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Citrus County

Welcome to all female veterans. This site is for you.

The United States military has most of their positions open to women. There are some restrictions because of physical demands that women cannot meet such as special forces positions.

Women have been involved in the U.S. military since 1775, but more in the civilian fields of nursing, laundering, mending clothing and cooking. Several hundred women enlisted and fought in the US Civil War, nearly all of them disguised as men, many discovered on the battlefield and in hospitals after becoming wounded. In 1917 Loretta Walsh became the first woman to enlist. But it was not until 1948 that a law was finally passed that made women a permanent part of the military services. In 1976, the first group of women was admitted into a U.S. military academy. Currently, approximately 16% of the graduating West Point class consists of women.

In the years 1990 and 1991 some 40,000 American military women were deployed during the Gulf War operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. But not one woman was able to take on any form of combat. From 1994 on a policy prohibited women from being assigned to ground combat units below the brigade level.

According to statistics from 2013, 15.6 percent of the U.S. Army’s 1.1 million soldiers, including National Guard And Reserve, were female. That year, women served in 95 percent of all army occupations.