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American Revolution (1775-1783): Women serve on the battlefield as nurses, water bearers, cooks, laundresses and saboteurs.
Women In Military Service For America Memorial
OK and this is new?
American Revolution (1775-1783): Women serve on the battlefield as nurses, water bearers, cooks, laundresses and saboteurs.
Women In Military Service For America Memorial
OK and this is new?
American Revolution (1775-1783): Women serve on the battlefield as nurses, water bearers, cooks, laundresses and saboteurs.
Women In Military Service For America Memorial
but in the front line?
Brogden, who assumed command of the Group Support Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group, is the first woman to assume command of a battalion within any of the Army's seven Special Forces groups. "It was a very humbling moment," she said after the ceremony on Fort Bragg's Meadows Field. "It's such a great organization." But while happy to take on the challenges and proud of her accomplishments, Brogden is hesitant to mark herself as breaking new ground or smashing through any so-called glass ceilings. "I don't necessarily see it as much of a milestone," she said. "I didn't go to Ranger school or selection. It's a lot about timing."
Officials have called Brogden's assuming command a historic moment for 3rd Group and the rest of the Special Forces Regiment. But during the change of command, leaders made clear that she was chosen for her expertise and leadership, not because she is a woman. "She is without a doubt the right choice to assume command of this great unit at this time," said Col. Bradley D. Moses, the 3rd Special Forces Group commander who passed the battalion colors to Brogden, symbolically starting her time in command. Moses said Brogden has an unwavering dedication to soldiers, and a long history of supporting and leading special operations soldiers and maintaining the force. "You're a great officer, Megan. Smart, humble and full of energy. It's an honor to serve with you again," he said. "Lead from the front. Focus on the mission and take care of your soldiers and their families. I look forward to working with you in the days ahead."
Members of the 3rd Special Forces Group attend a Valor Award Ceremony at Fort Bragg, N.C., in March 2014. The group's support battalion now has a woman commander.
Brogden said the Group Support Battalion has a noteworthy reputation. It's the largest, most diverse of five battalions within the 3rd Special Forces Group, charged with supporting Special Forces teams deployed to remote and austere environments in Africa and the Middle East. "They have an awesome reputation," she said. And for the next two years, she said, she'll work to build on that reputation and innovate to better support soldiers and their missions. In taking command, Brogden said she feels no added pressure due to her gender. She said her selection as battalion commander shows the continuing growth of women within the special operations community. "I think the doors are already opening, and if females want to be in the Special Forces community, the opportunities are there," Brogden said.
She noted that women are already assigned within the Group Support Battalion, have served within U.S. Army Special Operations Command as civil affairs and psychological operations soldiers for nearly two decades and have served in cultural support teams with Army Rangers and as part of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. Capt. Christopher Webb, a spokesman for the 3rd Special Forces Group, said the percentage of women serving in special operations is comparable to the active Army. The first female service members served alongside the predecessors of today's special operations soldiers as early as World War II, he said. But there's little doubt that the role of women in special operations is changing. In addition to filling more leadership roles, USASOC continues to integrate women into previously closed military jobs, officials said, stressing that standards have and will remain high for any position. Brogden took command from Lt. Col. Chris Paone, who had led the Group Support Battalion, also known as the Nomads, for two years.
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As the military services moved to admit women into previously closed special operations and ground combat jobs in 2016, Army officials were tasked with looking for ways to get the best performance out of female troops in order to minimize injury and boost their opportunities to succeed. And they discovered one unlikely culprit that was holding some women back: chronic iron deficiency. While it's well known that women tend to be more iron-deficient than men for various reasons, the scope of the problem, and its impact on overall performance, was eyebrow-raising.
About a quarter of the women who enter the Army training pipeline have an iron deficiency, said Scott McConnell, who discussed Army Training and Doctrine Command's efforts to improve training at the quarterly meeting of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services on Wednesday. After several weeks of training, that figure can double, he said. "That impacts your body's ability to carry oxygen to the vital organs. And so iron deficiency can actually be reflected in poor aerobic fitness levels and physical performance," McConnell said.
Recruits of November Company, 4th Recruit Training Battalion, run 1.5 miles during an initial strength test Sept. 16, 2016, on Parris Island, S.C.
In February 2016, the Army announced it would begin providing iron-rich multivitamins to female soldiers. And, McConnell said, the move has made a difference. "The statistic we have is that the iron supplements can actually shave two minutes off the two-mile run time," he said. As services address the challenge of preparing female troops to meet stringent physical standards designed for men, they're gaining new insights about the way nutrition affects performance -- insights that have the potential to benefit the total force.
