I just finished reading a fat book, A Few Good Women, by Eveln M. Monahan and Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee. Both ladies are veterans.

I know that women have served with the American military with distinction since the Revolution.

I also know that when I was in the service more than four decades ago a Woman Marine was treated like a sex object or a "dyke" by a lot of Marines and that many old-timers from Korea and WWII wouldn't even salute a Woman Marine officer.

Sober as judge, the book had me crying at times about American women who served "above and beyond". The Army and Navy nurses captured in the Phillipines in 1942 withstood more than three years as POWs. Amazingly, none of them died or were reported raped in captivity. The Japs gave them a pass as non-combatants.

Helluva book.

I always snapped a sharp salute to a Woman Marine officer in my day with the appropriate greeting. I didn't see many of them but I was never mad at any of them. These were female patriots.

They all went to work in the factories when the boys where fighting the Germans and Japenese. They built the guns,artillary,planes, boats and tanks. Many say the war's couldn't have been won without them. I am sure they are correct.

OG, the book was about women in the military and I salute them all.

During WWII when my father was in Italy serving with the 34th Infantry Division his wife, my future Mom, snagged a job in lower Manhattan with an optics company. Her job was to hand polish with tiny grit and water small mirrors that were to go into Navy submarine periscopes and to test them with strong focused beams of light to catch a "target" up against a wall. There were no lasers then and it sounds funny now but the F.B.I. investigated my mother before she could get the job and she was sworn to secrecy as an American to not divulge anything about her work. My Mom had to have a "clearance" to work on those optics. And she learned that we had learned how to harvest spider webs to make crosshairs on a periscope to make torpedo attacks more accurate. She was sworn to secrecy and never said a word about her work until 1965 when the stuff she did was obsolete. The old man was shot to pieces twice in Italy but she was a good American girl working for victory 6 days a week in a small defense factory.

Our military now is "all-volunteer" and going back into action time and time again. The Reserves and the old slob National Guard keeps going into action. Nobody in combat deserves to lose their life beyond the age of 25 unless the trooper is a lifer regular.

Jesus H. Christ on a crutch - I got out out of the Marines at 21 after 4-years active service. Guys are getting killed now that are 31 and 35 and other strange ages. No good. These guys can't hump and haul and fight. Pissed-off young draftees, regular Army, and the Marines are the best combat people on this planet, not old fart Reserves and Guardsmen.

Rant over for now.