The following is the text of the second Request for Corrective Action filed by the Center for Military Readiness, asking that the Department of the Army be brought into compliance with current Defense Department (DoD) policy regarding the assignment of female soldiers in or near land combat units, and with a law requiring prior notice to Congress before such rules are changes. The first request was filed on June 25, 2004, but no substantive action was taken.

CMR also has asked for immediate intervention by the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, and the Commander in Chief, President George W. Bush.

The Honorable Joseph E. Schmitz

Inspector General, U.S. Department of Defense

400 Army Navy Drive

Arlington, Virginia 22202-4704

March 9, 2005

Re: Second Request for Corrective Action - Department of Defense and Department of the Army

Dear Mr. Schmitz,

This letter is a request for corrective action in a matter concerning the Department of Defense (DoD), on behalf of the Center for Military Readiness (CMR), its members and supporters, myself as President of CMR, and military personnel who are not in a position to file such a request.

Documents accompanying this letter indicate that appropriate action is necessary to bring to an end continuing and accelerating violations of current Defense Department regulations, which were set forth by then-Secretary of Defense Les Aspin in 1994, by the Department of the Army.

The Army also stands in violation of a statute requiring prior congressional notification of proposed changes in regulations governing the assignment of female soldiers. (P.L. 103-160, Sec. 591, as amended in 2001, (Tab 1) The 1994 DoD regulations in question, which include what is usually referred to as the “collocation rule,” set limits on the assignment of female soldiers in or near land combat units. (Tab 2)

Background

In my initial Request for Corrective Action, dated June 25, 2004, I reported that DoD regulations have been disregarded at Fort Stewart GA, home of the 3rd Infantry Division. At that time the Army was still denying that female soldiers were being assigned to forward support companies (FSCs), which are organic to and collocated withcombined infantry/armor maneuver battalions in the Army’s new modular “units of action” (UAs).

Now the Army has admitted publicly that female soldiers have been and will be assigned to the land combat-collocated FSCs. (Boston Globe, Jan. 26, 2005) Army officials have simultaneously contradicted themselves by claiming compliance with the DoD collocation rule, adopted in March 1992 and affirmed by then-Defense Secretary Les Aspin in January 1994.

The Department of Defense (DoD) collocation rule exempts female soldiers from assignment to “…battalion size or small units which are assigned a primary mission to engage in direct ground combat or which collocate routinely with units assigned a direct ground combat mission.” (AR 600-13, March 1992, emphasis added)

The Army’s claims of compliance have been stated in congressional staff briefings, statements to the media, and in a January 13, 2005, letter from Secretary Francis Harvey to House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter. In that letter, Mr. Harvey wrote:

“…in our new Brigade Combat Teams (Units of Action), no women will be assigned to a unit below the brigade level whose primary mission is direct ground combat. Neither will women be routinely collocated with units assigned a direct combat mission” (emphasis added, Tab 3)

Women in the Army (WIA) Point Paper

CMR has since obtained from Army officials a “Women in the Army (WIA) Point Paper,” dated January 24, 2005, and prepared by the Office of the Secretary of the Army, which contradicts prior assurances to Congress. (Tab 4) Army officials insist that the WIA paper is “pre-decisional” and “unofficial.” The concept it represents is nonetheless being implemented in several "unit of action" combat brigades, including and beyond the 3rd Infantry Division.

The WIA paper incorporates a significant change in the language, meaning, and effect of the DoD collocation rule itself. The new version reads as follows:

“Department of Defense policy (1994) prohibits the assignment of women to units below the brigade level whose primary mission is direct ground combat. Army policy (1992) further prohibits the assignment of women to positions or units which routinely collocate with those units conducting an assigned direct ground combat mission.” (Emphasis added.)

The difference between “units assigned a direct combat mission” and “units conducting an assigned direct ground combat mission”is significant and extremely consequential in all Army units, including and beyond the 3rd ID. If allowed to stand, this revised definition and actions implementing it with consistency will eventually affect all land combat and Special Operations Forces in all services under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defense, including the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps.

