Customer Reviews

Love My Rifle More than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(26)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(21)

 

 

I read this book with great interest because both Williams and I were deployed witht he 101st and I thought it would be interesting to see the war from another 101st soldier's perspective. What I got was angry, wondering really, what war did Williams go to. I spent my year the only female in an all male unit and did not once get groped, leered at, or attacked. I went out everyday with the guys and was expected to pull my weight. The only part of William's book I found myself connecting with was the last chapter about coming home. That chapter was spot on. Otherwise William's story is not a accurate description of what it is like to be female in the military but should be subtitled The Story of One Young Female Soldier in the Army.

Kayla Williams' voice was not what I expected at all. I was browsing through the new release section at the local bookstore when I came across this book. Like an idiot, I read only the back cover with all its clever little blurbs. Not bothering to read any of the inside pages, I went ahead and bought it, since 'Jarhead' was not in stock. Big mistake.

I had hoped for more insight, more of a philosophical approach to her time in Iraq, and most importantly, of 'being a woman in today's Army.' The book has neither. Williams takes a conversational approach in her writing, one that reads more like an e-mail or letter to a friend than anything worthy of a book.

Her experiences are mundane. Fair enough. But instead of trying to inject some deep emotional meaning or even lighthearted moments, she delivers everything with the same sort of distant, observer-only perspective. As if she were not a participant at all.

This book is also very whiny. She whines about the sand, the lack of running water and the heat. Williams is forever telling us about her hardship in trying to find suitable MREs to eat, as she is a vegetarian. I think she mentions this fact more than anything. I don't have food. I have food now. The villagers are bringing me food. Yay.

Her 'challenges' with dealing with men are simple. She's a doormat. She admits she ends up with men who don't treat her right at the beginning of the book. This trickles down into her work relationships with male soldiers. Instead of standing her ground, or trying to act professional, she instead tries to become buddies with them, playing their games and hanging out with them. Someone asks her to 'Cook me some eggs, B****.' And she says she obliges and then makes sure everyone knows he really is a good guy, he just has some emotional baggage.

This is probably the first book I've read in years that I wish I had never bothered to pick up.

As a woman Army Nurse Corps captain deployed in Iraq, with 17 years prior active duty enlisted service, I was dismayed to read Ms Williams account of her experiences, which seem more self-absorbed and immature than a representation of the brave, professional female soldiers and Marines that I have encountered here. I'm sure sexual advances and offenses occur here in Iraq, as they do all over the world in any organization, but I also know that if a woman in the military presents herself professionally and performs her job well, her male counterparts treat her with respect and not as cheaply as Ms Williams' book implies. When I read the book, I was hoping for a woman soldier's tale of being a true soldier and how her tour in Iraq helped facilitate that, as it has for many of us. I am proud to be a soldier and I actually do love my M16, much more than this book, which attempts to revive stereotypes I'd hoped we'd overcome.

As a fellow Arabic linguist deployed during the war, I was very interested to read this book. I actually read the entire book in one sitting. That is not, however, because Williams had anything interesting or enlightening to say about her experiences. It was purely out of amazement that such a whiny, petty story found a publisher. For someone who claims to be so intelligent, with a degree in literature, Williams need serious work on her writing skills. The book read like a catty, 16-year old's diary.
Beyond that, I found her self-importance grating on me with every word. She writes as if she should be heralded MERELY FOR DOING HER JOB! And while I agree, the military has its fair share of problems, including plenty of imcompetent supervisors, I find it disgusting that she saw fit to name in the book, everyone who crossed paths with her and ended up on her bad side. I'm sure they have more than a few words to say about her performance as well. After 2 hours of reading how horrible everyone was at their jobs, I found her supposedly heartfelt thanks to fellow servicemebers at the end shallow, cheap, and meaningless.
And as for her claims of sexual harrassment, I have to wonder how much is based in truth, and how much is more drama queen whining. In all honesty, if you have to wake up a year later and remind yourself that you are not a slut, that says to me that you have done some things to make you feel that way about yourself.
It saddens me to think that civilians will read this book and think it is an accurate description of women's life in the military. Maybe it represents some women. In general, those are the women that I am happy get the hell out after their minimum obligation is served.
Read this book if you want the perfect account of a self-important female soldier who overestimates her own intelligence.

Williams opens her memoir by declaring that all Army females are either a bitch (they won't sleep with you) or a slut (they'll sleep with everyone but you). She stayed a bitch during her tour in the Army, but that didn't stop her from being the subject of some nasty rumors.