Since the services began opening previously closed jobs last year in response to a mandate from then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter, it has become clear that it's completely possible for women to meet minimum infantry requirements. To date, 14 female Army officers, 16 noncommissioned officers, and 21 junior enlisted soldiers have been assigned to infantry positions in the active component and Reserve, according to Army data presented Wednesday.
On the Marine Corps side, nine officers and 63 enlisted women have graduated military occupational specialty school for previously closed fields, including one in the rifleman MOS. At the same time, it's evident that women face greater physical hurdles just because they're built differently than men and have different average capability ranges. And that's where tools such as nutrition, supplements and smart training can help.
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Marine Maj. Jasmin Moghbeli's grade school dream of becoming an astronaut has wavered only once: during her combat deployment to Afghanistan as an AH-1W Super Cobra pilot from 2009-10. "Had I been offered to leave and go be an astronaut, I don't know that I would have said yes at that time," Moghbeli told Military.com in a June interview, "because I loved what I was doing in that moment." Regardless, Moghbeli said, the dream has served as a guiding force throughout her distinguished 12-year Marine Corps career, shaping her plans and giving added purpose to years of intensive work and study. Last month all of that work came to fruition. NASA announced that Moghbeli would be one of 12 astronaut candidates selected to undergo a two-year training and evaluation period for entry into the 58-year-old astronaut program.
When Moghbeli got the news, she immediately called her parents, her hands shaking with excitement and disbelief. "They were at a pizza place when I called them and [my dad] was crying so much he couldn't even drive home," she said. "So I think that says something about how much it meant to me and my family." Moghbeli, 33, has seldom taken the easy path. She was born in Germany to Iranian parents, Fereshteh and Kamy Moghbeli, who moved to the United States when she was eight months old. She grew up in Baldwin, New York, and remembers first knowing she wanted to become an astronaut in the sixth grade. "I did a report on Valentina Tereshkova, the first female in space, a [Russian] cosmonaut. I think the reason I chose her was I was pretty adventurous, but I always loved math, I always loved science, even as a little kid," Moghbeli said. "And then we got to dress up as the person, I had my little space suit and it just kind of, as a little kid, fanned the flames of getting me excited about space exploration."
Astronaut Candidate Marine Maj. Jasmin Moghbeli
After high school, Moghbeli had initially planned to attend the U.S. Naval Academy, but then was offered a spot at the world-class Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she earned a Bachelor's Degree in Aerospace Engineering. After school, Moghbeli knew she wanted to pursue military aviation, a common gateway for NASA selectees. At a career fair her junior year, she learned about a Marine Corps leadership program that allowed college students to attend Officer Candidates School over the summer with no military obligation. She went that summer before starting her senior year, and she knew her path was set. "Once you end up going through Officer Candidates School you just, there's just pride in the Marine Corps. And there was no way I was going to go to any other branch after going through that," Moghbeli said. "So yeah, that's how I ended up in the Marine Corps. And I'm glad I did; I love it."
In the Marine Corps, Moghbeli eventually trained on Super Cobras, ultimately completing three deployments with the twin-engine attack helicopter. She was deployed twice aboard ship with the 13th and 31st Marine Expeditionary Units, and in 2009 was sent to Camp Bastion, Afghanistan in Helmand province with Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 367, nicknamed "Scarface." The deployment proved a busy one. "We did lots of different stuff, of course close air support -- as an attack helicopter pilot, that's the bread and butter -- but escorts on the ground and for other aircraft that don't have defensive weapons capabilities, doing reconnaissance missions, and just overhead support of the patrols going out so several different missions sets," she said. In the Afghan desert, the dream of being an astronaut seemed a distant one. But Moghbeli was still biding her time and building her skill sets. "I didn't think I was ready yet and I had what NASA was looking for," she said. "I kind of waited until I was like, 'all right, I've got what I think they're looking for, so I'm going to apply this time.'"
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Women have been in combat in every war America has fought.
Let's get real here folks.
All you dinosaurs: remember your thinking is extinct.
Ah you poor thing you. Getting picked on all the time. I feel so sorry for youWomen have been in combat in every war America has fought.
Let's get real here folks.
All you dinosaurs: remember your thinking is extinct.
Indeed, there is no such thing as gender.
Except the gender of white male (= evil oppressor).
