USUALLY at this time of year, as Bermuda along with other Commonwealth countries commemorates the November 11 Remembrance Day observances (and America observes Veterans Day), I write a Commentary that looks at World War One (1914-18) and World War Two (1939-45) from the point of view of the non-white participants in those two great 20th century global conflicts. But I am somewhat late off the mark in terms of my research this year due to the fact I've been absorbed by the recently concluded American Presidential election which resulted in the first African-American Barack Hussein Obama - being voted into the White House.

So this year I am going to do something a little different. Apart from my ongoing focus for the last decade or so on non-white participation in the two great World Wars, I have from time to time highlighted an equally ignored aspect of warfare - the role of women in warfare.

At least from the Western point of view, the idea of placing women in combat situations has been frowned upon until relatively recently.

It's only since the Vietnam War that women - aside from nurses and doctors attached to military medical units - have started to find themselves on the front lines in wars. Really, until the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, there has not neen a high level of female participation.

But if you look back in history, we have seen women warriors during modern times that we have seen women playing the role of soldiers in warfare.

The Candace, the warrior queens of the ancient African kingdom of Kush, dominated the warfare - and the politics - of that ancient land. that is today known as Ethiopia. Women played prominent roles in affairs of the state, occupying positions of power and prestige, the natural outgrowth of which was the development of a line of warrior queens. Unlike the queens of Egypt who derived power from their husbands, the Queens of Kush were independent rulers. They became known as Candaces, a corruption of the word Kentake. The word is a transcription of the Meroitic ktke or kdke, which means "queen mother".

What little is known of the Candaces was learned primarily from Roman sources and more recently from excavations, iconography, and inscriptions on monuments. Classical writers have attested to their power and leadership. One of them is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (8:28-39) where, on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza, Philip converted "an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, that is, the queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury..." The Candaces have repeatedly appeared in the writings of classical authors. Alexander The Great visited a Candace and legend has it that she would not let him enter Ethiopia and warned him not to despise them because they were black for, "We are whiter and brighter in our souls than the whitest of you."

More recently, also in Africa, there is a story told of a little-known woman leader and her army of fierce women warriors.

While it is true that in the beginning of the African slave trade, there were Africans themselves who collaborated in that industry based on human bondage, not all Africans parrticipated.

Many resisted the European attempts to carry away their fellow Africans to the New World. And none fought as fiercely as Nzingha as written about in J.A. Rogers' book World's Great Men of Colour.

Better known as Ann Zingha (pictured at left), she was the renowned warrior queen of Matamba situated in modern day Angola located in south west Africa.

She was born in 1582 around the time the Portuguese began to explore that part of Africa, establishing trading posts on the coast which later would aid in the infamous slave trade.

The Portuguese were the first Europeans to engage in the African slave trade, however Queen Nzingha did not take their presence lightly as she and her army of women warriors resisted the Portuguese encroachments. Queen Nzinghasisted the Portuguese colonisation of Angola until her death at age 81.

In Europe there is the story of Boudica (also known as Boadicea )queen of the Iceni tribe of what is now known as East Anglia in England. She led an uprising of the tribes against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire.

Boudica was known to exhort her troops from her chariot, her daughters beside her. Roman historian Tacitus recorded a short speech she gave to her people in which she presented herself not as an aristocrat avenging privileges and wealth lost to the Romans but as an ordinary person, avenging her lost freedom, her battered body, and the abused chastity of her daughters. Their cause was just, and the deities were on their side; the one legion that had dared to face them had been destroyed. She, a woman, was resolved to win or die; if the men wanted to live in slavery, that was their choice. Although ultimately defeated by the larger, better armed Roman forces her name lived on in history.

Then there was also Joan of Arc, who during the Hundred Year War between France and England rallied her French countrymen to resist the English invasion of France.

She led the battle to lift the siege of the city of Orleans but was captured by the English and burned at the stake enduring martyrdom much like Bermuda's own Sally Bassett.

Today, in the 21st century, women are engaged in armed conflict on a regular basis. In the relatively recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the West has seemingly lost its timidity about deploying women in combat zones. They are engaged in fighting in both countries on a regular basis,

Both the British and the Americans have allowed their servicewomen to enter the sharp end of those conflicts and both have suffered casualties with women both killed and wounded in action (the Americans have sustained far higher casualties than the UK).

However it was the Russians who first allowed the full participation of women in their combat units during the defence of their nation in World War Two (called "The Great Patriotic War" in the countries of the former Soviet Union). In 1941, when the Nazis launched their surprise invasion of the Russian homeland, no less than a million Russian women served in their country's armed forces when the country faced its greatest peril and was in imminent danger of being completely overrun by the Germans.

On the ground, as part of the Red Army, there were more than 100,000 female snipers.

Women served in air defence units making up almost 25 per cent of the crews manning anti-aircraft batteries. Half the battlefield surgeons in field hospitals were women.

There were communication troops and engineer troops. They served in the coastal naval units protecting Russia's coasts. The Red Army had what it called political officers attached to its military units, many of them women. A political officer's role in the military was to enforce the Communist ideology and a Socialist view of the world. Thousands of Russian women served in the Russian Air Force during World War II both as ground crews and pilots. Women racked an impressive combat record flying numerous combat missions against the once undefeatable German Luftwaffe. They flew in all-female units and mixed flying crews of both male and female, with one of the most famous known as "The Night Witches". This all-female Russian dive bomber squadron struck fear in the German invaders. Flying the Po-2 trainer designed by N.N. Polikarpov, this aeroplane carrying a crew of two was converted into an effective short-range night bomber.

One of the tactics used was to switch off their engine and gliding to their targets. The luckless Germans often never knew what hit them as the bombs fell on target.

Thousands of Russian women patriots lost their lives defending their Russian homeland. They joined the 30 million Russians both civilian and military who gave up their lives during World War II, the largest loss of life suffered by the nations involved in that world conflict.

As I mentioned women have been deployed on a large scale in the war against terrorism.

Recently a British female soldier was killed in Afghanistan, but by far it is the Americans who have deployed the greater number of female service personnel serving in those combat zones.

More than 155,000 women in uniform have been sent to both Afghanistan and Iraq. That is four times as many as were deployed in the first Iraq war, Desert Storm. Over 70 have died in combat and more than 450 have been wounded.

In the book Band of Sisters:American Women at War in Iraq by Kirsten Holmstedt (see cover below left), a graduate of Drake University school of Journalism and the University of North Carolina Wilmington's master of fine arts programme, their story is told.

The book tells the stories of a dozen American women who have experienced combat first-hand in these conflicts. including the US's first female pilot to be shot down and survive, the military's first black female pilot in combat; a 21-year-old turret gunner defending convoys; a Marine Lance Corporal caught in a bloody fire fight; and a military nurse struggling to save the lives of the wounded as heavy fighting took place all around her.

One story moved me in particular. And it underscored the sacrifices women soldiers make for their country.

It involved the experiences of Army Major L. Duckworth who lost most of both legs after the helicopter in which she was flying was shot down. As one service woman was quoted in the book: "We love our country as much as any man, and we have made the same sacrifices as our brothers in arms".

There is no real glory in war, but there is honour in serving one's country if you have to go to war.

When the monuments are erected to the fallen of these most recent wars, I expect to see the face of a woman represented alongside those of her male brothers in arms.