Is one always what they wear?

Today I noted a very small paragraph in the far corner of USA Today, ostensibly first appearing in the Salt Lake Tribune. Somewhere, someone was concerned about females enlisting in the US Army.

The writer elaborated, explaining that recruiting adds show men in combat uniforms with field equipment and weapons, but young women appearing in recruiting posters are more often than not in civilian clothing and almost never carrying weapons.

A recruiter was cited, who said, ‘Yeah, men are all about the range and shooting, and women, not so much’, or something to that effect.

As usual, I’ve got a different take on the situation.

First of all, I can think of a number of advertisements, posters, and recruiting materials I’ve seen and handled through the years that DO show women in uniform. Of course, keep in mind, that my involvement with the US armed forces has been as a ‘blue suiter’.

The Air Force has the highest percentage of women of any of the branches of service. When I enlisted, the proportion was about seventeen percent. Most Air Force personnel do not spend a lot of time with weapons; tools and technical equipment is more their speed. However, Security Forces specialists do spend extensive time with and around small arms, and even some not-so-small arms. Just not armor and artillery, typically. I can think of a few cases where an M113 armored personnel carrier chassis will be used by the Air Force for Explosive Ordinance Disposal applications, but otherwise a 40mm grenade launcher is about as big a ‘gun’ that the Air Force typically will get involved with, at least on the ground. I'm not counting tactical combat aircraft in this discussion! In any case, though, women are very prominent in Security Forces and the advertising has long reflected their presence there.

Security Forces is a definite position where one may someday expect to see honest to God ground combat, but the Department of Defense does not have a problem with women being there. The reason why is that Security Forces – in a ‘combat arms’ role - is still just light infantry. When you’re defending an air base, you’re on your home turf and generally you will not be living in the field for any length of time. Thus, carrying a hundred pound rucksack on your back will occur very infrequently if at all. A rifle, a few magazines full of cartridges, and what would equate to a daypack at most. A combat load for a ‘sky cop’ will generally be light enough that a fit adult of either gender will not suffer any injury from carrying it.

Now when it comes to other fighters, things change. But not always. I know that Army and National Guard transportation companies are usually cross trained as light infantry, too, and that both men and women perform that role when needed. Again, the key word is ‘light’. Again, a rifle, some ammunition, and not all that much else. The same holds true for any number of other specialties. As the old saying goes, you’re a soldier first! You’re a specialist in addition to being a soldier.

Still, one just doesn’t see the soldier role illustrated when a specialty can be pointed out instead. Everyone is familiar with the concept of an infantryman, even if they don’t know what ‘infantry’ means; the Army has soldiers, and soldiers carry rifles. Not too much need to restate what is obvious to everyone! So, other aspects of military service are offered to the public instead.

I had a friend once who had spent three years in the Army. It seems to me that her specialty may have been air defense, but I could be wrong as this was some years back. For Christmas one year, I sent her a 1/35 scale soldier figurine that I assembled and painted, one of a set of four I bought just for the purpose as two or three other people I knew were also getting those from me that year.

The figurine was from Shanghai Dragon’s World’s Elite Force Series’ U.S. Rangers set, kit number 3004. One thing I’ll always remember about that kit is that one of the four figurines has an M-203 40mm grenade launcher clamped beneath the barrel of its M16A2 rifle, but there isn’t a helmet or flak vest anywhere in the painting on the front of the box or on the sprues in the kit. Each figurine depicts a Ranger wearing his BDU utility cover, or ‘patrol cap’, instead. That’s a non-starter where I come from! As I’ve always known it, grenades anywhere means Personal Armor System – Ground Troops (PASGT) for everyone. The figure I chose is holding a lowered M16, sans the grenade launcher. I glued the figure together, but omitted the rucksack, smoke grenades, entrenching tool, crookneck flashlight, and other accoutrements. I just attached a couple of magazine pouches, a canteen or two, and maybe a Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical (NBC) protective mask pouch…I don’t recall for certain. In short, pretty much what gear someone serving as a sentry would carry while standing guard. A sentry is a classic light infantry job - defending the unit and/or its post until relieved by someone else. With a fine brush, I took extra effort to paint the eyebrows and hair to look just like that of a woman, and added very tiny yet still visible earrings.

About a week later, I got an email from my friend Alma, telling me, ‘THANK YOU for the little GI figurine…HE is SOOOO CUTE!

There you have it. A professional, full-time female who had spent three years in uniform herself had not noticed that the very realistic soldier figurine I’d sent her was a female.

Visit any military installation. In combat or utility uniforms, many if not most women are actually quite difficult to identify as such from more than a few yards away. Sometimes you can get a whole lot closer and STILL not be able to discern a soldier or airman’s gender.

