Women's History Month exists because history, as it is typically told, leaves women out. Nowhere is that erasure more complete — and more consequential — than in the story of American military service.
The popular image of the American soldier is male. The monuments, the movies, the memorials — they have, for most of our history, reflected a version of service that did not include us. And yet women have been part of every major chapter of this nation's military history, from the Revolutionary War to the streets of Fallujah.
This is not a story that begins in 1948 with the Women's Armed Services Integration Act, though that was a landmark moment. This story begins at the founding of the republic — and it has never stopped.
FROM THE BEGINNING: THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR TO WORLD WAR II
Women were present in the Continental Army from its earliest days. They traveled alongside soldiers, tended wounds, cooked, and kept the army functioning. Some went further. Margaret Corbin fought at the Battle of Fort Washington in 1776 after her husband was killed in action, continuing to man his cannon until she herself was severely wounded. In 1779, the Continental Congress awarded her a lifelong pension — making her the first woman in American history to receive a military pension from Congress [1]. Deborah Sampson disguised herself as a man named Robert Shurtleff in 1782 and served in the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment of the Continental Army until her identity was discovered.
During the Civil War, approximately 3,000 women served as nurses for the Union Army. Clara Barton obtained a special pass from the Union Army Surgeon General to travel directly onto the battlefield, earning the name "Angel of the Battlefield." Dorothea Dix was appointed Superintendent of Army Nurses for the Union Army in 1861, overseeing the appointment of more than 3,000 women as military nurses. Historians estimate that between 400 and 1,000 women disguised themselves as men and fought on both sides of the conflict [2].
World War I marked the first time women were permitted to serve openly in the U.S. military. The Navy enlisted approximately 12,000 women — nicknamed "yeomanettes" — in non-combat roles. The U.S. Army Signal Corps recruited women as telephone operators, the "Hello Girls," who worked within kilometers of the front lines in France. They would not be formally recognized as veterans until 1979 [3].
World War II transformed women's military service at a scale never before seen. Nearly 350,000 American women served in uniform across all branches. The Women's Army Corps (WAC), the Navy's WAVES, the Marine Corps Women's Reserve, and the Coast Guard's SPARs all mobilized women into roles that extended far beyond clerical work — from aircraft mechanics and parachute riggers to cryptologists and test pilots. Fifty-seven thousand women served in the Army Nurse Corps alone, many of them under direct enemy fire [3]. Army Colonel Ruby Bradley, a nurse stationed in the Philippines, was captured by Japanese forces on December 29, 1941 and spent 37 months as a prisoner of war — continuing to care for patients throughout her captivity. She became one of the most decorated women in Army history, earning 34 medals including two Bronze Stars.
THE LONG ROAD TO FULL INTEGRATION: 1948 TO 2013
The Women's Armed Services Integration Act of 1948 was a milestone — but it came with significant restrictions. Women could serve as permanent members of the armed forces, but they were capped at two percent of each branch, prohibited from commanding men, and barred from combat positions [3]. For the next three decades, women served within those constraints, building careers in the narrow lanes they were permitted to occupy.
The 1970s brought meaningful change. In 1976, the first women were admitted to the service academies — West Point, Annapolis, and the Air Force Academy. In 1978, the Women's Army Corps was dissolved and women were integrated into the regular Army. Promotions opened. Command opportunities expanded. But the combat exclusion remained.
Women deployed to Vietnam — more than 11,000 served there, the majority as nurses — and to every subsequent conflict. By the time of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1990–1991, more than 40,000 women were deployed to the Gulf, serving in roles that brought them into proximity to combat even as official policy stated otherwise [3]. The fiction of the "front line" was already collapsing.
On March 20, 2005, Army Sergeant Leigh Ann Hester became the first woman since World War II to receive the Silver Star for direct combat action — and the first woman ever awarded it for direct ground combat — after leading her squad through an insurgent ambush on a supply convoy near Salman Pak, Iraq [4]. She was not supposed to be in combat. She was there anyway — because women in the military have always been where the mission required them to be, regardless of what policy said.
On January 24, 2013, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta officially lifted the Direct Ground Combat Exclusion Rule, opening all combat roles to women [3]. It was not a gift. It was a recognition of what women had already been doing for decades.
PIONEERING WOMEN WHO CHANGED WHAT WAS POSSIBLE
Within this long arc of history, individual women have broken barriers that seemed immovable — and in doing so, changed what the next generation believed was possible for them.
Vernice "FlyGirl" Armour earned her wings in July 2001, becoming the first Black female pilot in the United States Marine Corps. Her grandfather had served in the original class of African American Marines in World War II — making her achievement a continuation of a family legacy of breaking barriers. In 2003, she deployed to Iraq as America's first Black female combat pilot, flying the AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopter on two combat tours [5]. She did not just fly — she led. She did not just serve — she made history that her grandfather's generation made possible.
Elizabeth Stephens became the first Black female graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy to be selected as a Fleet Naval Aviator in the Marine Corps [6]. She was also the first Black woman to pilot the CH-46E Sea Knight and the first woman to pilot the MV-22 Osprey. In her own words: "When I became the first Black female Naval Aviator in the Marine Corps, I knew the eyes of many were on me. I navigated a culture steeped in tradition, where my presence was a disruption to the norm. With no one to guide me, I had to forge my own path, fueled by determination, resilience, and an unwavering belief in my abilities." [6]
These women did not simply occupy space in a male-dominated institution. They redefined what that institution was capable of producing.
THE WOMEN VETERANS OF TODAY
Today, women make up approximately 17.9 percent of the active-duty force — more than 227,000 service members [7]. They are serving in every branch, every specialty, and every corner of the world. They are pilots, special operations candidates, commanders, surgeons, and strategic leaders.
And when they come home — when they take the uniform off and step into civilian life — they carry with them a history rarely told, and a set of experiences rarely understood.
This Women's History Month, I want to name that clearly: the story of women in the military is a story of extraordinary service rendered in the face of extraordinary resistance. It is a story that deserves to be told fully, not in footnotes.
This post draws on research from the National Women's History Museum, National Archives, USO, Kentucky National Guard History, Armour, V. (n.d.), Stephens, E. (2024), USAFacts (2024), and Smith, A., et al. (2025). The OWNIT™ Framework is a proprietary coaching methodology developed by Renea Jones-Hudson, Founder and CEO of Beyond the Uniform Consulting Group.
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This article is part of the From Service to Significance series — grounded in peer-reviewed research on women veterans, military-to-civilian transition, and leadership identity development.
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