Women as Prisoners of War

Abstract

American women are increasingly becoming involved in combat-related roles. Inevitably, our country will have several killed and taken prisoner. No National Academy of Science/National Research Council or VA study has ever been undertaken to examine the chronic sequelae of the experiences undergone by these captured women. This paper examines the after-effects of 3.5 years of incarceration on the 79 American women taken prisoner by the Japanese in the Philippines during World War II. Emphasis is given to their living conditions in a prisoner-of-war camp and their resulting long-term disabilities. Comparison of data reported in this paper with those of several epidemiological studies of male survivors of Philippine camps allows several novel points to be made. Overall, half of the women had a service-connected disability, exactly like the men. Furthermore, although the average degree of service-connected disability, 37%, is the same as that of the men, not one of the women in this study was service-connected for tuberculosis or peptic ulcer disease. This is a major finding, since, compared to age-matched combat controls, the men had a higher post-repatriation death rate for the first 7 years due to tuberculosis; likewise, peptic ulcer disease is so common in the male survivors that it is a presumptive service-connected disability.

Developing wine tourism: A case study of the attitude of English wine producers to wine tourism

“…Currently, roughly a third of all vineyards in the UK are not open to the public at all. 15 These vineyards are often small and owned by individuals who see grape growing as a hobby. Alternatively these vineyards are leased by another, larger Wine Company, or all grapes are sold to a large wine company.…”

Women and war

“…Annie Etheridge, a Civil War nurse renown for this strategy, received the Kearney Cross for her bravery under fire 1 . Because nurses are frequently deployed near front lines, they run special risks of being engulfed during shifting battles, perhaps explaining why they have historically accounted for the majority of female POWs 2–4 . In addition to risking death and injury on or near battlefields, nurses have risked (and often succumbed to) infection on the wards, particularly in the preantibiotic era 5 .…”

Prisoners of war.

“…logical residuals of long-term wartime captivity are, some investigators emphasizing the psychological effects, others the physiological effects. Few military women have become prisoners of war, and little research has been conducted to determine if female POWs' long-term effects differ from those of men (Skelton & Skelton, 1995).…”