Marines Consider Increased Role for Women in Corps

By Jim Garamone

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Aug. 28, 2012 – The Marine Corps has opened a number of fields to women, the service’s commandant said here today, and the experiences of the first women to go through the Infantry Officer Course next month will help him as he makes recommendations for an increased role for female Marines.

Gen. James F. Amos spoke at the National Press Club, and reporters asked about the future for women in combat.

The commandant said many women have been in combat in the wars fought over the last decade. “Women in combat have not been an issue,” he said.

Artillery, tanks, amphibious warfare vehicles, light air defense and some combat engineer specialties now are open to women in the Marine Corps’ officers and staff noncommissioned officer ranks, Amos said. “So that’s in the process right now,” he said, adding that he believes women will be successful in those fields.

“Early indications are that that was precisely the right thing to do,” he said.

The question of women serving in infantry positions needs more data to answer, and the Corps is in the process of getting that information, the general said. Marines are receiving a survey on the subject now.

“That has yet to come in, and when it does, it will answer a lot of questions we have about women, specifically in infantry,” Amos said.

The general told reporters he wants to “get past hyperbole and past the intuition and instincts.”

“I need to get facts,” he said.

Next month, two women will attend the Marine Infantry Officer Course at Quantico, Va. They will spend 13 weeks going through very difficult training, and must meet the same standard that men do. “That’s the standard,” the commandant said. “That’s what it takes to be an infantry officer in the Marine Corps.”

The two women will provide him with the data he needs to make recommendations to Congress, to the defense secretary and to the secretary of the Navy, Amos said.

“We will collect the data, and then we will see where we are,” he added. “I’m not the least bit afraid of the data.”

The Corps is running a series of studies on aspects of physical strength needed in the Marines for both men and women, the general noted.

“We are going to do this the right way to set the conditions for success,” he said.

Podcast Series to Help Servicewomen & Veterans Returning Home from Deployment Launched This Week

Series Includes Army Women’s Hall of Fame Inductees—Army Women Who Served in Vietnam

During March, military leaders, government officials, academics, and corporate and non-profit leaders assembled in Washington, D.C. with one question:  how do we use our collective knowledge and resources to help servicewomen successfully transition back into their homes, jobs, and communities?   This question was the focus of the Army Women's Foundation’s 4th Annual Army Women in Transition Symposium & Hall of Fame Luncheon. 

The answers offered by these leaders are found in a podcast series and are based on their experiences, research, knowledge, lessons learned, and best practices.  Starting today, podcasts of the Symposium will be available for free viewing and download from http://podcast.awfdn.org.  The podcasts will provide servicewomen and veterans returning home from deployment with real advice.  A schedule of podcasts is below.  These podcasts are made possible through support by Booz Allen Hamilton and Stars and Stripes.

         Monday, June 4:  Symposium Panel One, “Beyond the Battlefield: Coming Home”        

         Tuesday, June 5:  Symposium Panel Two, “Beyond the Battlefield: Back to Work”

         Wednesday, June 6:  Hall of Fame Luncheon Part I and a Tribute Speech by MG Janet Cobb

         Thursday, June 7:   Hall of Fame Luncheon Part II and Inductee Remarks  

Odierno: Army Moving Toward Opening Combat Arms to Women

By Karen Parrish

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.”

DOD to Open New Assignments for Women in May

By Karen Parrish

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, April 26, 2012 – Policy changes announced in February opening more than 14,000 new assignments to women in uniform will take effect May 14, Defense Department officials said today.

Officials issued a Pentagon press release confirming that two changes to the 1994 Direct Ground Combat Definition and Assignment Rule can now move forward since the Congressionally-mandated notification period has expired. The changes were first announced Feb. 9 in a report to Congress.

The biggest barrier DOD is lifting is a 1994 policy prohibiting women from jobs -- such as tank mechanic and field artillery radar operator -- that take place near ground combat units. With that restriction removed, 13,000 new assignments will be available for women. Nearly 10,000 of those new opportunities are in fields never before open to women.

The second change is an “exception to policy” that will allow the Army, Navy and Marines to open select positions at the battalion level in jobs women already occupy.

The previous policy, also set in 1994, barred women in jobs such as intelligence, communications and logistics from assignment at units smaller than a brigade. Nearly 1,200 assignments will open to female soldiers, sailors and Marines under the exceptions.

Navy Capt. John Kirby, Pentagon spokesman, told reporters today it is now up to the military services to make necessary changes in the ranks.

The change “doesn’t mean that immediately, today, there will be 14,000 women in these jobs,” he noted. “But these billets will now be eligible to be filled by women.”

