Female Warriors Engage in Combat in Iraq, Afghanistan

Oct. 25, 2009— -- The image of young women in a hot, dusty combat zone toting automatic weapons is still startling to some.

But right now there are 10,000 women serving in Iraq, more than 4,000 in Aghanistan. They have been fighting and dying next to their male comrades since the wars began.

"We're here, and we're right up with the guys," says Specialist Ashley Pullen, who was awarded a Bronze Star for valor in 2005 for her heroic action in Iraq where she served with a military police unit.

Technically they're restricted from certain combat roles. The Department of Defense prohibits women from serving in assignments "whose primary mission is to engage in direct combat on the ground."

Nevertheless, women serving in support positions on and off the frontlines, where war is waged on street corners and in markets, are often at equal risk. There have been 103 women who have been killed in Iraq and 15 others in Afghanistan.

What women can or cannot do in combat is not always clear in today's wars, and many say that the Department of Defense and Congress should reevaluate women's roles in modern warfare.

As female aviators, military police officers, and civil affairs officers, about 80 percent of the positions in the Department of Defense and 70 percent in the Army are available to women, according to a RAND study. Women make up about 11 percent of the forces deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Covering their own hair, women Marines in Afghanistan are part of female engagement teams that reach out to Muslim women, and as intelligence officers investigating those who may be infiltrating the communities.

Last year, 19-year-old Army combat medic Specialist Monica Brown told ABC News she used her body to shield five wounded soldiers during an attack on her unit's convoy in southeast Afghanistan.

"That was my only concern, making sure everyone got out of there as fast as possible," Brown said. She said she wasn't thinking of the dangers involved.

And in Iraq, ABC News talked to Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester whose convoy had been ambushed south of Baghdad in early 2005. Hester was serving in a military police unit.

"When we first started taking fire, I just looked to the right and saw seven or eight guys shooting back at us."