by Chrystal Mahan

Created on: November 02, 2009

Oleda Christies, Mary Edwards Walker and Margaret Corbin all led very different lives. Born in different times and places but all had one thing in common, they all led the way for the future of the woman who are alive and on the front lines today. Each woman was a stepping stone for the next. None of these women were your standard military nurse in uniform, but something greater than that. Christies started as the youngest Hello Girl to go one and fight for women's military rights and give them veteran status, Walker was a prisoner of the Civil War and the first woman to receive the Medal of Honor and Corbin fought alongside her husband, he was killed she was wounded and the first woman to receive military pension and revolutionary war soldier to be buried at West Point. All of these events and women played an important role in the paths that were walked for women in the military today.

Oleda Christies, Mary Edwards Walker and Margaret Corbin were all very strong women that paved the way for women today. Hundreds of women made it possible for women to be able to fight in combat today, but these three women made things happen, they were the movers, the shakers and the motivators to allow Congress to open the doors for female combats.

Oleda Christies was born in 1898 and lived until 1984. Oleda was the youngest at 19, and the first handful of woman (Hello Girls) to serve the front lines (not only that, first to be involved in communicating with those not on front line) and opened the doors for women to be completely treated like the men as well as obtain veteran status. ): November 11, 1865, President Andrew Johnson signed a bill to present Dr. Mary Edwards Walker with the Congressional Medal of Honor for Meritorious Service. Which later congress tried to take away.

Mary Edwards Walker was born in 1832 and she lived until 1919. Prisoner of war during the Civil War, writer, doctor (not a nurse!), fashion trend-setter and the only female to receive the Medal of Honor. Mary graduated in June 1855. At 21 years old, she was the only woman in her class, and the second female doctor in the nation. On July 6, 1779, the Board, sympathetic to Margaret's injuries and impressed with her service and bravery, granted her half the monthly pay of a soldier in the Continental army and a new set of clothes or its equivalent in cash. With this act, Congress made Margaret the first woman in the United States to receive pension from Congress. Paving the way for women to obtain

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