A Marine Corps 1st: Women take infantry course

It was 10 a.m., and the Marines trudging along the road bordered by thick Virginia woods had been up for seven hours already.

Their uniforms were soaked with sweat, and their faces showed signs of the pain in their muscles. Their day was far from over.

The demanding training was a typical first day in the Marine Corps’ Infantry Officer Course except for one thing: For the first time, two women were part of the class.

“The women are expected to do everything that the men do,” says Marine Col. Todd Desgrosseilliers, who commands the organization responsible for basic Marine officer and infantry training. “We haven’t changed anything.”

Women have been steadily moving into many ranks previously barred to them, living at forward bases, flying combat aircraft and serving on submarine crews. Women remained barred from the infantry and other combat-arms specialties, but for the first time are being allowed to enter the Marines infantry officer training.

Allowing the women to volunteer for the course is part of an “experiment” to determine how they perform in the rigorous regimen of physical and psychological stress that Marine infantry officer candidates are put through.

The Marine Corps’ Infantry Officer Course is a course in which about 25 percent of men don’t make the cut or voluntarily drop out.

Critics say the move is taking gender equality too far. They worry that some efforts to accommodate women could lead to changing standards and ultimately hurt military readiness.

“In the end, when all is said and done, what they should be focusing on is combat effectiveness,” said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R.-Calif., a member of the Armed Services Committee. “Does it make us better at literally killing the enemy? That’s what their job is going to be.”

The Marine Corps say its experiment is an attempt to collect data for the Pentagon as it considers expanding the number of positions available to women in the military. The infantry is the most elemental and personal form of warfare, and remains off-limits to women, for now.

David Barno, a retired three-star Army general now a senior adviser at the Center for a New American Security, says the infantry is a brutal form of warfare and any lifting of the ban should be considered carefully.

Infantrymen engage in close-in fighting, sometimes “with knives, rocks and shovels,” Barno says. “I don’t rule that out, but I think we should take a hard look at that.”

The Marine Corps has rarely allowed journalists to view the Infantry Officer Course. The candidates, nearly all newly minted second lieutenants who have recently completed the basic officer course, are dropped into the woods well before dawn. They must navigate through darkened woods using maps and compasses.

Carrying packs and rifles, the prospects never stop moving throughout the day. They are given the briefest of instructions and are rebuffed if they ask instructors for further guidance. They don’t even know the requirements for passing the course.

“We’re not just trying to see who is the most enduring or the toughest,” Gen. James Amos, the Marine Corps commandant, told USA Today. “They have to be able to make decisions under stress and duress.”

Infantry officers carry an average of about 70 pounds of gear on their body in combat and can march for miles. That weight can nearly double that when Marines are carrying crew-served weapons, such as mortars and heavy machine guns.

Marine Capt. Brian Perkins kept a close watch over a group of exhausted Marine lieutenants struggling through a series of pull-ups.

“She’s just another student to me,” Perkins said, referring to one of the women as she sweated through exercises.

Men who graduate from the Marine Infantry Officer Course will go on to command rifle platoons. Women who pass the course will go on to other specialties.

More than 280,000 women have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, but not in the infantry.

“Sometimes we forget that even in Iraq and Afghanistan there have been many situations where Marines are fighting with their bare hands against the enemy,” said Maj. Scott Cuomo, director of the Infantry Officer Course. “In a battle in Najaf, I was 50 feet from a Marine infantryman killing the enemy with his knife.”

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has ordered the services to update him next month on how women performed in the new jobs and on efforts to develop “gender-neutral physical standards” with an aim toward opening still more positions to women.

Developing gender-neutral standards raises the question of whether they would be made less strenuous.

Nancy Duff Campbell, co-president of the National Women’s Law center, says the Marines should re-evaluate the standards before putting women through the course.

They’re going at this backwards,” Campbell says.

Not all women in the military agree. A female Marine officer with two combat tours wrote in the Marine Corps Gazette that the physical demands of infantry fighting were harmful to women.

“ ‘We as an institution are going to experience a colossal increase in crippling and career-ending medical conditions for females,” Capt. Katie Petronio wrote.

One of the two women that started the 13-week course did not make it past the first day, which tests combat endurance. Neither did 27 of the 109 men.

