Via
WRSA
I remember hearing in 2010 from a buddy at the Pentagon that the combat
exclusion policy for women in combat arms would be overturned no matter
what “about a year from the President’s last year.” At the time I
thought he was crazy, but the next year I heard the same from another
friend. His take was even more troubling: “There is a loosely connected
group of advocates that have found huge traction with the current
civilian leadership here and they have a pretty well-thought out
campaign plan to get women into combat arms,” he told me. “Some of the
groups simply want equality, others talk about more women generals, and
there’s one group that is linking this to changing American male
culture.” Looking back, many of the things I am seeing now make sense
when remembering my friends’ comments.
Today I am privy to most of the plans that are currently in place to
put women into combat arms. I have been told, again by acquaintances
working at the Pentagon and at various headquarters around the US
military, that all of the “experiments” that the services have been
undergoing for some time now have been a sideshow. The decision had been
made from the get-go. As one Female Engagement Team Program manager
told many in Afghanistan in 2011, “the decision has already been made;
we just need to talk about “the how” instead of “if”.”
This means that the Ranger School “experiment” was an experiment in
name only. It was guaranteed from the beginning to graduate a woman and
that graduation would be used as proof that the combat exclusion rule
needed to go. This, of course, matches what every Army Command Sergeant
Major (9) in 2011-2013 told me was said to them by high-level CSMs and
General Officers while attending their pre-command courses: “women
will be in combat arms and women
will
graduate Ranger School, if any of you has a problem with that, you need
to get out of the military.” They reported that the Ranger Instructors
at Ranger School were told the same thing.
