The Evolution of Women in the U.S. Army

EDITORIAL
By JIM PURCELL

I was a soldier in the 1980s, considered by many soldiers these days as the 'Paleolithic Era' of the Army. But, it was an incredibly interesting time for women and their varied roles in the Army and that era was the forerunner of the force today.

Women have overcome many obstacles in the Army

   To begin with, women are already in combat every day around the world today, right now. It is no longer a question of if women should go into combat, they are and they are as capable as men in protecting this country and thumping bad guys and gals who are enemies of our republic. Women have graduated from Ranger School, they are now accepted in the Infantry Branch. They are flying combat missions and they are leading throughout the combat arms and combat support. It's their time. It arrived. They arrived.

   When I attended the U.S. Army Airborne School, in 1985, there was a female "Black Hat," or airborne instructor. My understanding was that she was the first female airborne instructor. At the school, I found out that the first female paratrooper graduated from Ft. Benning, Georgia in 1971. But, there were haters.

Women have proved themselves in combat

   I reported to Company A, 319th Military Intelligence Battalion, 525th MI Brigade (ABN) in September, 1986. Women were in leadership positions throughout the battalion, and the brigade for that matter. On the surface, it looked exactly like it was supposed to. Everything was integrated and the unit operated at a high level. At my activity, Counter-Intelligence Analysis, XVIII Airborne Corps (staffed by soldiers from my company), the non-commissioned officer in-charge was a woman as well and roughly half of the office was comprised of women.

   There was a level deeper than salutes and formations, field problems and daily work, though. It was the level where men are congregated together, in whatever ranks, when no women were present. And, it was there that the topics turned to female soldiers' sexuality, their looks, their competence and bodies. Even though the Department of the Army had gone further than it ever had to that point in female integration, under then-Secretary John O. Marsh Jr., many men, in and out of uniform, saw the Army as a man's job and not a woman's. Women had to work twice as hard to get half the credit of a male counterpart.

   Male and female soldiers dated in the unit, throughout the brigade, all over the post actually. As natural as that was, it sometimes relegated female soldiers, in the minds of colleagues, as 'the girlfriend' and not as 'the analyst' or whatever technical specialty she may have had.

   Some female soldiers railed against this perception by presenting themselves in the diametrically opposite way. I remember one female PFC who made it clear to every male soldier that "I'm not a lady, I'm a soldier and you better remember it!" She had a chip a mile wide on her shoulder, and it is understandable about why it was there.

As the force evolves, so does the role of women

   In my experience back then, male homosexual soldiers were heavily closeted. Discovery for them was unthinkable in those days. A soldier had been killed a few years later, at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, after soldiers from his infantry platoon found out about his sexual orientation. And, fears for them ran just that deep. For whatever reason, lesbian soldiers were more 'out' with their orientation at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. I say 'the fort' as opposed to just 'my unit' because one female soldier I knew made it clear she was with another female soldier in the 82nd, and even brought her to parties.

   There was some drama later on when that soldier's girlfriend left her and became the girlfriend of yet another 82nd Airborne Division soldier from within the unit. The three were at a social occasion once and a fight broke out between the girl's spurned lover and the new girlfriend. Overall, the impression was that the sexual orientation of these women were their own business, unlike the recriminations male soldiers would surely have experienced if they were outed. To my knowledge, no one ever called these ladies onto the carpet. And, with all the stuf they had to put up with, then that was at least one good thing.

   Inevitably, heterosexual girlfriends who were soldiers left boyfriends who were soldiers, usually for other soldiers, and there were fireworks: fights, big scenes, even some stalking here and there. It was part of the cycle of life in an integrated unit. All the time, the women were fighting quietly to be regarded the same as men. Not all female soldiers became involved with other soldiers romantically. Actually, it was a minority of female soldiers I saw.

   Dating is natural between healthy young people, in any walk of life. Some women were 'downgraded' for having a social life, while men were not. Fair? Not hardly. Perhaps that was a barrier that many professional soldiers did not cross because, back then, it would have led to wrong impressions about their competence.