The Marine Corps did not release the names of the candidates. They did release a statement from the 24-year-old woman who passed: She said she saw the training as an “incredible opportunity” for women.

“It’s about the balance between mental and physical toughness,” Perkins said of those who have what it takes to be infantry officers. “You can see it in their eyes.”

Drawdown in Afghanistan includes many trainers

For today’s drill, an instructor explains, the Taliban will be played by U.S. Marines, and the “village” will be just down from the driving practice loop.

An Afghan police officer uses a stick to point out targets to his team on a map drawn in the dirt. They grab their weapons and head out, taking cover behind a berm. A pickup truck drives up. The Afghans take aim and mimic the sound of a machine gun. The Marines tumble out of the vehicle, grabbing their chests as they fall to the ground.

That’s a successful day at the U.S. Marine-run Joint Sustainment Academy in southwestern Afghanistan, which has been offering supplementary training on weapons, specialized skills and unit leadership to Afghan soldiers and police since 2009. The Afghans who attend the academy say they learn things that were never taught in their official training: how to handle different weapons and how to organize a patrol or an ambush.

But now, even as U.S. officials talk about their commitment to training and advising Afghan security forces well past 2014, the Joint Sustainment Academy is preparing to shut down.

Officials in the U.S. talking about the need to decrease combat operations in Afghanistan have been much more reticent to highlight one aspect of the drawdown: that plenty of U.S. advisers and mentors are also leaving.

Those who stay will be hopping in and out of a number of Afghan units rather than being embedded with one group — a move that is being described as a way to get Afghan forces to take more responsibility, but which also follows a string of turncoat attacks this year by Afghan forces against their Western counterparts.

“Someone made the decision, ‘OK, I’m going to only have the personnel for this piece,’“ said Lt. Col. Mike Cromwell, the director of the academy at a U.S. base in Helmand province, as he watched an Afghan police officer brief trainees on the day’s mission. “It just means fewer people. It’s part of the overall drawdown.”

Cromwell and the 31 other American service members running the academy end their tour at the beginning of 2013, and they have been told they won’t be replaced. They say it’s an opportunity to pass the torch to the Afghan trainers at the academy. But, Cromwell explains, the academy as it exists on Camp Leatherneck is closing.

The Marines are just hoping that the Afghan army and police see the value in what they’ve been teaching and incorporate it into their existing training centers at a nearby army base and at a police facility in the provincial capital.

“As we ramp down, those centers are the longer term solutions,” Cromwell said.

Training classes have already shrunk at the academy. Last year, the Marine academy trained 2,547 Afghans. Cromwell expects to train less than half that — about 1,000 — by the end of this year.

“We may not make that,” Cromwell said. And this is even though the academy is focused now on training Afghan soldiers and police to become trainers themselves — a goal that NATO and U.S. forces say is one of their most important priorities.

Ever since President Obama announced the drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan a year ago, his administration has stressed that it does not mean an abandonment of Afghanistan. Combat troops are supposed to decrease as more forces move into a support role. But less advertised is the fact that the U.S. is also decreasing the number of advisers and trainers it is sending to Afghanistan.

According to an April report submitted to Congress, the U.S. forces that make up most of the mentoring teams that operate alongside Afghan troops are being cut with the idea that other NATO nations will fill the gap.

“The United States provides the (Afghan security forces) with the majority of required mentor teams. The drawdown in U.S. forces will result in a decreased number of partnered units, creating additional requirements for other coalition partners,” the report states. The plan is to increase the overall number of advisers, using contributions from other allies. But even though the Americans that make up about 63 percent of the adviser teams have already started leaving, NATO is still working to get commitments from other nations.

“The nations have not finalized how much they’re going to provide, and which nations,” said Maj. Martyn Crighton, a spokesman for the international military force. He said more than 20 nations had agreed to participate, but few had made firm troop commitments.

The plan is to move from a one-to-one mentor ratio to a “one-to-many” ratio in which small teams of up to 18 specialized advisers jump between Afghan units teaching them specific skills. That also leaves open the possibility of keeping those advisers at more of a distance from Afghan forces — a move that would not be surprising following the recent rash of “green-on-blue” attacks by Afghan forces. In the most recent such attack, an Afghan police officer turned his weapon on NATO police advisers in Helmand province Sunday, killing three British soldiers.

