The untold story of black women in the Gulf War

To deal with their own apprenhensions, numerous black women warriors said they turned to their religious faith. "Our chaplain had a service before we shipped out and he told us, 'No matter how many bombs fall, no matter how many bullets fly, unless your name is on one of them, it's not your time,'" says Maj. Bridgette. "After that, it didn't faze me." Nor did it faze Sgt. Brown whose tentmates nicknamed her "covergirl" because she insisted on wearing lipstick despite the heat and filth of the desert. "I have a very strong spiritual background so my thing was to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord," she says.

Ordinarily, Sgt. Brown's lipstick wouldn't be a big deal. But this was hardly an ordinary circumstance. In the Gulf, Black women soldiers lived like grunts. They slept in coed tents on cots in the sand. They ate, slept, worked and sweated right alongside men. They endured blistering heat ("One day it was 136," says Brown) and primitive conditions: no electricity, no running water, no bathrooms. "The worst was sanitation detail," says Sgt. Brown, who wore her lipstick while cleaning the 10 gallon trash cans that served as toilets.

Ironically, many Black servicewomen say there were times when the punishing conditions of the desert paled in comparison to the punishment they endured from some fellow soldiers who pposed their very presence in the Gulf and made no secret of their deep-rooted belief that war is a man's business. Scudbuster Lt. Jeter, for instance, had to call a meeting with her fellow lieutenants to put an end to the ugly and sexist comments they were continually making about her.

"They said things like, 'She doesn't belong in the Army, she's fat . . .'," recalls Lt. Jeter. "I had to confront them and then it stoped. I basically told them I didn't appreciate all the things they were saying behind my back. . . . If they had a problem with me they should come straight to me. . . ." Even though she's proven herself in the clutch and has the Army Commendation Medal to prove it, she still hears the nasty echo of sexism from those who doubt she has the right stuff simply because she's a woman.

Many Black women soldiers also express deep hurt and frustration about the racism pervading their own country--a country which, many pointed out, had no qualms asking them to put their lives on the line for the rights of others. "A lot of us are willing to risk our lives again for our country, and for them to tell me, 'Oh, yes, you're willing to give your last measure of devotion. However, when it comes to protecting your rights when you return, we're going to debate that," says Bronze Star recipient Capt. Mosley, referring to the civil rights debate on Capitol Hill. "They did not debate whether or not I would go [to war]."

While Air Force Senior airman Theresa Collier, 23, was in the Gulf, someone scratched KKK on the hood of her car. "And it happened on the naval base," says Collier, whose husband is a sonar technician in the Navy. Sadly, the first thing she saw when she flew into Germany from Saudi Arabia was the now infamous tape of Los Angeles policemen beating Rodney King. "I couldn't believe it. I'm like, here I am, spent eight months over here to protect my country, yet people are getting beat . . . for no apparent reason at home," says Collier.