Women do not get their hair clipped off in basic training, but they do still get a ‘military’ females’ haircut and regulations have long stated that womens’ hair must not touch the collar. So, it’s typically balled up beneath their cover, which is expected to always be worn outdoors except when safety or practical reasons would preclude it, such as on a flightline or other ‘no cover/no salute’ area.

Men are prohibited from wearing earrings while in uniform, which I was expecting to be the primary ‘tip off’ on Alma’s figurine. Women may wear them, but they need to be very conservative in nature. Tiny stud types with either a ball or stone are pretty much it. So, from a few feet away, you can’t even tell.

I have no idea what the Army or Marine Corps states as policy, but the Air Force does allow women to use nail enamels and lacquers. However, the rule is that the colors must be ‘conservative’ in nature. My guess is that officially, this means pink or dark reds are pretty much it. Anything bright or gaudy is a no-no, and anything untraditional would be suspect, though I do remember seeing black occasionally worn.

Rings are permitted, but like everything else, are fairly restricted. So again, you’re going to be hard pressed to tell a male from a female looking at those details – you’re going to have to look quite hard!

I usually found the best way to make an identification was to note the servicemeber’s build. Women usually had fuller hips and most of the time were not as tall. Oh, yes, there were still a good number who were tall and skinny, so this wasn’t entirely reliable. I never remember any women who were especially well endowed, though. I’m 5’7” and as a male, was allowed to weigh up to 174 pounds without a waiver from a physician, which someone my height may receive if they were 200 pounds of solid muscle. A woman who was 5’7”, however, was only permitted to weigh a maximum of 155 pounds. I can think of a few reasons why this may be, but regardless of why, I’d say that the standards pretty much kept curvaceous women with ‘voluptuous’ figures out of uniform.

My friend Darcy joined the National Guard not too long after I enlisted in the Air Force at age twenty two. She got injured and ended up in the hospital somewhere towards the end of her eight weeks of basic training. When they finally released her, they merely started her all over in basic training again. For the most part, she went through basic training twice.

Not too long after she had finished her training, she was back in town and apparently someone told her that I was back home, too. She came to see me and we spent a pretty fair amount of time together, so I can definitely affirm that everyone who said she looked like a twelve year old boy in his father’s uniform was definitely not kidding! Darcy had a son when she was sixteen, and carried just enough fat in the right places afterward to appear very unmistakably feminine. That wasn’t the case after six months in the Army, though! She had become quite lean; ‘androgynous’ would be the concise description.

I think that any recruiter would not disagree with my stating that reaching out to the prospective service member is what it’s all about. You need to appeal to them in a way that touches them personally.

Often, especially in times of war, you appeal to a young citizen’s patriotism in order to get them to enlist, providing they’re not already being drafted. When things are better, you try to show them what the service can do for them.

A very large number of the people who do enlist were likely going to do it anyway. A long family history of military service is often at play – from the time they were old enough to understand, these individuals were going to be in uniform just like one or both parents, perhaps their aunts and uncles, and maybe even their grandparents had been. That’s how it was for me! Serving in uniform was just part of life, it was just something a person did as a young adult. I didn’t have the proper opportunity to do it right out of high school, but it’d be bothering me to this day if I hadn’t fit it in somewhere along the way!

I, and others like myself, can look at a poster showing a man in uniform and easily see that being me.

That doesn’t work so well for most young women. If you put a woman in a combat uniform with a weapon on a poster, a lot of people will not even recognize that it’s a picture of a woman, anyway. But even if the observant sort of female does pick that detail out, can she really see herself there?

Put a woman in civilian clothing on the poster, implying that she’s making the transition into becoming a ‘citizen-soldier’ or a ‘military citizen’, and young people actually look at the poster and see a woman in it. A young woman looking at the poster can probably identify with it at least somewhat because she sees another young woman who perhaps resembles her 'looking' back!

As I’ve long acknowledged, perception is everything. The woman shown starting as a teenage girl in juniors' apparrel will usually be depicted in ‘class A’ or ‘class B’ uniform, in the same poster. Like I said, in the venerable but obsolescent Battle Dress Uniform (BDU), or the now current Army Combat Uniform (ACU) or Airman Battle Uniform (ABU), both genders look largely the same to the casual observer. Increasingly, the dress uniforms are either becoming more alike or women are being authorized to wear the male uniform items (case in point: the USAF blue flight cap). Still, women’s service uniform items are generally shaped and tailored to fit women and the odds of anyone mistaking a female soldier in her ‘class A’s’ or a female airman in her ‘blues’ for her male counterpart just aren’t so good.

The newspaper article made it sound as though some sort of travesty was being committed. I read it and realized that, like so many other things in life, there’s a reason for most everything, and things are the way they are for a reason!

Things to think about,

The TiGor