{"id":19391,"date":"2023-07-19T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-19T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=19391"},"modified":"2023-07-20T06:44:24","modified_gmt":"2023-07-20T06:44:24","slug":"tradocs-contributions-to-the-opening-of-all-army-military-occupation-specialties-to-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=19391","title":{"rendered":"TRADOC’s Contributions to the Opening of All Army Military Occupation Specialties to Women"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n U.S. Army Reserve Maj. Lisa Jaster, center, became the third woman to graduate from the U.S. Army\u2019s elite Ranger School, Oct. 16, 2015, in Fort Benning, Ga. Jaster, 37, joins just two other women, Capt. Kristen Griest, 26, left, and 1st Lt. Shaye Haver, 25, right, in gaining the coveted Ranger tab. (Paul Abell \/ AP Images for U.S. Army Reserve)
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The history of American women\u2019s military service is as old as the US Army itself. During the War for Independence, women mainly supported Soldiers by mending uniforms, preparing meals, and caring for the wounded.<\/p>\n

During World War I, over 200 \u201cHello Girls\u201d served a vital communications role as switchboard operators in France. Although women\u2019s military service waned between the wars, it ballooned to over 400,000 women who served in the Women\u2019s Army Corps during World War II.<\/p>\n

While American women have always played a vital role in national defense, combat remained almost exclusively the preserve of men for much of Army history. For example, though the Women\u2019s Armed Services Integration Act of 1948 enshrined women\u2019s right to serve in the armed forces, this legislation also restricted the assignment of women to positions that would not expose them to direct combat.<\/p>\n

As the Women\u2019s Rights Movement gained momentum in the 1960s and 1970s, the Army opened more and more Military Occupation Specialties to women primarily to make more efficient use of the talent pool, yet the limitation of women to noncombat MOS\u2019s continued.<\/p>\n

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\n (FORT BENNING, Ga) \u2013 Pvt. Gorgeous Wilson, 18, from Newcastle, Oklahoma with Echo Company, 2nd Battalion, 58th Infantry, 198th Infantry Brigade completes an obstacle conditioning course during One Station Unit Training (OSUT) on Sand Hill. Since 2015, all Army Military Occupation Specialties (MOS) have been open to female Soldiers.
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The big question was how to differentiate between combat, combat-support, and combat-service-support MOS\u2019s. Consequently, in August 1977, the Army tasked US Army Training and Doctrine Command to evaluate the combat roles from which women should be excluded and to provide a definition of combat.<\/p>\n

TRADOC\u2019s analysis led to the recommendation to exclude women \u201cfrom positions that have the primary function of engaging in sustained combat in units with the primary mission of closing with and destroying the enemy or seizing and holding ground.\u201d TRADOC also developed the Direct Combat Probability Coding System, which evaluated each MOS with a complicated set of criteria and resulted in some noncombat MOS\u2019s being closed off to women. Furthermore, in 1988, the Department of Defense developed a \u201crisk rule\u201d which barred women from MOS\u2019s which were at risk of exposing women to combat.<\/p>\n

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\n The new members of the 13B cannon crew member military occupational specialty stand at graduation March 11, 2016. In the back row were their instructors, who pinned the artillery branch insignia on their lapels during the ceremony. Pfc. Katherine Beatty, the distinguished honor graduate, stands toward the back of the formation. (U.S. Army photo by Cindy McIntyre)
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In the early 1990s, combat exclusions for women in the Army began to slowly roll back. Nearly 31,000 women deployed to Iraq during the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf War, a conflict in which noncombat units were often as exposed to attacks as were those on the front lines.<\/p>\n

The DCPC system greatly complicated the management of Army personnel in theater. In 1994, Secretary of Defense Les Aspin began to push for the opening of more job opportunities for women. Aspin rescinded the \u201crisk rule\u201d of 1988, which opened 32,000 Army jobs to women. However, women were still prohibited from serving in Armor, Infantry, Combat Engineer, Field Artillery, forward-area Air Defense Artillery, and Special Operations units. It would be another 20 years before Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta lifted the last restrictions on women\u2019s service in the Army.<\/p>\n

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\n Spc. Jess Wolmuth from the Nevada Army National Guard gets ready to hurl a practice grenade during the afternoon training session.<\/p>\n

The job of a Cavalry Scout is to operate as one of the first personnel in an area. These soldiers are quite literally the first line of defense for Army units. Cavalry Scouts engage the enemy with anti-armor weapons and scout vehicles in the field, track and report enemy movement and activities, and will direct the employment of various weapon systems onto the enemy.<\/p>\n

U.S. Army Cavalry Scouts act as the eyes and ears on the field, gathering information about enemy positions, vehicles, weapons, and activity. With the information they gather, commanders can make informed decisions about how to move troops and where and when to attack. Their scouting duties include conducting mounted and dismounted navigation, collecting data about tunnels and bridges, and serving as members of observation and listening posts.\u00a0In addition to basic soldiering skills, cavalry scouts learn to secure and prepare ammunition on scout vehicles, load, clear and fire individual and crew-served weapons, perform navigation during combat, and how to collect data to classify routes, tunnels and bridges. And they train and supervise scout vehicle crew members.<\/p>\n

This job is categorized as military occupational specialty (MOS) 19D. It’s a job that used to be closed to women, due to the Army’s past restrictions on women in combat. But the first female soldiers graduated from Army cavalry scout training in 2017, part of the Army’s move toward integrating its combat and other units.
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On January 24, 2013, Panetta ordered the armed services to lift the ban on women serving in combat jobs in the military. The Department of Defense ordered the armed services to study the issue and develop an implementation plan within three years. In conjunction with the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, TRADOC began a Physical Demands Study in January 2014 to develop gender neutral physical standards.<\/p>\n

TRADOC conducted a feasibility study with the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team \u201cSpartans\u201d of the 3rd Infantry Division addressing four MOS\u2019s — 11B Infantryman, 11C Indirect Fire Infantryman, 19K Armor Crewman, and the 19D Cavalry Scout. TRADOC concluded that women could serve in these units, and subsequently opened its Ranger School to women in April 2015.<\/p>\n

After CPT Kristen Griest and 1LT Shaye Haver graduated in August 2015, the Ranger school was permanently opened to women. On Dec 3, 2015, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter opened all combat arms jobs to women, to be implemented within 30 days.<\/p>\n

TRADOC developed a \u201cleader first\u201d approach to integrating its combat arms schools to women, training female officers and NCOs before bringing female junior enlisted Soldiers into combat arms schools and units.<\/p>\n

With the full integration of women into the combat arms in January 2016, nearly 220,000 military positions across the armed services opened to women. Due in large part to the efforts of TRADOC, all Soldiers could reach their full potential, regardless of gender.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. Army Reserve Maj. Lisa Jaster, center, became the third woman to graduate from the U.S. Army\u2019s elite Ranger School, Oct. 16, 2015, in Fort Benning, Ga. Jaster, 37, joins just two other women, Capt. Kristen Griest, 26, left, and 1st Lt. Shaye Haver, 25, right, in gaining the coveted Ranger tab. (Paul Abell \/ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19393,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19391"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19398,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19391\/revisions\/19398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}