CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – When Shelane Etchison was first embedded with the seventy fifth Ranger Regiment, some male troopers had been understanding and befriended her. However principally, she confronted a chilly reception as one of many first ladies to be put in a fight function.
“Lots of people had been very skeptical about how would ladies … be with these models,” Etchison, a former particular operations soldier, advised Fox News. “There was much more scrutiny and skepticism on how we might carry out.”
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Etchison was a member of the inaugural Cultural Assist Staff, a 20-woman fight pressure connected to the seventy fifth Ranger Regiment in 2011. That made her one of many first ladies in U.S. historical past to combat alongside males on the entrance traces earlier than the Division of Protection lifted a feminine fight ban in 2015.
“It wasn’t a simple highway,” Etchison mentioned. “It took awhile to alter some hearts and minds inside our personal particular operation forces.”
In the course of the Afghanistan Warfare, particular operations forces hunted high-value Taliban and al-Qaeda targets. However the all-male groups weren’t allowed to talk with ladies and youngsters attributable to cultural norms, inflicting the U.S. and Afghan militaries to lose out on essential intelligence.
Because of this, the all-female Cultural Assist Staff was shaped. Earlier than lengthy, the ladies proved themselves and gained over not simply the Rangers Etchison was embedded with, however prime brass on the Pentagon.
WATCH TO LEARN MORE ABOUT ETCHISON’S POST-MILITARY LIFE:
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“There was such an angle shift,” Etchison advised Fox News, noting that a number of the males started questioning why ladies weren’t allowed to attend Ranger college. “Once I left, one of many Rangers gave me their patch and mentioned ‘that’d be actually cool if you happen to grew to become a Ranger at some point.'”
The preliminary success of the Cultural Assist Staff led the particular operation forces to coach a covert unit of feminine Afghanistan troopers, finally dubbed the Feminine Tactical Platoon program, Etchison mentioned. The navy unit offered an analogous service because the Cultural Assist Staff, gathering intelligence via looking and questioning ladies throughout high-risk nighttime raids.
Collectively, the groups pushed the needle for girls in fight.
“Lots of what we proved that we may do there performed an enormous function within the Division of Protection finally rescinding the ladies on fight ban,” Etchison mentioned. “The identical goes for these Afghan ladies and them proving themselves on the battlefield proper there with their male Afghan counterparts.”
The ladies of each packages skilled collectively, changing into mates whereas proving the significance of their unprecedented roles. Etchison emphasised the extra hazard the Afghan ladies confronted.
Etchison serves in Afghanistan with the Cultural Assist staff, looking and questioning ladies and youngsters to collect intelligence on high-value Taliban and al-Qaeda targets.
(Courtesy: Shelane Etchison)
“The roles had been basically the identical,” Etchison mentioned. “What was completely different although was the extent of braveness that I feel it takes to really elevate your hand and do this job.”
Afghan males who assisted the U.S. navy or performed any function within the nation’s authorities had been already among the many Taliban’s prime targets. However given the brutal regime’s oppressiveness towards ladies, forbidding them from even touring with out a male chaperone or receiving an schooling, the members of the Feminine Tactical Platoon had an excellent greater bulls-eye.
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“There’s simply a lot extra threat for them agreeing to affiliate and do that job,” Etchison mentioned. “A job that’s leaps and bounds forward of what Afghan ladies are doing in society, not to mention the navy and not to mention the very best echelons of their navy.”
“I would like these tales to go to the subsequent technology of service ladies,” Etchison mentioned. “Hopefully they’re impressed by it.”
To listen to extra from Etchison on the development of ladies in navy fight roles, click on right here.
