When Janey Comes Marching Home Lib/E: Portraits of Women Combat Veterans

Women are officially barred from combat in the American armed services, yet in today's wars, where there are no front lines, the ban on combat is virtually meaningless. More than in any previous conflict in our history, American women are engaging with the enemy, suffering injuries, and even sacrificing their lives in the line of duty. When Janey Comes Marching Home juxtaposes forty-eight photographs by Sascha Pflaeging with oral histories collected by Laura Browder to provide a dramatic portrait of women at war. Women from all five branches of the military share their stories here-stories that are by turns moving, comic, thought-provoking, and profound. Seeing their faces in stunning color photographic portraits and reading what they have to say about loss, comradeship, conflict, and hard choices will change the ways we think about women and war. Serving in a combat zone is an all-encompassing experience that is transformative, life-defining, and difficult to leave behind. By coming face-to-face with women veterans, we who are outside that world can begin to get a sense of how the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have impacted their lives and how their stories may ripple out and influence the experiences of all American women.

About the Author :
Laura Browder is the Tyler and Alice Haynes Professor of American Studies at the University of Richmond. She is the author of Her Best Shot: Women and Guns in America and is the writer and coproducer of the documentary film Gone to Texas: The Lives of Forrest Carter, based on her book Slippery Characters: Ethnic Impersonators and American Identities. Sascha Pflaeging is a freelance photographer for clients such as Getty Images, CBS, and Us magazine. Dylan Thomas was born in Swansea, Wales on 27 October 1914. In 1934 his first book of poetry, Eighteen Poems appeared, followed by Twenty-five Poems in 1936, Deaths and Entrances in 1946 and in 1952 his final volume, Collected Poems. He also published many short stories, wrote filmscripts, broadcast stories and talks, did a series of lecture tours in the United States and wrote Under Milkwood, the radio play.During his fourth lecture tour of the United States in 1953, a few days after his 39th birthday, he collapsed in his New York hotel and died on November 9th at St. Vincent's Hospital. His body was sent back to Laugharne, Wales, where his grave is marked by a simple wooden cross.In June 1994, his wife, Caitlin Thomas, died in Italy, where she had spent most of the years of her life after the death of Dylan Thomas. Her body is buried next to his.

Review :
"In this powerful record, author and English professor Browder collects first-person accounts from dozens of military women who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, accompanied by vivid full-color portraits...Poignant, tear-jerking stories dominate...Candid and touching, with resonant photographs from Pflaeging, these brief narratives give voice to a too-often-overlooked aspect of female American experience." -- "Publishers Weekly" "Readers may be tempted to deify these women for their contributions to the continuing struggle for female equality, but their unflinching accounts unfold to a tangible and poignant humanity." -- "Library Journal" "Respectful but unflinching, these arresting images and stories of women veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan have the power to stop us in our tracks and transform how we think about the American way of war. As fellow citizens like these return for third, fourth, and fifth tours of duty, this important documentary can help us muster the empathy to make their lives a part of our daily consciousness." -- "Christian G. Appy, author of Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides"