Ashley's War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield
Written by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
Narrated by Kathe Mazur
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
In 2010, the Army created Cultural Support Teams, a secret pilot program to insert women alongside Special Operations soldiers battling in Afghanistan. The Army reasoned that women could play a unique role on Special Ops teams: accompanying their male colleagues on raids and, while those soldiers were searching for insurgents, questioning the mothers, sisters, daughters and wives living at the compound. Their presence had a calming effect on enemy households, but more importantly, the CSTs were able to search adult women for weapons and gather crucial intelligence. They could build relationships—woman to woman—in ways that male soldiers in an Islamic country never could.
In Ashley's War, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon uses on-the-ground reporting and a finely tuned understanding of the complexities of war to tell the story of CST-2, a unit of women hand-picked from the Army to serve in this highly specialized and challenging role. The pioneers of CST-2 proved for the first time, at least to some grizzled Special Operations soldiers, that women might be physically and mentally tough enough to become one of them.
The price of this professional acceptance came in personal loss and social isolation: the only people who really understand the women of CST-2 are each other. At the center of this story is a friendship cemented by "Glee," video games, and the shared perils and seductive powers of up-close combat. At the heart of the team is the tale of a beloved and effective soldier, Ashley White.
Much as she did in her bestselling The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, Lemmon transports readers to a world they previously had no idea existed: a community of women called to fulfill the military's mission to "win hearts and minds" and bound together by danger, valor, and determination. Ashley's War is a gripping combat narrative and a moving story of friendship—a book that will change the way readers think about war and the meaning of service.
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon is a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a contributor to Atlantic Media’s Defense One, writing on national security and foreign policy issues. She is the bestselling author of The Dressmaker of Khair Khana and has written for Newsweek, the Financial Times, International Herald Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, CNN.com, and the Daily Beast, as well as for the World Bank and Harvard Business School.
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Reviews for Ashley's War
70 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ugly Cried at my desk! Great storytelling the reader was bot annoying
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I heard about this book from Reese Witherspoon, via the Wall Street Journal, of all places. Apparently she is quite the reader. This one sounded good and turned out to be great. The first few chapters about the background of the Cultural Support Team concept and the first class of women to embrace it were a little slow but important to understand the strange-to-me idea of women on the front lines of war. The latter part of the book set in Afghanistan was unputdownable. If you enjoy books about strong women, I highly recommend this one. All of our soldiers give so much. I am grateful for their service and for books that honor them.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5nonfiction - women soldiers in Afghanistan (and the invaluable role they serve). These women's stories are so full of power and love and hard work; we all need to honor and respect our troops and veterans but many of us are still so detached from their separate and very different reality.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Before women were officially allowed into combat roles (a very recent change), U.S. military forces on the ground in Afghanistan realized the need for female soldiers to be able to communicate with Afghani women in order to meet their goals while remaining culturally sensitive. This book deals with the formation of a workaround group known as the Cultural Support Team (CST), which consisted of women attached to special operation forces, such as the Army Rangers. Essentially, these women were in combat roles but in an unofficial capacity. The first part of the book deals largely with the rationale behind beginning the CST program, how the women who got involved in found out about it (as well as descriptions of their past experiences leading up to that moment, including military service), and then the rigorous selection and training processes involved in finalizing the unit. The second part of the book then discusses the 'boots on the ground' experiences had in Afghanistan and the aftermath of one tragic evening.Despite the title, the book is not just about Lt. Ashley White, but all the women who served in the initial development of CST. For that reason, there are a lot of names and facts coming at you in this book. I found the narrative somewhat disjointed personally, which detracted a bit from my enjoyment in reading it. (As an aside, I think this book may have been better read in print than audio, so that the reader can flip back to the various names and dates as needed.) That being said, it was very informative and thought-provoking.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5With many reviews already posted, I simply want to add my recommendation that this be read by the many of us who are unconnected to the military. Now that the burden of war is not borne equally, but rather by almost a separate class of volunteers, it's important that others become more aware of the details and ideals of such service. Unusually for such biographies, this is highly accessible despite the necessary use of acronyms. It's not a long or difficult read. Please make time to honor these men and women by reading this one story.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The 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?
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lemmon makes a rare attempt to tell us about the inner thinking of soldiers who want to go to war who don't fit the mold of those who think anybody who wants to fight for their country is mentally deficient. Taking as her subject a highly motivated group of women who feel they too wish to fight for their country, not so much to kill opponents, but to fill a role that only women soldiers could. Completely lacking in these women is the gung-ho notion with which professional warriors are often tarred. Instead, these highly skilled women see a need and seek to fill that need. There are no heroics. Instead, there is fear and a very realistic approach. Are these women pro-war? Not at all. If anything, they are very domesticated but, and this is a big but, America is at war and they want to contribute in the best way they can. As it turns out, they are positioned in the force in position that men are just unable to adequately perform, if at all. Lemmon may have just also gone a long way to explain the American view of service, the warrior who does not seek war but who will not back down. And, as Lemmon unfolds her story, not one element of the political atmosphere appears, a remarkable accomplishment.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5As a female Army Veteran I was skeptical about this book. I received a free book to review from Library Thing, so I wasn't out money if I didn't like it or could not finish it. Not that far into it, it mentioned when the Army participated in the lioness details, where females would go out into the city with the male soldiers. I was a part of that movement for a while, years ago, so i was overwhelmed with joy that it had been recognized in passing :) I found the writing to be very accurate and detailed as to what female soldiers go through in a so-called man's world :) Ashley was such a strong soldier, it was inspiring to read about her. Even though I am now out of the Army and raising a family, reading her story reminded me of what i have been through and accomplished, and how i used to think i was good enough to do anything anyone told me i couldn't. It has inspired me to try and become that woman again.