First three Army “combat arms” females join their unit
The Stars & Stripes report that Pfc. Melissa Czarnogursky, Pvt. Degraff and Pvt. Larissa Schwerin, the first female fire directions specialists have all reported to their unit, the 41st Fires Brigade at Fort Hood, TX. As with most Fort Hood units, they immediately went to the field;
The women arrived at Fort Hood about a month ago, and almost immediately went into the field for a training exercise that lasted about a week and a half. They said they were happy to get a quick immersion into the unit, and learn new aspects of their job. But Degraff said she was also surprised at how friendly everyone was.
“They showed us the ropes,” she said of her fellow soldiers. “They just wanted to show us how to do our jobs the best way.”
Czarnogursky said the unit made an effort to make sure the women fit in and didn’t feel separated from the rest of the soldiers.
Still, Degraff said it was kind of strange to arrive and have everyone already know who they were.
“I don’t see us as different than anybody else,” she said. “The only thing different is where we go to the bathroom.”
The three women said the job can be challenging, but nothing a woman couldn’t do.
Well, that was painless, I guess, well, except for the social engineers who were hoping for some difficulties so they can throw fingers and call someone some names. But, then being a fire directions specialist is just barely combat arms. But, nonetheless, I’m proud of these ladies because they did what no one before them has done, and they’re not complaining about it.
Category: Military issues
Pat, that’s the problem: assign 10 junior females to a unit of 25 troops and the dynamic or balance of the unit holds up. Make it two or three out of 25, with one of them being a lazy, self-involved twerp, and it throws everything out of balance. The obvious solution is to make sure the balance is maintained and that a hostile atmosphere isn’t created, and for someone like the female you described, who knows how to milk the system, if you can’t find a senior female NCO with some common sense to get advice, you’re kind of stuck. I’ve worked in a hostile work environment in the Navy, with a newly-minted CPO (E-7) who was also a mysogynistic gay guy trying to hide it by walking up behind one of the three of us women and snapping the old bra strap. This was a small division of 10 people, 8 of us E-3 to E-5, the chief and a WO. I did film editing, which is a precise skill that requires full attention, and if you are constantly on the alert for an ‘attack’ of some kind, you can’t do your job. So I went to the WO and asked him to put a stop to it, and he told me to handle it, like I was REALLy allowed to punch a chief petty officer. When the three of us women asked him, as a group to put a stop to it, he sat on his behind. Granted, I could have punched the chief out or asked some guys out of the division to whack him, and he shouldn’t have been in charge of anything more important than asking ‘would you like fries with that’, but I ran into the same thing in the civilian work place. The difference is, in the civilian work place the guy got fired. I think what the military has to do is snap out of the PC mentality and put qualified people into proper slots, with an eye to having some no-nonsense female NCO (someone like me), who can deal with female… Read more »
Ex-PH2: your recommendation would work if the military were 40% female, and if females were uniformly distributed among MOSs/rates. That’s not the case.
Women comprise approx 15% of the military. 15% of 25 is roughly 4. So on raw numbers alone, getting 10 of 25 females in most units isn’t going to happen. Raw numbers would dictate 1 unit with the “desired” gender mix for roughly 3 that were all-male.
Further, women aren’t equally distributed throughout military MOSs/rates. Because of that, in some units you could get 40% females without “rigging” assignments. In other types, no way.
“Rigging” assignments to get the desired gender ratio has its own set of problems. Aside from the personnel headache (are you going to code some billets “female only” – if so, get ready for discrimination claims from both genders), this will lead to a mix of “female rich” and “female deficient” (or all-male) units. I will guarantee you commanders will take that into account when assigning units their missions. That will in turn adversely affect morale – in both types of units.
Bottom line: this problem has no easy solutions. And the problem is going to be hugely worse in the combat arms specialties due to the relatively small fraction of women who will end up serving in combat-arms units voluntarily.
You said it, Hondo. If the military in general expects me to take it seriously, I’d expect more female recruiting to create a better balance. I would also like to see an option for those who don’t want positions in combat theaters.
When I was in the Navy, women were 10% of the total Navy force, put into shore duty slots to release men to sea-going and combat positions.
But that was before all this asinine PC/social engineering started up, resulting what is going on now. That method is making a mess out of the military, and hamstringing people like Pat.
Ex-PH2: we’ve had an all-volunteer military for over 40 years now (the last guy to report for the draft did so in mid-1973 after being drafted in 1972). As I recall, the percentage of females voluntarily enlisting has never been more than about 20% of the total.
Marketing ain’t gonna change that fact. Women simply don’t join up in the same numbers as do men.
Further: even if it does, you’re gonna have one helluva time making that mix work for all MOSs/rates – even if a unisex draft is instituted in the future. Why? Because men are simply on average bigger/stronger/faster/more aggressive than women. For some jobs, that’s not an issue. For the ground combat arms – yeah, it’s a game-changer (or as the VP might say, a “BFD”). Unless you advocate changing the job’s standards to “gender normed” versions, precious few women are going to be able to physically qualify for most ground combat arms specialties.
I’d also be very wary of using the “these ladies made it, so anyone can” argument. The ladies referenced in this article are in one of the few Army combat MOSs for which the physical demands are nowhere near as extreme as most. It’s one of the few combat-arms specialties where IMO women in general might be able to handle the physical demands.
Also IMO, there aren’t many others.
Mere civilian talking here, but one with experience.
What you are talking about here are command failures. Women differ from men both physically, culturally, and socially, and those differences DO yield difficulties that require a different set of responses from those involving a homogenous grouping.
I can completely understand a man being baffled by the chaos caused by a woman of bad character. I’ve been baffled by it, myself, and I am sensitive to it, because I have lived in both worlds. This may be hard to believe, but, in the same company, in the same set of rooms, the women and the men exist in different societies. The women may know it, the men usually don’t, and frankly, I could do without the female society. The real problems arise when the leader fails to recognize the signs and importance of bad female behavior, and therefore fails to curb or eliminate it.
The key will be to learn how to recognize the special manifestations of female bad character, and manage them. That includes being able to repeat back to a woman of bad character her exact behavior and why it is a problem, as well as booting out the worst of them, just like the worst of the men. The good women will appreciate this as much as the men.
Screw “creating a better balance” … we need killers!
Agreed, Hondo, but if you go back to Pat’s problem at Gitmo, he had two women working for him.
One was a good worker, the other was a goldbricker and pissed off everyone else who worked hard. He didn’t know how to get her motivated because what he was concerned that what he used on the men as a motivator would be considered harrassment if he used it on women. Giving someone a lawful order is not harrassment. Refusal to follow a lawful order is insubordination, as is smarting off at someone. Repeated refusal and insubordination merit being put on report in the Navy. I don’t know what you do in the Army.
So if Pat tells the slacker ‘Get to work’, that’s a lawful order. If he tells her ‘You have to play sex games with me or get demoted’, that is NOT a lawful order.
But the slacker, because she was disruptive and insubordinate should have been written up, sent to mast, and sent packing. It’s what you’d do with men, isn’t it?
I agree that not all rates/MOSs are something women can physically handle. I would never ask for a gunner’s mate position, because they handle the 12 inch guns on the larger ships and I know what the powder charges are like. But this should be in the qualify/don’t qualify part, not assignment because there is an expected ratio to be filled.
valerie: that’s part of the problem. But it’s a part the services for the most part had solved by the early-to-mid 1980s at the latest in units with MOSs/rates that allowed females. It’s a known issue with known solution – good leadership. What you discuss above is indeed a part of the solution.
Significantly, those MOSs/rates in general have physical demands that are for the most part substantially lower than the physical demands in most ground combat MOSs/rates. And even then, many of the female soldiers in those MOSs/rates have significant physical issues regarding duty performance when compared with their male peers. As I noted above: on average men are in general bigger, stronger, and have more endurance than do women. On those parts of their MOS/rate where heavy manual labor is required – and those parts do exist in the combat support/service support MOSs/rates – many women had difficulties.
The combat arms are exceptionally physically demanding. The living conditions under which units in close combat exist are also abysmal. Think just above caveman conditions – literally – ometimes for weeks. And if you’re light infantry, maybe no cave.
Injecting new troops who have the deck stacked against them regarding physical ability into such an environment and who require a very different leadership style is problematic at best. When the job literally involves “kill or be killed, up close and personal”, well . . . . IMO “not a good idea” is the correct assessment. That’s true even without considering the issue of sex.
Ex-PH2: you’re assuming that the operative standards won’t end up being “gender normed” – just like happened to PT-test scores in the 1970s and 1980s – in order to “prove” a politically correct hypothesis.
Maybe I’m just getting old and cynical. But I’ve seen it happen before, and have a feeling history is about to repeat itself with physical standards for those MOSs/rates directly involved in ground combat.
I’m also afraid history will repeat itself in another aspect, and we’ll be doing a postmortem on a future Task Force Smith debacle someday. Just this time for different reasons.
Okay, Hondo, if it’s about troops defending each other, women are in combat zones now and should be able to handle a weapon if they are the only ones left to do so.
The correspondent to this is the Army sending nurses to Vietnam with no training in handling weapons, period. Yet, they were routinely faced with Vietcong prisoners brought to hospitals for treatment prior to questioning and were required to defend a patient on a gurnee if a VC prisoner grabbed a knife from someone and started stabbing the patient. They had NO preparation for it.
That is not saying that female NPs (nurse practitioners) or female HMs (hospital corpsmen) should be required to hit the bush with a platoon of soldiers or Marines, but they should at least have proper training if they have to do so. That’s all.
Ex-PH2: no argument that female Soldiers/Sailors/Airmen/Marines need basic training in weapons, tactics, etc . . . , regardless of assignment or MOS/rate. Even if not in a combat unit/MOS/rate, they may well end up defending their position. They need to know how to do that.
I also have no philosophical problem with women who are physically capable and psychologically tough enough for combat arms assignments receiving same. However, my gut tells me that the number of women who (a) actually can meet current physical standards for combat arms assignments, (b) can sustain those standards over a protracted period of time, and (c) actually want to do so would be so small as to make going that route simply not worth the time and effort, particularly during a time of very lean defense budgets.
What I fear here is a lowering of standards developed over time from bitter experience being lowered in order to further a political goal. The current standards weren’t developed with the intent to keep combat a “boy’s club”. Rather, they were developed to give US troops the best chance to come home alive from combat.
I am all for anyone who can pass the training, ruck up and carry their shit in a combat situation being given a chance. It is just my own experience that gives me pause. I was 198th LIB in Vietnam. The amount we carried over the distances we carried it, just to get to the fight, precluded a lot of guys from 11B under the conditions I experienced. Days and weeks of being in the field under bad conditions and that is putting it mildly is not a place for mixed sexes. I cannot imagine a woman doing the things we did. Yes I understand there are one in a thousand who could pass the training. But then you are left with one woman in the platoon and the resulting issues of male nature. The nature to defend women (sorry that is how I was instinctively raised) and the whole problem of romance in the ranks. The gals this thread is about have found a good MOS for their abilities and I hope they do well. I just do not believe in social experiments when lives are at stake, male or female. I do not believe in gender norming to achieve an experiments desired result. I believe everyone in theater should be well trained on the use of a weapon for reasons Ex-PH2 stated. I am older and perhaps my views show my age. I just think there are things men and women are each naturally built, physically and mentally to do better than the other. Not trying to be a chauvinist. Just looking back on my experience and what I hear from young troops of the Iraq, Afghanistan generation. Combat has not changed much. Better weapons and technology. But seeking out, closing on and killing the enemy is still the same. Sorry for the long post. This is all IMHO and no offense to anyone is intended.
Sigh… EX PH2… yes, in the imaginary, perfect world where everyone is the same, my promlem Soldier would have received some NJP. Things don’t always work as they should. Maybe I’m a really crappy leader. Maybe, as a man raised by my mother and sister, I view women differently. And as a male NCO, I’ve come up in the combat support world and seen what kind of sh!t storms arise when an NCO crosses the wrong female. I might not be the most squared away guy, but I consider myself a rational guy. Most rational people choose the path of least resistance, because at a certain point, the fight just isn’t worth it. People can talk about Army Values and the rest of the bull, but when gender issues are involved, things are different. The Army of today considers everything to be hazing, and everything a leader says is viewed with SHARP/EO in mind. I had a friend get an EO complaint filed against him for saying “God damn!” in complete exasperation over a Soldier. Even if the complaint goes nowhere, the message is sent and it is a total pain in the ass. I imagine that if the Navy of your time ran every Chief thru the wringer for a vulgarity, there would have been no E7s left. If one of my guys did something stupid, I could call him an idiot, give him a menial task, and the next day all would be forgotten. I’m sorry, but it doesn’t work that way with females. Boyfriends, who are also NCOs get pissed and undermine you. Suddenly, you are reminded of every single time you uttered a vulgar word, or even when your Soldiers made an off color joke, not in you presence. Again, message received. Sorry guys, no jokes, period. Hey, that Esquire magazine has a pretty girl on the cover – get rid of it! I’m not saying men and women should not serve together, but right now, DoD treats females as a protected class. When one group is protected, it harms the group that isn’t. By the… Read more »
Pat: I hear they encrypt that sh!t so nobody knows what they do in the Navy, or what grade they are – sometimes including themselves. (smile)
But this might help some:
http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=35533
Pat, you have my sympathy.
Things have changed a whole lot since I was in. I never expected sailors to be angels, but on the other hand, I didn’t expect them to get in my face and tell me dirty jokes just to see how I would react. Where do you think I learned to cuss?
I’m sure I’m far too expletive-loaded for today’s Navy. If DoD expects its idiot ‘experiment’ to succeed, then it needs to stop pretending that it’s quite so tight-assed and admit that some of the women are just as obnoxious, power-hungry and vile as some of the men, and by that, I do NOT mean what they say, or how they say it.
If the military EVER stops being sex-obssessed, somebody please let me know.
15% of the force…ask any CDR, SGM, 1SGT etc… what % of his time is taken handling the female soldier’s issues. I guarantee you it is exponentially greater than 15% of the force.
@66 – Wouldn’t argue with that, but the spoiled brats take up more time and attention than those who are not.
For some reason, these girls seem to view this as a chance to act like the kids who go off to college and spend their time drinking and fooling around instead of studying. Seems like a lot of it is attention-seeking behavior.
Meanwhile, those who work hard are left more and more annoyed and wonder how the slackers get away with it. But I saw it in sailors, too, so it isn’t anything new. Oh, yeah – there may be a direct connection to this slacker population and all those claims of heroic deeds that they didn’t actually do, and awards they didn’t actually get.
Think about that for a second. Starts to make sense, doesn’t it?
Hondo said:
“I’m also afraid history will repeat itself in another aspect, and we’ll be doing a postmortem on a future Task Force Smith debacle someday. Just this time for different reasons.”
It already happened at a small scale with the 507th Maintenance Company goat-rope ( the Jessica Lynch debacle).
That was glossed over with 12 Bronze Stars, 2 Silver Stars and a fluff piece about how well they reacted, even though it was a slaughter.
“Rigging” assignments and more significantly daily duty activities happens without gender being put into the equation as there are sufficient number of males in every war ever fought that lacked the functional (in motion or engaged in a physical activity) anthropometry to have reliability and survivability in performance to do mission or task in the high risk multi-task operational environment. Risk management especially now with lawsuit happy frauds looking for the easy money and ambulance chasing ambulance lawyer having same ethics and integrity have certainly reinforced the general risk management guidance of either select the best person or persons to do the high risk endeavor or don’t do the mission or task at all. The military is being forced to train and qualify to 5th percentile female (standing height 59.6 inches, weight 108 pounds) through the 95th percentile male (standing height 73.4 inches, weight 225 pounds) screening, selection, train and qualify standard. Unfortunately the typical female is equal or less than a female 50% anthropometric percentile or put another way only 50% of the female population demographics is equal to or greater than the male 5% anthropometric percentile (standing height 66 inches, weight 140 pounds). Anthropometric percentile is much more body dimensions and measurement then height and weight and is a subset of a whole bunch of other human factors pertinent to performance and reliability to do mission or task. Generally: 5th percentile Adult, female average standing height is 59 inches, average weight is 108 pounds. 5th percentile Adult, male average standing height is 63.6 inches, average weight is 130 pounds. 50th percentile Adult, Female average standing height is 60.3 inches, average weight 150 pounds. 50th percentile Adult Man, average standing height is 64.7 inches, average weight 180 pounds. 95th percentile Adult, female average standing height is 67.1 inches, average weight 200 pounds. 95th percentile Adult, male average standing height is 72.8 inches, average weight is 225 pounds. Within each of the above there are variations for sitting height, reach, stride, muscle mass, body fat and etc determine by gender and even ethnic group. All have impact on other human… Read more »
DaveO: I commanded batteries in 1-14FA and 3-13FA, 214 FA Brigade, circa 1999-2003. I’m sure we had similar experiences with female surveyors, PAC clerks, signal soldiers, etc. before LTG BB Bell changed all that. Could we know each other?
Hondo: I think they just put ramdom letters together and then add a number. I get MA and HM, but the rest… oh and I know BM. Because that rate makes me laugh.
Beretverde: smaller scale, but when I only had guys to look after I had a lot more free time.
Old Dog: bingo!
Johca: I only have a junior college education and all your info made my brain hurt, but it was informative.
Ex PH2: Petty Officer, I appreciate the discussion. I do wish those girls luck. I also wish their NCOs luck in navigating the minefield they are about to wander into. In my experience, the vast majority of people, male or female, join the military for the right reasons. Even my problem Soldier. She was from a military family, and I hope she is doing great things for the Army. I also think the DoD puts us in a complicated situation, and people respond rationally to incentives and disincentives. If a pretty girl can get a guy to do something for her, it is a totally rational decision.
My final thoughts: the military needs to stop treating every male as a sex offender. Making a Soldier do pushups is not “hazing.” And train to fight and win the next war, against an enemy that has no EO program and no SHARP coordinators.
@ #64: Had the unfortunate pleasure of being assigned to a USAF unit collocated with a Navy installation for a while. Got pretty good at distinguishing between low rank, significant rank, and officers from a bit of a distance. The lower ranking got a nod, most everyone wearing a brown shirt was addressed as “Chief,” until it became obvious which of the brown shirts were actually “sirs.”
Dunno if that system would work today. Uniforms have changed a couple of times since then. But back in the day, a Chief was highly offended if you accidently called him sir, and since I didn’t care much if their officers got offended, it all worked out just fine.
Yeah, one of them very occasionally made an issue of a salute or something, but generally you could sorta talk you way through it with a “Sorry, sir.” Maybe a grin. And a wink, if you were feeling particularly reckless, depending. (Can you tell that I REALLY liked messing with the Navy dudes, especially the officers?)