brutal training mentally and physically. cnn at the time was given rare access. we ve got a bunch of strong, capable awesome women who can take any challenge that that s thrown at us. reporter: as soon as the training wrapped, white and her teammates shipped out. by the summer of 2011 they were seeing the kind of combat fewer than 5% of the entire military seas alongside fighters of special operations on the battlefields of afghanistan. out there every night running off the bird boarding the bird going to the compound making sure women and children were away from what was happening, searching, questioning, making sure peoples lives were saved as they could be. reporter: and women would take off helmets to show they were women and there to keep them safe. on any given night an ordinary mission could turn extraordinary. at an insurgent s compound ashes soldier sterp odd an daisy chained ied triggering a massive explosion that took the life of