The Very Few, The Proud: Women in the Marine Corps, 1977-2001

This history follows and examines both the expanding opportunities for women in the Marine Corps and the fading cultural gender distinctions in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The work is derived from official documents and personal files, interviews, conversations, letters, newspaper articles, Internet access to research archives, and hundreds of email submissions from current and former Marines. The generation of women described in this history proved themselves in every clime and place, including in command and in combat. Women choose to be Marines for the same reasons as men: duty to country, opportunity, adventure, escaping hardship, or to grow as a person. This history takes us to the start of the twenty-first century.