Barring any last-minute glitches, the first woman Marine to pass the grueling Infantry Officer Course will graduate Monday and be qualified to lead a rifle platoon in combat, the Marine Corps said Thursday. The lieutenant, who has not been identified, succeeded where three other women had failed in the past -- one of them twice -- and is set to join graduation ceremonies with her peers at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, the Marine Corps' Training and Education Command said.
The historic graduation was first reported by The Washington Post. "The female officer within Infantry Officer Course (IOC) has completed all graduation requirements," the command said in a statement. The 13-week course recently concluded with a three-week, live-fire exercise at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, also known as Twentynine Palms, California. "Since ground combat military occupational specialties [MOS] were opened to women in April 2016, four female Marine officers have volunteered and attempted Infantry Officer Course. The female officer in the current course will be the first female to successfully complete IOC and earn the MOS of 0302, Infantry Officer," the command said.
Marine Infantry Officer Course students await a CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter fast rope drill on the Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Ariz., Auxiliary Landing Field 2
The IOC is the last hurdle to becoming a Marine platoon commander and is also the required training for ground intelligence officers. "The demanding 13-week course trains and educates newly selected infantry and ground intelligence officers in leadership, infantry skills, and character required to serve as infantry platoon commanders in the operating forces," the command said. To graduate, those entering IOC must complete six graded tactical-movement exercises, including hikes of 6.4 and 9.3 miles with loads of up to 152 pounds. About 25 percent of those who attempt the course fail to complete it. The graduation Monday will come nearly two years after the Pentagon lifted the military's last remaining restrictions for women, part of an effort to make the armed forces fully inclusive.
The Corps first opened the Infantry Officer Course to women on an experimental basis in 2012, allowing them to attempt it as part of broader research across the Defense Department examining the integration of women into all-male units. Thirty-two women tried the course before the research ended in spring 2015, and none completed it. Four additional female Marines, including the one who will graduate Monday, have attempted the course since the Pentagon opened all jobs to women in December 2015.
First Marine Woman to Graduate Grueling Infantry Officer Course | Military.com
To date, more than 500 female soldiers have completed training to serve in infantry and armor jobs that only became opened to them in December 2015 when the Pentagon eliminated rules barring women from serving in certain military jobs, Lt. Gen. Thomas C. Seamands, the Army's chief of personnel, said during the Association of the U.S. Army's annual meeting in Washington, D.C. "These are citizens who a few years ago would not have had the opportunity to be infantry or armor soldiers, and they are now doing it and doing it quite well [and] with distinction," he said. So far, the Army has assigned about 100 of those female soldiers to units at two posts -- Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Fort Hood in Texas.
Women are serving in infantry and armor units within Fort Bragg's 2nd and 3rd Brigade Combat Teams in the 82nd Airborne Division and in Fort Hood's 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division and 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. The other roughly 400 soldiers in those fields are now in various training programs while they await assignments to combat units. But as more women enter the previously closed fields, the service will need to expand the number of installations where it assigns female infantry and armor soldiers, said Lt. Col. Naomi Mercer, the Army's chief of command policy who is helping develop the gender-integration process for the service.
Army Capt. Nargis Kabiri, commander of Alpha Battery, 1st Battalion, 9th Field Artillery Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division Artillery, helps her team prepare an M119 Howitzer on Fort Stewart, Ga
The Army said last month that it had an additional 184 women attempting to join the infantry and another 125 attempting to serve in armor jobs. The expansion of posts with female infantry and armor soldiers could come within the next year, Mercer said. She declined to identify which Army installations are being considered, but she said female infantry and armor soldiers would likely begin their careers at larger posts with multiple combat units. Fort Hood and Fort Bragg were chosen because they are large installations with extensive resources for soldiers serving in combat arms fields, Mercer said. "The consideration is based on the opportunities for the [soldiers] who go there," she said. "The reason that we picked Fort Bragg and Fort Hood in the first place is that those are armor and infantry hubs."
Just as the Army has done at Fort Hood and Fort Bragg, it will place at least two female officers or noncommissioned officers in a unit before it moves junior enlisted soldiers -- in the rank of specialist or below -- into those units. The Army calls that structure a leaders-first approach to integrating women into fields that were traditionally all male. Mercer said the structure has been effective so far and the leaders are paving the way for new soldiers just out of initial entrance training programs to move into the combat force. "We've been preparing for this since 2012 and it has proven it works," she said. "Everybody is filtering in. It just takes time."
Army Looking to Add Female Infantry, Armor Soldiers to New Posts | Military.com
