American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON – Army leaders are asking
whether -- and how -- to open infantry and armor ranks to women, the service’s
senior soldier said today.
Officers in charge of training and force
development are now gathering data to help answer those questions, Army Chief
of Staff Gen. Raymond T. Odierno told reporters during a Pentagon briefing.
In line with Defense Secretary Leon E.
Panetta’s policy, the service has already opened 13,000 previously all-male
positions to female soldiers, the general noted.
“Earlier this week more than 200 women
began reporting to the maneuver battalions in nine of our brigade combat teams,
selected to participate in the exception to the direct ground combat assignment
rule,” he said. “Additionally, co-location [with combat units] as an assignment
restriction is rescinded.”
A Defense Department report to Congress in
February outlining the assignment policy changes included a vision statement
that said the department “is committed to removing all barriers that would
prevent service members from rising to the highest level of responsibility that
their talents and capabilities warrant.”
Odierno noted the changes open new
opportunities to women, who comprise 16 percent of the Army’s ranks. “This
revision … allows us to leverage the tremendous talent resident in our ranks,”
he added.
Women will likely filter in to the new
positions for “several months,” the Army chief said. Two categories of
assignments are now open to women: jobs such as tank mechanic and field
artillery radar operator that are necessarily performed close to combat units,
and a limited “exception to policy” opening select positions at the battalion
level in jobs women already occupy.
“My guess is, based on my experience in
Iraq and what I've seen in Afghanistan, we'll then move forward with a more
permanent solution [involving those two assignment categories] inside of the
Army probably sometime this fall,” he said.
Odierno said the next step is “to look
at, do we open up infantry and armor [military occupational specialties] to
females?”
He emphasized no decisions have yet been
made on the question, but noted the answer will have implications for all-male
Army formations, including the Rangers.
Army Rangers are rapidly deployable,
light infantry troops trained to engage conventional and special operations
targets. While there are only three Ranger battalions, with a special troops
battalion and a separate Ranger training brigade, Odierno pointed out the
“Ranger tab” denoting completion of Ranger training is a key to advancement
among infantry officers.
Ranger school consists of three phases
-- mountain, desert and swamp – over 61 days, and combines rigorous infantry
training with famously sparse amounts of food and sleep.
While Odierno cautioned, “I don’t want
to get ahead of myself,” he noted that some 90 percent of Army senior infantry
officers -- all male -- are Ranger-qualified.
“So, if we determine that we’re going to
allow women to go into infantry, to be successful they are probably, at some
time, going to have to go through Ranger school,” he said. “We have not made
that decision, but it’s a factor that I’ve asked them to take a look at.”
If combat arms jobs open to female
soldiers, “We want the women to be successful,” the general said.
The Army, like DOD, is committed to
providing maximum opportunity for its members, Odierno said.
“We’re going to move toward it,” he
said. “It’s how we do that, what we have to do, [that we’re assessing] as we
move forward.”
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