Mattis talks on women in infantry

WASHINGTON — The jury is still out on whether women can be successful in infantry jobs, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Tuesday while offering students at the Virginia Military Institute a dim view of female troops serving on the front line.

Mattis, a retired Marine, said too few women are in the infantry to provide enough data to determine how they’re doing. And he said he has asked Army and Marine leaders for information to determine whether having women in a “closequarters fight” is a strength or a weakness.

“There are a few stalwart young ladies who are charging into this, but they are too few,” Mattis said during a visit to VMI, which is in Lexington, Virginia. “Clearly the jury is out on it, but what we’re trying to do is give it every opportunity to succeed if it can.”

He said he hopes to get data from the Army and Marine Corps soon.

Responding to a question from a male student who described some of his female classmates as fierce, Mattis said the issue must be resolved by military officers who are objective and understand that the natural inclination is to have service open to all. But, he added, “we cannot do something that militarily doesn’t make sense.”

Mattis likened the issue to having someone break into your house and having to decide “who grabs the baseball bat” to protect the children and “who reaches for the phone to call 911.” He didn’t offer suggestions on what the answer would be.

The Army and Marine Corps have acknowledged that the number of women seeking infantry jobs will probably be small. And women have struggled to pass the demanding training courses.

As of late August, there were just 26 female enlisted Marines in the infantry and one female officer, according to the Marine Corps. More broadly, however, the number of women in Marine combat units that were previously open only to men has grown steadily, from 254 last year to 382 this year — a 50 percent increase.