A. Background and Overview

Current Defense Department regulations, which were established by then-Defense Secretary Les Aspin on January 13, 1994, exempt female soldiers from assignments in smaller direct ground combat (DGC) units that engage in deliberate offensive action against the enemy, and from units that collocate with them. The Army submitted lists of positions to be opened or closed under the Aspin rules, and they were approved with a memo signed on July 28, 1994, by Aspin’s successor, William J. Perry. Since that time career fields below the brigade level in the infantry and armor have been designated under the direct combat probability coding (DCPC) system to be “P1,” meaning all male. Military occupational specialties (MOSs) coded “P2” remain open to both male and female soldiers.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has not approved any change in the Aspin rules. Indeed, the set of slides presented to congressional staffers by DoD and Army representatives on November 3, 2004, includes “organizational maintenance in mechanized units” among those that are designated all male. Female soldiers are not eligible for assignment to infantry and armor maneuver battalions, or to organic, collocated sub-units of the maneuver battalions. The Army has no power or authorization to change DoD rules unilaterally, without the approval of the Secretary of Defense.

B. Structure of the New Units of Action (UAs)

In 1992 the Army began a process of “transformation” into a lighter, faster, more versatile force, which would be fully prepared for post-Cold War challenges. Two key elements in the transforming Army are the new, redesigned units of action, which are also called UAs or brigade combat teams, and the recently deployed Stryker brigade combat teams (SBCTs), which move in combat vehicles that have wheels rather than tracks.

Each unit of action includes two maneuver battalions, composed of infantry and armor troops that engage in deliberate offensive action against the enemy. Under the DCPC coding system, these units are designated “P1.” The Aspin rules require the same coding for units collocated with the UA maneuver battalions.

At issue are key sub-units of the maneuver battalions, called the forward support companies, or FSCs. The FSCs are physically collocated with the infantry/armor maneuver battalions 100% of the time, in order to provide 20 level support as an organic part of those direct ground combat units.¹

It is important for maneuver battalion commanders to “own” the FSCs, and to be responsible for evaluations of FSC personnel. In the first of several UAs preparing for deployment early in 2005, all maneuver battalion and FSC personnel wear the same combat insignia.²

C. Attempts to Gender Integrate FSCs in the Third Infantry Division

There is no demographic reason why the FSCs should not remain all male, and many reasons why they should. Removing the FSCs from the maneuver battalion organizations—either physically or administratively (on paper only)—would seriously detract from readiness to deploy, operational efficiency and safety, unit cohesion and morale.

Some Army officials have nevertheless tried to get female soldiers into the FSCs by removing those units from the maneuver battalions—physically or on paper only—in order to circumvent the law requiring prior notice to Congress. The Center for Military Readiness discovered and successfully countered earlier efforts to disregard, redefine, or change DoD regulations without congressional notice. Apparently some Army officials remain determined to proceed with illicit plans anyway, as they have tried to do in the following ways:

1. Fort Stewart, GA, March 2004

In March 2004 CMR learned that the commander of the newly organized 4-64th Armor Battalion, based at Fort Stewart GA, had assigned a female captain to lead the unit’s forward support company (FSC).³ The assignment was a clear violation of Defense Department (DoD) policies adopted in 1994, and of the law requiring congressional notification 30 legislative days prior to any changes in DoD policies affecting women in combat.⁴ This was affirmed by the Office of the Army General Counsel, which advised that any attempt to gender integrate the 4-64th armor battalion’s FSC would constitute a violation of law and policy.

In April the Army Chief of Staff intervened, and 3rd Infantry Division Commander Maj. Gen. William Webster was told to bring the 4-64th Armor Battalion back into compliance with law and policy. Appropriate re-assignments were made, and the situation was resolved satisfactorily for everyone concerned.

2. May 10, 2004

A second attempt to unilaterally gender integrate the 4-64th armored battalion was apparently initiated by the DoD Office of Personnel and Readiness, the Army’s Deputy Chiefs of Staff for Human Resources (G-1), Plans and Operations (G-3), and commanders of the 3rd Infantry Division. A rationale and blueprint for the plan were set forth in a 22-page Army PowerPoint presentation, dated May 10, 2004, titled “Combat Exclusion Quick Look Options.” The slide presentation contained many factual errors, unsupported assumptions, and misleading half-truths that seemed intentionally deceptive.

Soldiers of the 4-64th armor battalion were ordered in May to administratively change the modified table of organization and equipment (MTOE), on paper only, to accomplish two things: a) Assign the FSC troops to the brigade support battalions (BSBs); and then b) “Attach” the FSC troops back to the maneuver battalions.⁵In actual fact, nothing changed. Local commanders conceded that the sole purpose of the contrived arrangement was to assign female soldiers to the land combat FSCs, but without formal changes in DoD rules and prior notification to Congress.

