Our neighbor’s daughter joined the army after high school and is a medic. She spent her first tour in a base hospital in Iraq. She didn’t care for that as she was usually taking care of locals and not our guys.
For her second tour she requested to be on patrol in Afghanistan, where she was sent again for a second tour. She said along with treating her guys when they were wounded, she was also an important part of the community relations bit when they would get to a village and she could treat the women and girls, which gained the trust of many more of the villagers. Who were then more likely to point out where the bad guys were, mined roads, etc. the male medic took care of the men and boys, but not quite the same thing.
I imagine she would be the first to agree that she couldn’t do all that her guys could do on the physical level. But by being a female - she also served a very important role that none of the guys could.
Which is exactly the point, I'm sure her fellow soldiers felt the same way.