CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – When Shelane Etchison was first embedded with the seventy fifth Ranger Regiment, some male troopers have been understanding and befriended her. However principally, she confronted a chilly reception as one of many first ladies to be put in a fight position.
“Lots of people have been very skeptical about how would ladies … be with these items,” Etchison, a former particular operations soldier, informed Fox News. “There was much more scrutiny and skepticism on how we’d carry out.”
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Etchison was a member of the inaugural Cultural Help Staff, a 20-woman fight power connected to the seventy fifth Ranger Regiment in 2011. That made her one of many first ladies in U.S. historical past to struggle alongside males on the entrance strains earlier than the Division of Protection lifted a feminine fight ban in 2015.
“It wasn’t a straightforward street,” Etchison mentioned. “It took awhile to vary some hearts and minds inside our personal particular operation forces.”
Through the Afghanistan Battle, particular operations forces hunted high-value Taliban and al-Qaeda targets. However the all-male groups weren’t allowed to talk with ladies and kids on account of cultural norms, inflicting the U.S. and Afghan militaries to lose out on essential intelligence.
Consequently, the all-female Cultural Help 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 informed 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 when you grew to become a Ranger at some point.’”
The preliminary success of the Cultural Help Staff led the particular operation forces to coach a covert unit of feminine Afghanistan troopers, in the end dubbed the Feminine Tactical Platoon program, Etchison mentioned. The navy unit supplied the same service because the Cultural Help Staff, gathering intelligence by means of looking out and questioning ladies throughout high-risk nighttime raids.
Collectively, the groups pushed the needle for ladies in fight.
“A whole lot of what we proved that we might do there performed a giant position within the Division of Protection in the end 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 educated collectively, changing into buddies whereas proving the significance of their unprecedented roles. Etchison emphasised the extra hazard the Afghan ladies confronted.
Etchison serves in Afghanistan with the Cultural Help workforce, looking out and questioning ladies and kids to assemble intelligence on high-value Taliban and al-Qaeda targets.
(Courtesy: Shelane Etchison)
“The roles have been primarily the identical,” Etchison mentioned. “What was completely different although was the extent of braveness that I believe it takes to truly increase your hand and do this job.”
Afghan males who assisted the U.S. navy or performed any position within the nation’s authorities have 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 a good 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 need these tales to go to the subsequent era 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.
