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Women distinguish themselves as officers in Iraq
Posted without other comment - the story stands on its own. They shape them well at the Point [smile]
It was hot, and his unit had just finished its lunchtime weave through the concrete maze into the Iraqi police station in Samarra, a town where dump, slums and suburbs are all the same place.

No one could blame the young soldier for taking off his Kevlar helmet - only for a moment - in the midday heat.

No one, of course, except his company commander. The West Point graduate began a profanity- filled tirade that had three effects: One, it showed the scope of physiological and literary allusions taught at the U.S. Military Academy. Second, it got the soldier to put his helmet back on right now. And finally, it delivered the lesson that neither he nor anyone who heard the lecture would ever cross Capt. Jennifer Knight. She can make you wish your parents had never been born.

"She’s a superstar," said Knight’s boss, Lt. Col. David Poirier, who commands the 720th Military Police Battalion stationed in Saddam Hussein’s hometown. "If she puts the time into the Army, Jennifer Knight will be a general."

Certainly it’s not unusual to see women in military leadership in Iraq. According to several sources, about 15 percent of the more than 100,000 American troops in the Persian Gulf are women, the largest deployment of females in U.S. history.

The Military Police, in particular, are staffed with a large number of women officers. In the 720th, about a third of the platoon leaders are female.

Women still are prohibited from serving in some roles - infantry, special services and heavy armored divisions - but that doesn’t mean they don’t see their share of combat.

Poirier said that during this conflict, Knight’s company and its platoons have faced more combat than any other in the battalion.

"If my sons want to join the Army, I’d be happy if they were led by Jennifer Knight," he said.

Poirier assigned the tall, angular 28-year-old New Jersey native to turn the city of Samarra - Iraq’s version of Tombstone, Ariz. - into a peaceable place. It was not easy. Samarra was the site of some of the worst fighting the battalion faced in its year in Iraq.

In one instance, violence erupted in the streets while Knight was on the job. Some members of the new Iraqi police force turned tail and fled.

"She got fire in her eyes and grabbed the Iraqi police chief. She fired the guys who ran," Poirier said. "She used a lot of talent in her company to tame that town of Samarra. A town that hadn’t been ’fixed’ in 10 months, she fixed within 30 days."

Knight takes her boss’ praise and his prediction of her rise to general modestly. "I just want to do my job," she said. "If that’s where it takes me, that’d be awesome."

Where Knight, who is married to an MP, is usually reserved - provided you keep your Kevlar helmet where it belongs - one of her fellow officers in the battalion, Lt. Alexis Marks, is almost the opposite. Marks is hard- charging, fun-loving and an outgoing free spirit.

Like her grandfather, Marks also graduated from the U.S. Military Academy. Grandpa once held the record for "punishment hours" awarded for rules infractions at West Point with 144. Marks took that dubious honor from him with 155 during her four years. She had a picture taken to rest alongside his on the family mantel in Florida. Each caption notes the number of hours served.

Retired Col. Joe Adamczyk, who was her tactical officer at West Point and is in Iraq as a deputy in the American-led coalition’s division of operations and infrastructure, said he remembered Marks well.

"There were two kinds of students in my office," Adamczyk said. "There were the very good students and the ’other’ kind," he said, leaving no doubt that Marks was the latter.

Even so, he said he was not surprised at her success as a leader.

She is a natural at the job, brave enough to take risks, smart enough to know when not to and creative enough to devise the right ways to do it, he said.

Marks, 24, is only 5 feet 1, with dark hair and sparkling ice-blue eyes. But when a visiting officer told her, "You have the most beautiful eyes" - she reminded him, in no uncertain terms, that he needed to find other fields on which to apply his fertilizer.

Lt. Alexis Marks takes no prisoners.

Her platoon is almost religiously devoted to her. Not because she’s a West Pointer, but because they’ve seen her under fire.

In Samarra one night, Marks’ platoon was pulling a patrol and was hit by several mortar shells, Poirier said.

"Several soldiers were lost to injuries," the battalion commander said. "The female soldiers, led by Marks, performed life-saving measures. You would have expected them to be traumatized, but they came back like tigers."

On another night in Samarra, her Fourth Platoon came under attack.

"There were some flashes, and when that happens, you go into your training," Marks said. "I went inside and got on the radio and told them we needed a QRF [quick relief force]. I could hear my soldiers screaming from where I was."

Marks handled the episode, but as tough as she is, it left a scar.

"I was really torn afterward," she said. "My job is to get on the radio, but when the heat is on, you want to run out to your sol diers.

"My God," she said. "There was so much blood."

Marks, who is single, said she loves her role in the Military Police.

"You can’t have chicks in the infantry," Marks said in her matter-of-fact way. "This is the best branch to be in to be in leadership. The thing I love about the MPs is it’s pretty much the only job where a female can be a platoon leader."

Bravery is not limited to women from West Point.

Consider the case of Spc. Sara Michelle Barnett, with the 2nd Platoon of the 64th MP Company on Nov. 30, 2003.

There is a sergeant who owes his life to her.

Barnett, 22, has been in the Army since she graduated from Humble High School outside Houston, Texas, almost five years ago, hoping to get some college money. She wants to be a police officer, and she figured five years as a military cop would be a good start down that path when she gets out of the Army in August.

She has been to Kosovo twice, but that was nothing like what she has witnessed in Iraq.

"I’ve seen a lot of destruction, a lot of death," she said, peeking out from under her worn "lucky" Adidas ballcap. "The way these people live, it’s worse than the way people live in Kosovo."

Even all her experience couldn’t prepare the 5-foot-1Âœ, 110-pound soldier for that November night in Samarra.

"I felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders when it happened," she said quietly, hunkered into a near slouch on her commanding officer’s cot, the only private place in the company’s quarters.

Barnett and her squad were protecting a truck carrying Iraqi cash to one of the local banks. They were held up for a while, then headed into town. Within two minutes of pulling up at the bank, they began taking small- arms fire.

There were snipers all around. The soldiers in the escort convoy fought a pitched 45-minute battle, and then it happened. Barnett’s squad leader, Sgt. Phillip Stow, was hit. The shot took half his face off. Barnett leaped to his side and began first aid. Other soldiers joined the fray, told her to continue what she was doing as Stow’s blood soaked battle dressing after battle dressing.

Finally, they hauled him into a Humvee and took off. They managed to get him to a landing zone, where a helicopter carried him to an aid station. At the time, no one thought he would live.

Stow survived and is back in the United States recuperating.

"I got a letter from him two weeks ago," Barnett said. "He’s doing fine. They expect him to make a complete recovery, but it’s going to take a long time."

Barnett said she held it together throughout the episode, but back at the base, once Stow was gone, she "let it go."

After the fact. That’s the important thing.

She still has nightmares about the attack, but refuses to let it rule her. Talking about it helps. And she’s sure she will get over it eventually.

"I think I’m pretty strong," she said.

Strong enough to prove that women can handle themselves when the bullets and blood start to fly.


Posted by: rkb 2004-03-10
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=27823