Military Heroines

             I write about extraordinary women and the men they love. Military heroines. Women at the top of their field in a man’s world. They don’t want a man to take care of them they want a man who will accept them for who they are and stand shoulder to shoulder with them in their adventures. I’m frequently asked why my heroines are the ones in the military.

             My question is: why don’t we have more books with military heroines? I feel like the women in the service of their countries are under appreciated.

             George Washington credits winning the war against England to six colonial spies who risked their lives to bring him information. One of them was a woman whose name has never been discovered.

             Dr. Mary Edwards Walker is the only woman to receive a Congressional Medal of Honor for her efforts during the Civil War. Her name was deleted from the Medal of Honor Roll in 1917. She was asked to return the medal and refused, wearing it every day until she died.

                                    Agnes Meyer Driscoll known as Madame X, an American cryptanalyst for the U.S. Navy during World War I was a brilliant code breaker.

             During WWII over 1000 women in this country flew every type of military aircraft, ferrying them to military bases and departure points. They were test pilots and towed targets to give gunners training. Their service wasn’t recognized until the 70s.

             Nancy Augusta Wake was a British agent who became a courier for the French Resistance. By 1943, Wake was the Gestapo’s most wanted person, with a 5 million-franc price on her head.

             Rose Antonia Maria Valland was a French art historian, a member of the French Resistance, a captain in the French military, and one of the most decorated women in French history. She secretly recorded details of the Nazi plundering of National French and private Jewish-owned art from France. Remember the book and movie The Monument Men? That’s her.

             I have a special place in my heart for the nurses who took care of those who fought in Vietnam.  (Read, The Trunk, in my collection of short stories Let Me Tell You A Story)

            The person who is credited with finding the terrorist leader who ordered the 9/11 attacks (I refuse to say his name) is a woman.

           

             In my first book, Under Fire, a Coast Guard helicopter pilot teams up with a DEA agent and launches a personal seek and destroy mission to find her brother’s killer. This thriller follows the two through the dangerous drug underworld, a fierce gun battle at sea and brings down a notorious drug lord.

             In Under Fire: The Admiral, a Coast Guard officer and the doctor she is flying on medical missions in Ecuador are shot down off the coast by a drug cartel. She uses all her skills to get him home safely. While in the jungle, she is the doctor’s Guardian against danger and he becomes the guardian of her heart.   

             Point of No Return features a female Marine Corps Intelligence officer and a contract spy, investigating kidnappings of military children and mysterious deaths. As they navigate the murky political waters of the Pentagon, and private armies, it’s hard to know who’s lying to your face, and who’ll stab you in the back. 

If you are interested in reading about other extraordinary women please go to my web page.