By host Tom Ashbrook:

It has been a deadly month, again, for US troops in Iraq. Sixty-two American soldiers have died so far in April. And one of the earliest was one of the many female casualties of this war: Marine Lance Corporal Juana Navarro.

She was five foot two. “An angel on earth,” her sister said. Killed by a gunshot wound to the head in a firefight in Anbar province. A former commander called Juana’s death “heartbreaking”.

But the rolls of war dead in Iraq brim with the names of women: Amanda, Tina, Tricia, Ramona, Keicia, Kimberly, Lori Ann. All dead.

The front in Iraq is everywhere, and more than any war in American history, women are in the thick of it.

Hear about American women at war in Iraq.

Guests:

Ann Scott Tyson, military reporter, The Washington Post

Capt. Dawn Halfaker, Platoon leader in 293rd Military Police Company attached to the Army’s First Infantry Division (February 2004 to June 2004) and a combat amputee. On June 19, 2004 she was injured when a rocket-propelled grenade exploded inside her armored Humvee when she was on a reconnaissance patrol in Baqouba, Iraq.

Sgt. Kayla Williams, Sergeant in the 311th Military Intelligence Battalion of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division Air Assault in Iraq (March 2003 to February 2004) and the author of “Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army

Carol Burke, Associate Professor of English at UC Irvine and author of “Camp All-American, Hanoi Jane, and the High and Tight: Gender, Folklore, and Changing Military Culture”.