![]() ![]() ![]() At the end of the war, returning WACs and WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) found they were expected to return to a submissive role some suggested that they sacrifice the opportunity for college to make room for male veterans. For example, members of the Women’s Army Corps torpedoed en route to service as officers’ secretaries in North Africa were told they had to replace their lost uniforms at their own expense, since they weren’t regular Army personnel. Eventually, a series of incident exposed the system’s bias. World War II exposed servicewomen to more increasingly dangerous conditions and let them prove what they could contribute. That meant putting them in auxiliary units separate from the actual armed service it also meant denying them equal pay or veterans’ benefits. At first the arguments seemed reasonable enough-protecting women by keeping them away from combat zones. Monahan and Neidel-Greenlee ( And If I Perish: Frontline Army Nurses in World War II, 2003, etc.) begin with the volunteer nurses of the World War I era, documenting what becomes a repeated strain in the book: the struggle against a male-dominated hierarchy, both civilian and military. ![]() military, by two former servicewomen who also worked at the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. ![]()
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