is the tale of a beloved and effective soldier, Ashley White. “An unforgettable story of female soldiers breaking the brass ceiling. . . . This book will inspire you.” —Sheryl Sandberg, #1 International bestselling author of Lean In “A tremendous story. . . . Very moving.” —The Daily Show with Jon Stewart “Ashley’s War shares the remarkable stories of one of the first teams of women serving in the U.S. Army Special Operations Command.” —Senator John McCain
Download or read book I Am a Soldier Too written by Rick Bragg and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2003-11-11 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author lends his remarkable narrative skills to the story of the most famous POW this country has known. In I Am a Soldier, Too, Bragg lets Jessica Lynch tell the story of her capture in the Iraq War in her own words--not the sensationalized ones of the media's initial reports. Here we see how a humble rural upbringing leads to a stint in the military, one of the most exciting job options for a young person in Palestine, West Virginia. We see the real story behind the ambush in the Iraqi Desert that led to Lynch's capture. And we gain new perspective on her rescue from an Iraqi hospital where she had been receiving care. Here Lynch’s true heroism and above all, modesty, is allowed to emerge, as we're shown how she managed her physical recovery from her debilitating wounds and contended with the misinformation--both deliberate and unintended--surrounding her highly publicized rescue. In the end, what we see is a uniquely American story of courage and true heroism.
Download or read book Memoirs of a Soldier Nurse and Spy written by Sarah Emma Evelyn Edmonds and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Among the hundreds of women who, in disguise, enlisted to serve as men during the Civil War, only Sarah Edmonds is known to have written a memoir recounting her experiences. As "Franklin Thompson," she joined the 2nd Michigan Infantry Regiment in 1861, then fought in some of the bloodiest struggles of the Civil War, from the first battle of Bull Run to the Kentucky Campaign of 1863. This daring woman embarked upon dangerous missions into Confederate territory to gather information and to survey enemy positions, sometimes in the guise of a slave or Irish washerwoman, sometimes in Confederate uniform. Through her experiences as a "male nurse" and Union soldier, Edmonds depicts the horrors of Civil War hospitals and the simple pastimes of camp life. Throughout her impassioned account, first published in 1865, this enthralling storyteller reveals her courage, dedication to the Union, and resourcefulness in concealing her identity. Three years after her death, Edmonds's body was reinterred with military honors by her comrades, who recognized in her a "strong, healthy, and robust soldier, ever willing and ready for duty." The introduction and annotations by Elizabeth D. Leonard, a leading authority on Civil War women, support and amplify Edmonds's account. Challenging established views of the Civil War soldier, Memoirs of a Soldier, Nurse, and Spy is compelling reading, especially for those interested in the Civil War, women's history, American studies, and military history.
Download or read book Soldier Girls written by Helen Thorpe and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-08-05 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A raw, intimate look at the impact of combat and the healing power of friendship” (People): the lives of three women deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq, and the effect of their military service on their personal lives and families—named a best book of the year by Publishers Weekly. “In the tradition of Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Richard Rhodes, and other masters of literary journalism, Soldier Girls is utterly absorbing, gorgeously written, and unforgettable” (The Boston Globe). Helen Thorpe follows the lives of three women over twelve years on their paths to the military, overseas to combat, and back home…and then overseas again for two of them. These women, who are quite different in every way, become friends, and we watch their interaction and also what happens when they are separated. We see their families, their lovers, their spouses, their children. We see them work extremely hard, deal with the attentions of men on base and in war zones, and struggle to stay connected to their families back home. We see some of them drink too much, have affairs, and react to the deaths of fellow soldiers. And we see what happens to one of them when the truck she is driving hits an explosive in the road, blowing it up. She survives, but her life may never be the same again. Deeply reported, beautifully written, and powerfully moving, Soldier Girls is “a breakthrough work...What Thorpe accomplishes in Soldier Girls is something far greater than describing the experience of women in the military. The book is a solid chunk of American history...Thorpe triumphs” (The New York Times Book Review).
