A former Philadelphia Eagles cheerleader Rachel Washburn changed careers and became an Army Intelligence officer. She served as part of a special mission to relate to local women in ways that would be culturally inappropriate for male troops.
Prior to her first eight-month tour in Afghanistan in 2011-12, she became part of a new "Cultural Support Team" program to attach women to special ops units to relate to Afghan women. Near the end of her first deployment, on the day her unit was supposed to leave a village, a snowstorm hit. She and her partner learned a local woman had gone into labor. Her husband was unable to get her to a midwife. The husband did not want male troops to see her. Washburn and her partner took the woman in a military vehicle to their unit's mud hut. On an Army radio, a special ops medic helped them deliver the baby.
Washburn said she has about a year left in the Army, but she is considering signing on for a few more years.
