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The Image of a Woman Female beauty is more than skin deep. This weekend is Memorial Day weekend. For many of us this means only the start of the summer season. The real meaning is often lost in the rush to the cabin or anticipation of the Indianapolis 500. The reason we celebrate Memorial Day is far more somber: it is a day for us to remember the soldiers who have died in service to their country. And I broaden that to include honor to all those who have served our country. And on this Memorial Day weekend I take special time to remember the women who have served us in the military. On Memorial Day, 2006, Kimberly Dozier, a correspondent for CBS, was on a story when her vehicle was attacked. Two of her fellow correspondents were killed along with two soldiers. Dozier was air flighted first to Germany and then to Walter Reid and then to a hospital in Maryland where she underwent months of rehabilitation. Dozier is back to journalism this week to highlight the challenges facing women who have been injured in the war in Iraq. This war has seen the first woman amputee and the first woman amputee with children. Dozier is well equipped to tell their story. The women injured in the war face all the problems the men face, but they also face social problems the men who have been injured do not face. The women are confronted with what society thinks a woman should look like. One of the women mentioned that people will approach a male amputee and ask if he lost his limb while serving in the military. Woman are not given that same honor, if you can call it such. They are stared at. The image of the mother amputee walking down the street with her daughter, her prosthesis visible, is burned in my mind. A man passes them and turns to stare at her prosthetic arm. No one even thinks they lost an arm in service to our country. The first woman amputee even wonders if she can be a good mother because she is missing an arm. In a society where we have preconceived notions of what a woman should look like, our wounded woman warriors are having a problem reconciling the realities of their lives with the fiction of female beauty. These women are beautiful, far more exceedingly beautiful than the vapid images we see in the likes of Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears. These women have faced challenges only a few will and they have emerged with the attitude that life does have to go on. They have chosen to continue rather than sit and feel helpless and sorry for themselves. Kimberly Dozier and the women injured in the Iraq war are far more beautiful than they will ever think they are. On this weekend, it is only fitting we remember their beauty.
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