The military ban on women in combat is coming to an end. Defense
Secretary Leon Panetta announced the overturning of a 1994
Pentagon rule that restricts women from artillery, armor, and
infantry jobs. This country has had a storied history of women
fighting for the country, despite various forces dissuading them
from doing so. As of last year, for example, more than 800 women
have been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan (where about 20,000
women have served) despite the combat ban. But the story is
older than that, as old as the country even. A woman by the name
of Margaret Cochran fought in the Revolutionary War, and
hundreds of women disguised themselves as men just to take up
arms in the Civil War. According to the National Archives, as
many as 400 women fought during the Civil War while concealing
their gender. Mary Livermore of the U.S. Sanitary Commission
wrote in 1888: Some one has stated the number of women soldiers
known to the service as little less than four hundred. I cannot
vouch for the correctness