She was one of the first women in the Marine Corps to serve on the front lines in Iraq as part of the pioneering Lioness program — a select group of female Marines embedded with combat units to perform a mission male Marines could not.
She deployed to Iraq twice. Her first deployment in 2005–2006 took her to Taqaddum (TQ) and Habbaniyah as a field wireman, ensuring communications stayed online in combat zones.
On her second deployment in 2008, she joined India Battery, 3rd Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment as part of the Lioness program.
Her mission: work at entry control points to search Iraqi women for weapons, cash, and explosives — a dangerous job that often placed her alongside combat troops, even though her role wasn’t officially considered “combat” at the time.
The Lioness program, later expanded into the Marine Corps’ Female Engagement Teams, became a crucial countermeasure against insurgents using women to smuggle contraband and carry out attacks.
In recent years, the Lioness name has gained renewed attention thanks to the Paramount+ series Special Ops: Lioness. While the show dramatizes the work as a CIA-led spy mission, Estrada’s real experience was a lot less Hollywood — and far more dangerous.
Now, more than a decade later, Estrada has begun telling her story publicly, revealing spicy details about her service, her life after the Marine Corps, and the challenges she’s faced since leaving the military.
Some of those details are deeply personal — the kind of things you won’t find in official records or press releases.
Read the full uncensored version — which includes her uncensored images— on The Salty Soldier Uncensored.
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