With the change to an all volunteer military, the number and roles of women in the military have increased dramatically.
The United States Marine Corps are renowned historically for their dedicated service and intense recruit training. The Marine Corps have a no discrimination rule in their recruitment programs. Women Marines have served the military as Marine Reserves since the 1920’s. Women Marine Reserves carried out shore duties that helped keep trained men free for various combat duties.
Today, there are a huge percentage of women doing various occupational jobs in different departments of the Marine Corps. Ninety three percent of occupational jobs and Sixty Two Percent of all billets have women Marine Corps serving in them.
Women rarely engage in combat roles in the US Marine Corps as is the case in most of the other services. Historically, in industrialized countries, women have been excluded from armed combat roles and significant administrative positions in the military.
However, six percent of the US Marine Corps is made up of women marines. They serve proudly in various roles and capacities in the modern Marine Corps. Currently, there are about eight thousand five hundred active service women marines engaged in different jobs at Marine Military bases.
Unlike way back, today, female marines are not mistreated or given derogatory names while in service. They are simply referred to as marines by their male colleagues.
The Marine Corps service is yet to separate or integrate their first phases of training given to new recruits. In other military forces, basic combat training is routinely segregated according to different individual capabilities, skills and physical conditions. Not so in the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps Basic Training is highly regarded due to its inclusiveness, discipline, intensiveness and physical endurance.
The Marine Corps have always been trend setters in the military. The first ever service to have a woman serving as a General was the US Marine Corps. The Marines have therefore become trend setters in many different ways in the military.
The first woman to lose her life in active duty was a crew member of a c-130 marine aircraft in Afghanistan.
Women and men Marines under go the same training at the Recruit Center at Parris Island, South California. They serve with distinction and honour just like their men counterparts.
This traditional and modern trend has ensured that the Marine Corps remain truly the few, the proud.
Useful links
http://ann.sagepub.com/content/
{ 1 trackback }