US Women in Combat: An Evolution Years in the Making

When it comes to women in combat roles — including the most exposed — the U.S. Army, which just awarded two elite women fighters Rangers status, is in the process of formalizing an evolution that began long ago in the field.

The fact that two women demonstrated that they were capable of successfully completing this training, which is both mentally and physically demanding, shows that “reality and perception [are] catching up” to the ability of women to fight, former U.S. Air Force pilot and senior Pentagon official Janine Davidson explained on Tuesday [Aug. 18, 2015].

Although some still doubt their abilities, she added, more and more women are finding themselves in combat positions over the past decades.

In the early 90s, female members of the military police on mission in the Balkans regularly found themselves under fire, [Davidson] recalled in a telephone conference organized by the think tank Council on Foreign Relations.

During the first decade of the millennium in Iraq and Afghanistan, though technically excluded from infantry combat, artillery or armored positions, women were in reality often in direct contact with enemy fire, she explained.

In these wars without a clearly defined front, any soldier could find themselves in contact with an enemy, whether driving a truck or at an ordinary checkpoint, experts say.

In fact, nearly 9,000 American female soldiers have been decorated as soldiers who have “actively engaged in combat with the enemy or who have been attacked,”* and two have received the Silver Star, a prestigious distinction recognizing “courage in the face of an enemy of the United States,”* according to a recent report by the U.S. Congress.

American women have also paid in blood in the global war against terrorism launched by the United States after Sept. 11, 2001 — 161 [women were] killed and 1,015 injured, according to the same source.

The Ranger School training was first opened to women selected after rigorous tests last spring, as part of experiments conducted by the Pentagon to fully open combat roles to women.

In 2013, the Obama administration established the principle that all combat positions should be open to women with exceptions that must be duly justified by the branch in question: the Army, Navy, Air Force or Marines.

But “the successful integration of women into currently closed positions requires us to be thoughtful and deliberate,” responded Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, Pentagon spokesman, on Tuesday.

That is why the Pentagon was given until January 2016 to decide definitively on the posts that, by exemption, will remain closed to women.

Since 2013, several departments have conducted experiments and scientific studies to determine whether some positions should be filled exclusively by men, or if all could be open to both men and women.

Experiments at the Marines

The Marines are the expeditionary corps of the U.S. Army, an elite force often on the front lines of combat in the last decade. They have opened their infantry schools to women on an experimental basis.

No woman has successfully completed officer training, which is extremely physically demanding, but over 100 have completed the training for rank soldiers. And the Marines have also launched an unprecedented scientific study to assess the impact of gender diversity in their units.

They created a mixed battalion that increased combat training in California over 90 days. During this time, they carefully recorded the respective performances of all-male groups, groups with some women and groups with a significant number — up to 15 percent — of women.

The results of this study are still being analyzed and will be published in the coming weeks by Marine Forces Command, according to a Marines spokesman Lt. Philip Kulczewski.

Marine Forces Command must communicate their wishes about the positions that will remain closed to women in early fall, he said.

Chief of Naval Operations of the U.S. Navy Adm. Greenert has made his choice about the crème de la crème, in any case — the Navy SEALs commandos who have a formidable record and who, among other things, eliminated Osama bin Laden in 2011.

“Whoever,” man or woman, meets the stringent selection criteria for the Navy SEALs should be entitled to join these commandos, he stated Tuesday on the news site Defense News.

Women make up about 15 percent of troops in the U.S. Army.

*Editor’s Note: The original quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.