Today, women in all U.S. military services are involved in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. They serve as pilots and crewmen of assault helicopters, bombers, fighters, and transport planes and are frequently engaged in firefights with enemy insurgents while guarding convoys. They perform pat down searches of Arab women at checkpoints, carry out military police duties, and serve aboard Navy and U.S. Coast Guard ships at sea. Like their male counterparts, they carry out their missions with determination and great courage. The advent of the insurgency war, which has no rear or front lines, has made the debate regarding women in combat irrelevant. In such a war zone anyone can be killed or injured at any moment.

The stories of these thirty courageous women are told here by James E. Wise, a former naval aviator and Vietnam veteran, and Scott Baron, a U.S. Army veteran of the Vietnam War and former law enforcement officer in California, through numerous personal interviews and oral history interviews conducted by staff at The Women’s Memorial, located in Arlington, Virginia. In every case they were struck by the women’s extraordinary display of dedication to their mission and to the soldiers and sailors with whom they served.

While the book’s focus is on today’s women in combat, it also reaches back to Korea, Vietnam and World War II to offer selected stories of inspiring women who served at the"cusp of the spear" as they fought and died for their country.