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103 reviews for:
Ashley's War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
4.24 AVERAGE
103 reviews for:
Ashley's War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
4.24 AVERAGE
This was a beautiful tribute to Ashley's life and legacy. Tears stung my eyes. One of my good friends was represented in this story and I'm incredibly proud of her. What patriotism, strength, courage, dedication and intellect this pioneering group of women possessed.
emotional
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
I loved reading about Ashley and her women comrades; I did not love the writing of this book. It took halfway through to even get to deployment, and even then I felt the details were extremely blurry. There were also too many random details about so many different women at the beginning. It was so hard to keep them straight and many of the people and details mentioned turned out not to be important to the narrative.
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
i wish this book had gone more into the work these women actually did. mostly it was just saying to women and children: i am an american, i am here to help, excuse me while i search you. what intelligence did they gain from this? what were the children like? were any of the women fighters? it seemed like the book was missing vitality when it came to that.
the women who took on this mission are strong and fascinating, and i wish i could have learned more about what they actually did.
the women who took on this mission are strong and fascinating, and i wish i could have learned more about what they actually did.
The concept behind this non-fiction book is fairly simple. The American military is fighting a war in a country with what may be described as a misogynistic society. In order to fight better, the military needs to create a very special unit that would improve the fighting success by overcoming its own misogynistic approach to its personnel. (While the author lays this out quite clearly at the beginning of the book, there's they little indication that she appreciates the irony of counter balancing another country's misogyny with a reduction of the military's own misogyny.) So, a group of women are "allowed" to contend for a chance to do what any non-white, non-male American needs to do, namely, to be as good if not significantly better than any and all white male Americans. Think dangerous combat roles. If the book was a movie, it would be part "A League of Their Own" and part "The Dirty Dozen", minus all of the humorous parts of both films. The author matches the books rather simple goal of describing this new improved women-in-the-military process with a straight forward narrative that is surprisingly compelling and often quite emotional. It highlights several women in the military, their personal goals, skills, family backgrounds and the like. It then takes them through the process of "competing" to participate in this new military program, and has them actually serve in this new, much more dangerous, challenging role. The "Ashley" of the title is just one of several women highlighted, and despite the fact that others are also outstanding in their physical skills, mental acuity, and dedication to excellence, "Ashley" suffers a consequence that the others do not, thus making this "Ashley's War" as opposed to "Jane Doe's War". However, despite the author's success otherwise, this book suffers from what it does not cover. For instance, there is not one iota of discussion about the validity of what these women are called on to do, or rather, I should say, what the units to which they are attached are called on to do. The validity of the intel for these raids is never questioned for its voracity. The after effects of these raids is never questioned. There's a job to do. It's important. Now women are part of that job. In short, this book wants to show the readers that women can do certain jobs that many do not think they can do. It never approaches to any degree whether it was the right job to be done. This is not an anti-war sentiment but a sentiment on efficiency. The book's narrative overflows with the characters' goals for personal high efficiency. Why not also on what their unit is trying to accomplish, too?
The true story of the first group of women to serve in special ops, Ashley's War pulls back the curtain on the theater of modern warfare, and the grit, character, and fortitude required of the women with leading roles. At its simplest, it affirms heroes come in all shapes, sizes, and sexes too.
Would never have picked this book up but one of my book clubs picked it for this month. I'm so glad I read it. It not only makes me want to do more/be more active while I'm in but it gives me a deeper appreciation for jobs that aren't talked about that often.
Excellent read - especially as an audio book. It certainly gave me a perspective on Operation Enduring Freedom that I didn't have before.