According to Department of Defense statistics, approximately 7,500 women served on active military duty in Vietnam. The Department of Veterans Affairs puts the numbers even higher, at around 11,000. More than 50,000 women served in the Korean War. The 1991 Gulf War proved to be the pivotal time for the role of women in the American armed forces, with more than 40,000 women served in almost every role the armed forces had to offer. Today, one in seven service members in Iraq are women.

The Veterans History Project spotlights these female veterans in a special Web presentation, “Women of Four Wars.”

Rich in detail, photographs and historic reference, the profiles in “Women of Four Wars” are grouped into two segments: interviews from the Korea and Vietnam Wars and interviews from the Persian Gulf and Iraq-Afghanistan conflicts. The series covers nearly 60 years and documents the changing role of American women in wartime service.

Featured narratives include the story of Helen Eileen Hause, an Air Force flight nurse who logged more than 1,000 hours transporting medical patients. In Vietnam, Hause prepped wounded men for evacuation in an 85-bed plane and experienced a series of mortar attacks on Ton Son Nhut Air Base.

Also chronicled is the experience of Brenda Vosbein, who joined the Army as a WAC with the Women’s Army Corps in 1970. In her 29-year career, Vosbein experienced—and quickly adapted to—the massive sea change in the military as women’s roles expanded.

The collection also profiles Lt. Cmdr. Holly Harrison, the first woman in the United States Coast Guard to earn the Bronze Star. In charge of the 110-foot cutter Aquidneck during Operation Iraqi Freedom, Harrison and her small crew patrolled the Khawr Abd Allah waterway separating Iraq and Kuwait. Harrison became executive officer of the Maritime Law Enforcement Academy after her return from the Persian Gulf.