I didn't want to get pregnant while commanding an assault helicopter company and, before I knew it, I was deployed and missed out on many of my childbearing years.

As an assistant operations officer for a helicopter task force in Iraq, I saw my fellow Guardsmen and soldiers risk life and limb to maintain diesel fuel supply lines.

As I recovered at Walter Reed, I worried about the soldiers who pulled me out of my helicopter that Friday afternoon. Would they make it back okay? And what about all the other soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen who were also putting their lives on the line every day?

I had been pursuing a Ph.D. in political science when my National Guard unit was sent to Iraq. Eight months into our deployment, in November 2004, a rocket-propelled grenade fired by Iraqi insurgents tore through the pilot's side of the Blackhawk helicopter I was flying.

The power of the ADA is that it ended up changing my life long before I ever imagined it would.

I think back to the 1990s, when I joined the Army, and all those peacetime years that we had, thinking, 'Will we ever go into combat?'