CHAMPAIGN - The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have helped establish women in uniform as equals to men.

That is what veterans of the ongoing wars attending a forum at the Champaign Public Library told the packed auditorium, which included many veterans of past wars.

Staff Sgt. John Robinson, 31, of the Illinois Army National Guard, said that when a female driver was assigned to his vehicle on his first convoy in Afghanistan, his first response was a sarcastic one.

"I thought: 'Oh, great,' " he said.

But the driver's performance and attitude won him over.

"I came to find out she was one of the most squared-away soldiers I met while I was there," Robinson said. "She did her job, and she did it well. I have a better appreciation for women in the military. They have a job, they do it well, and in some cases, better than a guy does it."

But Robinson, who served as a chaplain's assistant for a battalion of 500 soldiers, said he was surprised women also could excel in their language usage.

"I came to find out that some of the females were more crude than the guys were," Robinson said.

The six panelists gathered on the eve of Veterans Day included two women and four men who served a total of 10 combat deployments. Three have served with the Marines, two with the Army National Guard and one with the Air National Guard.

Responding to questions from audience members and moderator Ray Elliott, a former Marine, the panelists tackled many topics, including relationships with civilians in the war-torn nations, the impact of instant communication on combat readiness, suicide prevention and the lingering effects of roadside bombs.

Staff Sgt. Katie Maglia, who has served two tours in Iraq with the Illinois Air National Guard, said she was the only female firefighter working with 40 men.

"They always took very good care of me," said Maglia, a University of Illinois senior who joined the Guard in 2004. "I was just basically one of the guys. We had exactly the same accommodations. We did exactly the same work. There was never any problem with discrimination. They were always very respectful."

Marine 2nd Lt. Shannon Potts, 26, who repaired aviation equipment in Iraq, had no complaints about how she was treated, either.

"I did my job like any male Marine," said Potts, a Marine since 2002, who was commissioned as an officer last month.

But Cpl. Samuel Jung, 29, who completed deployments with the Marines in Afghanistan and Iraq, said he witnessed "a lot of discrimination" and sexual harassment of women.

"I came into contact with female Navy personnel, female Army National Guard," said Jung, adding that the female panelists could have been in the company of gentler men than he was. "The opinion I have formed is that it is hard to be an armed forces member as a female."

Jung, a senior in international studies at the University of Illinois who plans to become an attorney, also offered a controversial opinion on how instant communication, such as e-mail and phone calls, affects combat readiness.

"The Marines I was with, if they had girlfriends or wives back home, they had constant communication," Jung said. "They were the most cowardly. I guess they had the most to lose, they felt. It was constantly on their minds: their families, their loved ones. It brought down the readiness and the morale of the other people a lot.

"A lot of them would say, 'I don't want to be here. I want to be back home. I can't believe I just talked to my wife on the Internet.' It not only affected them, but also the people around them."

Jung's statement hit a nerve with the man sitting next to him, Sgt. Bryan Abbott, 49, a medic who served a tour in Iraq with the Army National Guard.

"I talked to my wife almost every night," Abbott said, speaking with controlled anger. "When I was on patrol, I was ready to die. I did my job. I went out every day. I wasn't a coward. I did my job. I did it good. I got to talk to my wife. If I went the next day, she knew I loved her. I got to talk to her one last time.

"I volunteered for different missions. But I knew when I talked to her that night, if I went out and died the next day, she knew I loved her."

Things were smoothed over, as Jung assured Abbott that he was not thinking about him when he made his statement.

Abbott's wife, Brenda, sitting in the front row, had said a few minutes earlier that speaking to Bryan while she was in Iraq was very important to her. She commended spouses from previous wars for enduring while separated.

"I just can't imagine it being months and not knowing how they are, where they are," she said.

Marine Gunnery Sgt. Shawn Johnston, 35, said the instant communication was "50/50," giving a big lift to someone at one time or being "your worst enemy" at another.

"It takes their mind off the fight," Johnston said, adding that his Marines would not get to use the phones too often, but it was too often for his liking. "Now their mind's all boggled. I would prefer to get out there in the fight, stay in the fight and then communicate just so often, say, once a month."

Robinson gave an example of a negative situation that arose because of contact with home. A soldier who had been trusting his mother to save all his pay discovered that she spent all the money with nothing to show for it.

"The guy who found out he lost his money, he's screaming and yelling, and he's a SAW (squad automatic weapon) gunner. and he has an operation he has to go out to," Robinson recalled.

But Maglia insisted communication was fundamental and totally positive for her unit. Several men were able to join their wives back home when they delivered babies via Web cams, and she was able to keep up with her family, which later helped her to reintegrate into civilian life.

There was more of a consensus on the inaccurate and inadequate way the media covers the wars, especially television networks.

"I don't think the media wants to put on anything that makes (the military) look good," Bryan Abbott said. "They just want to show the gore and the bad things. They don't want to show the good. We'd go out to the villages, and CNN was right there. They'd never publicize when we'd cordon off an area and bring in the women and children and do a medical clinic for them. It wasn't bad enough. The good things we did (for the Iraqis), they wouldn't show it."

Jung said CNN badly botched a story at his base, Camp Blue Diamond, in Ramadi, Iraq.

"We were mortared like any other day," Jung recalled. "A couple of hours later, CNN reported that our base was infiltrated by a bunch of insurgents and that 13 Marines died at this. It never happened. Actually, all the mortars that they launched didn't even land inside our base that day. After that, I lost all faith in the media."

THE PANEL

- Sgt. Bryan Abbott, 49, a medic in the Illinois Army National Guard for 16 years, served a tour in Iraq in 2005 to 2006.

- Staff Sgt. Katie Maglia, an Illinois Air National Guard firefighter, was deployed to Iraq twice, in 2006 and 2008. She was 17 years old when she enlisted in 2004.

- Marine Gunnery Sgt. Shawn Johnston, 35, served combat deployments in Iraq in 2005 and Haiti in 2004.

- During his four-year active duty stint, Marine Cpl. Samuel H. Jung, 29, served a tour in Afghanistan in 2004 and Iraq in 2005.

- Marine 2nd Lt. Shannon Potts, 26, completed a tour in Iraq in 2006. She recently graduated from the University of Illinois.

- Staff Sgt. John Robinson, 31, a chaplain's assistant with the Illinois Army National Guard, served a tour in Iraq in 2005 to 2006 and a tour in Afghanistan 2008 to 2009.<>

hfreeman@herald-review.com|421-6985