The services will train and assign women to jobs they haven’t previously filled through their normal personnel management processes as the positions become vacant, Kirby said. Many of those positions may continue to be filled by men, he added.

“The point is that 14,000 positions … are now eligible to be filled by female service members,” he said.

Today’s release quotes Jo Ann Rooney, acting undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, as saying Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta has stated the changes are “the beginning, not the end, of a process.”

Kirby said service leaders will update Panetta in November on their progress in implementing the new policies, and any new policies they want to suggest to increase opportunities for women.

“The secretary was very clear … that he wants to remove as many barriers as possible to service in the military for female service members,” Kirby said. “He’s very committed to that, and wants to continue to look at other ways we can lower those barriers.”

Army Women’s 4th Annual Symposium & Hall of Fame Luncheon in Wash, D.C. to Honor Army Women and Analyze Key Issues

Army Women Who Served in Vietnam Inducted into Hall of Fame; Sen. Inouye to Receive Award

WASHINGTON, March 7, 2012—The U.S. Army Women’s Foundation will host its 4th Annual Army Women in Transition Symposium & Hall of Fame Luncheon on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C on March 13, 2012, from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. with more than 200 people expected to attend. 

Army Women who served in Vietnam will be inducted into the Army Women’s Hall of Fame.  The Hall of Fame awards are presented to women who have contributed extraordinary service to the Army and especially to women in the Army. Leon Harris, ABC7/WJLA-TV News Anchor, to emcee the ceremony.  Prior to the Hall of Fame Luncheon, Senator Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) will receive a special recognition award for his decades of support for Army Women.

For the Symposium, LTG Patricia D. Horoho, Surgeon General and Commanding General of the U.S. Army Medical Command, will provide a keynote on both service-connected healthcare and future care.  The Symposium, with a theme of Changing Missions, Changing Roles, will cultivate dialogue among federal legislators, government agencies, academic institutions, corporate leaders, and non-profit organizations. 

The Symposium will identify the successes, lessons learned, next steps, and the collaborations and partnerships still needed to help Army women successfully transition from military culture to civilian society. Top sponsors of the Symposium & Hall of Fame Luncheon include Booz Allen Hamilton, Home Depot and Walmart. 

Following the event, podcasts of the panels and keynote will be made available to servicewomen and veterans across the globe.  Podcasts will help Army women learn about the typical challenges faced and potentially how to overcome them when returning from deployment. Media sponsors Booz Allen Hamilton, Microsoft, and Stars and Stripes are credited with making the podcasts possible.

“Army women, past and presently serving, have sacrificed so much to safeguard our country, and the Foundation’s Symposium & Hall of Fame Luncheon seeks to honor Army women’s legacy in addition to exposing the top issues Army women face when between military culture and civilian life,” said retired Maj. Gen. Dee Ann McWilliams, president of the U.S. Army Women’s Foundation. 

Following the inductions, the Foundation will present seven Legacy Scholarships.  The Foundation Legacy Scholarship program recognizes the importance of education and helps recipients to achieve their educational goals. The program offers financial support toward undergraduate degrees to Army women and their lineal descendents. Scholarships are based on merit, academic potential, community service, and need.

ABOUT THE U.S ARMY WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

The U.S. Army Women’s Foundationis a private, non-profit 501(c)(3) organization originally established in 1969.  The mission of the U.S. Army Women’s Foundation is to promote public interest in the Army and the women who serve or have served in the U.S. Army.  Through programs, research and scholarships, the Foundation recognizes and honors the service of Army women and supports the U.S. Army Women's Museum located at Fort Lee, Va. For more information, visit AWFDN.org.

New Policies Reflect Realities of Modern Warfare, Officials Say

By Karen Parrish
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON  – Defense Department policy changes announced today reflect both women’s increased roles in and out of combat and the fact that war is no longer linear, senior officials said.

The department notified Congress today it will abolish the restriction on assigning women to locations where ground combat troops operate, and selectively lift the policy barring women from assignments to ground combat units below the brigade level.

Those changes will result in more than 14,000 new jobs or assignment opportunities for military women.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta “is making these changes because he recognizes that over the last decade of war, women have contributed in unprecedented ways to the military’s mission,” George Little, Pentagon press secretary, told reporters during a briefing here today.

Women service members have put their lives on the line and demonstrated courage, patriotism and skill in defending the nation, Little said.

“But even as we make this announcement, I would like to stress that Secretary Panetta knows this is the beginning, not the end, of a process,” he added.

The services will continue to review positions and requirements to determine what additional positions may be opened to women, the press secretary added.

