Marines to have first female infantry officer
Woman passes tough 13-week training course.
The Marine Corps plans to assign a woman as an infan- try officer, a historic first, following her anticipated graduation from the ser- vice’s grueling Infantry Offi- cer Course, service officials said Thursday.
The lieutenant and her male colleagues completed a three-week combat exer- cise that includes live fire at the service’s training cen- ter at Twentynine Palms, Calif., the service said in a statement Thursday. That exercise marked the final graded requirement in the 13-week course, which is widely seen as some of the toughest training in the mil- itary. About 25 percent all students typically wash out.
The woman is the first of three dozen who attempted the course to complete it. She is expected to lead a pla- toon of about 40 Marines in a service that is often seen as the most resistant to full gender integration in the military. It has grappled this year with a scandal in which more than a 1,000 current Marines and veterans were investigated for sharing pho- tographs of nude female col- leagues online.
The class will mark its graduation Monday with a “warrior breakfast” in Quantico, Va., said three officials with knowledge of the course. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the graduation has not yet occurred.
The historic moment arrives nearly two years after then-Defense Secre- tary Ash Carter lifted the military’s last remaining restrictions for women, part of an effort by the Obama admin- istration to make the armed forces fully inclusive. Officials shared few details about the lieutenant Thursday.
The Infantry Officer Course requires both proficiency as a military officer in the field and the stamina to carry loads of up to 152 pounds for long periods of time. The school begins with a day-long combat endur- ance test that includes gru- eling hikes through Quanti- co’s rolling, wooded hills, an obstacle course and assess- ments of skills like weapons assembly and land navigation.
The lieutenant will join a part of the military that has long been seen as being critical of serving alongside women.
Three out of four activeduty infantrymen said they were opposed to full gender integration in a 2012 survey of 54,000 Marines obtained last year through the Freedom of Information Act.
Marine officials have argued those sentiments have waned in the last few years, but it’s unclear how much.
Kyleanne Hunter, a member of the Pentagon’s Defense Advisory Committee for Women in the Services and former Marine helicopter pilot, said that the new infantry officer have to win over Marines under her command, Hunter said, and cope with outside attention and critics who want to see her fail.
“She did something that is really hard, and it’s hard physically and it’s hard mentally,” she said. “Her first challenge is going to be to remain anonymous and just do her job.”