Download or read book Masquerade written by Alfred F. Young and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2005-03-08 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Masquerade, Alfred F. Young scrapes through layers of fiction and myth to uncover the story of Deborah Sampson, a Massachusetts woman who passed as a man and fought as a soldier for seventeen months toward the end of the American Revolution. Deborah Sampson was not the only woman to pose as a male and fight in the war, but she was certainly one of the most successful and celebrated. She managed to fight in combat and earn the respect of her officers and peers, and in later years she toured the country lecturing about her experiences and was partially successful in obtaining veterans’ benefits. Her full story, however, was buried underneath exaggeration and myth (some of which she may have created herself), becoming another sort of masquerade. Young takes the reader with him through his painstaking efforts to reveal the real Deborah Sampson in a work of history that is as spellbinding as the best detective fiction.
Download or read book I m Still Standing written by Matty Cole and published by Page Publishing Inc. This book was released on 2022-06-30 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In life, trials and tribulations are designed to destroy us. But with God, my challenges with abuse, drug addiction, hardship, betrayal, and loneliness could not break me. As I recount my life’s journey, His presence has been with me through it all. According to Romans 8:28 (AMP), “And we know [with great confidence] that God [who is deeply concerned about us] causes all things to work together [as a plan] for good.” Hope and trust in God always, and you, too, will find yourself still standing.
Download or read book The Soldier s Wife written by Joanna Trollope and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-06-05 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN LOVE AND DUTY COLLIDE? DAN RILEY IS A MAJOR IN THE BRITISH ARMY. After a six-month tour of duty in Afghanistan, he is coming home to the wife and young daughters he adores. He’s up for promotion and his ex-Army grandfather and father couldn’t be prouder. The Rileys are united in support of Dan’s passion for his career. But are they really? His wife, Alexa, has been offered a good teaching job she can’t take because the Army may move the family at any time. Her daughter Isabel hates her boarding school—the only good educational option for Army families—and starts running away. And Dan spends all his time on the base, unable to break the strong bonds forged with his friends in battle. Soon everyone who knows the Rileys is trying to help them save their marriage, but it’s up to Alexa to decide if she can sacrifice her needs and those of her family to support Dan’s commitment to his work. With her trademark intelligence and grace, Joanna Trollope illuminates the complexities of modern life in this story of a family striving to balance duty and ambition.
Download or read book WHEREAS written by Layli Long Soldier and published by Graywolf Press. This book was released on 2017-03-07 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The astonishing, powerful debut by the winner of a 2016 Whiting Writers' Award WHEREAS her birth signaled the responsibility as mother to teach what it is to be Lakota therein the question: What did I know about being Lakota? Signaled panic, blood rush my embarrassment. What did I know of our language but pieces? Would I teach her to be pieces? Until a friend comforted, Don’t worry, you and your daughter will learn together. Today she stood sunlight on her shoulders lean and straight to share a song in Diné, her father’s language. To sing she motions simultaneously with her hands; I watch her be in multiple musics. —from “WHEREAS Statements” WHEREAS confronts the coercive language of the United States government in its responses, treaties, and apologies to Native American peoples and tribes, and reflects that language in its officiousness and duplicity back on its perpetrators. Through a virtuosic array of short lyrics, prose poems, longer narrative sequences, resolutions, and disclaimers, Layli Long Soldier has created a brilliantly innovative text to examine histories, landscapes, her own writing, and her predicament inside national affiliations. “I am,” she writes, “a citizen of the United States and an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, meaning I am a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation—and in this dual citizenship I must work, I must eat, I must art, I must mother, I must friend, I must listen, I must observe, constantly I must live.” This strident, plaintive book introduces a major new voice in contemporary literature.
