My wifes best friend from high school is being deployed to Iraq in a few weeks. She is attachted to an aircav unit as their chemical officer. Can she take a personal weapon like a .45?

Unless your a General Officer than no. CENTCOMs GENERAL ORDER number 1 states amongst other things NO PERSONNAL OWNED WEAPONS. I just got back from my second trip over there and did have the help of Judge Advacate General on thing. Got a ruling that air rifles are not firearms and I was allowed with my commands approval to take a air rifle for recreational use, marksmanship training and pest control (killed 70 mice with traps in 6 weeks).

CD

General is a little above her pay grade right now, Guess she is stuck with a 9mm

My wifes best friend from high school is being deployed to Iraq in a few weeks. She is attachted to an aircav unit as their chemical officer. Can she take a personal weapon like a .45?

It's a supply issue. If personal weapons were allowed then the Quartermaster Corps would have thousands of tons of M-16s and the ammo, with hundreds of tons of 9mms and ammo. With tens of thousands of resupply requests for 7.62 and 45acp ammo.
In the current military doctrine the line grunt is supposed to shoot the enemy a little bit, the Spec. Ops, artillry and air support are supposed to do the killing.
Jim

She can use the issue 9mm ! She can also sneak in her own special 9mm ammo ! She isn't going to need much just 50 rounds at most ! I brought my own pistol to Nam so did our Chaplin ! He brought a double barrel 12 gauge sawed off !JAGG

I guess they are applying the Geneva Convention to the insurgents over there aren't they? If it would be me, I would be issuing hydra-shoks and Nosler partitions!