Long before her daughter began the first of her several tours in Iraq, before she became the highest-ranking female military officer and first female Naval Academy graduate to die in Iraq, Re McClung felt something different about this conflict.

"I don't think the typical American realizes that the face of this war has changed. This one has a woman's face," Re McClung says.

Despite the military prohibition against women serving in combat units, military women aren't confined to jobs as nurses or administrative or intelligence duties behind the lines as they were in past wars.

They sling rifles and drive armored trucks in convoys, guard checkpoints, fly helicopters and serve as combat medics and MPs.