It's the first war America has engaged in to last long enough that the idea finally sinks home:

"Our boys" includes our girls.

It's a weird thing to think about.

In one way, it's a victory for gender equality (not withstanding the Pentagon's continuing fantasy about excluding women from combat... as if anybody in the Middle Eastern theater is guaranteed to be excluded from combat situations). I'm reminded of how black soldiers, sailors and pilots were segregated up to and including WWII, and how their performance and bravery finally convinced Truman to desegregate the military -- which may have been the first major step in desegregating the rest of the nation.

In another way, it's an odd realization of Rumsfeld's axiom, "You fight with the army you have." When we got in to this we had peacetime volunteer armed forces with almost-equal opportunities for both genders, and now both genders are fighting (I wonder what the WWII vets think of that). The armed forces are still recruiting in the 'peacetime volunteer' mode, and we still 'fight with the army we have'.

In a third way, I'm just old-fashioned enough to question the motives of any war that requires women to join men on the front lines. My views on the war at this stage in its history are simple: We hauled the Iraqis' chestnuts out of Saddam's fire. The fire their chestnuts are in now is entirely of their own making, and we have no further business there. The best way we can honor our troops, women and men, is to bring them all home to heroes' welcomes, and give them back to their families.