Woman originally housing soldiers in old volunteer force (5)
I believe the answer is:
thora
'old volunteer force' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I cannot judge whether it can be defined by this definition.
'woman originally housing soldiers' is the wordplay.
'woman' becomes 'Ora'.
'originally' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other) (some letters go before others).
'housing soldiers' becomes 'th' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'ora' put after 'th' is 'THORA'.
'in' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for thora that I've seen before include "Hat or change for a girl" , "Actress, dame, who died in 2003" , "Woman" , "lady" .)