Military Review English Edition March-April 2015 | Page 62

(Photo by Pfc. Alisha Brand, Combat Camera Afghanistan)

An Afghan girl peers intently at a U.S. Army soldier 20 June 2011 during a meeting at Baqi Tanah, Spin Boldak District, Kandahar Province,
Afghanistan. A female engagement team from Combined Task Force Lightning met with women and girls to focus on health education.

they are placed in the right positions at the right times
to be best leveraged.

Creating Opportunities for Women
As an Army, we have trained countless women to fill
these roles in the last decade, but because of a lack of a real
system of accountability, of uniformity in training, or of
proper evaluation, there is no way to account for the level
or quality of FET training across the Army.
Further, because no supporting personnel tracking
and evaluation system existed, many of the women who
volunteered for these roles ultimately did not receive the
credit they deserved (awards or evaluations), and were
therefore ultimately punished for their courage in taking on these roles. They did not enjoy the boost to their
careers that many of their male counterparts did, nor did
they enjoy due recognition for their efforts even though
they fought side-by-side with their brothers-in-arms.
This lack of benefit was often due to a lack of understanding. Although a soldier’s Enlisted Record Brief may
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state that she served on an FET, the wide variations in
quality of training, levels of experience, and standards for
performance make it very hard to measure performance
against a soldier who has served in a widely understood
and accepted position, such as infantry team leader.
Additionally, soldiers who have served on FETs in
the past decade have often been coded as “over strength”
in order to allow for personnel transactions that enabled
their transfer into an infantry unit. This, combined with
inconsistent and unreliable applications of the Army’s
FET additional skill identifier, makes it very difficult for
soldiers to demonstrate their accomplishments —in proper documentation— for promotion boards.
This lack of recognition serves to create “two classes
of service members based on gender—[of] which neither
preserves a legitimate national security interest nor shields
women from enemy fire. Instead, it protects and perpetuates the brass ceiling that women in the military have yet
to shatter.”10 The advent of an engager MOS would help to
change all of that.
March-April 2015  MILITARY REVIEW