Women in Combat Arms

The recent institutionalization of women in combat reignites a long standing debate on their roles in the military; a debate that elicits emotionally charged responses by proponents and critics alike. While much of the current discourse concerns hypothetical discussions of women in direct combat, there is a population of female soldiers that have contributed as front line "trigger pullers" throughout the course of the past 12 years of war in both Iraq and Afghanistan. These women are Army aviators who have served in attack aviation roles, without restriction, since the beginning of major combat operations in the Global War on Terror. Given the significant implications of the political, social, cultural, and economic ramifications of women in combat, this book synthesizes historical evidence and statistical data of female pilots' performance within attack aviation over the span of the past two conflicts in the Middle East. This book shows that over a decade of females serving on the front lines alongside their male counterparts, there is no significant stigma or other prohibitive factors that would degrade the effectiveness or lethality of combat arms units in war.