In 2022, nearly 20% of active duty officers were women. Women can be found in every branch of military service and nearly every job. Women are no longer just fulfilling support roles like nursing, cooking and general caretaking. They have found their way to the front lines.

Women’s military service began in 1908 with President Theodore Roosevelt’s establishment of the Navy Nurses Corp. In the last two years of WWII, women were officially allowed to participate in active military and combat roles, causing nearly 33,000 women to enlist. Hundreds joined our men in the air as members of Women Airforce Service Program (WASP). And with the push for equality, women have taken on even more roles, leading to a 4 star general, a army ranger, and many more.

National Vet Girls Rock day was founded to draw awareness to the women serving in the military and support these women as they fight along the men on the front lines.

Fiction about women in the service of their countries:

Kristin Hannah’s Home Front

Michael and Jolene’s marriage is beginning to crack after 12 years, but when Jolene is deployed and Michael, an attorney, finds himself a single parent of two little girls, it is more than the relationship can handle. In her letters and phone calls home, Jolene hides the truth of the dangers she is facing on a regular basis, but Michael knows what war can do as he is defending a murderer who suffers from PTSD. When Jolene returns from war, she is forever changed and so is her family.

Kate Quinn’s The Rose Code

Three very different women come together at the mysterious estate Bletchley Park to train to become code breakers. They work diligently to break the codes of the Nazis in an attempt to bring an end to the war; however, there is a spy among them that they will need to root out. This spy destroys the three girls friendship, while causing one to be committed to an asylum. Two years after the war, the old spy emerges, and the girls must reunite and solve one last code and find their enemy.

Danielle Steel’s Flying Angels

This novel follows the lives of six flight nurses who risk their lives in the Medical AirEvacuation Transport Squadron, earn little recognition, and even less pay to save men brought down behind enemy lines. Each woman is serving for a very different reason, and their service will impact each differently. But will all survive?