Anne Marie Waite served in the U.S. Army from 1975 until 1998. National Women's Veterans Day means the world to her.

"It's about time that they did something for the women in the service," said Waite. "When I came home from the Army, I thought there would be more Vietnam female vets, but I found out there wasn't."

Her brother served in Vietnam and she followed his path.

"I had to make my mind up," said Waite. "I was kind of a tomboy anyway. If my brother was doing something, I was going to do it too, from a little kid on. He had already served in the Army. I just had that attitude; I would just do what he did."

"I told [my brother] I was going in, and I asked him what I should do," said Waite. "He said, 'You should just keep your mouth shut.'"

Waite's early years in the military were certainly her most challenging.

"When I told them I was going to Vietnam, and of course, he had already served, he looked at me and said, 'Are you crazy?'," said Waite. "He thought I was just nuts for a female to go to Vietnam. I worked on the POW MIA teams. It was hard. It was a lot of walking through the jungles and digging up what we thought might be remains from the US and that sort of thing and having to identify with all that. It was a really hard job."