I know of a female 1LT that is serving as a fire direction officer right now in a cannon battery. I have been in the army over six years and I have never seen a female serve in any artillery job. Has the policy forbidding women serving in combat jobs been changed? Is there some loophole that allowed her to get that slot? I'm not saying it is a bad thing that she is the FDO, I just want to know how this can happen.

I think the area of FA is opening up. There are two female Platoon Leaders here in a FA unit. I know because on of my soldiers is writing a story on them. Times change. I don't care as long as they can do the job.

I guess it's nothing new.

http://www.usma.edu/dmi/pdf/femalesincombatarms.pdf

Thanks for the link. I guess that kind of answers my question, but the officer I'm wondering about is a fire direction officer. If I read that memo right, it said that she wouldn't be allowed to serve in that role.

quote:

Originally posted by redleg_64:
Thanks for the link. I guess that kind of answers my question, but the officer I'm wondering about is a fire direction officer. If I read that memo right, it said that she wouldn't be allowed to serve in that role.

You are correct, but remember that memo is more than 5years old.

AND it's just an "information paper"- in other words, it's an "FYI".
It is NOT policy.

Yeah, i couldn't seem to find any official policy as to where females (currently) fit into combat arms MOSs. I did find that memo interesting though, I always thought that females were not allowed in ANY combat arms MOS until I ran across it.

Isn't that kind of odd though? Are we trying to hide it? To me, it seems like something we should celebrate, that we are continuing to move forward. I understand (the argument) not having females in infantry squads and tank crews, but there is no reason why females can't serve in aviation, artillery, air defense, or engineers...and apparently they do anyway.

Just curious, is the units where these female FDOs are serving TRADOC? If so, then that there answers your question. I am a feild artillery soldier and have never seen a female LT other than in a TRADOC unit. We do have female officers in the FA community, but they usually fall into the units that are surveyors, meteorologists, or radar. I believe that we even have a COL who is female in the FA world. I have yet to see one of these females lead in a cannon battery though.

Nope. This is definitely not a TRADOC unit. Maybe I'll just go ask a buddy in that battery and see if he knows anything about it.

It looks like the Memo was written by a Female as an FYI for other females, so they could get into those units. To me it IS a kind of "wow cool look at this!!!" type of document.

But, it cautions females that they won't make upper rank easily in those type of units.
(Unlike Signal Corps, we have female Generals..)