Marine Corps' Female Engagement Teams

[Just_A_Mom]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/op...r=2&ref=global

One ill-informed notion that has stymied U.S. effectiveness in counterinsurgency operations relates to the efficacy of having female military personnel serving on the frontline. While many women in Iraq and Afghanistan have shown their ability to use force, one particular group exemplifies how women are essential to winning local hearts and minds. The apparent success of the Marine Corps’ Female Engagement Teams, or F.E.T.’s — first established last February in Afghanistan — illustrates that the odds of success significantly improve when we use these forces to establish bonds with the other half of Afghanistan’s population — its women.
The F.E.T. units are comprised of female marines with various operational specialties who conduct liaison work with Afghan women in remote villages. Their assignments range from searching women at checkpoints to distributing aid to running medical clinics to their core mission of engaging rural Pashtun women, often in their homes.
The teams have been most effective when Afghans perceive their intent as one of establishing a relationship of mutual trust and interest, rather than one of gathering intelligence. They often are welcomed into village homes while dressed in military drab and headscarves. Afghans purportedly view these American women as a “third gender” — female marines are extended the respect shown to men, but granted the access reserved for women. This access has shown the Americans that indigenous women wield significant influence with their husbands, brothers and, especially, their adolescent sons. The presence of F.E.T.’s sends a strong signal of peaceful engagement to local villages. As one village elder put it, “Your men come to fight, but we know the women are here to help.”
Employing women directly on the front lines in this manner may be critical to meeting our objectives. However, significant impediments inhibit the engagement teams from having a broader impact: The Defense Department’s ground combat policy that excludes women, the ad hoc nature of the teams, and the readiness and quantity of available female troops and qualified Pashto linguists.
The Defense Department’s most recent version of the “ground combat exclusion policy,” established in 1994, states: “Service members are eligible to be assigned to all positions for which they are qualified, except that women shall be excluded from assignment to units below the brigade level whose primary mission is to engage in direct combat on the ground.” The policy goes on to define “direct combat” as “engaging an enemy on the ground with individual or crew served weapons, while being exposed to hostile fire and to a high probability of direct physical contact with hostile force’s personnel.
“Direct ground combat takes place well forward on the battlefield while locating and closing with the enemy to defeat them by fire, maneuver, and shock effect.”
However, the persistent threat of counterinsurgencies combined with evidence of women’s proven effectiveness in such situations serve as powerful reasons for updating the law.
The U.S. military’s central command recently published a “Memorandum of Law Concerning Women in Combat Support Operations.” It explicitly condones the use of the F.E.T.’s. The Defense Department’s general counsel is scheduled to consider the matter in the near future.
For now, these F.E.T. initiatives are confined to the Marines and there are relatively few women available for these jobs — only 6 percent of Marine Corps personnel are women. Moreover, given the ad hoc nature of the teams — F.E.T. members have “day jobs,” serving as logisticians or intelligence officers or in other vital positions — their commanders are often understandably reticent to give up an individual for an additional duty.
While their efforts pay high yields for the military, the missions are hazardous: F.E.T. convoys have been the target of I.E.D.’s and enemy rifle fire. To prepare for such missions, female marines must find time to pursue supplemental training — in immediate action drills, search techniques and cultural nuances — beyond their logistical or intelligence training. Fortunately, the success of the peaceful engagement teams has created incentives to establish improved training for team members, although the dearth of women Pashto translators remains a critical problem.
Nevertheless, the success of the F.E.T. initiative illustrates how the Marine Corps is adapting to the counterinsurgency threat in an innovative way. Now it is time for Defense Department to adapt its regulations as well.

Paula Broadwell, a former U.S. Army officer, is a research associate at The Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University and a board member of Women in International Security.

[AF6872]

This story was covered in our local weekly.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...ory?id=8329941

[shogun]

Our daughter will be deploying with the 170th Infantry Brigade to Afganistan early next year---she has been approached with the possibility that she will lead one of the Army's first Female Engagement Teams as the Officer in Charge (based on what the Marines are doing now). --she is pretty excited about the prospect, especially since it will allow her team to accompany infantry units in the field.

[Maximus]

I think it's a great idea!
Once and for all we'll stop this nonsense of: women are pleading to sign up for combat in droves. Yes there are brave and capable women like the gal in the post above and I applaud her

[shogun]

LOL, I dont't know about "wanting to sign up for combat in droves" but I know very few of my daughter's fellow West Point grads that wouldnt have signed up for a combat branch if given the chance. That particular roadblock is gradually crumbling as well as the nature of war (and society's views) changes over time.

[tpg]

From personal experience, I can tell you that the Marine Corps Female Engagement teams are doing a fantastic job. With our counterinsurgency operations, these teams literally allow us to reach half of the populations, not to mention some of the most oppressed women in the world as this article points out.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/wo...ed=1&th&emc=th

My Biggest concern with these Female Engagement teams though has nothing to do with Females. It has to do with the commands lack of planning for them and the lack of training involved. It has been my position for some time and one that I talk about as often as I can is that A) we need to include these teams in our planning from day one and B) we need to establish some form of training for these teams. Many of the teams that I have been involved with are thrown together with volunteers at the last moment and all the participants have other MOS training and sometimes responsibility still.

While I do not advocate making such training a PMOS, I do feel very comfortable with the idea that such training should lead to a Secondary or FMOS.

[shogun]

It appears that based on my conversations with our Army officer that the Army is going to be training these FET's before deployment (addl language and customes courses, training with the infantry units within the Brigade, etc). She is being asked to select her team from among females in the Brigade, so Im assuming like most new initiatives the Marines jump-started the program based on the identification of the need, learned from their mistakes and opportunities, and now the program is expanding out to other branches in a more organized manner. From what I've read, this concept is less than a year old, so not a lot of time so far to "perfect it" yet.

[Maximus]

Originally Posted by shogun

LOL, I dont't know about "wanting to sign up for combat in droves" but I know very few of my daughter's fellow West Point grads that wouldnt have signed up for a combat branch if given the chance. That particular roadblock is gradually crumbling as well as the nature of war (and society's views) changes over time.

I know and agree, I was trying to be facetious

[tpg]

Originally Posted by shogun

It appears that based on my conversations with our Army officer that the Army is going to be training these FET's before deployment (addl language and customes courses, training with the infantry units within the Brigade, etc). She is being asked to select her team from among females in the Brigade, so Im assuming like most new initiatives the Marines jump-started the program based on the identification of the need, learned from their mistakes and opportunities, and now the program is expanding out to other branches in a more organized manner. From what I've read, this concept is less than a year old, so not a lot of time so far to "perfect it" yet.

I am glad to know they will be providing them some form of training prior to deploying. That is something that many of us have been screaming about for almost a year. While I will not kid around, It is a dangerous mission, but one that is full of rewards to those who participates and a very important mission as well.