Page 6 of the slide presentation candidly admitted that this course of action, identified as COA # 2, “…could be perceived as subterfuge to avoid [the] congressional reporting requirement.”Indeed, this plan and a later variation of it presented in November depend on subterfuge. The situation is demoralizing to all soldiers who are aware of it.

3. November 3, 2004

On June 25, 2004, the Center for Military Readiness filed a formal request for intervention with the Department of Defense and Army Inspectors General, asking that appropriate actions be taken to bring the Army back into compliance with the law and current DoD policy. No apparent action was taken, but shortly thereafter, Army officials shifted their strategy once again.

On November 3, representatives of the Department of Defense and the Army’s G-1 and G-3 headquarters offices provided a briefing to staffers of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. That presentation was summarized on PowerPoint slides titled “Army Brigade Combat Team Unit of Action and Gender Coding,” which were provided later to CMR. This plan is similar to what the May 10 PowerPoint slide presentation had identified as COA # 4, “Modification of [the] Proposed TRADOC UA Model.”

The option presented on November 3 would take the forward support companies (FSCs) out of the maneuver battalion organizations, and assign them to Brigade Support Battalions (BSBs).⁶The only difference is that the BSBs would serve under the command of what is called a “Sustain Brigade Unit of Action,” equivalent to the current Division Support Command where female soldiers currently are authorized to serve.

Some Army officials have implied that this designation keeps the forward support companies outside the boundary of land combat, and the FSCs will be no different than the gender-integrated brigade support battalions, which have been “attached,” “embedded,” or “operating in close proximity” with land combat maneuver battalions.

Persons close to the situation say that that claim is simply wrong. The all-male FSCs, which are organic parts of the maneuver battalions, provide 20 level support 100% of the time, while the gender-integrated brigade support battalions provide 30 level support on an intermittent basis. When the maneuver battalions engage in combat, collocated FSC troops will bring fuel and ammunition directly to tanks and Bradley vehicles; the tanks will not drive back to them.

D. CMR Analysis: Army HQ Gender Coding Presentation – November 3, 2004

The Army is well aware that gender integration of the all-male FSCs would constitute a significant change in current DoD policy, and it is disingenuous to suggest otherwise. In its May 10 slide presentation, the Army conceded that the option of moving the FSCs to the BSBs “does not solve collocation restrictions for female Soldier assignments.”

And since the FSCs will collocate with the maneuver battalions 100% of the time, they would continue to fall under the list of restrictions listed on the first slide of the Army headquarters’ November 3 presentation, which includes “organizational maintenance in mechanized units.” The Army’s latest plan, therefore, is just as improper as the ones attempted previously.

Current plans to force female soldiers into land combat environments would sacrifice combat efficiency and the advantages of modularity, without a solid rationale for doing so.

Following are some of the reasons why Congress must insist that the Army follow the law, and the Bush Administration must intervene before unwise personnel policies permanently undermine the strength and effectiveness of the Army’s combat units:

1. Combat Efficiency

For maximum unit cohesion and combat efficiency, leaders of the maneuver battalions must "own" the FSCs and be responsible for evaluation of FSC personnel. Plans to “move” FSC troops elsewhere—in reality or on paper only—would degrade the maneuver battalions’ efficiency and readiness for battle. In effect, such units would have to "take a number" and wait for critical supplies needed to fight and win in offensive land combat operations.

• Past experiences can be instructive. In the early 1990s the Army started experimenting with organizational plans for the "Force XXI" that appeared promising on paper, but did not work in actual practice. Combat maneuver battalions did not have operational control of the support companies, which in turn were loyal to the parent support battalions, not to the fighting battalions.

• Forward Support Companies are trained for and will certainly experience direct combat on land. Regardless of dissembling designations on paper, the relationship will be “organic collocation," not just "close proximity" or "task organized with...."

• After years of development and advocacy of the modular UA, the Army cannot justify actions to modify the TRADOC UA model. Implementation of such plans would demonstrate poor planning, skewed priorities, and false assumptions about the interchangeability of male and female soldiers in all military missions.

• The modular structure of the new UA is designed to be a "combat force multiplier," but predictable problems associated with co-ed combat units would be a "force diminisher." The lives of land combat soldiers should not be made more difficult or dangerous just to test feminist theories or advance their agenda.

