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| FILE - In this Sept. 18, 2012 file photo, female soldiers from 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division train on a firing range while testing new body armor in Fort Campbell, Ky., in preparation for their deployment to Afghanistan. Women may be able to begin training as Army Rangers by mid-2015, and as Navy SEALs a year later under broad plans Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is approving that would slowly bring women into thousands of combat jobs, including those in the country’s elite special operations forces, according to details of the plans submitted to Hagel that were obtained by The Associated Press. |
WASHINGTON
(AP) -- Declaring "the days of Rambo are over," a top general said
Tuesday that cultural, social and behavioral concerns may be bigger
hurdles than tough physical fitness requirements for women looking to
join the military's special operations units.
Maj.
Gen. Bennet Sacolick, director of force management for U.S. Special
Operations Command, said having seen women working alongside commando
teams in Afghanistan, he is less concerned about their physical strength
than the social issues that could arise. His comments came as military
leaders mapped out plans Tuesday to develop physical and mental
standards for thousands of combat jobs and slowly bring women into
front-line positions, including possibly Navy SEAL teams or Army Ranger
units, where they historically have been banned from serving.
"I'm
actually more concerned with the men and their reaction to women in
their formations, quite frankly," Sacolick said, reflecting concerns
about whether men would accept women in units that have long operated as
small, male-only teams working in close quarters and harsh environment
for extended periods of time.
He said the
military has moved beyond the Hollywood stereotype of a commando,
instead looking for special operators who "can speak and learn a foreign
language, who understand culture, who can work with indigenous
populations and HAVE culturally attuned manners," Sacolick said. "When
people fail in the special forces qualification course, predominantly
they fail because they're not doing their homework."
Under
details the military laid out Tuesday, women could start training as
Army Rangers by mid-2015 and as Navy SEALs a year later. U.S. Special
Operations Command is coordinating the studies of what commando jobs
could be opened to women, what exceptions might be requested and when
the transition would take place.
The proposals
could mean that women are still excluded from some jobs if research and
testing find that women could not be successful. But the services would
have to defend such decisions to top Pentagon leaders.
Still,
Sacolick said he could foresee a commando team of 11 men and one woman,
if only a single female sought the job and qualified.
The
military services have mapped out a schedule that includes reviewing
and possibly changing the physical and mental requirements for certain
infantry, armor, commando and other front-line positions across the
Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. Under the plans there would be one
common requirements for men and women for each post, and it would be
based on specific tasks troops need to do in order to perform those
jobs. Officials say standards will not be lowered in order to bring
women into certain posts.
In his memo to the
services, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said "the department remains
committed to removing all gender barriers, wherever possible, and
meeting our missions with the best qualified and most capable
personnel." He also said that the military will ensure that all women
entering the newly opened jobs will be able to "meet the standards
required to maintain our war fighting capability."
Critics have questioned whether the change would result in any erosion of the military's readiness for battle.
Elaine
Donnelly, head of the conservative Center for Military Readiness, has
been a vocal critic of the proposed changes. She questioned efforts to
review standards for military jobs, saying that, "Due to physical
differences that have been affirmed by more than 30 years of studies and
reports on the subject, all possible options for implementing
`gender-neutral standards' would have the effect of lowering
requirements."
Military leaders have suggested
bringing senior women from the officer and enlisted ranks into special
forces units first to ensure that younger, lower-ranking women have a
support system to help them get through the transition.
The
Navy intends to open up its Riverine force and begin training women
next month, with the goal of assigning women to the units by October.
While not part of the special operations forces, the coastal Riverine
squadrons do close combat and security operations in small boats. The
Navy plans to have studies finished by July 2014 on allowing women to
serve as SEALs, and has set October 2015 as the date when women could
begin Navy boot camp with the expressed intention of becoming SEALs
eventually.
The bulk of the nearly 240,000
jobs currently closed to women are in the Army, including those in
infantry, armor, combat engineer and artillery units that are often
close to the battlefront.
Army officials have
laid out a rolling schedule of dates in 2015 to develop gender-neutral
standards for specific jobs, beginning with July for combat engineers,
followed by field artillery in March and the infantry and armor jobs no
later than September.
Similar jobs in the Marine Corps are also currently closed, and would also be opened on a rolling basis.
As
an example of the standards' review, Marine Col. Jon Aytes, head of the
Marine Corps military policy branch, said that 400 men and 400 women
Marines will be assessed in five key physical tests to gauge whether
candidates can meet the physical requirements of the Corps.
He
said they include lifting a 55-pound tank round, scaling a wall and
conducting some weight-lifting maneuvers. The tests evaluate whether
troops can load ammunition into a tank as required or possibly carry
heavy packs or injured comrades.
Lt. Gen.
Howard B. Bromberg, the Army's deputy chief of staff, said officials
want to make sure that they identify all the possible hurdles and that
they move slowly and carefully enough so that the women who move into
the new jobs first can succeed.
The military
services are also working to determine the cost of opening certain jobs
to women, particularly aboard a variety of Navy ships, including certain
submarines, frigates, mine warfare and other smaller warships. Dozens
of ships do not have adequate berthing or facilities for women to meet
privacy needs, and would require design and construction changes.
Under
a 1994 Pentagon policy, women were prohibited from being assigned to
ground combat units below the brigade level. A brigade is roughly 3,500
troops split into several battalions of about 800 soldiers each.
Historically, brigades were based farther from the front lines, and they
often included top command and support staff.
Last
year the military opened up about 14,500 combat positions to women,
most of them in the Army, by allowing them to serve in many jobs at the
battalion level. The January order lifted the last barrier to women
serving in combat, but allows the services to argue to keep some jobs
closed.
The decision reflects a reality driven
home by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where battle lines were
blurred and women were propelled into jobs as medics, military police
and intelligence officers who were sometimes attached, but not formally
assigned, to battalions. So even though a woman could not serve
officially as a battalion infantryman going out on patrol, she could fly
a helicopter supporting the unit or be part of a team supplying medical
aid if troops were injured.
Women make up
about 14 percent of the 1.4 million active U.S. military personnel. More
than 280,000 women have been sent to Iraq, Afghanistan or neighboring
nations in support of the wars.
