Marching as to War

Desnoyers-Colas fills in some gaps in the literature on African American women in the military. An African American and a retired US Air Force major, the author grew up in a military family and deployed to several sites in the Persian Gulf during recent wars. The first, and best, of her six short chapters contrasts media coverage of Iraq War POWs Shoshanna Johnson (black) and Jessica Lynch (white); the second provides a historical overview of African American women in the military, beginning with the Revolutionary War. Each chapter thereafter has a theme (duties and dangers, family and child care, racism and sexism, and Gulf War illnesses), introduced with the author's own story and illustrated with material drawn from interviews with other veterans of the Gulf Wars. The chapters are smoothly written but anecdotal, with a 'war stories' quality that begs for serious scholarly engagement. Material on PTSD in the last chapter, for example, strains credulity in light of the combat support roles the women performed. Some greater reflection on the racial and neocolonial subtexts of the wars would have made this a better book. Summing Up: Recommended. Public, general, and undergraduate collections. * CHOICE * Desnoyers-Colas fills in some gaps in the literature on African American women in the military. An African American and a retired US Air Force major, the author grew up in a military family and deployed to several sites in the Persian Gulf during recent wars. The first, and best, of her six short chapters contrasts media coverage of Iraq War POWs Shoshanna Johnson (black) and Jessica Lynch (white); the second provides a historical overview of African American women in the military, beginning with the Revolutionary War. Each chapter thereafter has a theme (duties and dangers, family and child care, racism and sexism, and Gulf War illnesses), introduced with the author's own story and illustrated with material drawn from interviews with other veterans of the Gulf Wars. The chapters are smoothly written but anecdotal, with a 'war stories' quality that begs for serious scholarly engagement. Material on PTSD in the last chapter, for example, strains credulity in light of the combat support roles the women performed. Some greater reflection on the racial and neocolonial subtexts of the wars would have made this a better book. Summing Up: Recommended. Public, general, and undergraduate collections. CHOICE