![]() ![]() ![]() Pink and purple running shoes are lined up on top of wall lockers in the bays. The battalion started the cycle with 32 women out of 180 total recruits. Each company set aside a female-only bay or barracks room, and, to start, eight women were assigned to each platoon.īoth in the barracks and out in the field, the differences are subtle, but they’re there. They also needed enough female drill sergeants so that there is always a woman on staff duty, as well as security cameras recording the hallways and entrances to the building. The battalion solved that by moving its two companies to a new building, with enough space to designate a room for women. They also reached out to the British and Canadian armies, Edwards said.Įarly on, they realized they were going to need a bigger barracks. Leaders at Fort Benning consulted basic training units at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, which have been integrated for decades. The women are the first new enlisted recruits to go through Infantry One Station Unit Training. Infantry soldiers-in-training prepare to engage the opposing force during a squad training exercise May 2. every night, where they study and prepare for the next day before lights out.Īt 4:30 a.m., they’re up again, with a few minutes to brush their teeth and get dressed before they’re back in formation. Their only segregated time is in the barracks, from about 8 to 9 p.m. In the same way the Army’s other basic training posts are integrated, men and women on Sand Hill spend about 16 hours a day side by side. "They cry about their feet hurting, and it’s males and females. "You know, I really expected that, but I didn’t get anything," she said. In her experience, she said, the women don’t need any more help than the men do, nor do they complain more. "She always wants to help, she always wants to train." "I have a female that runs to anything," she said of one squad automatic weapon gunner, who stands at barely 5 feet tall. So me or one of the other female drills getting out there, climbing ropes, running, doing all the ruck marches, we’re setting that example and being that leader that they’re trying to look for." "A lot of them, they’re new to all these ruck marches. "The best way is setting the example," Carter said. New soldiers conduct basic rifle marksmanship training at Fort Benning, Ga.Ĭarter and her fellow female drill sergeants were sent to Fort Benning as part of the Army’s "Leaders First" initiative, to provide seasoned role models so that female recruits have women to look up to, but also so that the men get used to the idea of being led by women. Sometimes there’s an extra perception added onto it, but everybody’s being judged on whether they’re weak or not." "They can’t be upset they’re being judged, because the males are going to be judged the same. "These basic trainees are going to have to establish themselves and be judged, just like everybody else," Spencer said. On May 19, 18 of them graduated, earning their blue cords. "But the statements are false in that women have not been integrated into these small units with the role of direct action, which creates its own subculture." Thirty-two women reported to the first integrated infantry OSUT, where they were assigned to 1st Battalion, 19th Infantry Regiment. ![]() John Spencer - a former senior enlisted infantryman, one-time Ranger school instructor and current strategy expert at West Point's Modern War Institute - told Army Times. "I've heard that story of, 'Women have been in combat.' That's a true statement - all of these statements are, in and of themselves, true statements," Maj. Some argued that women's unique medical needs would disqualify them, or throwing them into such a macho culture would damage unit cohesion. But gender integration was a long fight, and, at every step, detractors within and outside the Army argued that women weren't physically up to the challenge. "Female gender integration is new to the infantry branch, but it's not new to the Army." Officials across the Army, all the way up to Sergeant Major of the Army Dan Dailey, had similar things to say - that the Army has been training men and women together and deploying them together for decades, and this move is largely business as usual. Seth Davis, a One Station Unit Training company commander, told Army Times on April 30. ![]() "There hasn't been any light bulb moment of surprises," Capt. When the 198th Infantry Brigade welcomed its first gender-integrated class back in February, months of research and planning had gone into preparing one of the Army's last all-male environments for the arrival of the first women to enlist in the service's largest military occupational specialty. Things are looking a little different on Sand Hill these days, and it's not just the coiled hair or the female drill sergeants screaming at recruit formations. ![]()
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