Since I wasn't adult enough to understand war until 1941, I thought it was mostly a bunch of men with horses or trucks, and finally airplanes, out to kill each other. I could only guess which leaders would get to redraw the national boundaries. Sexist of me, I admit. Since I always had the right to vote, I figured all we had to do was study hard and become leaders and war would end. The notion of any woman being willing to pick up arms was not in my field of thought.
Until I recognized that those who welcomed Gayle were all women did I start to think about how Friedan, and all the sisters after her, wrote about the real essence of womanhood and didn't really answer my foolish belief.
When 9/11 happened, I remembered that afternoon when the Japanese wiped out our Navy at Pearl Harbor. The Dean of Women told us "girls" that the best thing we could do was stay in college and "be there" when things got back to normal. The most studious friend I had at the University joined the WACS. We were very proud of her for being so brave.
I watch the pictures Jim Lehrer puts on the News Hour of the fallen, looking for the women's pictures especially. As they say, all military are in combat. And it's relevant that many good reporters are women. Perhaps some of those will come back to write the new best sellers like " From Here to Eternity" and "Stalag 17."