Despite combat ban reversal, Princeton ROTC cadets' plans remain unchanged

As graduation approaches for seniors serving in the Princeton Reserve Officers’ Training Corps Battalion, cadets at the University and other institutions are preparing to enter an American military whose composition could change significantly as a result of former U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s January announcement lifting a ban that excluded women in the military from ground combat roles.

“Not everyone is going to be able to be a combat soldier,” Panetta said of his decision at the time. “But everyone is entitled to a chance.”

The Pentagon’s announcement reversed a 1994 military ban on women’s assignment to infantry, artillery, armor, combat engineering and special operations. With the reversal, as many as 237,000 jobs will now become open to women for the first time.

According to a 2011 report released by the Pentagon, 210,502 women, or about 14.5 percent of the total number of soldiers, served in the U.S. Armed Forces.

Panetta’s decision will be implemented by January 2016 and will affect future female cadets who enroll in ROTC, a college program that trains future officers in the U.S. Armed Forces. By participating in ROTC, students may receive merit-based scholarships that cover all or part of their college tuition in return for a commitment requiring them to actively serve in the military for four years after graduation.

The Princeton ROTC Battalion consists of students from Princeton University, The College of New Jersey, Rider University and Rowan University. 26 cadets are enrolled at the University, 21 of whom are male and 5 of whom are female. Many chose Princeton over the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

While the cadets interviewed for this article said that the reversal of the ban broadens the opportunities available to women, many noted that it may create additional issues of gender-neutral standards, unit cohesion and battlefield efficiency.

Eight out of the nine female ROTC cadets interviewed for this article, including four of the five enrolled at the University, noted that they wish to serve in the military in non-combat positions. These female cadets explained that the decision will have little effect on their future plans.

A step toward gender equality

When Panetta announced the decision in January, President Barack Obama heralded the move as “another step toward fulfilling our nation’s founding ideals of fairness and equality.”

Robert Basile ’14, a member of the ROTC program at the University, said that the Army’s removal of the ban on women serving in close combat roles was a “common sense” move.

Evaluating someone’s performance or ability to perform a task based on gender is not “right,” Basile said, explaining that he felt excited about the announcement.

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Basile mentioned Kelly Ivins-O’Keefe ’14 as an example of a female cadet whose performance had earned her the task of leading the Battalion’s cadets in its joint field training exercise, a four-day long culmination of all the skills that the cadets learned during the year.

“Cadet O’Keefe [is] by far one of the most high-speed cadets in the whole battalion, and she’s been in charge of stuff all year,” Basile said. “She had a very stressed position in that [exercise], and I saw her do great with it.”

Lieutenant Colonel Peter Knight, the director of the Princeton Battalion ROTC program, said that he doesn’t know if the female cadets currently under his supervision will want to sign up for close combat roles, but that there are some who are “more than capable” of serving in those units.

“If you’re in direct combat, you’re fighting people left and right. It doesn’t matter what gender they are, what color their skin is, what ethnicity they are,” Knight said. “We all bleed red, and we are all united brothers and sisters in a common purpose, serving our country.”

Nelson Collet ’16, a male cadet in the University’s ROTC chapter, said he thought that males and females could participate in training equally well.

“As far as training on the field goes, there is really not a difference between males and females,” Collet said. “Everybody pretty much carries the same combat load.”

The biggest difference between how male and female ROTC cadets are evaluated is in the use of varying gender standards for their semi-annual physical training tests, he said.

"[Women are] expected to do just as many push-ups, just as many sit-ups [in the cadets' daily workouts] — although the physical training test is scaled for women,” Collet said, explaining that “the push-up score and the run time are lower [on the exam for females] than for males.”

Real progress, or recognition of a present reality?

However, some cadets said that women have already been serving in combat zones throughout the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and that Panetta’s decision wasn’t so much changing the game as acknowledging a fait accompli.

While he said he believes the decision is a step forward for gender equality, Knight said it was also a recognition that women have been serving in the military because there is no “front line” in its traditional sense anymore.

“The weapons, technology, the tactics and the types of enemies that we face make our battlefields very asymmetric,” Knight said. “And you can be in harm’s way on just about any part of it. Women are serving obviously in many units in the army right now, and they’re as much in harm’s way as anyone else.”

Until the recent announcement, women were restricted from direct combat roles but served in support positions in wars where the battlefield could be in remote hills or populated street markets. Over 250,000 women have been deployed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, resulting in 144 female casualties.

Several female cadets said that they were surprised to hear Panetta’s decision. Kate Maffey ’16, a female cadet at the University, explained that she “never really saw women as needing another step forward in the military.”

“I think a lot of women are already in roles where they see combat, just due to the nature of the conflict overseas right now, so I guess that’s why [the decision] was surprising to me,” Maffey said.

Sarah Lippincott, a cadet who attends TCNJ, said that she was also “surprised” to see that the reversal had passed because the ban on women serving in combat had been the status quo for a long time.

Hannah Martins ’13, a graduating female cadet at the University who has already been assigned to the military police branch, said that she is hopeful about the changes outlined in Panetta’s January decision but also noted women have already been serving in harm’s way for a long time.

“It makes sense that [the decision] has come after a decade of women already being in what are essentially combat roles,” Martins said. “It’s going to take a while, but it’s going to change the tenor of the military.”

Martins is a former senior writer for The Daily Princetonian.

Despite progress, potential challenges

Panetta told reporters at a Pentagon press conference on Jan. 24 that the decision will not “compromise military readiness” and promised that the military will not lower pre-existing standards for close combat roles, such as physical fitness.

“If [women] can meet the qualifications for the job,” Panetta said, “then they should have the right to serve.”

