Women in combat: Operation Iraqi Freedom continues to break down walls

The first Gulf War was major turning point for women in the US military. The need for female soldiers, along with their excellent performance, prompted changes under the Clinton Administration in 1993 and 1994 that enabled women to take on more dangerous roles in the military that they had been previously denied. For example, women were allowed to become fighter pilots and to work on warships.

Today, the Army still bars women from direct combat roles, such as the infantry, armor (tanks and other offensive vehicles), and artillery. In the Marine Corps, of the 40 Military Occupational Specialties (MOS) listed in the 2006 Concepts and Programs report, only two, Field Artillery and Tank and AAV (AAV is the Marine Corps amphibious armored vehicle), have no enlisted women (whether or not a typo, there is one enlisted woman under Infantry).

But the reality is that in Iraq, where there are no front lines, the issue of women in combat is moot from a soldier's perspective. In Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), women are in combat, despite the Pentagon rules the do not allow "co-location" of female soldiers with all-male combat units like the Infantry.

Women in combat is already a reality

According to a September New York Times article, "no one in the strained [US] military is eager to engage in a debate about women and the risks they are taking in Iraq because, quite simply, the women are sorely needed in this conflict." The article states that the lines are blurred in Iraq:

"It says you can have female medics, but they can't see combat," said Captain Megan O'Connor, who served in Iraq in the New Jersey Army National Guard as a medical operations and plans officer. "It's all combat in Ramadi. It's so gray. They put the rules down on paper. It looks good. It reads good. But for a commander to implement, it's impossible."

In a Marine Corps News article from May 2005, the author noted that of the almost 11,000 female Marines on active duty at the time, "nearly 3,000 serve in combat support fields, including engineering, military police, ordnance and motor transport." The article goes on to note how a defense authorization bill hoped to limit the role of females in combat by clarifying the rules that prohibit women from direct combat roles. Despite the effort by some politicians to limit their role, the article noted that "female Marines are still providing such front-line support."

During the I Marine Expeditionary Force's 14-month tour in Iraq, [2nd Lt. Samantha M. Kronschnabel and Cpl. Steinnum Truesdale], along with other female Marines, flanked their male counterparts in combat support operations throughout Iraq's deadly Al Anbar province. Kronschnabel says female combat supporters in Iraq have performed admirably - and that's how history will view their contribution."

A PBS NewsHour report, "Women in Combat," from August of 2005, quoted Army 1st Lt. Jennifer Ernest:

"It's no longer the linear battlefield of yesteryear. Today's battlefield is everywhere. It's all around you, 360 degrees. So today every soldier -- man, woman, you're a war-fighter first. You need to be prepared."

A previous NewsHour story titled "Women Warriors" from April 2003 featured interviews with two female A-10 pilots (the A-10 is a plane designed to attack enemy infantry and armor). Air Force Captain Jennifer Short said:

"There will be a story from this war or even the previous -- Afghanistan. You're going to have stories from all that in every branch of the military that they can say, "hey, look, see, females can do it. They got the job done just as well as the guys were doing it." So, certainly, there will be some good lessons learned on how females can cope."

The long road to the dangerous jobs

For a history of how women have gained access to more roles, including combat MOS, in the US armed services, a great source is the Women's Research and Education Institute (site) -- in particular its Women in the Military project. Below are some highlights -- or lowlights -- of women in the armed forces culled in part from the organization's "Chronology of Significant Legal and Policy Changes Affecting Women in the Military, 1947–2006" (pdf). We've also included some milestones about the racial integration of the US armed forces to compare the movement to expand women's roles to that of black Americans, who faced their own struggle to gain equality in the various services (that information is from a US Army military history titled "Integration of the Armed Forces 1940-1965" by Morris J. MacGregor, Jr., which can be found here.

• 1948: "Women’s Armed Services Integration Act" enables women to be part of military with many restrictions, such as, that no more the 2% of the overall force can be female. The 2% cap and some other restrictions are finally lifted in 1967. In the same year, President Truman issued an Executive Order for equal treatment of races in the military, but it took years for that to actually happen. However, the Air Force became the first service to be effectively racially integrated a year later in 1949. 
• 1951: An executive order authorized the discharge of any pregnant female soldier; the Air Force is the first to modify these rules in 1971. A court ruling says the Marines have to change this policy in 1976. Back in 1951, the Marine Corps institutes full racial integration; three years later, in 1954, the Secretary of Defense announced that there were no more racially segregated units in the military. 
• 1972: The Navy opens up additional military jobs to women and eases other restrictions. Title IX, which made it illegal to discriminate based on gender in most education institutions that receive federal money, was enacted in this year. As a historical women's rights note, the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the right to vote in the US, was ratified in 1920. 
• 1973: The Navy allows women to pilot non-combat aircraft; the Army follows suit a year later. The Air Force waits until 1977. The first female Marine aviator is not accepted for training until 1995. In June 2005, the Air Force announced that Capt. Nicole Malachowski had been selected as the first female pilot in the prestigious Thunderbird Air Demonstration Squadron. How far has the Air Force come? According to a CNN article this September, "There are only 85 female fighter pilots in the Air Force, compared with 4,400 male fighter pilots."
  
