For more than 200 years, women have served America in times of war. During the Revolutionary War, Deborah Samson of Plympton disguised herself as Robert Shurtliff and enlisted in the Continental Army. (Samson was proclaimed the Official Heroine of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1983.) Irish-born Jennie Hodgers donned male clothing, renamed herself Albert Cashier and joined the Civil War’s Union Army. In World War I, 30,000 women served as nurses and support personnel in the Army, Navy, Marines and Coast Guard.

In 1942, during World War II, the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) was established. By 1944, the first WACs arrived in the Pacific Theater of Operations, and in July WACs landed on the beach at Normandy. At this time, there were over 100,000 women in uniform, and the WACs were the first women other than nurses to serve with the Army. Also, civilian women flew military aircraft under the direction of the United States Army Air Forces. 

From 1964 to 1973 during the Vietnam War, approximately 265,000 military women aided the U.S., and an estimated 11,000 women performed combat missions alongside their male counterparts. More than 40,000 servicewomen participated in the Persian Gulf War of 1991, and one out of five women in uniform moved with their units into combat zones.

A decade later, the American-led war in Iraq began — and continues. Nearly 26,000 of the 130,000 troops serving in Iraq are women. They are the direct recipients of the military’s expanded opportunities, and their effectiveness is under scrutiny. “Band of Sisters” by Kirsten Holmstedt is “the first attempt to take a close look at how the experiment of women in combat is playing out … in Iraq.”

     Holmstedt writes, “How [McGrath] and other women in the U.S. military performed in jets and helicopters, on aircraft carriers, in convoys and in surgical wards, and when they came face-to-face with enemy prisoners of war, would validate or refute one of the most radical, controversial, and public experiments in the annals of U.S. military history. The eyes of the enemy were on [McGrath] as she took off. So were the eyes of her countrymen. Would she be successful?”

     McGrath is one of 12 extraordinary women whose combat stories comprise “Band of Sisters.” The women’s aptitude, courage, preparedness and dedication to their duties and fellow soldiers exemplify what a highly trained and sophisticated military force ought to be. And as McGrath declares: “‘This is our job… We’re there, and we’re there to stay.’”

     Marine Captain Vernice Armour, 29, is the first African-American female pilot in Marine Corps history and the first black female combat pilot in the history of the Department of Defense. She flies Cobra attack helicopters, which carry Hellfire missiles, rockets and 20mm guns and rounds. In an attack on the fedayeen, an Iraqi paramilitary group, Armour and her co-pilot fired off most of their ordnance to get out of range of the fedayeen’s anti-aircraft artillery. The pilots made another pass and “Amour could still see the enemy on the ground so she fired flechette rockets … Armour could see the fedayeen [sic] falling to the ground but couldn’t tell if they were going down because she had shot them or because they were taking cover. She believes that she killed them and that’s okay with her. Each time she destroyed her targets — military tank, ammunition site, or insurgent — she felt a great sense of accomplishment. In this situation, in addition to defending herself she was protecting the ground troops who otherwise would have walked into an ambush. Taking out the enemy is what she’s trained to do. She wasn’t thinking on a personal or emotional level. In the heat of the moment, she was using the tactics she learned in training and applying muscle memory to target, flip switches, and pull triggers.”

     Despite a few missteps in Holmstedt’s prose “Band of Sisters” captures the sights, sounds and successes of women in combat in the Iraq War. To read this book is to show reverence to these women’s achievements and to acknowledge their duty to country.