“Our goal is to ensure that the mission is met with the best qualified and most capable people, regardless of gender,” he said.

Little noted while preparing the report took longer than expected, Panetta and the service leaders “wanted this done right, not done quickly.”

The delay allowed the reviewers to gather additional views on the issues, and resulted in more positions open to women than would have been the case with an earlier report, he added.

The report follows a departmentwide review of policies affecting women’s job assignments in the military.

Two people who led the review -- Virginia “Vee” Penrod, deputy assistant secretary for military personnel policy, and Army Maj. Gen. Gary Patton, principal director for military personnel policy -- discussed the new policies at today’s briefing.

“Opening these positions implements lessons from over a decade at war, where women were proven exceptionally capable and indispensible to mission accomplishment,” Penrod said.

She said the review offered an opportunity to examine all gender-restrictive laws, policies and regulations “with all services’ senior leaders at the table.”

The review panel worked to identify “changes … needed to ensure female members have an equitable opportunity to compete and excel in the U.S. armed forces,” she said.

The report, Penrod said, “reflects the secretary of defense’s vision of removing barriers that prevent service members from rising to the highest level of potential and responsibility that their talents and capabilities warrant.”

The policy limiting women’s military assignments dates to 1994 and lists four factors that ban women from assignments or jobs: prohibitive costs for berthing and privacy; the requirement to locate and remain with direct ground combat units; units engaged in long range reconnaissance and special operations forces missions; and job-related physical requirements that “exclude the vast majority of women service members.”

Department leaders agreed the provision against locating with combat units no longer applies, Penrod noted.

Before 2001, war typically involved front-lines combat and protected “rear” areas where support functions like maintenance and medical care took place, she said.

“The battlespace we have experienced in Iraq and Afghanistan is quite different,” Penrod added.

Highly mobile enemies now travel among the civilian population, while counterinsurgency and stability missions to combat such enemies require U.S. forces to disperse across the country in large and small bases, she said.

“There is no rear area that exists in this battlespace. Forces of all types and missions are required to be in close proximity and flow between locations,” she said.

Penrod said lifting the location-based prohibition opens 13,139 new Army jobs to women, because the Army is the only service that identified positions that had been closed solely because of where they took place.

The change will expand career opportunities for women and give combatant commanders more options in deploying forces, she said.

The report noted Army officer career fields with the greatest number of restricted positions include logistics, signal, intelligence and special operations. Enlisted occupations with the largest number of restrictions include radio operator, signal support systems specialist, radar repairer, electronic warfare specialist and construction equipment repairer.

The second change is not a new policy but may lead to one, Penrod said. DOD has granted the Army, Navy and Marines a policy exception to selectively assign women to battalion-level combat units.

The services will gain experience through those assignments that will help department leaders assess the current prohibition’s relevance and “inform potential future policy changes,” Penrod said.

The report also takes aim at the provision excluding women from jobs because of physical requirements, she noted.

The services are working to develop gender-neutral physical standards based on the tasks troops perform on the job, Penrod said.

“This is an area of emphasis for us as we move forward beyond the initial steps reported as part of this review,” she added.

According to the report, DOD will evaluate gender-restricted, physically demanding jobs once gender-neutral physical standards are developed.

Penrod said when she began her 35 years in the Air Force, women were 2 percent of the force, and were restricted from some assignments based on the temperature – Minot, N.D., was “too cold.”

Over the past 10 years, she said, women have had the opportunity to prove themselves in new ways while training and equipment have improved. Service leaders are now actively seeking ways to expand opportunities for women, she added.

“This is very exciting to me … [that] commanders were coming to us and saying ‘we need to change these policies,’” she said.

Patton said based on his career as an infantry officer and through the lens of 45 months of combat over the past several years, the changes announced today are the right thing to do.

“The way I look at it, as a former infantry battalion commander, I wish I’d had the opportunity to bring women into my battalion,” he said. “It expands the talent pool.”

Patton said the opportunities announced today are a first step toward the question of combat arms and special operations jobs ultimately opening to women.

As Panetta told the service chiefs, he said, “This is the beginning, not the end.”

Policy changes will take effect later this spring after 30 days of continuous session of Congress, as the law requires, Penrod said.

Officials: Women Can Suffer Same Deployment Ills as Men

By Terri Moon Cronk
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON  – It once was thought that servicewomen neither were exposed to the same combat situations as men nor developed the same psychological injuries. But officials now recognize otherwise.

“With the type of combat we’re in now, … it’s probably the only place where men and women really are equal,” therapist Jeanine Aversa says in “The Long Road Home,” this month’s installment of the Pentagon Channel series “Recon.”

