Brave Women | Female U.S. Soldiers

I shared this video recently that makes me cry every time I see it. Despite my tears, I realized I am not totally familiar with each of these amazing women's stories. So I decided to share them here in case you weren't familiar with all of them either. I will just give a very brief overview and then provide links where you can get more information on these inspiring women.  I plan on sharing these stories with my daughters.

FEMALE U.S. SOLDIERS 

Women have been involved in the U.S. military since 1775, but more in the civilian fields of nursing, laundering and mending clothing, and cooking. In 1917 Loretta Walsh became the first woman to enlist. But it was not until 1948 that a law was finally passed that permanently made women a permanent part of the military services. In 1976, the first group of women was admitted into a U.S military academy. According to statistics only 15.6 percent of the U.S. Army's 1.1 million soldiers are female.

Since the start of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, 292,000 women have served in war zones out of a total of almost 2.5 million, Pentagon records show. In both wars, at least 152 women have died from combat or non-combat causes, and more than 950 have been wounded in action.

In 2013, an order was issued to end the policy of “no women in units that are tasked with direct combat”. On January 24, 2014, the US Army announced that 33,000 positions that were previously closed to women would integrate in the upcoming month of April, though it still has yet to be determined if and when women may join the US Army's Special Operations community.

The Marine Corps already has developed five gender-neutral physical tests that 400 men and women will take this year. They include lifting and handling a simulated tank round and scaling a wall, said Col. Jon Aytes, of the Marine Corps policy branch.

Female U.S Army soldiers are being asked to take part in a new training course designed by Combined Joint Task Force Paladin, which is specifically designed for Female Engagement Team members. The course will help female soldiers train for tasks such as unexploded ordnance awareness, biometrics, forensics, evidence collection, tactical questioning, vehicle and personnel searches, instructions on how homemade explosive devices are made and how to recognize if a device is homemade. It is rumored that women may begin Army Ranger training by July 2016. This change will open up hundreds of thousands of front-line positions for women. The goal is for all assessments to be complete and have women fully integrated into all roles in the army by 2016.

*To read all posts in my BRAVE WOMEN series click here.