Female Soldiers Fight Pentagon in Court for Combat Positions
Female Soldiers Fight Pentagon in Court for Combat Positions - Local News - Anchorage, AK
Last year, Army Col. Ellen Haring thought she was finally getting her dream job. She was selected to supervise female soldiers who search and interview Afghan women in combat zones for special operations units.
Haring spent three months training at Ft. Bragg, N.C. Then, just before she was to deploy to Afghanistan, she got a phone call from a staff officer. “Ma’am, we don’t think you’re qualified,” she recalled him saying.
The job went to a lower-ranking male officer. Haring was outraged. “How could I not be qualified?” she said. “I’d already been thoroughly vetted just to get to Ft. Bragg.”
No one would give her a reason, she said. But she believed it was her lack of experience in combat, denied because she’s a woman.
In May, Haring - West Point graduate, career officer, wife of an Army colonel, doctoral student - and another female Army Reserve soldier sued the military. The lawsuit says the Pentagon’s exclusion of women from most combat positions is unconstitutional.
It alleges that the policy restricts women’s earnings, promotions and retirement benefits. The suit asks that all assignment and training decisions be made without regard to gender.