The segment made its debuted on the Pentagon Channel yesterday and will run through February. Officials estimate that the percentage of women in the military has doubled in the past 30 years. But that increase, the “Recon” segment noted, has come with a rise in problems such as homelessness, drug addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder among female veterans.

The Defense and Veterans Affairs departments work together to address service members’ physical, mental and emotional injuries, including those of women, so officials say it’s now easier for female veterans to ask for help.

Kate McGraw, acting deputy director for the psychological health, clinical standards of care at the Defense Centers for Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., said a “huge influx” of congressional funding and Defense Department support on the issues facing female veterans have helped address psychological health and traumatic brain injury.

“Because there are more people deploying and the frequency has increased over time,” McGraw said, “we’re also seeing an increase in support for the effects of deployment.”

Focus groups, growing numbers of support groups and a mental health anti-stigma campaign are part of the DOD and VA support for female veterans, she said.

Battling the stigma of seeking mental health counseling also has remained a concern among military leaders, McGraw noted. Some service members don’t seek help, she explained, because they believe doing so could hurt their careers.

“The fears don’t necessarily have a basis,” she said. “So this is an attempt to try to de-stigmatize those fears.”

Peculiar to women is an apparent higher rate of “co-occurrence” of PTSD and depression when compared with men after returning from deployment, McGraw said. And other behaviors also can play a part in women’s lives, she said.

“Women tend to have a higher incidence of binge drinking … and a higher incidence of eating disorder behavior … as compared to males,” McGraw said, citing recent literature on studies conducted during the past five years.

Women made up only seven-tenths of 1 percent of the military when now-retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Wilma Vaught entered service in 1957. Although her active-duty experience was nothing like what today’s women service members have undergone in Iraq and in Afghanistan, she said, she emphasized that many more doors are open to women in the military now than before.

“But that progress has come with a price,” she said.

Veteran Jen Crane knows about that price. She began to have panic attacks while searching for work after she left the military. She couldn’t continue her military job as a paralegal in the civilian sector, so she took a bartending job. There, she was introduced to cocaine. She said it brought her anxiety down and made her social.

Eventually, however, Crane’s penchant for drugs nearly cost her everything.

“Because I was using, [I was told to] get help. I was a soldier, a warrior. I can handle anything,” she said she believed. “I felt like a monster.”

Crane turned to prostitution to support her drug habit, and became homeless and broke. As her situation spiraled downward, she decided to take her life.

“I was going to do it with drugs, because it was going to be slow and painful. That’s what I felt like I deserved,” she said. But before she could act on her plan, police arrested her for drug possession.

Crane went to court, and began receiving counseling from Aversa. With support from her therapist, the courts and her family, today she is married, has a child and is the national spokeswoman for a nonprofit organization, traveling around the country to tell her story.

Experiences like Crane’s are helping to change the care female veterans receive. “We’re undergoing a culture change within the Department of Veterans Affairs,” Patricia Hayes, the VA’s chief consultant on women’s health, told “Recon.”

VA estimates that 6,500 female veterans are homeless and live on the nation’s streets -- double the number from 10 years ago. VA also reported that one in five women veterans reported military sexual trauma during their military service, and the number of women with PTSD is increasing.

The wartime roles for servicewomen have changed because of their exposure to combat today,” Hayes said. Women were close to bombings in Vietnam, but not like in Iraq and Afghanistan, she said, which have involved carrying an M-16 rifle and being alert for roadside bombs.

Women need time to adjust after returning home, Hayes said.

“They need time to work through [what] they’ve been exposed to,” she added. “A lot of women say they’re thrust right back into family life. They tell us, ‘The laundry is piled up.’”

McGraw outlined signs that someone is struggling with readjustment issues. She cited symptoms such as the inability to get a good quality sleep, nightmares, or the feeling of reliving events from a deployment when awake, disturbing dreams about deployment events, changes in mood, irritability feeling increasingly on edge or keyed up, or getting startled easily.

Veteran Genevieve Chase, who suffered a traumatic head injury after the vehicle she was riding in exploded, said told “Recon” that in spite of the struggles women try to overcome, their patriotism remains intact.

“Even the women who are trying to get on their feet or have been struggling through military sexual trauma, substance abuse, suicide or any major issue, … when they come home, every single one of them is still proud of their service,” Chase said.

The Pentagon Channel’s “Recon” series is a monthly, 30-minute broadcast that provides an in-depth look at operations, missions, military events, history and other subjects highlighting the accomplishments of U.S. military men and women. All “Recon” programs are posted on the Pentagon Channel’s website.