The eye-opening documentary Lioness, directed by Meg McLagan and Daria Sommers, deals with one of the least-covered aspects of the Iraq war: the role of American women in combat. Technically, there supposedly aren't any, because government policy expressly forbids it. In actual fact, the "nature of this war" has meant that, as one of film's interview subjects puts it, women soldiers in Iraq "have been forced to violate their policy in order to do their jobs," especially if you consider it part of their jobs to not get their heads blown off. (The military has been finessing the matter by playing games with the definition of what officially constitutes a "combat situation.") Lioness, which takes it title from the nickname of a women's unit in Iraq, pinpoints the April, 2004 siege of Ramadi as a turning point in the history of the use of women in combat. That day, Sgt. Ranie Ruthig and Specialist Shannon Morgan were on assignment with a Marine unit that was ambushed by Iraqi gunmen. As an officer tells the camera, there had been no intention to send the women into combat, but "combat found them." At one point, Shannon Morgan, who was standing in the street being fired on, looked around and realized that she was a lone target, the guys who had been standing there with her a moment earlier having retreated to cover without telling her. The officer describes this as "not an ideal situation." Or as Morgan puts it, "I kicked the squad leader right in the nuts."

Should the military be using women soldiers in combat situations? The military thinks so. In 2005, Congressman Duncan Hunter, who for all I know may still be out there running for president somewhere, tried to attach a measure to a defense authorization bill that would have strictly prohibited any women from taking part in combat in Iraq. Not so very long ago, representatives of the U.S. military had reacted to the suggestion that they treat women as regular soldiers by acting as if they needed to clutch their pearls before the very idea just made then swoon. Now, they worked to squash Hunter's legislation because the only way it could have been enforced would have been to pull all women soldiers out of the country, and they had quickly come to regard their contribution as essential. There's a trace of an enlightened attitude mixed in with the desperation in that position. Unfortunately, the consensus at the Pentagon seems to be that it isn't widely shared among the public at large, which they fear would freak if people found out what their sisters and daughters are up to over there, so women's combat activities are not talked about and are actively concealed when possible. (Lioness shows a living-room reunion of some soldiers, including those who were at Ramadi, watching and hooting at a History Channel documentary about the siege that shows only men in its re-enactments.) This means that women soldiers are returning home, sometimes in desperate need of counseling, to a country that has no idea what they've been through.

The most compelling person in the movie is Shannon Morgan, an Arkansas native who's described by her C.O. as "a tough girl" who's good with guns. We see her prowling around the woods idly looking for something shoot, but what toughness she shows the camera seems like a transparent mask concealing some powerful emotions. (We also see her with her uncle, a Vietnam vet who in one breath cautions her against thinking too much about what she's been through and in the next breath is urging her to seek out the help he wishes he'd gotten thirty years ago.) She describes hesitating before killing a man for the first time because she was concerned that it would be a sin and she might go to Hell for it, but then, taking into consideration the fact that her target was already firing at her, she "got him right in my peeps, and he just dropped." She adds, "I don't regret what I did, but I really wish it had never happened."