The pioneers of CST-2 proved for the first time, at least to some grizzled Special Operations soldiers, that women might be physically and mentally tough enough to become one of them. In Ashley's War, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon uses on-the-ground 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 the Army to serve in this highly specialized and challenging role. They could build relationships-woman to woman-in ways that male soldiers in an Islamic country never could. Their presence had a calming effect on enemy households, but more importantly, the CSTs were able to search adult women for weapons and gather crucial intelligence. The Army reasoned that women could play a unique role on Special Ops teams: accompanying their male colleagues on raids and, while those soldiers were searching for insurgents, questioning the mothers, sisters, daughters and wives living at the compound. In 2010, the Army created Cultural Support Teams, a secret pilot program to insert women alongside Special Operations soldiers battling in Afghanistan. From Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, author of the New York Times bestseller The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, comes the story of a unique team of women who answered the call to get as close to the fight as the Army had ever allowed women to be, including one beloved soldier who was killed serving her country's cause

Ashley's War by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon