Running head: SOLDIER 2020

Soldier 2020: Standards for the Army Profession

Brooke Ballagh
University of Texas El Paso

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Integrating women into combat specific jobs in the military, once only available to men,
is a process that started back in the 1970s. Women and men have fought side by side for many
years and a great number of each have been either wounded or killed in action. The difference in
that is that the female soldiers arent getting the same acknowledgement for their services
because they werent technically in the unit that they were attached to thus not receiving the
same awards and accommodations.
This year the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) initiated efforts
to evaluate and define the standards for service in military jobs currently closed to women.
Soldier 2020: Standards for the Army Profession is a video that was created by the U.S. Army
TRADOC, intended for the viewing of various Army commands and staff, and was published
January 21, 2014. Its intent is to explain the process behind the Armys efforts to study the
required physical demands for military occupational specialties (MOSs) that have been closed to
female soldiers in the past.
TRADOC is in charge of training and shaping the United States Army by recruitment,
training and developing the leaders of the future. They do this by continuously adapting the
capabilities and material to the shifting world to insure that the U.S. has the best led, trained and
equipped land power in the world. Not only are the people who created this video extremely
credible throughout the U.S. Army, the video shows actual footage of the tasks being evaluated
and measured by soldiers stationed in various forts around the US. A partner with TRADOC in
this video is the U.S. Army Research Institute for Environmental Medicine (USARIEM). Their
involvement in this study were to observe, measure and analyze all the data and results in order
to keep everything scientifically valid. Ethos is extremely prominent in this video by using

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valid, reliable sources and actual footage from the study. According to Command Sergeant
Major of the Army, CSM Daniel M. Dailey Our work will allow us to match the right soldier,
regardless if they are men or women, to jobs that best correspond to their abilities. This makes
for a stronger Army and allows all soldiers to best reach their full potential. (TRADOC)
Although the US Army usually likes to tell the facts and leaves no room for emotions,
this video has a few places in which an emotional response can be had. In the beginning of the
video it shows actual combat footage of soldiers overseas shooting their weapons almost like an
action film, drawing the audience in to see what comes next. The footage is of both female and
male soldiers so as to relate with both genders. The music in the video is pretty basic as it has
both military and medical undertones. The use of a female narrator for the bulk of the video
definitely gives the appeal to women watching and listening. The testimonies of higher ranking
males soldiers throughout the video, like CSM Dailey, supporting the study and its goals
validates it for the men watching the video.
Non-combat injuries happen daily with soldiers whether it being a rolled ankle or lifting
an object wrong that was too heavy for them. Logically, the well-being of the soldiers is the first
priority of the Department of Defense (DoD). In this video, Marilyn A. Sharp, M.S. of
USARIEM, Project Lead Investigator states, There are soldiers right now in almost every MOS,
probably in all MOSs, that are not capable of doing their jobs and not only are they the ones that
probably get passed over for promotions, but theyre the ones that get hurt. This is because they
are in a job theyre not physically qualified for. The overall goal of this study is to make the
Army stronger and to prevent injuries of the soldiers. (TRADOC) This video shows multiple
examples of how the Army is taking the right steps into developing a gender-neutral standard to

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ensure that everyone in a MOS can perform the necessary tasks associated with his or her job.
There are scenes in the video in which both male and females are doing the same tasks and have
the same medical equipment hooked up to them to determine the energy output that each solder
uses.
In conclusion, since the expansion of roles for women in combat specific MOSs started
four decades ago, the Army has finally begun to implement a system in which they are breaking
down the standards and tasks needed for each job and testing both male and females to validate
them. Soldier 2020: Standards for the Profession clearly shows how the Army is moving
forward with integrating women into combat specific jobs that were once only available to men.
TRADOC is recognizing that the world is changing and is taking the proper steps to make sure
that they are changing as well to keep up and excel above all other Armys throughout the world.
According to the video, The goal of this study is to ensure success in integrating women
soldiers into positions and units that have been traditionally male only. A study done by
TRADOC to examine the attitudes of both women and men in the integration of females in
predominantly male MOSs states, We found that most men who had worked and fought beside
women expected them to do well in combat roles. Some work remains to be done in order to
convince men with little or no experience serving alongside women that they will perform well
in new roles, but hopefully those concerns will change with the Soldier 2020 tests and studies.
(Cone, 2013, pg.1)

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References

Cone, R.W. (November 2013) Soldier 2020. U.S. Army Magazine

U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command. (2014, January 21) Soldier 2020: Standards for
the army profession. Retrieved from www.youtu.be/nd51DXtQtNI

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