“What do you think about women being allowed in the infantry?” This
is how my morning started today as I was walking into the shop from
chow, coffee in hand, and some soldiers waiting for a promotion board
were talking and stopped me. “Is this a hot topic for you guys these days?” I asked. Head nods all around. So I stopped and talked to them for a while.
Here is why this is a topic of conversation in the infantry world:
1. The Marines are allowing women to attend infantry officer school http://www.nytimes.com/2012/
2. The Army is considering allowing women to attend Ranger school http://www.armytimes.com/news/
3. Two female Army Reservists are suing DoD to reverse military policies barring women from combat roles http://www.nytimes.com/2012/
I think I am in an interesting position to comment on this. For
one, I am currently serving at the battalion level and spend a great
deal of time at the company level – often commented on these days in the
news because current policy prevents women from being “assigned” to
battalions, so we are “attached.” This doesn’t make me hard core or anything like that – for one thing, I just followed orders that told me to hop on a bird here. And
in addition to the FET, there are female soldiers that are cooks,
working for the supply/support company, in the MP platoons, medics, the
BDE psychologist, and a USAID civilian. About half of us have regular OTW missions.
Secondly, the infantry soldiers and I both realize my “place.” They know I’m an AF JAG. They sort of understand my role and what I’m doing here (enough that they no longer fear I am here to investigate them). And bottom line, no one thinks I’m itching to sign up for the infantry so I’m not a “threat” to their world as they know it.
The
refreshing thing about talking to these soldiers was that none of them
questioned whether women could do the job (“I know a lot of women that
are smarter and in better shape than I am”). They also went to great pains to not sound “sexist” in talking about it. Their
fallback position on why women shouldn’t be allowed in the infantry is
that the “knight in shining armor” innate in all men will emerge and
they will ignore sound tactics and orders to “save” female infantrymen
in trouble (damsel in distress argument?). They cited to me “studies” to this effect. “Oh yeah, what study, I’d be interested to read,” I said in all seriousness. “Well, I personally haven’t seen…” Rumor mill at its finest. I
acknowledged their concerns and also pointed out the microscope and
pressure the first women that enter the infantry will be under. I
talked to the FET OIC about this and we talked about the reality now
when we are out on patrols – there is no extra security and we aren’t
treated any differently. The soldiers apologize sometimes
for their language or crass stories they tell and in general you get the
feeling that they just aren’t terribly used to working (much less
fighting) with women. The FET also told me that many of
the soldiers’ wives were not happy when they found out they’d be
deploying with a FET team – we laughed and rolled our eyes at this
(military wives, your husbands can cheat on you just as easily at home
as deployed). At the end of the day I think it’s likely a question of “when” not “if” this change is coming. Will there be some bumps and bruises? No doubt. But
in the long run, I’d have a hard time thinking of any civilian career
field or military MOS/AFSC that has been hurt by opening its doors to
women – and would argue that more often than not the opposite has been
the case.
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