In 2010, the U.S. Army Special Operations Command created Cultural Support Teams, a pilot program to put women on the battlefield alongside Green Berets and Army Rangers on sensitive missions in Afghanistan. The idea was that women could access places and people that had remained out of reach, and could build relationships-woman to woman-in ways that male soldiers in a conservative, traditional country could not. Though officially banned from combat, female soldiers could be attached to different teams, and for the first time, women throughout the Army heard the call to try out for this special ops program. In Ashley's War, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon uses exhaustive firsthand reporting and a finely tuned understanding of the complexities of war to tell the story of CST-2, a unit of women hand-picked from across the Army, and the remarkable hero at its heart: 1st Lt. Ashley White, who would become the first Cultural Support Team member killed in action and the first CST remembered on the Army Special Operations Memorial Wall of Honor alongside the Army Rangers with whom she served.

Women Soldiers' Stories.

Kandahar -- The call to serve. Uncle Sam needs you -- Hearing the call to serve -- The Landmark Inn -- 100 hours of hell -- Making the cut -- Training days -- Diamonds among diamonds -- Deployment. Arrival, Afghanistan -- Operation "Fit In" -- The "Terp" -- Climbing mountains in the night -- Making a difference -- The lies of war -- Last roll call. The first death -- A grief observed -- The man in the area -- Kandahar.