Download or read book They Fought Like Demons written by DeAnne Blanton and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2002-09-01 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popular images of women during the American Civil War include self-sacrificing nurses, romantic spies, and brave ladies maintaining hearth and home in the absence of their men. However, as DeAnne Blanton and Lauren M. Cook show in their remarkable new study, that conventional picture does not tell the entire story. Hundreds of women assumed male aliases, disguised themselves in men’s uniforms, and charged into battle as Union and Confederate soldiers—facing down not only the guns of the adversary but also the gender prejudices of society. They Fought Like Demons is the first book to fully explore and explain these women, their experiences as combatants, and the controversial issues surrounding their military service. Relying on more than a decade of research in primary sources, Blanton and Cook document over 240 women in uniform and find that their reasons for fighting mirrored those of men—-patriotism, honor, heritage, and a desire for excitement. Some enlisted to remain with husbands or brothers, while others had dressed as men before the war. Some so enjoyed being freed from traditional women’s roles that they continued their masquerade well after 1865. The authors describe how Yankee and Rebel women soldiers eluded detection, some for many years, and even merited promotion. Their comrades often did not discover the deception until the “young boy” in their company was wounded, killed, or gave birth. In addition to examining the details of everyday military life and the harsh challenges of -warfare for these women—which included injury, capture, and imprisonment—Blanton and Cook discuss the female warrior as an icon in nineteenth-century popular culture and why twentieth-century historians and society ignored women soldiers’ contributions. Shattering the negative assumptions long held about Civil War distaff soldiers, this sophisticated and dynamic work sheds much-needed light on an unusual and overlooked facet of the Civil War experience.
Download or read book The Lonely Soldier written by Helen Benedict and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2010-04-01 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Lonely Soldier--the inspiration for the documentary The Invisible War--vividly tells the stories of five women who fought in Iraq between 2003 and 2006--and of the challenges they faced while fighting a war painfully alone. More American women have fought and died in Iraq than in any war since World War Two, yet as soldiers they are still painfully alone. In Iraq, only one in ten troops is a woman, and she often serves in a unit with few other women or none at all. This isolation, along with the military's deep-seated hostility toward women, causes problems that many female soldiers find as hard to cope with as war itself: degradation, sexual persecution by their comrades, and loneliness, instead of the camaraderie that every soldier depends on for comfort and survival. As one female soldier said, "I ended up waging my own war against an enemy dressed in the same uniform as mine." In The Lonely Soldier, Benedict tells the stories of five women who fought in Iraq between 2003 and 2006. She follows them from their childhoods to their enlistments, then takes them through their training, to war and home again, all the while setting the war's events in context. We meet Jen, white and from a working-class town in the heartland, who still shakes from her wartime traumas; Abbie, who rebelled against a household of liberal Democrats by enlisting in the National Guard; Mickiela, a Mexican American who grew up with a family entangled in L.A. gangs; Terris, an African American mother from D.C. whose childhood was torn by violence; and Eli PaintedCrow, who joined the military to follow Native American tradition and to escape a life of Faulknerian hardship. Between these stories, Benedict weaves those of the forty other Iraq War veterans she interviewed, illuminating the complex issues of war and misogyny, class, race, homophobia, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Each of these stories is unique, yet collectively they add up to a heartbreaking picture of the sacrifices women soldiers are making for this country. Benedict ends by showing how these women came to face the truth of war and by offering suggestions for how the military can improve conditions for female soldiers-including distributing women more evenly throughout units and rejecting male recruits with records of violence against women. Humanizing, urgent, and powerful, The Lonely Soldier is a clarion call for change.
Download or read book Girl Soldier written by Faith J. H. McDonnell and published by Chosen Books. This book was released on 2007-06-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For several decades a brutal army of rebels has been raiding villages in northern Uganda, kidnapping children and turning them into soldiers or wives of commanders. More than 30,000 children have been abducted over the last twenty years and forced to commit unspeakable crimes. Grace Akallo was one of these. Her story, which is the story of many Ugandan children, recounts her terrifying experience. This unforgettable book--with historical background and insights from Faith McDonnell, one of the clearest voices in the church today calling for freedom and justice--will inspire readers around the world to take notice, pray, and work to end this tragedy.