Helmand and Nimroz province, the area covered by U.S. Marines, has already seen troops start to leave, and bigger reductions are coming. The Afghan commander for the region, Maj. Gen. Saad Malouk, said he expects at least 10,000 U.S. troops to depart the southwestern region in September — nearly half of the 23,000 announced by the Obama administration.

The general overseeing the two southwestern provinces says the trainer cuts don’t worry him.

“We’re handing over this part of the training,” said Maj. Gen. Mark Gurganus. “We will continue to have security force assistance teams — out with the different battalions and brigades and with our police — that will continue to mentor, advise and train as we move forward toward the end of 2014 and potentially beyond.”

Gurganus would not confirm exact numbers of U.S. troops leaving his operating area, but said it is “significant.” U.S. spokesmen would not say exactly how many U.S. mentors are leaving.

The U.S. also has already started decreasing its role in the formal training that all Afghan soldiers and police must undertake. U.S. troops under what’s called the NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan started drawing down from 3,300 troops this winter and will continue to decrease through the fall, said Lt. Col. Tim Stauffer, a spokesman for the training mission.

There are about 2,500 U.S. troops under the training mission banner, and that will be cut by about 7 percent by the end September, he said.

“As we’re building the capacity for the Afghans to be able to train themselves, the natural next step would be for us to reduce our footprint, and as a result the Afghans would be able to stand on their own and conduct their own training,” Stauffer said.

But it’s unclear if the Afghan government has the drive to maintain or build on the type of intensive training being provided by coalition troops. An elite military academy is in the works in Kabul, but it won’t be up and running until 2013, and then it’s hard to know how helpful it would be.

Gurganus noted that a major barrier to additional training is finding the time to take Afghan soldiers out of combat. And the men who have gone through the specialty academy at Leatherneck say they’ve learned skills from the Marines that go far beyond any Afghan offerings.

“In regular training, we only learned how to use a Kalashnikov and a pistol. Here we learn different weapons. We also learn driving skills, ambush tactics, how to read a map,” said Azizularahman Habibi, a 21-year-old police officer serving in Helmand’s Nawa district. “We learn to look at the weather, the terrain, where the friendly and unfriendly forces are, how to execute a plan step by step. I had never done any of this before.”

Where will Hawaii-bound Marines live and work?

The U.S. military’s plan to shift as many as 2,700 Marines from Okinawa, Japan, to Hawaii raises a key question: Where will they work and live?

Although Marine, defense and congressional spokesmen all said they will need to see the results of studies before they can begin to address that issue, most of the mounting speculation centers on existing military bases or training areas on Oahu and the Big Island.

Hawaii already is home to more than 7,500 Marines and thousands of family members. Most are assigned to Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Kaneohe Bay, on the island of Oahu. It’s home to infantry, aviation and logistics units — plus Navy and Coast Guard units. Camp H.M. Smith, where U.S. Pacific Command and Marine Forces Pacific are headquartered, is also there.

The Corps’ presence in Hawaii already is expected to change due to reorganization as total active-duty end strength declines from 202,100 to 182,100 Marines by the end of 2016. Modernization of the service’s aviation communities, which will bring the MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft to Kaneohe Bay, should add 1,000 Marines to the base population.

While the Marine Corps hasn’t released any figures, Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie estimated that 2,700 Marines would come to the state as part of that restructuring and pledged to support the transition.

Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawaii, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser earlier this year that expanding facilities at Kaneohe Bay is a possibility. Another is to move leathernecks to the Army’s Schofield Barracks. The Corps could also build new facilities on the Big Island, home to the Pohakuloa Training area, where Marines go for live-fire exercises.

In 1999, the Navy shuttered the Barbers Point Naval Air Station, on Oahu’s southeast corner, and moved several units, including a patrol wing, to Kaneohe Bay. The 3,819-acre site is now home to a Coast Guard air station and the Kalaeloa Airport, and the Navy continues to maintain more than 1,100 acres, some for recreational beachfront cabins. Commercial redevelopment of the site — which included plans for houses, offices and shops — has lagged despite efforts by local officials.

One area veteran thinks the military should take it back.

“The no-brainer part is to move the sailors back to Barbers Point where they belong, and make room at Kaneohe Bay,” said retired Navy Chief Dennis Egge. Egge raised the suggestion at a May town hall meeting with Democratic Rep. Colleen Hanabusa.

