Women in the US Military: Timeline

1775-1783: During the Revolutionary War, many women joined their husbands in the military, supporting the Continental Army by performing tasks like laundry, nursing, gathering supplies and providing intelligence. According to the National Park Service, Sarah Osborn, a soldier’s wife, brought food and coffee to men in the trenches. When asked by then-General George Washington if she feared cannonballs, she replied, “No, the bullets would not cheat the gallows… It would not do for the men to fight and starve too.” 

Deborah Sampson became a Revolutionary War hero by disguising herself as a man to join the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment, scouting enemy territory, leading raids and treating her own wounds to keep her secret, the Massachusetts Women Veterans Network notes. Discovered after falling ill, she was honorably discharged in 1783 and later received a military pension.

1813: Mary Allen served as a nurse aboard the frigate United States during the War of 1812, becoming the first documented woman to serve on a U.S. naval warship. Though not officially enlisted, her service was later verified by crew members, according to the U.S. Naval Institute. 

1847: Disguised as a man named “Bill,” Elizabeth Newcom served about 10 months, marching roughly 600 miles with her regiment before her true identity was discovered. Despite her discharge, Congress later recognized her service by granting her a veteran’s land bounty.

1861-1865: Women in both the North and South stepped beyond traditional roles, with about 20,000 working as nurses, cooks, laundresses and spies, while some disguised themselves as men to fight on the front lines. Key figures included Florence Nightingale, Clara Barton and Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, the first woman surgeon in the U.S. Army, who served during the war and remains the only woman to receive the Medal of Honor. 

According to the National Archives, women were motivated to join the war to stay close to loved ones, earn steady pay and show their patriotism. As Sarah Edmonds reflected in 1865, "I could only thank God that I was free and could go forward and work, and I was not obliged to stay at home and weep.” Read more here.

1898: About 1,500 civilian nurses were contracted by the Army to serve on bases and ships, according to the U.S. Naval Institute. Organizations like the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Women’s Relief Corps treated wounded soldiers and those suffering from typhoid, malaria and yellow fever. Twenty nurses died during the war. 

1901: Congress created the Army Nurse Corps in 1901, and the Navy Nurse Corps followed in 1908. Women faced strict limitations—Army nurses could not marry or hold military rank. Navy nurses faced similar challenges, initially receiving no housing or meal provisions.

1913-1918: With millions of men deployed, women took on essential roles in war production and agriculture and served as nurses, ambulance drivers, doctors, mechanics and clerks. The National World War I Museum and Memorial notes that the U.S. Navy enlisted 11,000 women as “Yeoman (F)” (also called “yeomanettes”), performing administrative and technical tasks. Yeoman Loretta Walsh, at age 20, became the first woman to enlist in any U.S. service branch as anything other than a nurse. 

Women also joined the newly created Signal Corps Female Telephone Operators Unit as "Hello Girls," bilingual switchboard operators who worked close to the front lines but were denied veteran status until 1977. 

1941-1945: During World War II, 350,000 women served in noncombat roles at home and abroad. They joined branches like the Women’s Army Corps (WAC), Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) and Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP).  Read more here.

Some worked near the front lines as nurses, with 16 killed by direct enemy fire and 68 captured as prisoners of war, according to the National WWII Museum. Black women, including the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, played pivotal roles despite facing discrimination and segregation. Congress awarded the “Six Triple Eight” the Congressional Gold Medal in 2022. Read more here.

June 12, 1948: President Harry Truman signed the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act in 1948, allowing women to serve in all four branches of the U.S. Armed Forces. However, caps limited women to 2 percent of total enlistees—a restriction that remained until 1967, the Truman Library Institute states. Truman’s executive order desegregating the military, coupled with the act, also enabled Black women to serve and, in 1949, Annie Graham became the first Black woman to join the Marine Corps.

1950-1953: Approximately 120,000 women served on active duty as nurses, medics, communications operators, logisticians and more in the Korean War. Women in Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals (MASH) and aboard MEDEVAC aircraft played critical roles treating wounded soldiers, the Korean War Legacy Foundation notes, adding that 18 women were killed during the conflict.

1965-1973: More than 11,000 American women served in Vietnam, with approximately 90 percent serving as volunteer nurses, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. More than 250,000 others served as air traffic controllers, clerks, intelligence officers and other positions. During this era, legislative changes allowed women to achieve higher ranks and command units with male soldiers. 

According to the Navy, in 1973 the first female pilot earned her wings, the first woman Navy chaplain was named and the first woman was promoted to major general. Also in 1973, Ruth Bader Ginsburg successfully argued the landmark Frontiero v. Richardson case before the U.S. Supreme Court, ending sex-based disparities in military benefits. Read more here.

October 7, 1975: President Gerald Ford signed Public Law 94-106, allowing women to attend the three public U.S. military academies. In 1976, 157 women entered the U.S. Air Force Academy, 119 entered West Point and 80 entered the U.S. Naval Academy.

July 27, 1978: A federal judge struck down a law banning women from serving on Navy and Marine ships, allowing them to serve on noncombat ships for the first time. 

1990-1991: Approximately 41,000 women served in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, with eight casualties. It marked the first time women officially served in combat zones, the Women in War Museum notes. Later, Cookie Avvampato, a nurse in the Air Force Reserves who was called into active duty during Desert Storm, told the Library of Congress she learned to do her job under fire. "Most of the kids I saw over there, most of the kids I worked with, were younger than my kids,” she said. “And they had their body parts blown off and that bothered me."

April 28, 1993: The Defense Department amended its combat exclusion policy, allowing women to fly in combat missions. In 1994, Defense Secretary Les Aspin rescinded the “Risk Rule,” which had restricted women in the military from serving in “noncombat units or missions if the risks to direct combat, hostile fire or capture were equal to or greater than the risk in the units they supported.” 

Aspin’s new policy declared all service members were eligible for any position for which they were qualified, except direct ground combat. According to the National Museum of the United States Air Force, Captain Martha McSally became the first woman to fly in combat in 1995 in Iraq and, in 2004 became the first woman to command a combat aviation squadron during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. 

2003-2011: Approximately 300,000 women served during the prolonged conflict, with 800 wounded and 130 killed, according to the Congressional Research Service. Illinois National Guard Lt. Col. Tammy Duckworth, a U.S. senator since 2017, lost both legs in 2004 when her Black Hawk helicopter was shot down in Iraq. She later told The Christian Science Monitor, "When I'm asked if the country is ready for women in combat, I look down at where my legs used to be and think, 'Where do you think this happened, a bar fight?' I'm pretty sure it was combat." 

In 2005, Sergeant Leigh Ann Hester became the first woman since World War II—and the first ever in direct combat—to receive the Silver Star for her service in Iraq. The first all-woman Marine mission took place in Afghanistan in 2009. And in March 2011, an all-female Air Force team, known as "Dudette 07," executed all aspects of a combat mission. Air Force Major Christine Mau later told the Department of Veterans Affairs that when she began flying 11 years earlier, such a mission "was not a possibility."

January 24, 2013: Defense Secretary Leon Panetta lifted the Combat Exclusion policy, allowing women to serve in all combat roles. By 2016, the Congressional Research Office notes, all military positions were officially open to women. 

August 21, 2015: First Lt. Shaye Haver, an Apache helicopter pilot, and Capt. Kristen Griest, a military police platoon leader, completed one of the military’s most grueling leadership courses to become the first women to graduate from the U.S. Army Ranger School alongside 94 other soldiers. (The class started with 19 women and 381 men.)