• 1978: The Navy allows women to be assigend to non-combat ships, a year after the Coast Guard lets females serve on all its ships. Note: During World War II, the first efforts at racial integration began aboard some Navy ships. 
• 1989: During the invasion of Panama, women helicopter pilots (at this time women could still not fly combat helicopters) come under fire. 
• 1990-91: During the Persian Gulf War, over 42,000 female soldiers are deployed; 13 are killed, while 2 are captured and became POWs. In 1991, women are also allowed to fly in, but not pilot, combat aircraft. 
• 1993: The Pentagon allows women to become fighter pilots and other combat aviators. The US Army Air Corps, the predecessor to the Air Force, reluctantly began training black fighter pilots in 1941 (the famous 99th Fighter Squadron's "Tuskegee Airmen" was the first and most well known unit). 
• 1994: The Department of Defense's Risk Rule, instituted in 1978, goes away, opening up many combat support roles to women in the Army and Marines -- many of the roles that now place them in combat situations in Iraq and Afghanistan. 
• 1994: Female combat pilots take part in military actions in the Kosovo mission. 
• 2000: Two female sailors are killed (17 died in total) during the October terrorist attack on the USS Cole in the port of Yemen. 
• 2001-present: The DoD as of 10/18/06 reports that 2,771 soldiers have died as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF); icasualties.org lists 61 US women as killed in combat in OIF (its database is updated daily). CNN reports 57 female soldiers killed in OIF as of 9/30/06 -- about 2% of all those killed.

The other side: What a prominent and critical opponent of women in combat thinks

One of the main opponents of women in combat is the The Center for Military Readiness (site), which describes itself as a "independent public policy organization." The organization is actively trying to limit the exposure of women in combat. Its primary current argument seems to be that the military is illegally putting women into combat situations that the 1994 Pentagon directives on "co-location" with combat units prohibit. But, outside of the legal issues, the organization seems intent on not putting women in combat no matter what the law. Some interesting views, include this statement:

But deliberate exposure of women to combat violence in war is tantamount to acceptance of violence against women in general. As a nation we must consider the long-term implications of this cultural shift, which many see as a setback for our values and civilization.

From a National Review article, Elaine Donnelly, the organization's leader, makes several other controversial statements:

"The nation is proud of our women in uniform, but that is no excuse for forcing unprepared female soldiers, many of whom are mothers, to face the physical demands of violent close combat and a higher risk of capture than exists today."

"The modern land-combat soldier carries weapons and high-tech equipment weighing 50 to 100 pounds, with body armor alone weighing 25 pounds. Such burdens would be disproportionately heavy for average female soldiers, who are certainly brave but shorter and lighter, with smaller hearts and bones, 25 to30 percent less aerobic capacity for endurance, and 40 to 50 percent less upper-body strength."

"Politically correct group-thinkers and Clinton-promoted generals in the Pentagon apparently have forgotten certain realities affirmed by overwhelming evidence: In direct ground combat, women do not have an "equal opportunity" to survive, or to help fellow soldiers survive. No one's injured son should have to die on the streets of a future Fallujah because the only soldier near enough to carry him to safety was a five-foot-two 110-pound woman."

And from a USA Today article:

"It is dangerous to 'try' social experiments in the military, where needless loss of life could be the price of failure."

You can imagine that the female soldiers quoted above may have a very different view than this organization.

Women in combat: It's a necessity

In MacGregor's book, he noted that for the Marine Corps, "in the end it was the manpower demands of the Korean War that finally brought integration." As he summed up the forces behind military integration, he noted:

"Paralleling the influence of the law, the quest for military efficiency was another institutional factor that affected the services' racial policies. The need for military efficiency had always been used by the services to rationalize racial exclusion and segregation; later it became the primary consideration in the deciston of each service to integrate its units. Reinforcing the efficiency argument was the realization by the military that manpower could no longer be considered an inexhaustible resource."

Just as efficiency and necessity were primary drivers behind the integration of the armed forces, those forces are once again opening up military opportunities to women -- opportunities that increasingly involve exposure to combat situations. It's not a question of whether US society is ready for women in combat and women POWs -- we have already experienced those issues, and there has not been a successful campaign by Congress or other organizations to remove women from harm's way. The genie is out of the bottle. Women are -- and will be -- fighter pilots and rifle-toting military police, as well as medics and support personnel.

The reality is the OIF and the Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan, as well as most imagined future conflicts, will require the US to use all its available manpower, including women, in all of the required military roles.