EFL
Internal Army documents advocate changing Pentagon rules on mixed-sex units in a way that critics say will risk placing female soldiers in ground-combat situations.
    The Nov. 29 briefing to senior Army officers at the Pentagon, presented as part of the service's sweeping transformation of its 10 war-fighting divisions, advocates scrapping the military's ban on collocation -- the deployment of mixed-sex noncombat units alongside all-male combat brigades.
    The briefing contained the phrase: "The way ahead: rewrite/eliminate the Army collocation policy."
    To some in the Army, the confidential briefing proves that the service is moving toward a decision to put women within direct combat units, despite statements denying such plans, including a Nov. 3 Capitol Hill briefing for senior congressional staff members by Army and Pentagon officials.
    According to one aide, the Nov. 3 briefers assured the staff members that the Army was complying with the collocation rule and did not want it changed.
    "We are not collocating," a senior congressional aide quoted the presenters as saying.
    But the Army's Nov. 29 paper suggests otherwise, and critics of the plan, both inside and outside the Army, argue that it is part of an overall plan to override a 1994 policy prohibiting women from serving in direct land combat.
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    The Times reported last week on an internal May 10 briefing that portrayed the Army as in a bind. The briefing states the Army does not have enough male soldiers to fill the FSCs if they were to collocate with combat brigades and thus required to be men-only.
    All-male FSCs, the paper states, "creates potential long-term challenge to Army; pool of male recruits too small to sustain force." |