Author interviewed Robin Brown of Corvallis, who flew helicopters in Iraq

Robin Brown has finally started adjusting to civilian life. She and her husband, Jason, are working on renovating their third older home, they have a 10-month-old son, Henry, and she works in sales at Benson's Interiors.

It's a far cry from piloting a Kiowa Warrior scout attack helicopter for the 82nd Airborne.

Brown was a military brat who attended Fordham University in New York on an Army ROTC scholarship, and went straight into the Army after graduating in 1997. Her whole life has revolved in some way around the military, and having married a military man as well, the idea of life without the Army is a little bit odd.

Recently, Brown relived some of her most dramatic military moments when she read Kirsten Holmstedt's new book, "Band of Sisters: American Women at War in Iraq." Brown is one of the two dozen women soldiers interviewed in the book, which has just been released.

On Dec. 9, 2003, in the middle of her second deployment to Iraq, Capt. Brown and her co-pilot were returning from a security mission in Baghdad, where they'd been protecting a ground convey that was removing old Iraqi currency to exchange it for new money that did not prominently feature Saddam Hussein's head on the front.

Brown said their biggest mistake was returning home to Fallujah on the exact same route they'd come. It's a basic military principle, but Brown said they didn't realize they were at risk.

"At that point, we didn't think there was any threat from surface-to-air attacks," she said.

They were wrong. A shoulder-fired heat-seeking missile struck their helicopter just before they reached a checkpoint near the city.

"We were on the ground pretty fast," she said. The craft was on fire, but Brown's co-pilot managed to land the helicopter safely, and they escaped.

A crowd immediately came pouring out of the city toward the flaming helicopter, and in order to avoid capture, she and her co-pilot ran around four kilometers, when they were finally rescued by Blackhawk helicopters from the nearby base.

Other than bruising and whiplash, the pair was unharmed, and three days later, they were back in the air, in a different helicopter, as theirs had been destroyed.

Memories of those moments have started to blur in Brown's mind, but they came back vividly when she read the account of the attack in Holmstedt's new book. She was interviewed by Holmstedt shortly after she returned from Iraq in spring 2004.

"I'd forgotten so much of it," Brown said. "I've kind of put it behind me."

Holmstedt was living near Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and working on a Master of Fine Arts in creative nonfiction when the debate about women in combat started heating up.

"There were a lot of questions raised that interested me," she said. She decided that she wanted to interview women soldiers serving in Iraq, so she contacted the Army's public relations office and began meeting with women on leave from the war.

One of the biggest struggles, in addition to timing her interviews for when the women were stateside, was to learn military jargon enough to understand the lingo, but not enough to make the book unreadable by civilians. Being accurate and clear was important.

"I wanted the military to read it and be proud," she said.

Holmstedt said she wanted to share with the general public the important work that women are doing in combat.

"They're making the same sacrifices men are, but they're coming home and I don't think they're getting that same recognition," she said.

As for Brown, she said the discussion over whether or not women should be serving in combat is ridiculous.

"We're so beyond that … ," Brown said. "To even discuss it is silly."

She's very pleased with "Band of Sisters," because it shows that female soldiers are, more than anything, simply soldiers doing their job. She said she's never experienced sexism or bad treatment, even when she was company commander. Older male soldiers may not have liked a young woman being in charge, but they never complained or failed to follow orders.

Brown has since been honorably discharged from the military after eight years of service. Her husband will soon do the same. He is currently teaching for Army ROTC at Oregon State University.

Brown said her experience in the military was invaluable, and she'd like to see every young American have to go through some sort of civil service, whether it be military or Americorps or some other service activity.

"I think people would take citizenship much more seriously," Brown said.

Book facts

"Band of Sisters," is available for purchase at Border's Books, Powell's Books, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and Walmart. Author Kirsten Holmstedt is scheduled to appear on "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" later this week. The book is being released today, July 4, by publisher Stackpole Books with a list price of $27.95. For more information about the book, see http://bandofsistersbook.com.