Iowa Woman Who Served in Iraq to be Featured in Gold Star Museum Exhibit

An Urbandale woman who served during Operation Iraqi Freedom has been nominated to be featured in Iowa’s Notable Veterans for 2013, an ehibit at the Gold Star Military Museum at Camp Dodge in Johnston, according to a news release.

An exhibit of Miyoko Hikiji’s photos while on duty in Iraq will open during Camp Dodge's Veterans Day 2013 observances and will remain on display for 12 months.

Related: Urbandale Woman Recounts Time In Iraq In New Memoir

Hikiji served with the 2133 Transportation Company during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.

Other Iowans whose photos have been featured in the Notable Iowa Veterans exhibits include former Iowa Gov. Robert D. Ray, the first veteran to be photographed; Gov. Terry Branstad; Elwynn Taylor, a state climatologist; developer Bill Knapp, a veteran who donated land for the Iowa Veterans Cemetery at Van Meter and funded Honor Flights that took World War II veterans to Washington, DC, to see a memorial on the National Mall.

The difference between the Iowa’s Notable Veterans exhibit and other war memorials is that it honors living veterans, Gold Star Museum board chairman Bob Holliday told Radio Iowa last year.

It also takes people by surprise when they see that a public figure was also a veteran.

“An awful lot of people don’t know that these folks are veterans so the concept is wait a minute, this is Governor Branstad he was an MP, and look at him standing in that uniform,” Holliday said.

The exhibit is the brainchild of a former Grand View University photography professor, Bill Schaefer, who volunteers his time to photograph the veterans for two reasons.

“One of them would be appreciation for the military in our society. I’m not a militarist, I don’t think war is good but we have to have a military,” Schaefer told Radio Iowa. “I’m really photographing this for the future for 50, a hundred, 200 years that will be put somewhere that people can access, so I see it as a history project.” 

Hikiji’s forthcoming book, All I Could Be: My Story as a Woman Warrior in Iraq, tells of her wartime experience during her deployment with the Iowa Army National Guard.

Traveling the dangerous roads driving unarmored vehicles at a time when insurgents were aware of their vulnerabilities and IED’s were becoming a way of life, Hikiji  shows in All I Could Be shows how she fought to complete the missions she was called on to undertake.  

Hikiji’s book also describes an important period of change for women in the U.S. military. Published by Chronology Books, an imprint of History Publishing Company, it will be available on May 25. It will be sold in Barnes and Noble Booksellers and in Books a Million bookstores, as well as on BN.com, Amazon.com and other international Internet sites.