exhaustive hikes as well as sleepless night. as someone who has served two tours in iraq, are there challenges for women in front-line combat that men may not have faced? >> well, look, there are challenges for everyone, but this is something that our professional service members train for. we've got to remember that these are not -- these are people who have chosen this profession who are highly trained. and if called to deploy into a combat setting are ready to go and perform and complete the mission, regardless of whether they are men or w ?ñ what we're seeing now here is hopefully the department of defense continues to make progress and move forward towards opening all these job opportunities to women so that the policy catches up to the brave actions that women have been conducting in combat really for quite some time. there was a woman in 2005, sergeant lee ann hester, she was in the kentucky army national guard. she was awarded the silver star