Three pages of the Women in the Army Point Paper list 24 formerly all-male positions in the 225 member combat-collocated forward support company of a 3rd ID unit of action, which the Army has arbitrarily opened to female soldiers for reasons that have yet to be justified, authorized, or reported to Congress in advance, as required by law.

It is also significant to note that the Women in the Army paper omits several types of units that used to be on the list of those assigned a mission of direct ground combat. These include Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS), the Reconnaissance, Surveillance Target Acquisition (RSTA) squadrons of the Stryker Brigade Combat Teams (officially designated to be all-male combat units on April 26, 2002), and Combat Support and Service Support units and positions that doctrinally collocate and remain with direct ground combat units.

All of these omissions are significant, and none have been reported in advance to Congress, as required by law. The final one has apparently been replaced by the new definition of “collocation,” to be applied only when a unit is “conducting” a combat mission.

Evasion, Equivocation, and Battlefield Evacuations

On February 16, 2005, the Army’s plans for gender integration in the 3rd Infantry Division were explained to Dr. Charmaine Yoest and me during a meeting with Secretary Harvey and Vice Chief of Staff General Richard Cody. Both officials kept insisting that the Army is not violating the collocation rule because female soldiers will not be collocated with troops conducting a land combat mission.

This will be so, they said, because female soldiers assigned to the forward support companies (FSCs) in question will be evacuated (removed to a forward operating base) when direct ground combat begins. We were astonished by the absurdity of this position, which is completely unworkable and perhaps intentionally so. In the unlikely event that plans such as this are actually carried out, ensuing problems will undoubtedly be attributed to the collocation rule, which the Army targeted for elimination in November of 2004. ¹ 

Two days later we learned that the Army’s plan apparently is based on the “unofficial” Women in the Army Point Paper, which purports to allow the assignment of female soldiers to land combat-collocated units, except when they are “conductinga direct ground combat mission.” The unauthorized change in the collocation rule explains but does not justify unprecedented deployments of female soldiers in land combat-collocated units, starting with infantry/armor maneuver battalions in the 3rd Infantry Division. (Tab 7)

Some observers have been told that the small number of positions in question is a tolerable compromise. This is tantamount to being a “little bit pregnant” – a condition that involves no compromise, and leads to inevitable major change. Absent intervention by the Department of Defense, there is little reason to believe that the Army will comply with DoD policies or the congressional notification law—both of which have already been breached.

In recent weeks CMR has been informed by many eyewitness sources that female soldiers were improperly assigned to land combat-collocated forward support companies in the 4th Infantry Division in 2002. Army officials refused to answer CMR’s immediate inquiries on this subject, as well as Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests filed in April 2004.

According to Secretary Harvey’s staff, unit commanders at several Army bases are already reviewing, revising, and “validating” the gender assignment codes of land combat-collocated support units, even without official orders to change direct combat probability (DCPC) gender codes in the Modified Tables of Organization and Equipment (MTOEs).

Historic precedent indicates that the Army does not have the power to change DoD regulations unilaterally, either officially or unofficially. (Tab 8) Even if the Secretary of Defense approved past, present, and future deployments that change or violate current rules, federal law requires that the Secretary provide notice to Congress at least 30 legislative days in advance, when both houses are in session. (approximately 3 months)

Officials have insisted that the Army has no obligation to provide official notice to Congress, because the female soldiers in question will not be collocated with infantry/armor maneuver battalions that are “conducting” a direct ground combat mission. It is ludicrous to suggest, however, that female soldiers in land combat-collocated support units could or should be evacuated from the battlefield when collocated support soldiers¾who are designated by regulation to be men¾are needed most.

So much for “train as we fight,” the alleged advantages of modularity in the “transformed” Army of today, and the popular notion that “everyone” in a war zone these days is in “combat.”

Logical Extension of an Abuse of Power

Given the complexity and constantly changing nature of Army terms, flaws in this specious argument can be demonstrated by applying the same concept to another branch of the military that is subject to DoD regulations—the United States Navy.

