women in combat......

ok, so let us no forget women who fought bravely/served in battle on this memorial day weekend.....the photos i have seen thus far of vets arriving in washington dc for the wwII memorial were men......women in combat have an unlikely heroine to look up to...it was on this day in 1431 that Joan of Arc was burned at the stake for heresy in Rouen, France. She was an ordinary French peasant girl, living during the Hundred Years War between France and England. When she was still a teenager, she heard the voice of God telling her to join the battle and help defeat the English army. She performed a series of apparent miracles and persuaded the French army to let her command a group of soldiers. At the battle of Orleans, she led the revitalized French army, bearing a flag with Jesus’ name written across it, and the English were defeated. She continued fighting battles until May 23, 1430, when she was captured by enemy soldiers. They turned her over to the church to be tried as a heretic, idolater, and sorcerer. Her enemies believed that the only way they could have lost in battle to a woman was if she had been using witchcraft. She was mostly forgotten for about 400 years, and then she was revived as a patriotic figure during the French revolution. In 1920 she was canonized as a saint by Pope Benedict the Fifteenth. She is the only person ever burned at the stake for heresy who later became a saint. The file on her at the Vatican is still sealed. joan really must have been incredible......many movies made of her, but now when i think of joan, , i see eowyn with helmet on and sword in hand...standing up to the witch king.......with the truly great screen line......i am no man........which she pronounces just before destroying him.........curious that the vatican would have kept joan's file sealed.......joan of arc: the secret vatican file sounds like a good movie concept.....