Rhonda Cornum, and the aircraft was plunging to the Iraqi desert. She felt strangely calm. I really got to do more stuff than most people get to do, so I should not complain. Five of her fellow soldiers were killed and Cornum, seriously injured, became one of two American servicewomen taken prisoner during the Gulf War. Ten years later, the pain and fear of the experience haven't dimmed her zeal for Army life.
Every day is a gift.
I feel really lucky. She spent a week as a prisoner of war, enduring abuse from her captors with stoicism. After the war, Cornum testified before a presidential commission on women in the military, and air combat roles for women subsequently were expanded. She also spoke out against Virginia Military Institute's men-only admissions policy before the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 1996. Her yellow POW uniform and a sling she wore on her left arm became part of an exhibit at the National Museum of American History in Washington.