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"My source told me that during one of those December strategy meetings, military planners were throwing out lots of ideas for innovations to rout the Taliban - including unmanned recon aircraft that later were armed with missiles.

"The terrain of Afghanistan made it an ideal potential testing ground for the yet-to-be-deployed Reconnaissance, Surveillance, Target Acquisition [RSTA] squadrons of what were then called "Interim" (now Stryker) Brigade Combat Teams [SBCTs]. The squadrons are designed to work with local people, and to fight for information on the ground, if necessary."

Donnelly says the source disclosed that someone came up with the idea of sending some of the RSTA troops over there early - more than a year before scheduled deployment - in order to learn some "real-time" lessons under fire.

And herein the bombshell: "The idea was squelched, however, because someone mentioned that there were female soldiers being trained in the first of these outfits, being formed at Fort Lewis, Washington.

It appears that you are speculating that an idea that was only trained for was deployed to Afghanistan. They have very few women soldiers in Strykers in Iraq, if any at all.