Williams is a bit older than your typical enlistee, she's college-educated, and she's dated a Muslim man, so she provides a unique perspective on the Army and her deployment to Muslim Iraq. She's stationed for some time with 18-year-old infantry grunts, and while she has a much different (and understanding) attitude toward the locals, she understands how someone defending a position and getting attacked can do nothing but hate every Iraqi man, woman, and child as a potential insurgent.

Again and again, Williams questions the plan as a whole. Stop points and roadblocks are erected with no Arabic signage, Muslim women are afraid of strange men, and the last military in the country (Saddam's) consisted of ruthless killers, so how are local Iraqi villages supposed to understand what is going on at roadblocks? Then again, there have been plenty of female suicide bombers, so what are the soldiers supposed to expect? Williams has to use underground circuits to get her vegetarian kosher/halal meals, even though most soldiers hate them and abandon them with the trash, because she can't officially get religious meals due to a "personal dietary" (vegetarian) preference. In one heartbreaking scene, Williams interprets during the search of a Catholic monastery. Her superiors are hot-headed, interrupting service, destroying property, and ignoring the priest who reaches out to them as a brother. Later, she gets someone to do a good turn for the monastery, which leaves the reader with some hope.

Williams also deals repeatedly with female leaders who put their soldiers at risk, don't understand the mission, don't grasp the political situation, and are incompetent when it comes to dealing with her group's equipment. Williams disagrees with the military system of promoting people due to time in grade unless something really bad happens. She comes across too many people promoted to leadership roles who don't have the skills to back their position up, but they happened to have served long enough to move up. In her closing comments, she discusses how the Army gives you no incentive to excel at your job--the bare minimum is just fine, and it will get you promoted just fine.

Williams provides an unparalleled view of life on the ground floor of the war in Iraq. She never provides any solid answers, choosing instead to reveal how confused and frustrated she was, yet how rewarding some parts of the experience were. Another reviewer commented that the memoir might be a little early, when her anger over certain situations was still too fresh. I rather like the fact that she is honest about her love/hate relationship with the Army and the mission in Iraq, and she transports the reader to the point of view of a foot solider. I would have liked to learn a little more about what her tasks were doing signal intelligence for 12-hour shifts (on occasion), but perhaps she got legal advice not to reveal those secrets of the US Army.

I'm pretty ambivalent about this book. I was an Arabic linguist in the Army as well and attended language school just a couple years before Kayla Williams. I spent eight months in the Kuwaiti desert on the Iraqi border years before we invaded in 2003, so I know exactly what a deployment feels like when you are one of twenty women stationed in an austere environment with a thousand men. During the war, I worked in Iraq and Afghanistan as a civilian, still grossly outnumbered.

Good points: Williams is extremely honest about her perceptions and experiences in the Army and in Iraq, regardless of who she may anger or insult. She brings to light many of the things that people who have not experienced war might never understand--the extraordinary camraderie of you and "your boys," the guys on your team; the harsh reality of civilian life when you get home and suddenly lose the support system of your team, with whom you have lived, worked, slept, eaten and breathed for the past year; how normal American life is overwhelming and incredibly excessive after an existence pared down to absolute necessity and constant wariness.

Many other reviewers have written that they don't see the constant and monumnetal sexual aspect of Williams' portrayal. There is a very fine line that has to be walked by a female soldier working for and/or with a unit populated solely by male soldiers. The boys aren't used to working with the girls, and the girls expect the boys to act as they would if everyone was out on Saturday night. It just doesn't happen that way. The sexual overtones are definitely there, one just has to be able to know when to tell the dirty joke to be "one of the boys," and when to stand up and say, "that went too far." It's hard, but it's possible.

Williams' tale is often insightful and it seems that she learned quite a bit about herself both during her deployment and in writing this book. It isn't a definitive work on females in Iraq, but it's an honest look at one woman's experience.

Bad points: I didn't like the writing style at all. I have a potty mouth on level with the best of them, but when I read a book that cost me $25 I expect it to be written at a higher level, especially when the author posseses a degree in literature and wrote with the help of a ghost-writer. This book reads like diary entries, with short, simple sentences that add nothing to the "punch" of the story. The style of writing like she speaks ultimately detracts from the book rather than adding any more insight to Williams' life.

Definitely read the book, if only to gain yet another perspective on Operation Iraqi Freedom. But also keep in mind that Williams is only one woman with one point of view.

As a fellow Arabic linguist and female Iraq war vet, I was disappointed to see such a shallow portrayal of the struggles of women in combat. Ms. Williams, although making some pithy comments on Army leadership, does not show much integrity in her own behavior. When female soldiers flirt, take advantage of their gender, and participate in or refuse to object to the crude behavior of their comrades, they reinforce those habits. Having trained with Ms. Williams a few years back, I had hoped for a fresh perspective on the war, as well as some maturity gained by her experiences. It is far too easy to poke fun and criticize, but how about taking responsibility, speaking up, or becoming an honorable leader? This memoir shows a lot of raw emotion and promise, but it is not backed up by any moral or emotional depth.

