Kayla Williams

Kayla Williams is a linguist and former intelligence specialist in the United States Army who wrote her experiences of the 2003 Iraq invasion in her book Love My Rifle More Than You. This book details her personal experiences during the war in Iraq.

In January 2000, Williams enlisted in the U.S. Army to train as an interpreter. She was an Arabic linguist/interpreter and SIGINT operations specialist. At the time of the September 11 attacks, Kayla Williams was studying Arabic within the Army. Although she did not support the invasion of Iraq, she took part in one of the earliest invasions in March 2003. Kayla Williams was an Arabic Linguist as well as a SIGINT operations specialist for 5 full years. This includes a full year of deployment (2003/2004) in SWA (Iraq & Kuwait) during the buildup to and during the invasion of Iraq. She continued to serve in Iraq until February 2004. She served in the 101st ABN Div (Air Assault), 3rd BCT, (187th Inf Regt) "Rakkasans".

Following her undergraduate degree, Williams worked for Infinite Outsource in Tampa, Florida, a fund raising collective funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. In October 1999, "a personality conflict with a new female superior" got her fired from this job.

Williams graduated cum laude from Bowling Green State University in 1997 with a BA in English Literature, and she just recently earned an MA in International Relations at American University.

Kayla Williams was born to R. Darby Williams and Norma Jane (Spirit) Williams on September 14, 1976 in Columbus, Ohio. Her father was a "former pot smoker with anger-management problems" and her mother was a "Republican with an anti-authoritarian streak". Williams' parents divorced a year or so after she was born, and she was raised by her mother. She got to travel around much of the United States with her family and also had the chance to go to France.