Living Legends and Full Agency

Chapter 3 The Beginning of the Revolution: The American Experience

Although there are countless more examples that serve as irrefutable evidence of women’s direct involvement in war around the world, the American experience, though much more recent by Old World standards (i.e., Africa), is no less profound. While exceedingly slow to be realized and born out of necessity, the trajectory of women’s progress in the American military has been one of ebbs and flows. As Segal (1995) noted, women’s participation in the military increases and decreases before, during, and following times of major conflicts. However, in the same vein, she also bemoans that following each of these campaigns, amnesia sets in wherein society tends to conveniently forget ...