MarSOC looks to women for new mission

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MarSOC's first female engagement team will spend about nine months with 1st Marine Special Operations Battalion, which is scheduled to take command of a task force later this year that will oversee U.S. spec ops forces in northern and western Afghanistan.


MarSOC looks to women for new mission
By Trista Talton - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Nov 14, 2009 9:10:30 EST

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command is making women an integral part of spec ops teams in Afghanistan, where they’ll be used to develop a rapport with Afghan women and, it is hoped, build broader support for the frail Afghan government.

MarSOC’s first female engagement team — comprising a captain, two corporals and a Navy corpsman — will spend about nine months with 1st Marine Special Operations Battalion, which is scheduled to take command of a task force later this year that will oversee U.S. spec ops forces in northern and western Afghanistan.

By attaching female troops to spec ops teams, officials hope to better navigate local Afghan customs that often prohibit interaction between women and men who are not members of their families. Just as soon as MarSOC was notified that 1st MSOB would deploy as a task force, officials made preparations for an engagement team.

“The whole goal is recognizing that the battle in Afghanistan is getting the people to buy into the idea of a state,” said an operations officer with the Marine Special Operations Regiment, a lieutenant colonel who asked that his name be withheld for security reasons. “You’re not going to get that buy-in by appealing to half the population.”

Federal law bars women from serving in ground combat units, including front-line spec ops forces such as MarSOC teams. But in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the front lines are often blurred, female service members have found themselves dodging rounds and joining firefights alongside men.


Rest of article at: http://marinecorpstimes.com/news/2009/11/marines_marsoc_111409w/