Download or read book Soldier Spy Heroine written by Debra Ann Pawlak and published by Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.. This book was released on 2017-01-24 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Story of the Woman Who Fooled the Yankees and Rebels Alike. As a child, Sarah Emma Edmonds dreamed of faraway places and adventure, often picturing herself as a man. When her abusive father traded her hand in marriage for a few head of livestock, she fled their farm and took on the identity of traveling salesman Franklin Thompson eventually settling in Flint, Michigan. There, as Thompson, she joined Company F of the Second Michigan Volunteer Infantry and distinguished herself as a true Civil War hero. In between the First Battle of Bull Run, the Battle of Yorktown, the Battle of Williamsburg, and the Battle of Fair Oaks/Seven Pines, Thompson nursed the sick and wounded, carried the mail across dangerous terrain, and became one of the Secret Service’s first spies. Using various disguises including that of a former slave and an Irish peddler woman, Thompson infiltrated enemy lines and stole vital information from the Rebels until a severe case of malaria took its toll. Knowing that the medical attention she needed would reveal her carefully kept secret, she unwillingly deserted the Union Army in 1863. But Sarah Emma Edmonds wasn’t finished. She had a soldier’s pension to fight for and an honorable discharge to claim. Almost a decade after the war was over, she came forward and asked the astonished men she served with for their help in clearing the name of Franklin Thompson. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
Download or read book Waging Peace written by Diana Oestreich and published by Broadleaf Books . This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Diana Oestreich, a combat medic in the Army National Guard, enlisted like both her parents before her. But when she was commanded to run over an Iraqi child to keep her convoy rolling and keep her battle buddies safe, she was confronted with a choice she never thought she'd have to make. Torn between God's call to love her enemy and her country's command to be willing to kill, Diana chose to wage peace in a place of war. For the remainder of her tour of duty, Diana sought to be a peacemaker--leading to an unlikely and beautiful friendship with an Iraqi family. A beautiful and gut-wrenching memoir, Waging Peace exposes the false divide between loving our country and living out our faith's call to love our enemies--whether we perceive our enemy as the neighbor with an opposing political viewpoint, the clerk wearing a head-covering, or the refugee from a war-torn country. By showing that us-versus-them is a false choice, this book will inspire each of us to choose love over fear.
Download or read book Switchboard Soldiers written by Jennifer Chiaverini and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2022-07-19 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An eye-opening and detailed novel about remarkable female soldiers. . . Chiaverini weaves the intersecting threads of these brave women’s lives together, highlighting their deep sense of pride and duty.”--Kirkus Reviews From New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Chiaverini, a bold, revelatory novel about one of the great untold stories of World War I—the women of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, who broke down gender barriers in the military, smashed the workplace glass ceiling, and battled a pandemic as they helped lead the Allies to victory. In June 1917, General John Pershing arrived in France to establish American forces in Europe. He immediately found himself unable to communicate with troops in the field. Pershing needed operators who could swiftly and accurately connect multiple calls, speak fluent French and English, remain steady under fire, and be utterly discreet, since the calls often conveyed classified information. At the time, nearly all well-trained American telephone operators were women—but women were not permitted to enlist, or even to vote in most states. Nevertheless, the U.S. Army Signal Corps promptly began recruiting them. More than 7,600 women responded, including Grace Banker of New Jersey, a switchboard instructor with AT&T and an alumna of Barnard College; Marie Miossec, a Frenchwoman and aspiring opera singer; and Valerie DeSmedt, a twenty-year-old Pacific Telephone operator from Los Angeles, determined to strike a blow for her native Belgium. They were among the first women sworn into the U.S. Army under the Articles of War. The male soldiers they had replaced had needed one minute to connect each call. The switchboard soldiers could do it in ten seconds. The risk of death was real—the women worked as bombs fell around them—as was the threat of a deadly new disease: the Spanish Flu. Not all of the telephone operators would survive. The women of the U.S. Army Signal Corps served with honor and played an essential role in achieving the Allied victory. Their story has never been the focus of a novel…until now.