But some Princeton Battalion cadets said they were concerned by the issues that have framed the national debate about women’s integration into the military, including gender-neutral standards for close combat roles, unit cohesion and military efficiency.

Hajar Lakhouili, a cadet at TCNJ who plans to be a military lawyer, also known as a JAG officer, said that she “did not support the [Pentagon’s] decision at all.”

She explained that it is “understandable” that the military did not initially place women in combat roles because men are physically built differently than women, and women are not ideally built for combat situations.

“It is extremely strenuous in regards to the weight that’s put on us [in ROTC training],” Lakhouili said. “Not only do we have to carry the same amount as men do, we are much smaller than men in regards to muscle.”

If women want to serve in combat roles, “using the fact that you’re a woman as an excuse is not a very viable reason [to lower standards],” she added.

Lippincott said that although she believes women should have equal rights in all domains, “there are some places that maybe [women] are not fit for.”

While there are currently different fitness standards for female and male soldiers, she said that if both genders will serve in combat, they all need to be graded on the same scale.

“I think there are definitely some females who can [serve in combat], but it would take a very special girl, because being in that role, you definitely need to be stronger,” Lippincott said.

Lippincott also explained that a problem could arise in requiring women to carry heavy combat loads. According to cadets, combat loads usually start at 90 pounds and can go up to 120 pounds. For a female soldier, these loads could be like carrying her entire body weight.

“You basically have to carry another male soldier with all their gear and all their weapons, and a lot of girls wouldn’t have the strength to do that,” Lippincott said, describing a potential combat situation in which a female soldier would have to carry an injured male soldier in addition to his gear.

To illustrate the potential challenges a female soldier could face in meeting the same requirements as her male counterparts, Collet noted the recent media coverage of four female Marine officers who enrolled in the Marine Corps’ Infantry Officer Course but did not complete it.

“It’s a 13-week program that’s extremely strenuous,” Collet said. “Three out of four [female officers] were washed out on the first day. Another exited the course after two weeks due to medical issues.”

The Marine Corps’ IOC is notorious for its difficulty, and over 30 percent of officers, male and female, who attempt the curriculum do not pass, the Marine Corps Times reported.

"To say incompetence — I don’t think that’s the correct term, but [the four female officers] did not meet the instructor’s standards,” Collet explained.

Joshua Lyman ’15 also said it was possible that a mixed-gender military unit could exhibit problems of unit cohesion and combat effectiveness.

Lyman explained that a mixed-gender unit is “inconvenient” at times during ROTC training. For example, although male and female cadets share the same tents for sleeping, they set up a separate tent for changing. Both male and female cadets are not allowed to take off their shirts or change outside of the changing tent, he said.

There is also potential for unit cohesion problems in a mixed-gender unit because soldiers may have sexual relations among themselves even though it’s against the rules, Lyman explained.

Female soldiers could also become pregnant while serving, which would make them “combat-ineffective,” Lyman explained. This in terms would cause problems for the unit when seeking a replacement soldier, especially because the new member would not be accustomed to working with the unit.

“You’re just adding on a whole new level of complicated unit dynamics,” Lyman said. “Although diversity is really good, it can sometimes work against itself, and there are ways in which homogeneous groups can be superior.”

Majority of female ROTC cadets at Princeton say plans remain unchanged

Although most female cadets in the Princeton Battalion interviewed said the decision will open more opportunities to women in general, all except one said their future plans to serve in non-combat roles in the military remain unchanged.

Megan Fabrizio, a female cadet from Rider University, said she thought the ban’s reversal was a good thing but that she planned to join the medical corps and has never considered serving in a combat unit.

“I’m going medical, so I’m not going to be in combat,” Fabrizio said. “But it opens a lot more doors and opportunities for women.”

University cadet Kaylee Monroe ’16 also said she wanted to serve as an army doctor and explained that she would seek an education delay to attend medical school without going into active military service immediately after graduation. The ban’s reversal will not affect her future decision because she does not plan to serve in a combat role, she explained.

Two other female cadets at the University, Ivins-O’Keefe and Marjorie Xie ’15, noted that they also plan to go to medical school and later serve in the medical corps.

“I guess [the decision] didn’t particularly concern me — I don’t want to branch [into] combat arms,” Ivins-O’Keefe said. “What I think it could have an impact on is which unit I’m assigned to and how close I could get to the front line.”

Monroe also noted that although she doesn’t know what branch of the Armed Forces she will be assigned to, she would be “open to being around a combat zone and being a doctor for those injured in combat.”

“I’ve never really been interested in doing a combat role in the military,” Maffey said. “I’ve always wanted to be in the military, but I’ve always considered my skill set more appropriate for other things.”

Maffey hopes to carry her interest in languages into the military as her main skill set. She currently studies French and hopes to take Arabic next year.

However, Martins said that if she had not already been assigned to the military police branch and close combat roles were available to her, she would be interested in serving in close combat.

“I’m hopeful that it’ll encourage more women to consider this as a viable career that will challenge them and give them a level of direct leadership that is really hard to find as a 21-year-old college graduate in any other field,” Martins said.

The views expressed in this article are the views of the individual interviewees and are not necessarily those of the U.S. Army, nor do any of the views expressed constitute official policies of the Department of the Army or the Department of Defense.

News editor Anastasya Lloyd-Damnjanovic contributed reporting.

Correction: Due to a reporting error, an earlier version of this article mischaracterized the findings of a 2011 Pentagon Report. It determined that 14.5 percent of soldiers were women. Due to a reporting error, an earlier version of this article mischaracterized a statement by Joshua Lyman '15. He was referring to female soldiers, not female cadets. The 'Prince' regrets the errors.