Since 1993 there has been no law barring female sailors from submarines, but there are regulations having that effect. A statute similar to the land combat congressional notification law requires prior notice to Congress if the DoD wants to change the rules and assign female sailors to submarines.

If the precedent currently being set by the Army is allowed to stand, the Navy could abuse its power in the same way. The Secretary of the Navy, for example, could unilaterally assign female sailors to be submarine crewmembers without the approval of the Secretary of Defense, and without official notice by the Defense Secretary to Congress, as required by law.

Navy officials also could argue that no congressional notice is required, because female soldiers would be removed when a sub is “conducting” an assigned combat mission. Under this scenario, commanders of co-ed subs would be expected to bring the ship to the surface just prior to combat action, so that female sailors could catch the nearest helicopter out.

Never mind that hazardous evacuations such as this—on land or at sea—would undermine the effectiveness of impending combat missions. Indeed, helicopters suitable for evacuation of female sailors would be no more available in the middle of the ocean than they would be in a land combat environment just prior to a combat mission.

Conclusion

By any measure, the Army’s current actions and underlying plans constitute a waste of valuable resources, repeated misrepresentations to Congress, and abuse of power by officials who are disregarding the clear language of current DoD regulations, the congressional notification law, and even the stated views of the Commander in Chief, President George W. Bush. (See Tab 9)

The enclosed CMR Policy Analysis, titled “A Careful Look at Long-Term Consequences – Women in Land Combat, outlines alternative plans to correct any real or perceived shortage of male soldiers for the land combat-collocated troops. (The Army has yet to provide tangible evidence of any shortage of male soldiers for the combat-collocated support units.) Current DoD regulations and the congressional notification law were written for important reasons, and the Army must be required to comply.

The Army’s current plans invite more ridicule than respect among demoralized field commanders who will be faced with an impossible choice: complying with the “unofficially” revised collocation rule, which would require evacuation of collocated support soldiers when battles begin, or keeping all of their combat battalion and forward support company personnel together for the sake of the mission, in defiance of guidelines that are virtually unenforceable.

Combat missions assigned to these commanders should not be made more difficult and more dangerous due to ideological groupthink at high levels of the Pentagon, apparently inspired by the desire for career advancement for a few female officers. ²   If major policy changes outlined in the Women in the Army Point Paper truly are “pre-decisional,” immediate revocation of those policies should not be too difficult.

The Center for Military Readiness is therefore renewing this Request for Corrective Action by your office, which is concerned with all branches of the service. Since my original request in June 2004 was referred to the Army Inspector General, and that office apparently took no substantive action to remedy the problem, I ask that your office handle this directly. (Tab 10)

If your office requires more information, I will be pleased to provide it or to meet with you or your staff to discuss this matter further. Thank you for your attention to this matter—I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

Elaine Donnelly

President, Center for Military Readiness

Enclosures

CC: Inspector General, US Army

ENDNOTES

1.  A November 29, 2004, briefing within the Pentagon indicated that the Army’s preferred “way ahead” is to eliminate the collocation rule all together. Slides from the same briefing claimed that the Army can change or eliminate the DoD collocation rule on its own, without formal approval of the Secretary of Defense, or prior notice to Congress from the Secretary of Defense, as required by law. (See relevant slide pages in Tab 5) This briefing contradicted an earlier presentation to congressional staff members, summarized in slides dated November 3, 2004, which claimed that the Army had no intention of changing or violating the collocation rule. (See Tab 6, “A Careful Look at Long-Term Consequences, Women in Land Combat, Appendix Figure #2)

2.  Several flag officers have indicated that this is their primary motivation, since leadership of a forward support company would help to “grow” a female officer’s career. This is not a valid rationale, especially since Army surveys between 1993 and 2001 indicated that 85% - 90% of female enlisted personnel were strongly opposed to land combat assignments on the same basis as men. Numerous DoD surveys have indicated that military women are promoted at rates equal to or faster than men.