Major Sherry Womack broke ground by serving with all-male green beret units. In 2005, she was the first female physician’s assistant to accompany Army Special Operations Forces into Afghanistan. She used new and untested equipment such as this phraselator to assist in translating phrases into the local language, Pashto.

The weatherproof handheld language translation device plays pre-recorded foreign language MP3 files. Users can select a phrase from an English list on the screen or use a speech recognition function. The device can also record replies for translation later. The accuracy of the speech recognition software is over 70 percent.

Image: thanks to the US Army Women’s Museum