Women have served in the U.S. military since the American Revolution when hundreds of soldiers’ wives, sisters, daughters and mothers accompanied them in colonial militias and George Washington’s Continental Army. They tended wounded, foraged for food, cooked, cleaned laundry and cannons, worked as spies and even disguised themselves as men and fought.

During the Civil War, women served as nurses in the Union and Confederate armies. Superintendent of the U.S. Army Nurses, estimated from 3,000 to 8,000, Dorothea Dix led them throughout that conflict. African American nurses were often limited to menial labor and/or caring for wounded Black soldiers.

A number of women on both sides estimated from 400 to thousands disguised themselves as men and fought in the Civil War. They enlisted for the same reasons as their male colleagues: Duty and patriotism, adventure, escape from the drudgery of farm work and difficult family situations. They typically bound their chests with corsets, cut their hair, used a male name and enlisted. Some of these woman were wounded or killed on battlefields, others became prisoners of war.

When the U.S. entered World War I and more warships were being constructed, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels realized he needed more sailors to man them. Enlistments and the draft were insufficient to keep up with the need, so Daniels found a loophole in the Naval Act of 1916: Nowhere did it specify that only men could enlist. He began actively recruiting women.

Young women, many of them suffragists, enthusiastically joined the Navy, freeing men on shore duty to join the fleet. In short time, Navy women were serving as clerks, radio operators, messengers, truck drivers, ordinance workers, mechanics, cryptographers and other non-combat roles.

More than 22,000 women served in the Army and Navy nurse corps in the U.S., France, England, Belgium and Siberia. More than 200 died or were wounded. A relatively small number of Black women served as nurses, but were only allowed to care for Black soldiers and, occasionally, prisoners of war.

With women serving and dying in the “Great War,” suffragists pushed hard for a woman’s right to vote. On Sept. 30, 1918, with war’s end only weeks away, President Wilson addressed Congress stating: “We have made partners of the women in this war … Shall we admit them only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil, and not to a partnership of privilege?”

When the U.S. entered World War II following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the country needed to significantly increase the number of military personnel, and quickly. Again, women did not hesitate to enlist, and for the first time in the nation’s history every branch of the armed forces enlisted females.

The Army established the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAACs), later restructured and renamed the Women’s Army Corps (WACs). The Navy formed the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Services (WAVES). The Marine Corps and Coast Guard also instituted women’s reserve units. By the war’s end, approximately 350,000 women had served in the armed forces, taking on jobs they did in World War I as well as new ones: Rigging parachutes, test-flying planes and, in some cases, training male soldiers.

Approximately 68,000 women served in the Army and Navy nurse corps. Over the course of the war 432 military women were killed and 88 taken prisoner. After the war, many women wanted to continue their military careers but were discharged as the much smaller peace-time military returned to a near all-male institution. Women who served in the armed forces during World War II not only made significant contributions to the war effort — they paved the way for women in the post-war military.

In 1948 President Truman signed the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act, allowing women to serve as permanent members of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and newly formed Air Force. During the Korean War, 12,000 women served, adding on roles as engineers and military police. Women were barred from combat units but did serve in combat zones as nurses in Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) units.

During the Vietnam War, 11,000 women saw duty in that country, 90% as nurses. Air Force nurses participated in air evacuation missions and Navy women served on hospital ships. Many of these women suffered from agent-orange complications and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Seven Army nurses and one Air Force nurse were killed. Every woman who served in Vietnam volunteered for military service. In 1972 President Johnson opened promotions for women to general and flag ranks rear admiral through admiral.

In October 1976 President Ford signed legislation allowing women to enter the U.S. military academies. As of 2022 the percentage of women at these was: West Point, 24%; Annapolis, 28%; Air Force Academy, 30%; and Coast Guard Academy, 38%. Women officers in all services currently account for a low just under 8% (Marine Corps) and a high just over 25% (Air Force).

More than 40,000 women served in combat zones during the Gulf War, although they could not technically serve in direct combat roles or assignments. Since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, approximately 300,000 women have served in Iraq and Afghanistan; 177 have been killed and over 1,000 wounded.

In 2013 then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta stated the Pentagon would overturn the military policy preventing women from serving in ground combat units below the brigade level. Two years later, the first women graduated from Army Ranger School and in 2018 a female Marine led an infantry platoon. In 2019 approximately 600 female sailors and marines were serving in combat units previously restricted to men. That same year more than 650 army women had combat roles. In 2022 Admiral Linda Fagan was sworn in as commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, the first woman to lead any branch of the armed forces.

On the 75th anniversary of the Women’s Armed Services Act in 2023 Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin stated: “Women’s service has made our military stronger. … And that’s worth celebrating.”

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George J. Bryjak lives in Bloomingdale and is retired after 24 years of teaching sociology at the University of San Diego. He served in Okinawa and Vietnam with the First Marine Air Wing. This is part one of a special two-part series in honor of Women’s History Month. A list of sources will accompany the second part of this series online.