I've been waiting to read this book since I first heard about it a couple months ago. Well now I've read it, and INVISIBLE VETERANS will be a hard book to pigeonhole or categorize, maybe because it is actually two books, a hybrid of sorts. It is, first and predominantly, a scholarly study of how women veterans have fared, both in relation to the general female population and to their male counterparts. And, although those chapters which give you all the facts, figures, statistics, even a pie chart or two, can be rather tedious - even a slog - to read, there is very necessary information to be found in them, data which enforces the book's premise that women veterans have always been "invisible," that the term veteran, particularly in the current time of an all-volunteer military, usually summons up a man, and one who has seen combat. But here's a fact for you -

"During the Vietnam War era … about 250,000 women served, with 7,500 in the Vietnam theater of operations - the majority of these (6,200) as nurses."

And that's just one statistic. There are many more figures here, about numbers of women who served in both World Wars, the Korean conflict, and the present wars. The authors look at demographics, ethnicity and race, health problems and access to health care, post-service employment and income, PTSD and Military Sexual Trauma. This last, MST, which encompasses rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment, comes up over and over in these pages, probably because it is something experienced by most women in all branches of service. ("Across the Eras: Experiences of Older Women Veterans"). MST is also dealt with more fully in Scott Jensen's chapter, "Military Sexual Trauma Survivors in Transition."

Another chapter in the research category is Kayla Williams' "Health Issues Facing Women Veterans," which looks at various types of illnesses and injuries, and, once again, rape and sexual assault, and the physical and psychological injuries and long-lasting resultant trauma. (P.S. I am a big fan of Kayla Williams, having read both of her memoirs, LOVE MY RIFLE MORE THAN YOU and PLENTY OF TIME WHEN WE GET HOME.) And there is Andrea Goldstein's "No One Understands Us: Mapping Experiences of Women in the U.S. Military," which splices in some first-hand accounts by veterans, of sexual harassment, and how they deal with their "veteran identity" - personal snippets which make the research more real and readable.

And then there's the 'other book' inside this larger work. Interspersed with these scholarly, psychological and sociological studies and overviews, there are at least a half dozen personal essays much more accessible to the lay reader - which I certainly am. The first of these was Teresa Fazio's "Listening for Home," in which she gives a thumbnail sketch of her time in the Marine Corps, a brief affair with a married officer she worked with in Mortuary Affairs in Iraq, and then her difficult transition to civilian life, using music as a way of remembering it all, with references to musical influences as diverse as James Taylor, Outkast, Drowning Pool, Blink-182, Counting Crows (whose "Accidentally in Love" ironically accompanied her affair) and more. (Full disclosure: I have read other essays from Fazio and was predisposed to enjoy her contribution here. I was not disappointed.)

The second of these personal pieces was Erika Cashin's "Leaning In and Getting Seen," in which she credits Sheryl Sandberg's book, LEANING IN, with helping her make the most of her career as a woman officer in the Air Force - indeed she recounts how she formed her own "Lean In" groups inside the military with help and encouragement from Sandberg herself.

"Finding My Voice as a Female Veteran" is Antonieta Rico's account of her difficulty in "fitting in" at various veterans' clubs and meetings, often being mistaken for a military spouse rather than a veteran herself.

"I was not like my husband, who was still in the military. His was infantry. I was a housewife, a mother, and a college student. I was just a woman. I was supposed to stay silent."

But Rico did find her voice and, speaking out, began a "path toward advocacy on behalf of military women."

Then there is Sarah Plummer Taylor's "Surviving," a heartbreaking and brutally frank account of how she was raped by a classmate while she was still an ROTC cadet, about to be commissioned into the Marines, and how it adversely affected her whole military career, as well as her personal life. It is a telling account of how the victim is not believed, how her own reputation is sullied and ruined by unsympathetic military superiors.

The final personal essay here is Lydia Davey's "A Tale of Two Transitions," on the radical adjustment of going from being a turret gunner on patrol with the Marines in Afghanistan in June to "sitting in a college classroom in the Midwest" in August. The sudden change was jarring and unsettling for Davey, and it didn't help that she was not accepted in places where she should have been, clubs like the VFW or American Legion, still a male-dominated venue. When a counselor asked what she was afraid of, she replied: "I don't know how to be a good Marine and a woman at the same time." After a second deployment, this time to Africa, as a mobilized reservist, Davey found her second transition to civilian life easier. She now had an "arsenal of transition tactics." They were: "faith community, physical fitness, service, adventure, and purpose."

Bottom line: INVISIBLE VETERANS is a very important piece of scholarship and research, and editors Kate Hendricks Thomas and Kyleanne Hunter (both former officers in the USMC) are to be commended for putting it all together and contributing their own views too. Very highly recommended, especially for readers interested in the military and Women's Studies.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the Cold War memoir, SOLDIER BOY: AT PLAY IN THE ASA ( )