Hanabusa, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, hasn’t taken a position, according to an aide.

“There would be a number of issues to be resolved, including how to return the facility to military use, what kind of infrastructure and construction work would be required, and what other logistical questions would have to be answered, including transportation,” her spokesman Richard Rapoza said in a statement. “The military would also have to consider the balance of personnel at various military facilities on the island.”

Defense Department officials are waiting on a number of studies and assessments before moving forward. One of those is a congressionally mandated report on the military’s strategic posture and basing plans for U.S. forces in the Asia-Pacific region. It has not yet been completed.

In early April, the Defense Department contracted with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, to conduct an “independent assessment of force posture options” in the Pacific region. That report is due to Congress by June 28, a Pentagon spokeswoman said.

The shift of Marines to Hawaii is closely tied to the move of forces to Guam, but that part of the realignment is facing several delays as well.

Navy officials and Rep. Madeleine Bordallo, D-Guam, want to redo the environmental impact statement that assessed the original plan to move all Marines exiting Okinawa to Guam now that the footprint on the island will be smaller.

Meanwhile, the Defense Department Inspector General’s Office is doing an audit of the military’s relocation to Guam, and that review is pending.

Estimates of the cost of the relocation to Hawaii, including the construction that will be needed, will hinge on which units are relocated to Guam, which to Hawaii, and what training and support facilities, housing and services they would need. The Marine Corps, which is still awaiting guidance from Congress and the Defense Department, has given no indication of how that breakdown might look.

Egge thinks there’s still enough life in the old Barbers Point for a new role supporting sailors, if not Marines, again.

Granted, he said, the facility is old.

“They will turn their noses up,” he conceded. But “there’s a lot of housing,” and it could be spruced up.

Fallen Marine to receive Navy Cross

The ferocious fighting that the men of 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, encountered during their 2010-11 deployment to Afghanistan with Regimental Combat Team 2 — and the valor with which they fought — has been hailed yet again with an award for “extraordinary heroism” in combat.

Sgt. Matthew T. Abbate is the latest leatherneck with the Camp Pendleton, Calif.-based “Darkhorse” battalion to be honored with the coveted Navy Cross. He was cited for his “bold and decisive leadership” while leading his scout-sniper section through a hellish ambush in Sangin district on Oct. 14, 2010.

Abbate was killed in combat just six weeks after that battle, on Dec. 2, 2010. He was 26. His survivors include his young son, Carson, and family in the Fresno, Calif., area.

Abbate was later nominated for a posthumous award of the Navy Cross, and Navy Secretary Ray Mabus approved the medal this month, according to spokeswoman Pamela Kunze, who provided a copy of the approved award citation.

Abbate and his scout-snipers were patrolling Sangin’s northern green zone when Taliban fighters and insurgents attacked the Marines. The squad didn’t know it but they were in the midst of a minefield. Two Marines and the Navy corpsman hit improvised explosive devices “in rapid succession,” according to the citation. Abbate quickly reacted.

“With the squad leader incapacitated, and the rest of the patrol either wounded or disoriented, Sergeant Abbate took command,” the citation states. “With total disregard for his own life, he sprinted forward through the minefield to draw enemy fire and rallied the dazed survivors. While fearlessly firing at the enemy from his exposed position, he directed fires of his Marines until they effectively suppressed the enemy, allowing life-saving aid to be rendered to the casualties.”

As the medical evacuation helicopter was inbound, Abbate swept the landing zone for explosives, but the patrol again had to duck enemy fire. Still, the sergeant persevered.

“Realizing that the casualties would die unless rapidly evacuated, Sergeant Abbate once again bravely exposed himself to enemy fire, rallied his Marines and led a counter attack that cleared the enemy from the landing zone, enabling the helicopters to evacuate the wounded,” according to the citation.

Abbate’s infantry battalion carved its own storied place in Marine Corps history when it battled insurgents in the 2004 Battle of Fallujah in Iraq, one of 3/5’s three combat tours in Iraq. Darkhorse saw combat just as intense and deadly in Afghanistan, losing 25 men in battle, including nine over a four-day period in October 2010.

Mabus is expected to present the Navy Cross — which ranks second only to the Medal of Honor for Marines and sailors — to Abbate’s family at an award ceremony later this year.