50% of female fatalities in Iraq have been Latina and African-American women

The war in Iraq has taken more women's lives than any other conflict since World War II, and black women in particular. They comprise 25 percent of the female fatalities and half of the total number of enlisted women. But, says Columbia University Professor Kristal Brent Zook, you won't hear about these soldiers on the nightly news. You won't hear that in 2005 alone, 50 percent of female fatalities have been Latina and African-American women. Their names and faces are invisible. But I can tell you about a few of those who've died since the beginning of the war. Sergeant Keicia Coleman Hines of Citrus Heights, California, joined the Army Reserves during her first year at Sacramento State College. At 18, she dropped out of school to go on active duty. Both of her parents work for the police department, and her father is a Vietnam veteran. Keicia's aunts hold jobs at US Air Force bases. Her husband is a Persian Gulf War veteran on active duty in Iraq. According to everything she saw around her, the military was a perfectly viable way of life for Keicia. It was the key to a promising career in forensics. Keicia was killed in Mosul, Iraq, at age 27. Tyanna Avery-Felder of Bridgeport, Connecticut, planned to earn her master's degree in childhood education at Southern Connecticut State University, but she dropped out of college due to financial difficulties just like her sister had done two years earlier for the very same reason. Going into the Army was the only way she saw to pay for college. Tyanna died at age 22 in Balad, Iraq. Notice a pattern? College equals hope. But how am I going to pay for it? [more]

• Pictured above: Two Women Bound by Sports, War and Injuries. Danielle Green, a former basketball player, was among the first women to lose limbs while earning Iraq campaign ribbons. [more]