Military Families Mourn Daughters

Twenty years later, the ceiling was lifted on the number of women who could serve, but the other restrictions remained. It was not until 1992 that the United States repealed the laws that kept women out of combat aircraft. Two years later, then-Defense Secretary Les Aspin led a repeal of the Defense Department risk rule. The definition of direct ground combat changed, and new rules allowed women to serve in all units except those directly involved in fighting, such as armor, infantry, Ranger and field artillery battalions.

In 1991, women made up only 11 percent of the military, but now they account for 15 percent, according to the Defense Department. One of seven U.S. troops in Iraq is a woman. Women there have served on Patriot missile batteries, on military police patrols and in other support roles that place them dangerously close to the enemy. In Iraq, moreover, the dangers have been compounded by the guerrilla nature of the postwar insurgency.

Parents of women who have died there speak of their daughters -- and other military women -- with pride. "Personally, I think some of them are better than men," said Lisa Frye, mother of Nicole Frye, an Army reservist from Wisconsin who was killed in February at age 19 after a mortar round struck her convoy. "She was really good with a rifle, an expert marksman. Her fiance wasn't that good. He's in the National Guard."

Nicole's death "ripped my heart right out of my body," Frye said, but in the same breath she added: "We were really proud of her and what she accomplished, really proud, and we still are."

Frye's sentiment was echoed by John Witmer, whose daughter Michelle was shot to death atop a Humvee while laying down ground fire to protect her unit, the 32nd Military Police Company. She was 20.

John Witmer said Michelle and his other two daughters, Rachel and Charity, Michelle's twin, knew exactly what they were getting into when they volunteered with the Army National Guard in New Berlin, Wis.

"They were clear . . . that they were going to be in that situation," Witmer said. "Out of respect for my daughters, they knew what their job was going to be, and they did the job well."

Not every woman is doing a great job, Schlafly said. She said the photograph of England holding a leash attached to the neck of an Iraqi prisoner appalled her. "This later picture is a feminist fantasy," she said. "That's how feminists think about men."

Retired Navy Capt. Lory Manning, director of the Women in the Military Project, said the photographs have nothing to do with gender. They show only that women are capable of making the same mistakes as men.

"We are seeing women POWs, women with their legs blown off, women who are heroes," Manning said. "And we're also seeing the dark side of it. . . . The pictures themselves are horrific. You think, 'Oh, my God, how is this going to be translated?' "

The fact that England is a woman helped inflame the Arab world, where the sight of men being humiliated by women is anathema, Donnelly said.

Sgt. Susan Sonnheim, who was wounded when a bomb detonated in Baghdad and threw her 10 feet into the air, said women are as prepared as men to take their place in the ranks. "We did the same training as men," said Sonnheim, 45, of Franklin, Wis., who served with Michelle Witmer in the 32nd Military Police Company before she was sent to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the District. "If you can't pull your weight, you wouldn't be there. I had a heavy backpack. A heavy ammo belt. It weighed more than me. But I did it."

"I'm sure they're saying that because women never really encountered combat, and now that they are, it's hard for them to fathom," Sonnheim said. "But they're fighting, and they're dying."

Supporters and opponents of placing women in "at-risk" jobs agree on at least one thing: Women do have a place in a volunteer military. Whenever American men have marched to war, women followed, according to a thumbnail history compiled by the Defense Department.