   The 'go to' regulation that was regularly used by the female soldier haters was the disparity of minimum requirements used per the Army Physical Readiness Test. The event consisted of push-ups, sit-ups and a run. Due to their relative upper body strength, females had to perform slightly lower standards. And, that was what haters hung their hats on. It seems ridiculous looking back on it. In fact, it seemed ridiculous then.

   Back then, I did not know any civilian male husbands of female soldiers, though I am confident the lower ranks would have had harsh characterizations for such dependants. For that matter, I feel safe in saying higher ranks would have been negative about this also, though would surely have been publicly silent about such things. The scales were absolutely tipped to male soldiers.

   I never witnessed a female soldier being directly sexually harassed, but I'd heard such things second-hand. Asking female soldiers about abuse directly, as I had on occasion, would usually elicit automatic silence and a quick rebuff. Nevertheless, it happened. And, judging by the talk, it happened quite a lot.

The Army of the '80s had a way to go with total female integration

   In retrospect, what these ladies put up with was unimaginable for me, as a male soldier. Yet, they perservered. They did not stop. Though regulations and oversight got better, and the culture became more truly diverse, females were more accepted as professionals over time. It was not a pretty story about what women had to put up with, but it is one that hallmarks the courage of the female soldier in her ability to overcome adversities from outside the force -- and from within.

   Female military professionals today are doing an amazing job protecting this country, and thank God they have finally been recognized as the assets that they are. However, soldiers of both sexes owe a large debt of gratitude to the service women who came before.                                                                   
(Jim Purcell served in the United States Army in a number of units during the 1980s. After being discharged from the Army as a Sergeant, he went on to become a print newspaper professional. He is currently retired in Western North Carolina with his wife, Lita.)                                                                                                                                       

Edwin Maling: Service With the Multinational Force and Observers

Ed Maling is a former paratrooper with the 505th Regiment

By JIM PURCELL

Today, Edwin H. Maling is a grandfather who resides in San Marcos, Texas. He is retired and finds joy in his home-life and his family. But, there was a time, three decades earlier, when hearth and home was the last thing on his mind.

 Mr. Maling is a veteran of the United States Army's 82nd Airborne Division, where he served with Alpha Company, 1st Battalion of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment as an Airborne Infantryman. His travels with the Division took him many places -- and among those places was the Sinai Peninsula, which separates the Middle-Eastern countries of Egypt and Israel, as part of the Multinational Force and Observers.

Mr. Maling's Army sojourn began right out of high-school, in his native Virginia. He was recruited in Norfolk and sworn-in at the Military Entrance Processing Station in Richmond on June 25th, 1981. He attended Basic and Advanced Individual Training at Ft. Benning, Georgia. After earning his blue infantry cord at Ft. Benning, he changed his address a few blocks there and underwent training at the U.S. Army Airborne School.

Like so many young paratroopers, Mr. Maling found his way to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 505th PIR. A storied unit that was founded in 1942 for service in World War II, the 505th has played a key role in nearly every U.S. military endeavor since.

Mr. Maling said, "It was a good unit with excellent training and opportunities and a chance for travel." However, Mr. Maling saw the 'downside' of the unit being its "dog and pony show" atmosphere and what he regarded as "toxic leadership" in some places within the unit at the time.
According to Mr. Maling, life at the 505th included many field training exercises and "prodigious drinking" when him and his fellow paratroopers were released from duty.

The 505th PIR crest

He was not even out of the 82nd Replacement Detachment, which all soldiers entering the Division pass through, when the Fayetteville Observer newspaper announced that the 1/505th Regiment had been selected for "MFO duty."

MFO DUTY

The Multinational Force and Observers is an international peacekeeping force that was organized for the expressed purpose of overseeing the terms of the peace treaty between the nations of Egypt and Israel. The MFO operates throughout the Sinai Peninsula and has included military units from around the world, including: Australia, Canada, Columbia, the Czech Republic, Fiji, France, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, the United States, Uruguay and the United Kingdom.