2. Unfairness to Female Soldiers

One woman soldier’s “exclusion” is another’s “exemption.” There is no evidence that the majority of female soldiers want to be involuntarily assigned to land combat units.

• Army Research Institute (ARI) surveys since 1993 have shown that 85% - 90% of female enlisted soldiers are opposedto involuntary combat assignments on the same basis as men. In 2002, that question on ARI’s annual survey was simply dropped.

• When the Aspin rules were announced in 1994, the emphasis was on career opportunities, not the fact that women would be serving in areas known to involve a “substantial risk of capture.” The Army has shown no inclination to inform women that the rules have changed, and they will be forced to serve in or near land combat units on the same basis as men.

• Unsuspecting and unprepared enlisted women should not have to face mortal peril just because someone in the Pentagon made bureaucratic mistakes in planning for the manpower needs of the Army’s new combat brigades.

• It is unfair to both men and women, as well as illegal, to assign female soldiers to units that constantly collocate with combat maneuver battalions, but are coded “non-combat” just to avoid official notice to Congress.

• To reduce injuries among women and ensure that they “succeed,” various types of gender-norming and adjusted standards prevail in all stages of training. Everyone knows, however, that there is no gender-norming on the battlefield. To summarize numerous studies documenting differences in physiology, in close combat environments women do not have an equal opportunity to survive, or to help fellow soldiers to survive.

• In addition, female soldiers have unique vulnerabilities that murderous enemy fighters are eager to exploit. It is inconsistent to oppose violence against women, but to encourage violence against military women at the hands of the enemy.

3. No Need to Send Women to Fight in Land Combat

There was no excuse for what the May 10 slide presentation described as “insufficient male soldiers in inventory to fill forward support companies.”

• More than a year ago, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker announced that his planned redesign of the force would “…place a premium on infantry, and it is likely that the brigade units of action will need more infantry than today’s divisions.” (Army Times, Oct. 6, 2003)

• Army officials should be required to document any claim of shortages. If there are not enough male soldiers for combat units, the Army should request funds for more, and end pressures on recruiters to keep percentages of female recruits artificially high. An end to gender-based quotas would help recruiters to be even more successful than they are now, since it costs more time and money to recruit and retain female trainees.⁷

• The May 10 slide presentation’s suggestion that “Army manpower cannot support elimination of female soldiers from all units designated to be UA elements”makes no sense. Women cannot be “eliminated” from combat units that have not been open to them. Close combat units were all male before and should remain so in the future.

• It is absurd to suggest, as stated in the May 10 presentation, that there are or will be a “pool of male recruits too small to sustain the force.” In 1973, the Army was approximately 780,000 strong, with 757,000 men. At the present time, the active duty force numbers 480,000, with 15% (72,000) of those soldiers being women. Recruiting and retention numbers remain almost universally strong. According to current U.S. Census estimates, there are more than 8 million men ages 18-21 in the United States today. With a cohort that large, there is no need to recruit so many young women, and then force them into land combat units known to involve extraordinary physical demands and a substantial risk of capture.

4. Unneeded Gender Issues

In a classic understatement, the Army’s May 10 slide presentation to DoD and Army officials admitted that gender integration of the maneuver battalion FSCs would cause “Political and social issues [that] may be significant.”Indeed, short- and long-term consequences would change the very culture of DGC combat units, and impose predictable, policy-generated problems that have been apparent for years in gender-mixed support units.

The 1992 Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces issued numerous findings that are as relevant today as they have been for centuries in the history of warfare. For example:

• Ground combatants and troops collocated with them rely heavily on physical strength and stamina to survive, fight, and win. An abundance of expert testimony indicates that women are shorter, have less muscle mass and weigh less than men, placing them at a distinct disadvantage when performing tasks requiring a high level of muscular strength and aerobic capacity. Female dynamic upper torso muscular strength is approximately 50-60 percent that of males, and female aerobic capacity is approximately 70-75 percent.⁸Burdens carried by modern combat soldiers weigh 50-100 pounds, with modern body armor alone weighing 25 pounds.

• Only a few female soldiers performing at the highest levels can equal the performance of average men. Numerous tests in Britain and the United States over the past decade have shown that women suffer stress fractures and other injuries at far higher rates than men.⁹

• Army officials have historically resorted to various kinds of gender norming techniques to compensate for physical differences and avoid injuries among women. These include dual scoring systems in training, elimination of physically demanding tasks, group evaluations, and allowances for trainees to pass even if they fail to perform strenuous tasks. Assignment of female soldiers to land combat units would require the “adjustment” of standards to the abilities of the average woman. Such techniques would make training less tough for the men, leaving them less prepared for the demands of land combat.

