Running head: INTEGRATING WOMEN

Integrating Women into Combat Jobs in the Military

Brooke Ballagh
University of Texas El Paso

INTEGRATING WOMEN

2
Abstract

Does valor have a gender? Can a woman do the same jobs in the military that a man can?
This is the issue at hand. The integration of women into combat arms jobs in the military has
been a lingering issue in the military for the past 40 years. As time has marched on, women have
been clawing and fighting their way to prove themselves in able to gain the same respect that
males do in the military. Starting from just being nurses sitting on the sidelines waiting for their
husbands to come home they are now flying over the most dangerous parts of the world lifting
injured soldiers into the air onto a helicopter headed to safety. The only problem in that is that
the females are not being recognized for their efforts as much as the men are. The basis of this
paper is to look at this issue from the beginning to the present and discuss the issue from both
sides.

INTEGRATING WOMEN

For generations, women in uniform have served our nation with skill, courage and
tenacity. The Army began expanding roles for women 40 years ago. But the biggest question
that is raised is Is fully integrating women into combat arms a good idea? and If the vast
majority of MOSs are equivalent, why should the combat arms be different? The arguments for
both sides are equally strong after doing the research. According to an article put out in the
Military Review, the justification for maintaining the ban is that male soldiers provide a
predictable measure of superiority in their roles. (Summers, 2013) Using the same logic, if
female soldiers are more effective in specific roles and missions, would it not make sense to
increase their use in such roles?
In earlier times, before women were officially allowed to be in the service, they served as
nurses and cooks. They were strictly a bases of support for the troops. As time marched and the
combat zone changed, women have become a major asset to the military, performing duties and
executing missions that the male soldiers cannot.
This paper will further discuss the evolution of women in the military, the specific bans
and regulations put on women in the military and what is being done to change these policies if
they should be changed at all.
The Evolution of Women in the Military
Dating back to the Revolutionary War, women have been fighting their way onto the
frontlines. According to a timeline of women in the military put out by The Colonial
Williamsburg Foundation in 2008, a female named Deborah Sampson served in General
Washingtons army for over a year disguised as a man. Her gender was later discovered when
she was wounded in battle where she was then honorably discharged. This same situation was

INTEGRATING WOMEN

also recorded during the Mexican War in 1846 where Elizabeth Newcome enlisted in the
Missouri Volunteer Infantry as Bill Newcome. She marched 600 miles to a camp in Colorado
before her gender was discovered and she was discharged. (The Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation, 2008)
It was not until 1948 that congress passed the Womens Armed Services Integration Act,
granting women permanent status in the military subject to military authority and regulations and
entitled them to veterans benefits. (The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 2008) In February
1988, the Department of Defense (DoD) adopted a department-wide policy called the Risk Rule.
This rule set a single standard for evaluating positions and units from which the military service
could exclude women. This rule excluded women from noncombat units or missions if the risks
of exposure to direct combat, hostile fire, or capture were equal to or greater than the risk in the
combat units they supported.(Gender Issues, 1998) In 1994, after Operation Desert Storm,
where all whom were deployed were at risk, the DoD deemed the current Risk Rule to no longer
be appropriate and there by established the new DoD-wide direct combat assignment rule that
allowed all service members to be assigned to all positions for which they qualify for. This rule
still excluded women from assignments to units below the brigade level whose primary mission
was direct ground combat.(Gender Issues, 1998) The purpose of this change was to expand
opportunities for women in the services.
Time for a Change
According to a report done by David F. Burrelli, a specialist in military manpower for the
Congressional Research Service, from September 2001 to February 2013, 299,548 female

INTEGRATING WOMEN

service members have been deployed for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. This report states
that over 800 women have been wounded and over 130 have died, only 2 of which have received
Silver Star medals. (Burrrelli, 2013) Under the 1994 policy, women could not be assigned to
units, below the brigade level, whose primary mission is to engage in direct combat on the
ground. Primarily, this meant that women were barred from infantry, armor, artillery, combat
engineers and special operations units.
The realities of modern day warfare have women fighting on the frontlines in specialty
positions such as medics, mechanics and military police. To avoid the current Combat Exclusion
policy as written, women are being attached to rather than assigned to battalions which in
turn denies them from receiving the correct acknowledgment for their combat experience and
contributions. The lack of these acknowledgements ultimately denies them from their choice of
assignments and hinders their career opportunities. (Hay, 2012)
On January 24, 2013, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced that the DoD was
rescinding the Direct Combat Exclusion Rule on women serving in previously restricted
occupations. Panetta stated The Department of Defense is determined to successfully integrate
women into the remaining restricted occupational fields within our military, while adhering to
the following guided principle developed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Validating occupational
performance standards, both physical and mental, for all military occupational specialties
(MOS), specifically those that remain closed to women. Eligibility for training and development
within designated occupational fields should consist of qualitative and quantifiable standards
reflecting the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary for each occupation. For occupational

INTEGRATING WOMEN

specialties open to women, the occupational performance standards must be gender-neutral.