The MFO's history is traced back to Sept. 17, 1978, and resulted from the Camp David Peace Accords, brokered by U.S. President Jimmy Carter and signed by Israeli Prime Minister Menachim Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. The accords called for a full withdrawal by all Israeli forces operating in the Sinai. Subsequently, the two nations signed the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty on March 26, 1979 and the nations of Egypt, Israel and the United States established a peacekeeping force after the United Nations passed on creating the force. So, on August 3, 1981, the MFO was created.

It would not be long after the creation of the MFO that Mr. Maling and his comrades would find their way to the Sinai Peninsula. His unit left Pope Air Force Base on an El Al airliner on March 19th, 1982. They would land at a place called Ophir, which is about nine miles from the MFO base camp at Na' ama Bay, near Sharm El Sheikh (on the southern tip of the Sinai). The contingent would not return to Ft. Bragg until September of that year.

Mr. Maling explained, "We were to observe, verify and report violations of the Camp David Peace Agreement. Basically, we counted and reported every camel, truck, pedestrian or ship that we could see. We would even do roving patrols, both mounted and on foot."

Ed Maling (far left) and his comrades

Mr. Maling said the contingent from the 505th initially spent a few days in the base camp and then deployed in squad-sized observation positions and check points. During the rotation, he said his unit switched locations. Today, though, he says that units at the MFO spend their entire 6-month rotation at the same locale.

"Some of the [fixed] positions that had been used were [created] by the United Nations Peacekeeping Force the Egyptians had ejected in 1956. Most were unimproved but there was at least one microwave relay site that had previously been fortified by the Israelis," Mr. Maling said.

The shift for the paratroopers were four hours long, with eight hours off. They counted whatever they saw and reported their counts hourly.

"I'd say we did a good job," Mr. Maling said. "When we arrived the facilities were almost non-existent. The first observation point I saw had nothing there when we arrived -- just some orange paint marks. Later, they brought in small buildings and 1,000-gallon water tanks." He noted that the paratroopers' radios, model AN-PRC-77s, turned out to be inadequate and the troops were later issued Motorola jeep-mounted high-frequency radios.

READY FOR ACTION: Trooper Ed Maling in the Sinai

One one dark day, an Australian UH-1 helicopter even crashed while delivering food and mail to Mr. Maling and his comrades.

There were many challenges during the rotation, and no small degree of hazards. Mr. Maling said that facilities were "non-existent," communications was poor and there was inadequate supplies of anti-venom. This last item became tragically evident when a soldier from the 505th was stung by a scorpion and died on the emergency helicopter transport flight to Eliat.

"Nobody thought to bring sandbags," he said. "Trying to dig in the sand without sandbags is a complete waste of time."

Mr. Maling said duty in the Sinai was marked by boredom and monotony, punctuated by "...intense, way over the top partying in Cairo and Tel Aviv."  Along the way, though, he also says he received a good education in Middle Eastern cultural contrasts.

BACK IN THE STATES

When his unit did return from the Sinai, it is perhaps ironic that Mr. Maling was re-assigned to the Army's National Training Center at Ft. Irwin, California, where desert-fighting skills are honed within units from around the armed forces.

The MFO Medal awarded to Sinai veterans

While at Ft. Irwin, his command sent Mr. Maling, who was a corporal at this time, to Primary Non-Commissioned Officer training at Ft. Ord, California. If he were to have re-enlisted, his unit made it clear he would be promoted to the rank of sergeant. "By then, it was obvious to me that the Army wasn't the place for me to try making a career," he noted.

After he left the Army, Mr. Maling said he went to college "so I'd never have to sleep in the dirt again." He studied engineering and worked, for a time, with the Bureau of Land Management, fighting fires. He went on to assist in saving Grant Village in Yellowstone National Park from a large fire in 1988.

Eventually, though, Mr. Maling's professional path concluded with him working for Chevron.

Though retired today, Mr. Maling still looks back with pride and satisfaction about his time in the Army as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne. Like so many before him, and after him, he took up his uniform and rifle and offered his service before turning his thoughts to family and career.
During his tenure in the Army, Mr. Maling earned the Army's Expert Infantry Badge, Basic Parachutist Badge, MFO Medal, the Good Conduct Medal, NCO Professional Development ribbon and the National Defense Service Medal.