Army to send female infantry, armor officers to 3 more bases

WASHINGTON — As more female soldiers move into frontline combat jobs, the Army’s top leaders have decided to integrate female officers into infantry and armor brigades at three more military bases around the country.

The decision comes a year after the first women began enlisting in the ground combat units, and it will send female officers to Fort Carson, Colo., Fort Campbell, Ky., and Fort Bliss, Texas. The increase — from two bases to five — means that there will be women in infantry and armor units at 45 percent of the Army installations that have combat brigades. Until now, the integrated units were only at Fort Hood, Texas, and Fort Bragg, N.C.

The expansion has been in the works for months, as Army commanders tracked how many female enlisted soldiers and officers chose the newly opened infantry and armor jobs. The numbers have revealed an unexpected trend: more entrylevel female recruits are choosing the infantry, while female officers coming out of ROTC, West Point and the Army’s Officer Candidate School are choosing armor units.

Over the next year, as more women enlist and graduate as officers, brigades at more bases will be integrated, according to an Army plan described to the AP. By fall 2019, women infantry and armor soldiers will be assigned to brigades at all bases in the continental United States.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter in December 2015 ordered the military services to open all combat jobs to women. Since then the Army has been developing officers first so that younger enlisted women would have mentors when they moved into combat jobs.