Woman on verge of breaking Marines’ glass ceiling

The Marine Corps plans to soon assign a female infantry officer to a combat unit, a historic first, after her anticipated graduation from the service’s grueling Infantry Officer Course, service officials said Thursday.

The lieutenant and her male colleagues completed a threeweek combat exercise that includes live fire at the service’s training center at Twentynine Palms (San Bernardino County) on Wednesday, the service said Thursday. That marked the final graded requirement in the 13-week course, which is widely seen as some of the toughest training in the military, and typically sees about 25 percent all students washing out.

The woman is the first of three dozen women who have attempted the course to pass. She is expected to lead a platoon of about 40 infantry 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 photographs of nude female colleagues online.

The class will mark its graduation Monday with a “warrior breakfast” 35 miles south of Washington, in Quantico, Va., said three officials with knowledge of the course. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the graduation has not yet occurred. All that remains between now and then is returning equipment used during training, and a few administrative days, they said.

The historic moment arrives nearly two years after then Defense Secretary Ash Carter lifted the military’s last remaining restrictions for women, part of an effort by the Obama administration to make the armed forces fully inclusive. Officials shared few details about the lieutenant Thursday, and two said it is unlikely that she will agree to do any media interviews, preferring to be a “quiet professional” and just do her job.

The Marines first opened the Infantry Officer Course to women on an experimental basis in 2012, allowing them to attempt it as a part of broader research across the Defense Department examining how to integrate all-male units. Thirty-two women tried the course before the research ended in spring 2015, and none completed it.