Tiffany Patterson is currently enrolled at Iowa State University, where she is studying Animal Science, but recently decided that she wanted to do more.
Little did she know, she would soon be making history.
Patterson enlisted in the Army National Guard as an Infantry soldier, which makes her the first woman to ever enlist in the infantry in Iowa.
Five years ago, the U.S. Army opened combat arms positions to women. All infantry soldiers must complete a 22-week training course, where they learn many skills including squad tactic and close-quarter combat training.
Patterson has recently completed her basic training at Fort Benning in Georgia with Company C, 168th Infantry. She is now one of 9,000 service members in the Iowa National Guard.
Patterson credits her success thus far to her drill sergeants and family.
She realizes that there are a lot of men who don’t think females are able to succeed in the same training and tasks as they can, but she is proud to say that she’s continuing to prove them wrong.
“I’m really excited to prove that females are just as able as the males are,” she told Inside Edition.
Despite institutional and cultural barriers, women are achieving greater seniority and leadership across the services, according to CNAS.
Since women were allowed to serve in all positions except those in direct ground combat roles, more women were able to achieve general officer rank than their soldier counterparts.
The number of women in all of the branches has been rising slowly but surely in recent years, and women service members have been integrating combat arms jobs more each year as well.
The 19 Army jobs previously closed to women were opened in 2015, including infantry, armor, cavalry, fire support, and special forces. Women have now been serving as leaders of Marine Corps platoons, Air Force Air Wings, combat vessels, howitzer section chiefs, and numerous Army units.