For the past few years, Mary Jennings Hegar has been transitioning to executive coach and consultant in Austin, Texas — where she now resides.

She’s transitioning … from hero.

Back in 2009, the medevac chopper she was co-piloting as a member of the Air National Guard was shot down by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Despite an injured arm, she returned fire “while hanging onto a moving helicopter, which saved the lives of her crew and her patients.”

This detail, a story of courage Hollywood would be envious of, was included in a recent interview the veteran conducted with National Public Radio and Terry Gross. In addition to discussing her new memoir — Shoot like a Girl — she weighed in on a subject she was instrumental in altering: allowing women to take on combat roles in the military (in 2012 she was a plaintiff in an ACLU lawsuit against the Pentagon where they claimed the whole thing unconstitutional).

Her stance is clear and pulls no punches: physical strength is not the deciding factor in determining who can make on the battlefield, and who cannot.

“It’s who is the best with their weapons, who is the best tactical thinker … who holds their composure when the bullets fly. I’ve seen 200-lb. men curl up in the fetal position and call for their moms before, just by the nature of my business.”

More on the subject of allowing women to fight and the concerns, via NPR:

“They range from concerns that are very legitimate and need to be carefully considered to concerns that are absolutely ridiculous. I think the No. 1 thing that pops up in people’s mind is the physical strength issue and whether or not women are physically strong enough to be in combat, which I answer with a couple things: First of all, we’ve already disproven that that’s an issue because there are women serving successfully in combat. Most combat is not a hand-to-hand knife battle that the person who can do the most push-ups is going to end up winning. That’s just not the face of modern warfare right now. …

“I [was] in medevac, so I [saw] people having their hardest day. I’ve seen firsthand that the warrior spirit is not directly proportional to how many pull-ups you can do. … In my opinion, you keep the standards very high and you maintain one standard. There shouldn’t be two standards for women and men, there should be a standard for this job: To do this job, you should have to do these things. And those requirements should be job-specific and not arbitrarily high in order to specifically keep women out.”

Also from the interview, on being a “warrior and a mother”:

“I think of myself as a bit of a mother bear, and if anybody poses a threat to my kids they’ll see both my mother’s heart and my warrior spirit. I think that they’re compatible. Throughout history, there’s examples of women who have been mothers and gone on to lead in combat — Queen Boudicca is one that I can think of. … So I believe that being a mother and a warrior are absolutely compatible. In fact, I think the things about me that make me a good warrior are the things that make me a good mother: My steadfast commitment to integrity and excellence and putting others before myself and being protective. I tap on those same things as a mother.”

For her service, Hegar received the Purple Heart and the Distinguished Flying Cross with a Valor Device.