Sgt. Jeff Lima The author on security duty in a Stryker vehicle, Mosul, 2004.

Maybe I should’ve been a soldier in Israel’s army. As of 10 years ago, that country’s women have been allowed to serve in the Israeli Defense Force (I.D.F.) in any capacity that male soldiers serve, including combat units. They can serve in the infantry or mechanized units, or any other combat occupation. They make up a third of the I.D.F., and are treated as equals with males. This CNN segment features footage of Israeli female soldiers who can and do serve in any capacity.

Watching that video got me fired up. It was a real eye opener for me. These women are living proof that female soldiers can perform all of the same duties that male soldiers perform. These women don’t have to go around proving themselves.

Meanwhile, back here in the United States, women in the military are still seen as less capable and something of a curiosity. The fact that we are so grossly outnumbered — only 14 percent of soldiers in the Army are women — automatically makes us a curiosity. Until I saw that video about the I.D.F., I thought that women were pretty well integrated in our Army. And the truth is, since President Truman signed the Women’s Armed Services Act in 1948, progress has been made. Women are now integrated into most every military role. Only our admission into combat units remain.

Despite the fact that we’re not allowed to hold a combat arms M.O.S. (Military Occupation Specialty) and — at least according to Department of Defense policy — not allowed to serve in ground combat units at the battalion level and below, serving in any capacity in a combat zone can unofficially alter that policy.

While in Iraq, I was directly attached to an infantry battalion. I went everywhere they did, lived as they did and faced the same dangers they did every time I went “outside the wire” to conduct infrastructure assessments, which was nearly every day. There is nothing special or unique about what I experienced. Many female soldiers have been or currently are in the same situation — going outside the wire and facing the possibility of I.E.D.’s, small arms fire and more. The fact is that as “support” we end up attached to infantry, artillery and other combat arms units, and make enemy contact. Despite this, I was blind to the big picture. I suppose I had just guzzled down the Kool-Aid and drove on. It took getting out of the Army for me to see how women in the military are truly viewed and treated.

During my service I held an M.O.S. – Civil Affairs – that has a fairly high concentration of women, so my gender was nothing of note to the men I served with. Also, I was attached to an infantry unit with a command that treated me like any of the male soldiers. I pulled guard duty. I pulled security whenever I went outside the wire in one of their Strykers. I drove and maintained my team’s Humvee. I was expected to keep up whenever we had to reach a destination on foot. I was no princess, and didn’t expect to be treated like one.

I don’t really know why the United States Army would keep women out of the combat arms. What are the powers-that-be afraid would happen? I’ve had this debate with my husband, who is an infantryman. If he could have it his way, there would be no women in the military serving in any capacity whatsoever, unless they were required to meet the exact same physical standards that male soldiers must. I’m in complete agreement with him on that. Take the APFT (Army Physical Fitness Test), for example. There are three events: push-ups, sit-ups and a two-mile run. The scale used to score sit-ups is exactly the same for males and females, but for push-ups and the run, they are different: the female scale is easier. Having these different fitness expectations automatically sets women soldiers apart and makes us appear less capable than men.

The APFT shouldn’t be the only standard and it isn’t. There are other physical fitness considerations: for instance, whether or not I could carry a wounded soldier out of a danger zone. I can do a fireman carry up to a certain amount of weight, but after that, I’d have to drag. I’d say this is a limitation of my size, not my gender. When my fellow Civil Affairs reservists and I were mobilized and training up to go to Iraq, we would practice such carries with full battle rattle on. The other women, all of whom were bigger than me, could certainly carry more weight. (As I mentioned previously, I’m five-foot-nothing, short enough for my drill sergeants to call me a “troll.”) I’d say if anything posed a physical challenge for me while in the Army, it was being short, not being a woman.

I’ve heard the argument that males and females serving side-by-side in combat situations would create problems. Early on during my tour in Iraq, a situation arose.  January 2004, the infantry battalion that my team was attached to, 2-3 Infantry, moved into a F.O.B. Eagle in Balad. It was truly tiny, although that didn’t keep insurgents from mortaring it with deadly accuracy, and while we were there the name was changed to Camp Paliwoda, in honor of the captain who lost his life to a mortar there.

The Army is supposed to provide separate living quarters for males and females, but on this small F.O.B., it was not possible. I was the only woman on the FOB. The living quarters consisted of bare-bones containers — essentially shipping containers with a window or two — and four soldiers were crammed into each one. There were not enough containers to go around; I could not have one to myself. After spending the previous month living out of our vehicles in farmer’s fields just outside Samarra, the command was intent on giving everyone a place to set up a cot, shielded from the elements. Improved living conditions go a long way to boosting morale.

I ended up sharing a container with three male soldiers, one of whom was on my team, so I already knew and trusted him as we had already had to rough it in the field together. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the other two, but it ended up working out just fine. They were all perfect gentlemen. Having just lived in those fields in freezing temperatures, we had already perfected the art of getting dressed while completely encased in one’s sleeping bag. For the sake of privacy, we all just continued to employ that technique. At least in my experience, sharing quarters with males in a combat zone was a non-issue.

While it may be a D.O.D. policy to keep women out of combat, the reality doesn’t match the policy. Right now, a plan is being formulated to phase out “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,”, so that openly homosexual soldiers can serve in the military. If all goes according to plan, gay men will be able to serve in both combat and support units, depending on their chosen M.O.S. They will have to adhere to the same performance standards as straight male soldiers. So while we’re at it, can we phase out the policy of underestimating women? If Israel did it, why not the U.S.? Legislation like the Women Veterans Health Care Improvement Act, which aims to make sure women veterans get the services they need at home, is a step in the right direction, but it only addresses a symptom of the inequality women face in the active military. In reality, American women do engage in combat, so it’s probably time to make it a written policy. If the policy changes, maybe attitudes will too.

Catherine Ross served in the Army Reserves for eight years. She deployed to Balad and Mosul in Iraq in 2003 and 2004 as a civil affairs sergeant with the 445th Civil Affairs Battalion, attached to 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBCT), 2nd Infantry Division. She lives in Columbus, Ga., with her husband, an Army staff sergeant, and her 3-year-old daughter.

Watch a related Op-Ed video about women in the U.S. military.