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'Band of Sisters' Author to Discuss Women Fighting in Iraq

Story posted March 21, 2008

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Kirsten Holmstedt

Kirsten Holmstedt, author of the award-winning Band of Sisters: American Women at War in Iraq, will give a talk at Bowdoin College at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 3, 2008, in Thorne Hall, Daggett Lounge.

Marine Gunnery Sgt. Rosie Noel, who is profiled in the book, will join Holmstedt for her presentation, which is titled "Women Making History on the Battlefield."

The talk is open to the public and admission is free.


In Iraq, the front lines are everywhere; and everywhere in Iraq, women in the U.S. military fight. Band of Sisters is the first book to explore the lives of more than a dozen women who have served in combat in Iraq.

Holmstedt was finishing her first year of graduate school in the spring of 2003 when the war in Iraq started. Living in Jacksonville, North Carolina, near Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, she was in an ideal location to initiate her research of women serving in combat. Over the next several years, she traveled throughout the United States and spent hundreds of hours interviewing female soldiers, marines, airmen, and sailors.

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American women serving in Iraq.

As part of her research, Holmstedt flew to an aircraft carrier off the coast of Florida to interview a woman who worked on the flight deck of the USS Harry S. Truman, and to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to meet a soldier who had been wounded by improvised explosive devices. She also traveled to Pope Air Force Base in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, South Carolina, and other military installations. She talked to the women in person, by phone, and through e-mail as they traveled back and forth between Iraq and their home bases.

In January 2007, Holmstedt was part of a panel of authors who spoke to Congress members in Washington, D.C., about the war in Iraq.

Band of Sisters is the recipient of the 2007 Golden Quill Award (military genre) from the American Authors Association, and the 2007 Founder's Award from the Military Writers Society of America.

Kirsten A. Holmstedt graduated from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1985 with a bachelor of arts degree in journalism, and from the University of North Carolina–Wilmington in 2006 with a master of fine arts degree in creative nonfiction writing. Over the past 20 years, she has written for newspapers, business, academia, and magazines, and won awards at the regional and national levels.

Holmstedt's talk is sponsored by the Office of the President.

Originally posted 3/20/08.

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