I wish sincerely that it were possible to rate this "book" with negative stars. This treatment of what it's like to be in the Army, male or female, is one of the most simplistic, banal pieces of "work" I've ever come across. Further, it's disheartening to see that Kayla Williams hasn't changed a bit. I knew her at DLI when we were both in the Arabic program years ago. She's every bit as self-righteous, self-important, and self-aggrandizing as I remember. It's not at all surprising to read that she had problems with authority, as she clearly demonstrated her disdain for her superiors throughout her "book;" just like she used to. Anyone who didn't come to the table implicitly agreeing with anything she might happen to say was relegated in her mind to the category of those who are insignificant, irrelevant and worthy of scorn. One would think that going to Iraq, being involved in a war, or simply belonging to an institution as exasperating as the Army can be would give one perspective or humble one in the process. Yet she remains remarkably unchanged; a princess.
It is a testament to the intellectual depth of this book that it took me a whopping 53 minutes to read the entire thing standing in Border's. My latte hadn't even cooled off yet. The main points of the "book" seem to be the most basic sort of cliches about human nature and yet are passed off as little nuggets of Gandalf-like wisdom. 'Women are hit on in a mostly male environment'... Great Scott!!! What a startling revelation! 'War tends to bring out strange behavior in people sometimes' Oh, great Oracle...tell me more. Let me suckle at the fount-like teat of your wisdom! Give me a break, people. Give this "book" the rating it deserves. Show some respect for yourselves. Just because a "publisher" saw fit to foist this vomitous collection of memories on us doesn't mean that we have to smile and nod like a bunch of sheeple.
Come to think of it, this book really belongs with its peers "See Spot Run" and "The Adventures of Captain Underpants" in the kid's section. It certainly doesn't belong in the Military History section next to actual books by Kagan, Lukacs, Doughty, Gruber, Clausewitz, Liddel-Hart and others. In fact, I'd rather light myself on fire, claw out my eyes, or peel off my skin than be forced to consider this "book" anything other than a punishment reminiscent of that in "A Clockwork Orange."
It's insulting that this hardcover, glossy train wreck is being passed off as a serious work. What's more is that it represents my generation. Further, it is ridiculous when one considers that 'Ms. Williams' probably actually made some money for this thing. It makes me want to become a tree-hugging hippy to prevent her from harming our noble guardians of the forest any further. Don't buy this book. If you feel compelled to read it, do so in a book store and make sure you have some sort of vigorous activity planned afterward to get it out of your system. Just make sure that whatever activity you plan doesn't require eyesight, since you'll likely be struck blind as a result of the sheer lack of stimulation this "book" offers. I only recently recovered.

Some of the negative reviewers have noted that Williams's book is diaristic and confessional, and focuses on the day-to-day details of the author's time in Iraq. I agree with that assessment, but I liked those aspects of the book. I can see how the book wouldn't be very interesting to a reader who was also a woman soldier deployed in Iraq, because both the broad outline of the story and many of the details would be nothing new--she's definitely a bit of an Everywoman figure in the narrative. However, I enjoy books that give me a glimpse into the daily lives of people whose lives are very different from my own, and for me, this book fit the bill. I'd recommend it to anyone who likes slice-of-life memoirs.

I received this book for Xmas from two separate family members because I am getting ready to go on my first deployment.

I was able to read the book very quickly because the style of writing is uncomplicated and blunt. I imagine it goes along with the character of the author. I have a lot in common with Ms. Williams, and I can believe her experiences and the situations she found herself in. I also know that I have never had many of the same experiences because I chose to follow another military path. Being an older and educated woman when I joined the military I quickly chose to become an officer, and therefore have taken my know-it-all attitude and applied it to making life better for my Soldiers. If Ms. Williams felt that she could do so much of a better job than everyone else around her, then she should have stepped up to the challenge rather than criticizing those who were trying to do the right thing. It did help me understand what some of my own female enlisted Soldiers might be going through. Ms. Williams' book does cast a negative shadow on what women are trying to achieve in today's military; however, I cannot fault Ms. Williams for writing her personal experience.

More women should take the time to write their experiences for the rest of the world to understand. If the world heard from more women there would be a broader selection of experiences to gleam ones opinions from. I applaud Ms. Williams for taking the time to share her story. Being a woman in the military can be a very trying ordeal, but as the majority of us feel - it is who we are and nothing else can satisfy our own desire for the adventure and challenge of being a part of something so much bigger than ourselves.