To ring in her twenty-first birthday on February 18, 2007, Amy Folwell gripped a can of Bud Light in one hand and her military-issued rifle in the other.
“My [Gunnery Sergeant] gave me the beer and said, ‘If you die in service, at least you’ve had your first legal drink,’” Folwell, now 37, a medically-retired Lance corporal of the United State Marine Corps, told The Post.
“It was pretty exciting,” she said.
The Rochester native’s personal milestone coincided with her first day of deployment to Ar-Rutbah, Iraq, where she served as a “Lioness” with the First Battalion, Second Marines Alpha company for three months.
As a Lioness — a team of intrepid women soldiers quietly established by the Marine Corps in 2003 — Folwell was one of the three female troopers to be attached to a combat unit.
Stationed at the gates of the Korean Village territory, she was tapped to search Iraqi women and children for arms and bombs.
The trailblazing Lionesses served as the inspiration for Paramount’s forthcoming action thriller “Special Ops: Lioness,” which debuts Sunday and stars Zoe Saldaña, 45, alongside Oscar winners Nicole Kidman, 56, and Morgan Freeman, 86.
The eight-part series — a brainchild of Taylor Sheridan, the visionary behind “Yellowstone” and “Sons of Anarchy” — follows the journey of a young Marine named Cruz Manuelos (Laysla De Oliveria, 31, of Netflix’s “Locke & Key”).
She’s recruited by the CIA’s Lioness Engagement Team to befriend the daughter of a terrorist group leader in an effort to ravage the criminal organization.
Saldaña, who plays “Joe,” the station chief charged with readying new recruits for undercover operations, explains the significance of the niche program to De Oliveira’s “Manuelos” in the first episode, noting the evolution of their task force’s duties over the past two decades.
“When the Lioness team was first formed we needed female soldiers to frisk and interrogate female insurgents,” she says.
“What we do now is locate the wives and the girlfriends and daughters of these high value targets and we place an operative close to them,” continues Joe. “The operative makes friends with them, earns their trust, leads us to the target and we kill the target.”
Folwell’s responsibilities didn’t center around covert espionage, but says serving as a Lioness was “life changing” — both for the good and the bad.
“We made sure that everyone was safe and no one was carrying any weapons of mass destruction or [improvised explosive devices (IEDs)] or anything that could cause damage throughout the village,” she told The Post. “We conducted humanitarian aid missions and went to refugee camps where we supplied water and food.”
“It was very exciting and incredibly humbling.”
Folwell’s was a groundbreaking post.
In October 1994, nearly a decade before the Lioness program was launched, servicewomen werebanned from ground combat due to its deadly risks.
However in the early 2000s, owing to the U.S. military’s post-9/11 presence in the Middle East, women warriors were needed to engage with female civilians in ways male soldiers couldn’t without causing cultural and religious offense. (The ban on women in combat was officially lifted in 2013).
In the 2015 book “Ashley’s War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield,” author Gayle Tzemach Lemmon told tells the journey of late 1st Lieutenant Ashley White-Stumpf, who ferociously fought with the U.S. Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment in Afghanistan in late 2011. White-Stumpf was killed during an IED bombing on Oct. 22 of that year — she was one of three soldiers to die during the explosion.
“Make no mistake about it, these women are warriors,” said Lt. Gen. John Mulholland, head of Army Special Operations Command, per Lemmon. “They absolutely will write a new chapter in the role of women soldiers in the United States Army and our military, and every single one of them have proven equal to the test.”
And Folwell is proud to among them.
She spontaneously enlisted in the military at age 20 with a recruiter that she spotted at a local mall.
At the time she was a Monroe Community College undergrad, juggling two part-time jobs in attempt to make ends meet while pursuing a degree in political science. Despite her heavy workload, Folwell felt her life was “going no where fast,” and wanted to contribute to society in a more meaningful way — the honorable way that her oldest brother, an Army veteran, and grandfather, a retired serviceman, had done.
And she says every day as a Lioness in Iraq made her increasingly grateful for her privileges in the U.S.
“It was life changing to go from being in our a great nation, where everything is basically handed to you,” she said, “then going over there and seeing the difference between how we live and how [Iraqis] live. They’re in handmade huts, but they’re so happy.”
Although Folwell’s experience overseas was mostly positive, it wasn’t without damage.
“I sustained a traumatic brain injury after being hit by an IED during a convoy,” she said. Following the attack, she retired. Folwell returned to the U.S. on September 11, 2007, and is now a mother of two and a social worker.
And while she still suffers from PTSD, migraines, anxiety, and sleep issues sustained during her service, she refuses to let the impediments define her.
“I’m just thankful to be alive. Not everyone over there was so fortunate,” Folwell said, noting that another female soldier had been killed in a suicide bombing at her forward operating base, or FOB, just a month before she arrived in the war zone.
She’s too thankful that the Lioness team, and servicewomen as a whole, are getting the recognition that they deserve.
“Women are needed in duty much more then they’re given credit for,” said Folwell. “It should be know that there are women in combat doing great things.”
