Military Police are Support Military Occupational Specialties. They're not trained for front-line combat, but this group was probably well prepared for an attack. They're traveling a dangerous stretch of road shadowing a convoy, which, as we all know, is simply an irresistible mark for the enemy. What the insurgents didn't bargain for, in this case, was one heck of a fight.

This is a signal event that justifies the theory that women are just as deadly in the support combat role. Especially in an insurgent-based conflict like this one, they're going to try to attack you in the support line where all your heterogeneous troops are, and it's not because we've got women there; it's because that's where you've got your supplies and all the other things that keep the Army moving are. They're trying to shoot the wheels out from under it. So women have to step up and do these jobs like this. And the sergeant who did this last contact was really competent.

I think it's politically and socially important over there that this female squad leader had such great success with her unit. That sends a great message to the newly voting women in Iraq, who are for the first time going to be whole participants in their society. In America we're like, 'Wow. It worked, great!' and we'll keep doing what we're doing. But over there, it's got to send an astounding message to the women of Iraq. And for the insurgents taken down by women? On that level it's just awesome.

The public argument for why women don't belong in combat units is because there isn't the same cohesiveness. Some of the critics of mixed-gender units say you just can't develop that bond between males and females but here's one that did. One of the things that amazes me about this National Guard MP unit is its cohesiveness. Here's a squad that faces off a group of 50 or 60 insurgents in full attack. There's a psychological aspect that the greater the force facing you, the more likely you are not to perform well and be overcome with fear or run away. Cohesiveness is really the strength of the unit, that's the combat effectiveness of the unit, the bare-bones minimum. So here's a unit that's mixed gender with an exceptional level of organized unity. I believe if someone came up to Tommy Franks and bugged him about the women in combat thing - well, looking at this mission, he'd have a hard time answering.

I'll bet you could take 50% of the women off the street in the US today and if you knew there was going to be a fight somewhere and you got them sufficiently riled up and got them in a helicopter and flew them over to that firefight, I bet they would beat back the bad guys no problem because women are just tough in certain situations. They really are. The big difference is in the long-term mentality.

Our typical combat guy is an 18-24 year old ground-pounder. He's been on his feet all week, living out of an MRE bag and pooping in a tractor tire somewhere. He's been living like a caveman for about a month and everyday someone is telling him, "I think today's the day we attack." Then it doesn't happen. Then the day it does happen, the amazing thing is that he jumps up ready to go. You see, it's not just about the fight: Lots of terrible things happen when you're in a unit like that. You go through a lot of deprivation.

In the US, in our culture, we believe in equal opportunity for everybody. The funny thing about war is that the people engaged in warfare don't regard it as an "opportunity." So there are two different mindsets at work here. One is here's a career opportunity in a career field that should be equally offered to everyone. On the other side, even the leaders in the military are thinking, only an 18 year old boy is crazy enough to want a job like this. And it's no prize. Centuries and centuries of warfare training and the acclimatization to warfare conditions and building the psychological setting necessary to do front-line combat and still end up as a real person at the end of it is kind of a highly-tuned process.

A young man in this particular stage in his life can be flicked on and off like a switch. And that's what they do. Of course, that's not exactly something that's going to come out in a press conference. If someone asks about it they're not going to say, "Well, what you're dealing with here is almost a psychosis in young men, and we kind of bank on it." It would be a scandal. This is war, and there are very strange dynamics at play.

But a woman being allowed to hold a combatant role is almost a moot point in Iraq today. For all intents and purposes, these MPs are on the front lines. They're successfully beating back insurgents at a rapid pace along these desolate stretches. As a matter of fact, incidences of insurgent attacks, successful ones at that, are way down. Look at the difference in casualty counts in this mission: Hmmm, 26 to ... none. I think that's why insurgent attacks are about a tenth of what they used to be, because our guys - our gals - in every role across the country are armed and ready and organized and deadly. For the insurgents, it just isn't as much fun anymore.