The universalized, gendered myth of war is that of men in arms and women at home. The Israeli experience of the Gulf War spelled an opposite situation in which fighters were not called for active military duties and the home became “the front.” This reversal was especially blatant in the case of Israeli nurses stationed in the hospital. This article analyzes the rhetorics of war among these nurses, describing how it changed from panic and uncertainty, through a discourse of soldiering, to frustration. This transformation is interpreted within a dual framework, as a professional gender struggle embedded in a national script of militarism.
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