JOINT BASE MYER-HENDERSON HALL, Va. - In the last few months, avenues have been paved to allow female Soldiers and Marines more career opportunities within their respective services.
In June, Army Secretary John McHugh signed Army Directive 2014-16 opening roughly 33,000 new positions to female Soldiers.
Under the directive, female Soldiers are now able to hold previously closed jobs in infantry battalion headquarters such as chaplains, health care specialists and signal sergeants.
Female Soldiers are still barred from serving in the infantry and other closed military occupational specialties, including engineer, field artillery, armor and special operations positions. The directive also does not apply to positions with closed skill identifiers such as underwater special forces for warrant officers and javelin gunnery for enlisted Soldiers.
“The assignment of females into previously closed units will occur incrementally,” the directive reads. “Female leaders will be assigned first to provide a support network for junior female Soldiers and to offer advice to the unit’s male leadership.”
Sgt. Maj. Yolanda Brock, command career counselor, Headquarters, Installation Management Command, said she has not seen interest in the new positions from female Soldiers.
“This has a very low impact on my command, because we don’t have any combat arms primary military occupational specialties,” Brock wrote in an email to the Pentagram. “Any Soldiers who wish to relocate and/or reclassify would be immediately backfilled.
“I’ve counseled numerous female Soldiers and although they qualified for the PMOS, none wanted/desired to reclassify into these new positions.”
Brock also said that no female Soldiers have inquired about joining the infantry or other combat MOSs.
“When we talk about women serving in combat PMOSs alongside men, the only issue that I feel we need to address are the morale issues,” she said.
“I would be concerned about the security of female Soldiers and how they would be treated, if she is seen as a trial or experiment by her male counterparts.”
Brock also said there were concerns about sexual harassment and male Soldiers trying to fill a “male protector” role in dangerous or compromising situations.
Command Sgt. Maj. Tracey Anbiya, senior enlisted adviser for assistant secretary of the Army for installations, energy and environment, also spoke to the Pentagram about the new changes in an email. She said that as a female Soldier with a long career, she is not interested in the new positions either.
“I am not sure how the other females feel, but as for me and my 30 years of service, I am completely satisfied,” she wrote.
Opportunities are becoming available to female Marines as well.
The Marine Corps opened seven new ground combat schools to women; starting in October 2014, lieutenants and captains who have already served in another primary MOS will be permitted to enroll in the Marines’ Infantry Officer Training Course.
Ground combat fields were opened to female Marines starting last month as part of a Corps-wide call to staff a “Ground Combat Element Integrated Task Force,” according to a May 22 Marine Administrative message. The task force is part of a yearlong research initiative to “train female Marine volunteers in ground combat arms military occupational specialty skills, and integrate them into a combat arms unit, while a dedicated research team observes the unit’s performance,” according to MARADMIN 252/14.
Female graduates of Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina, will now be able to volunteer for MOS training in the following specialties: machine gunner, mortarman, infantry assaultman, anti-tank missileman, tank crewman, assault amphibious vehicle crewmember and field artillery cannoneer.
For more information about which MOSs are still closed to female Soldiers, see Army Directive 2014-16 online at armypubs.army.mil/epubs/pdf/ad2014_16.pdf.
For more information on combat arms fields open to female Marines, see Marine Administrative message 252/14 on www.marines.mil.
| Date Taken: | 07.24.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 07.24.2014 17:54 |
| Story ID: | 137208 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE MYER-HENDERSON HALL, VA, US |
| Web Views: | 285 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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