• Combat battalions in the new units of action, which are being tested under wartime conditions, should not be forced to deploy with soldiers known to be less strong and versatile, and more likely to leave the Army due to higher injury rates, pregnancy, and medical evacuations that occur at rates double those of men.

• Assignment of female soldiers to land combat units would introduce a wide range of distractions and demoralizing factors, such as actual sexual misconduct and/or allegations of same. More time devoted to sensitivity programs would detract from combat training. Experts have noted that romantic involvements tend to exclude others, and the effect on unit cohesion would be more severe in land combat units.

• In the Gulf War period (1990-1991), female soldiers were three to four times more non-deployable as men, most often due to pregnancy.¹⁰At the present time, however, Army officials have repeatedly claimed that they have no data on significant personnel readiness matters, such as evacuations due to pregnancy or child care problems, failure to deploy or be available for deployment, or personnel losses due to poor training, physical inadequacies, or inappropriate sexual relationships. If the Army cannot provide this data and analyze it objectively, it should not be forcing women into land combat units.

• There are no benefits for the new UA combat brigades that would compensate for negative factors that distract attention from the mission of land combat. As one combat soldier told the presidential commission, “This is not Olympic diving. We do not get extra credit for adding an extra degree of difficulty.” ¹¹

5. Precedent

Short-sighted plans to effectively eliminate the collocation rule would set a new and disastrous precedent that would be harmful to servicemen and women, and the Army as a whole.

• Because current law requires formal notification to Congress if positions for women are reduced, any “experiment” with the new units of action will become virtually irreversible. The Army should not make permanent policy based on opportunistic,short-term circumstances, instead of the long-term needs of the Army.

• If the Army’s unilateral changes in land combat rules are applied consistently across the board, it will be almost impossible to exempt women from any support troops collocated with land combat units whose primary mission is to engage in deliberate offensive action. This would include Army Special Operations Forces, associated helicopters, and the Stryker brigade reconnaissance, surveillance, target acquisition (RSTA) squadrons.

• The November 3 Army briefing to congressional staff members does not even list the RSTA squadrons among the units that are currently all male, pursuant to the Aspin rules. Congress should ask why.

• If the Army proceeds with plans to gender-integrate the units in question, the infantry, armor, artillery, Marine Corps, Special Operations Forces, and Navy SEALS would have difficulty making the case for retaining their own designation and culture as all-male land combat troops. And due to inevitable pressures to make the training “fair” for women, all of these combat communities would have to adjust and gender-norm requirements to levels that can be achieved by the average female trainee.

• Assignment of women to land combat units would invite a successful lawsuit from the ACLU on behalf of young men, challenging women’s exemption from Selective Service obligations on the same basis as men.

E. Conclusion and Recommendations

Army plans to gender integrate a sub-unit of the new modular combat brigades seem to suggest, with no supporting data whatsoever, that shortages of male combat soldiers are so severe that current law and regulations exempting women from combat duty and Selective Service registration must be disregarded or redefined. This claim contrasts sharply with previous assurances that the Army has enough troops to fight the war in Iraq.

In its May 10 slide presentation, the Army staff indicated that the preferred option would be “COA #3,” assigning female soldiers to the UA maneuver battalion FSCs, following evaluation of pending experiences in the 3rd Infantry Division. This appears to suggest that the Army is in the process of creating an operational situation so unworkable that official inclusion of female soldiers in the land combat FSCs would become the recommended way to “solve” the problem that the Army itself has created.

None of this makes sense for combat effectiveness in the new units of action and Stryker brigade combat teams. With a war in progress, this is no time to engage in social experimentation. In the alternative, CMR offers the following recommendations:

1. Challenge all assumptions, including the attitude that issues involving women are “women’s issues,” and therefore less worthy of objective discussion and sound priorities that apply in other policy-making areas.¹²

2. Retain the direct combat probability coding (DCPC) of current all male units, including the RSTA squadrons, and apply the collocation rule consistently in all units that are organic to or collocated with direct ground combat forces.

3. Reassess many specialties in which women now serve, in view of current battlefield realities. Military police, for example, might be split into MOSs that engage in aggressive actions, as we have seen in the streets of Iraq, and those that carry out more traditional MP missions.

4. Drop Clinton-era “group think,” including the assumption that doctrinaire feminist theories about the interchangeability of male and female soldiers are indisputably true.

5. End co-ed basic training, which the Army admitted in a March 2002 briefing was “not efficient,” and “effective” only in sociological terms.¹³

6. Instruct field commanders to avoid assignments of female soldiers to specialties beyond their physical capabilities or stature.¹⁴

7. Reject short-sighted Army plans to force female soldiers into land combat units for the first time in American history, with no public debate or congressional approval.

