A transgender Alabama combat veteran criticized President Donald Trump on Wednesday for tweeting that transgender people will not be allowed to serve in any capacity in the U.S. military.

Junea Childers saw combat during the 1983 conflict in Beirut, when she lined up missile and gunnery targets for nine months as an operations specialist in the U.S. Navy's intelligence corps.

Now the 52-year-old transgender woman says she is upset by the fact that a president who never served a single day in the military appears to be unilaterally banning her fellow transgender Americans from doing so.

"Why in the world would he try to pick on transgender people? I just don't understand why he'd just step on people who are serving their country," Childers, a resident of an unincorporated Walker County community called Empire, told AL.com Wednesday.

"If I was in the military at this time I would have to say that Mr. Trump is wrong. And I'm sure that many other people in the military who are transgender individuals also feel that he would have to walk a mile in our shoes before he could say that because he has not been in the military himself."

Trump issued a series of three tweets Wednesday morning laying out an apparent new policy barring transgender people from serving in the nation's armed services:

After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow...... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017

....Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming..... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017

....victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017

On Thursday, the Pentagon clarified that despite Trump's tweets, the military's policy allowing transgender people to serve has not been officially rolled back.

Childers says she first publicly presented as female while serving in Beirut in 1983 by wearing women's clothing during a shopping trip to the military mall in the war-torn Lebanese capital.

She did not have the courage to openly express her true gender identity again until 2000, when she says she became part of the growing online transgender community. She began cross-gender hormone replacement therapy more than 15 years ago, and lives to this day as an openly transgender woman.

But she had to travel a long road marked by fear, lack of acceptance and being targeted by a wide range of threats and insults to get to where she is today.

"In my day, I had to hide myself as being a transgender person [in the military] by wearing things under my clothes so I could keep myself grounded," Childers said. "Back when I was in the military it was something that wasn't talked about - being gay or transgender."

She says that transgender friends of hers who served in the military years ago have told her they had to hide their gender identity in order to get by in the service.

"They had to serve as women, but they were transgender men," she said. "During the time they were in the service, even though they were dressing male-like and everything, they had to go under the guise of being a lesbian."

The prospect of a return to those "dark days" before service members were able to be openly transgender worries Childers in the wake of Trump's tweets.

"If they try to go back to the old way and everything, they're going to deplete the force because for a long time, even before I was in the service, there were gay people and transgender people in the service but they just couldn't be out the way they can today," she explained.

But she does see some hope, as she was pleasantly surprised - though she questions his motivations - to see that U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican who is conservative on many issues, said on CNN Wednesday that "[y]ou ought to treat everybody fairly and give everybody a chance to serve."

Childers said she has called Shelby's office about issues concerning transgender service members in the past, but did not have much luck securing his support for the community.

Meanwhile, Sen. Luther Strange, also an Alabama Republican, expressed his support for Trump's stance Wednesday.

"The U.S. Military is no place for social experiments. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, my first priority is to ensure the readiness of our military," Strange said.

"President Trump's concerns are well-founded, and I support reexamining any DoD policy that may hinder the ability of America's fighting forces to execute their missions effectively."

Still, Childers is heartened to see that at least Shelby appears to oppose Trump's newly stated stance on transgender people serving in the military.

"I'm really unsure why he would come out in support of that, honestly," she said. "He probably had some people like myself who spoke to him about what they did in the service. I'm imagining that changed his mind somehow; that's the only thing I can figure."