Women at war

• By SANDY DAVIS
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Oct 19, 2008 - Page: 1A - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.
• Women from Louisiana are an integral part of United States military forces fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. Changes in regulations and attitudes have brought them closer than ever to combat. Most people accept that change — but not everyone.
  

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Louisiana National Guardsman Sgt. Robin Carpenter, a wife and mother of two, entered a man’s world when she drove a tank-like armored personnel carrier on the streets of Baghdad, Iraq.

Until the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, jobs like Carpenter’s usually were assigned to men. But because of military rule changes in the 1990s as well as Muslim social customs,  women  are finding themselves serving closer and closer to combat — a place once forbidden to them.

“It’s a different world now,” Carpenter said. “You have to have thick skin. If you offend easily, it’s not the right situation for you. It’s not fair to ask men to change … you can’t walk in being the new guy and change all of the rules.”

Carpenter, who lives in Shreveport, deployed in 2004 with the Louisiana National Guard’s 256th Infantry Brigade Combat Team for a yearlong tour.

Her job was to drive an M-113 — an armored personnel carrier that looks like a tank — and haul members of the 1088th Engineer Battalion to their daily assignments.

“That’s a combat engineer battalion and they did a lot of different missions in Iraq, including looking for IEDs. If one was found, they’d get someone out there to get rid of it. They cleared minefields, and blew up bridges to control access by insurgents,” Carpenter said.

Carpenter drove more than 3,000 miles over Iraqi roads dodging small-arms fire, IEDs (improvised explosive devices), and mortars while earning a Combat Driving badge.

While the men in Carpenter’s unit were supportive of her job, other male soldiers were not.

“I ran into some people over there who thought women should never go outside of the wire,” Carpenter said of the razor-wire barrier that winds around Camp Liberty in Baghdad and helps keep the bad guys out.

 “Mostly, they were men who never went outside the wire themselves. They had jobs in the camp. I would tell them to, ‘Take my rucksack, my weapon and jump inside my track and you do my job. Somebody’s got to do it.’ I never had anyone take me up on it.”

Women in combat
The question of women serving in or near combat has been debated for decades. 

When Pfc. Jessica Lynch was taken captive in 2003 after her maintenance unit was attacked in Iraq, Americans wondered what role military women should play. Can they serve in combat?

The answer is no … sort of.