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When Terry Hurley's 10-year-old son asked why she kept a photo album with images of dead Iraqi troops, the former Fort Huachuca soldier stumbled for an explanation.

"The pictures in this album were taken during a war," Hurley recalls telling the boy, who had sneaked up as she leafed through the lurid war mementos given to her by another soldier and long forgotten in a cardboard box.

"Real war is not like one of your video games," she told her son. "It's a dark, brutal experience."

The talk between mother and child is captured in a new book being launched today in Tucson, Chicago and at the Women's Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery in honor of Veterans Day.

"Powder: Writing by Women in the Ranks, From Vietnam to Iraq," is a collection of poems and short stories penned by female veterans. It is published by Tucson-based Kore Press, one of a handful of publishers nationwide specializing in works written by women.

Tucsonan Shannon Cain, one of the book's editors, said she believes it's the first anthology of its kind in America.

Cain said she came up with the concept at a 2005 writers' conference in Georgia after hearing a male veteran speak of his wartime experience.

"He talked about his struggle with self-hatred, the mutilations he had seen, and the room went completely silent with respect and empathy," Cain said. "It got me thinking, 'Where are the women's voices?' "

Cain and Kore Press founder Lisa Bowden wrote to veterans' groups and Web sites around the country to solicit the submissions.

For readers accustomed to traditional military tomes, Powder is notably short on guts-and-glory narrative.

"Women tell different war stories than men," Columbia University journalism professor Helen Benedict noted in the book's introduction.

"As a result, there is little swagger in this collection, but a lot of soul-searching," Benedict said.

The writers have mixed emotions about military life. Many take pride in their service and the discipline it taught them.

Some are angry at male colleagues who raped or sexually harassed them, and bitterly disappointed at military leaders who doubted them when they reported the attacks.

Some of the stories are comical, such as one by a former Ohio National Guard soldier describing her bunk-side encounter with a huge Iraqi cockroach.

"Naturally, I did what any combat veteran would do. I screamed my head off," she wrote.

For several of the writers, this marks the first time their work has been published.

That's the case for Hurley, 45, a retired Army major whose husband, Brian Hurley, a retired colonel, is a former commander of Fort Huachuca's 11th Signal Brigade. The couple now live in Virginia and hope to someday return to Southern Arizona.

Terry Hurley, who wore the uniform for nearly two decades and served in the Gulf War in 1990, said she was drawn to the book project because so little has been written about the military from the vantage point of women.

Female troops "have faced unique challenges," she said. "It is so important that our voices are heard, that our struggles, our strengths, are shouted to the masses.

"Many of us not only leave our homes to defend this nation, but our families, our babies, hoping to teach a new generation pride and service to this country we love so."