(Burrelli, 2013)
Women have become an integral part of our ability to perform our mission, Secretary
Panetta told reporters at the Pentagon press briefing, adding that further integration of women
will occur expeditiously. (DoD lifts the ban on women in combat, 2013)
A Change in Motion
In February 2013, a group of female soldiers who all held noncombat military
occupations, whom in fact performed combat duties between 2003 and 2011 in Iraq and
Afghanistan were guest speakers at a symposium held in Washington DC. Along with these
females were members of partner militaries who have fully integrated theirs forces, as well as
women who were among the first wave of earlier integration efforts from Canada and Norway.
These women were all here to share their experiences and hopefully collect lessons for
integrating combat specialties as the Services move to eliminate combat restrictions that have
previously limited women in the military. (Haring, 2013)
During this symposium, all the panelist acknowledged the role of physical fitness and
agreed that physical standards must be set and that women and men should be held to the same
standards. (Haring, 2003) Thus Soldier 2020 was created. Solider 2020 is a scientific approach
led by the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) to identify and validate
standards for high demand tasks in its combat arms branch. According to an article written by
General Robert W. Cone in 2013 called Soldier 2020, TRADOC is implementing several
essential initiatives to provide every American soldier with the same opportunity to serve in any
MOS while maintaining standards. (Cone, 2013)

INTEGRATING WOMEN

The first part of the Soldier 2020 mission was to set clear standards and identify the most
demanding tasks in the MOSs that are still currently closed to women including but not limited
to artillery, infantry, engineer and armored crewman. After these standards were set, they were
tested in random populations of MOS-qualified units. The next step in the Soldier 2020
process was for U.S. Army Medical Command and U.S. Army Medical
Research Institute for Environmental Medicine (USARIEM) to observe
the process and make sure the results remained scientifically valid. As
seen in Figure 1, a soldier wears a mask that calculates and records the
oxygen intake and energy needed to perform the task of carrying full
ammo cans from one platform to another. (Cone, 2013) The next effort
made was the TRADOC Analysis Center (TRAC) to conduct an extensive
study to identify integration challenges and mitigation strategies for

Figure 1: Female soldier

carries ammo cans while
wearing a mask

overcoming all the barriers. The last element of Soldier 2020 revolves around setting the
conditions in units as they integrate women into closed MOSs. Though nothing has been set in
stone to when all closed jobs are to be opened up to women, it was put out in the article DoD lifts
the ban on women in combat that the process was to be completed by January 1, 2016. (DoD lifts
ban on women in combat, 2013)
Examining the Feedback
In a study done in 1997 it was said that women suffer twice the incidence rate of stress
fractures during initial entry training and that female soldiers sustained injuries requiring
hospitalization at a rate 10-times higher than her male peers during advanced individual training.
(Summers, 2013) It also said that introducing women into the combat arms as a general practice

INTEGRATING WOMEN

would do nothing to improve the accomplishment of mission, and would increase risks to
individual solders. Another survey done in the Marine Corps May/August of 2013 stated that the
survey reflected concerns of Marine men and women about intimate relationships and the
masculine instinct to protect womena top-five concern for members of both sexes. Rounding
out those concerns for men were the fears of false sexual-harassment or sexual-assault cases.
Then on the other hand women feared being targeted as prisoners of war, fears of sexualharassment and sexual assault, and hygiene facilities being provided. (Adde, 2013)
During the symposium done in Washington, DC, privacy and hygiene requirements were
discussed. All the women asserted that living conditions only became problematic when they
were arbitrarily separated from their male team members by socially imposed efforts to segregate
men and women. In austere environments, they stated that they lived and slept in the same
rooms and shared the same bathrooms with their teammates even if the room was bombed-out
school with no roof and the bathroom was a slit trench. Any privacy requirements were easily
resolved with the use of a poncho or a turned back. The women on this also stated that the times
that they were separated from their teams they lost important interactions. (Haring, 2013)
In closing, fighting for gender equality in the military has gone on for the past 40 years.
Within that time the kind of war that is being fought has changed significantly. Starting at the
American Revolution and ending at the current war on terror, women have been fighting to be
part of the action. Over the years there have been baby steps taken in order to remedy this
situation but the problem still continues today. Studies and surveys are being done by all the
military branches to determine the best way to integrate women into all jobs. There are many
valid reservations brought up from both sides of the issue. In the end as long as the safety and

INTEGRATING WOMEN
security of our soldiers stays intact, the issue at hand will no longer be an issue for the United
States.

INTEGRATING WOMEN

10
References

Adde, N. (2013). Valor has no gender. Sea Power, 56(4), 58-62.

Buriielli, D.F. (2013). Women in combat: Issues for congress. Congressional Research Service
Cone, R.W. (November 2013) Soldier 2020. U.S. Army Magazine
DoD lifts the ban on women in combat. (2013). Army Magazine, 63(3), 9-14.
Haring, E. L. (2013). Insights from the women in combat symposium. JFQ: Joint Force
Quarterly, (70), 55-58.
Hay, Lani. (2012). Women in special forces: The debate on combat exclusion. Diplomatic
Couriers May/June Edition
National Security and International Affairs Division, Washington, D.C. (1998). Gender issues:
Information on DoDs assignment policy and direct combat definition.
Time line: Women in the U.S. Military (2008). The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Summers, C. H. (2013). Women. Military Review, 93(4), 71-78.