The battlefield of today has changed, making it even more important to retain personnel policies that recognize realities of combat that have not changed. There is no objective reason why current rules should be updated only in the direction favored by feminists, forcing new burdens upon ground combat soldiers whose jobs are difficult enough.

At times we have no choice but to send young men into land combat, but we do have a choice when it comes to sending our women there. No other major military power in the world sends young women, including single mothers, to fight wars in this way.

With national security and the lives of young men and women at stake, Congress and the Administration must insist that the Army comply with the law, and implement sound priorities, not social engineering.

* * * * * *

ENDNOTES

1. Maintenance at the 10 level is done by the vehicle operator, while 20 level organizational support is provided by collocated troops. Maintenance at the 30 level is provided by troops that may be located elsewhere.

2. This statement conflicts with what Army briefers may have said to congressional staffers on November 3, but CMR has no reason to doubt that evaluations of FSC personnel have been and will be done by maneuver battalion leaders, not by commanders of the brigade support battalion. The 4th brigade 64th armor battalion’s combat insignia is a fierce looking tusked elephant and the slogan “We pierce.”

3. The assignment was confirmed on an organizational chart obtained by CMR. The schematic chain of command indicated that as of April 15, a female captain would lead the 4-64th armor battalion’s forward support company (FSC).

4. P.L. 107-107, Defense Authorization Act for FY 2002, 28 December 2001, 115 Stat.1125, Sec. 591, Title V.

5. This plan calls for changes in the “modified table of organization and equipment,” or MTOE, which is a comprehensive list of all people and equipment assigned to a given Army unit. Placing the FSC in the MTOE of the gender integrated brigade support battalion, even though it will still collocate with the maneuver battalion 100% of the time, constitutes subterfuge and circumvention of the congressional notification law.

6. Personnel in heavy armor groups usually refer to this unit as the forward support battalion, or FSB, rather than brigade support battalion, or BSB. Regardless of the name, the unit is primarily headquarters-based, and provides 30 level support to the maneuver battalions.

7. The Presidential Commission learned that it costs approximately 50% more to recruit female trainees, who tend to atrrite at a higher rate in the Delayed Entry Program (DEP). Army Recruiting Commander Maj. Gen. Jack Wheeler testified on 14 July, 1992, that the absence of gender goals and quotas would not affect readiness. (CF 2.6.3C)

8. Report of the Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces, November 15, 1992, findings CF 2.1.1 through CF 2.1.3.

9. In Great Britain in 1996, Army commanders noted that in a one-year trial female trainees were suffering twice as many injuries to their lower limbs, until single-gender training was restored. (London Sunday Times, Feb. 8, 1999, and Newsweek, Feb. 9, 1999) More recently, a study at Fort Jackson, SC, found that 50 percent of female and 25 percent of male trainees suffered injuries during basic training, and a 200 member company that was required to wear 25 pound flak vests in a field pilot test experienced twice as many injuries to the lower leg, ankles and feet. (Columbia State, June 20, 2004)

10. Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps briefings presented to the Presidential Commission, 8 August and 11 September, 1992.

11. Testimony of Army Lt. Col Stephen Smith, 7 August 1992.

12. CMR has observed this attitude among some shortsighted Pentagon officials, both uniformed and civilian, who have failed to take these issues as seriously as they do other matters affecting Army readiness. Some have referenced their own daughters’ service in the military, as if that excuses flawed policies that will affect everyone else.

13. U.S. Army Training Center and Fort Jackson, Gender Integrated Training, Presentation to the Secretary of the Army, 22 March 2002, Slides #1 and #12, posted on website, www.cmrlink.org, under Issues/Co-Ed Training.

14. There have been numerous news reports of female MPs in Iraq who are very short in stature. The Washington Post reported that one female soldier was assigned to operate the ring mount on a Humvee. This soldier served bravely under fire in an ambush, but she was too short to see out of the turret in order to shoot the M-249 machine gun as efficiently as a person 5’6” or taller would. (23 Nov., 2003) A 5’ 2” female soldier driving a 12-ton M113 armored personnel carrier during a night training exercise in Korea on 3 June, 2003, was improperly seated and killed when her vehicle rolled over and crushed her. The Safety Center found that she had removed her seat back and used it to prop herself high enough to see out of the vehicle. M113 drivers normally sit in an elevated hatch, and are required to be at least 5’ 5” to see any obstacles on the road ahead. (Detroit News, 11 July 2004)