Despite War, Some Girls are Still Considering the Military an Option

With wars dragging on in Iraq and Afghanistan and the dangers faced everyday by soldiers, including female soldiers in many cases, is the military still a viable option for girls starting out in life? For many it is an option.

According to the Department of Defense, as of January, there were 194,277 females in active duty out of 1,360,419 troops total, or 14.2 percent. Also, there were 25,793 females serving in support of the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, or 9.7 percent of those deployed.

Clearly, females have a role to play in the military. For Army Capt. Megan Keuss, who is based out of Iron Mountain, serving her country was the reason she enlisted.

“I can tell you what was most motivating for me, and that was the potential and the ability to give something back to my country,” she said. “So duty to country is something that motivated me, and just being patriotic I want to serve.”

Meanwhile, for Michigan National Guard Pfc. Ashley Narhi, nineteen, of Ishpeming, she wanted a change of lifestyle and also to serve her country.

“I joined because I was living a really bad lifestyle and I needed a change, and after what happened on 9-1-1, I really wanted to just help out,” she said.

Traditionally, one of the reasons women, and men as well, enlist is to get money for education, for job training, and opportunities to travel. Keuss, for example, was stationed in Italy for three years and was able to see a lot of the country. Another plus, according to Keuss, is that unlike the civilian world in many cases, women get pay and benefits equal to men.

“A male that would hold my position would get paid the exact same thing that I do and get the exact same benefits,” she said.

Army Reservist Julie Dove, eighteen, of L’Anse, who serves with the 652nd Engineers in Harvey, was looking for “structure” in her life.

“It (the military) is a good structured place for people. I mean when you go to basic training, and my special training after that, it gives you, kind of like, a structure in your life,” she said. “It teaches you…pretty much how to be a better person.”

Narhi agrees with Dove that you learn a lot from being in situations you wouldn’t otherwise be in.

“You learn a lot,” she said. “Like, you get to meet people that you’d never think that you’d get along with as a civilian and you just learn how to cope with different problems and just things that you’d never learn any other way.”

Along with those positives are one big negative for many––going to war. Even though females are not allowed to serve in most combat and “forward” roles, we have all heard the news reports of women injured in Iraq.

Narhi’s younger sister Danielle, sixteen, who is a junior at the Ishpeming High School, is considering following her sister into the military after graduation, but admits to some fear at the possibility of serving in a war zone.

“Yeah (Nervous laughs) It scares me a lot,” she said.

Diane DeMillio, is the counselor at the Ishpeming High School. DeMillio estimates that in any given high school class two or three girls show some interest in and want to talk to the military recruiters when they come to the school. DeMillio pointed out, however, that it is rare in her experience to have a female student actually enlist. According to DeMillio the current wars have not helped the female enlistment rate among students from her school.

“We had an alumnus in the National Guard and I heard that she had to leave the Guard because she was supposed to go to Iraq and refused. It used to be that I would encourage students to go into the National Guard if they needed money for college because war wasn’t going to be part of the National Guard picture when I started this job,” she said. “Now it’s holy smokes! They didn’t really want to do that!”

Keuss is quick to point out that the current combat operations have not changed the roles of women in the Army.

“I don’t think that the current combat situation changed the roles of women in the army at all. I do think that we train to do our job in garrison, which is not forward in war. So when we go to war we do the same job we trained to do back in the rear,” she said.

Keuss knows from experience, she served in Iraq for two months and in Afghanistan for a year. She had been trained in finance so she ran a military bank. The bank took the money that was recovered from Saddam Hussein and placed it back into Iraq’s economy. This allowed Keuss to witness the positive outcomes a war can have.

“I got to see some wonderful things done in Iraq, and some very similar in Afghanistan,” she said.

Ashley Narhi said she is prepared to deploy if and when that time comes.

“I believe I might be going in about two years. That’s when I’m scheduled to ship out,” she said.

Narhi is a generator mechanic in the National Guard but she says along with drills they end up doing a little of everything such as working on trucks, transporting prisoners and “other stuff.”

Dove, meanwhile, is a supply specialist in the Army Reserve. She accounts for her unit’s equipment and some of the weapons.

Keuss gives some examples of military jobs most often filled by females.

“I can tell you that a lot of medical jobs are filled by females now. Usually they’re very technical jobs that females like to get. There were a lot of females in my unit, which was finance; in fact, my unit was 50 percent female,” she said.

Even though Keuss received her college degree in physical anthropology the Army needed personnel in finance. They saw that she had taken a lot of math and sent her to a school for six months for finance and taught her how to be an accountant.

According to Keuss, the only jobs in the Army that are not available to females are forward combat posts such as infantry and artillery. Chief Joseph Parker, a Navy recruiter in Marquette, said the situation is even more open in the Navy. Only special ops, or the Navy SEALS, are closed to females.

What is the environment for females like in the military? Do female soldiers have to put up with discrimination? There is some, especially in basic training, according to Dove.

“A lot of the males don’t think that women can do what males can do, which is really not true,” she said. “So I think one of the challenges that women do face in the military is that sometimes they are not treated as equals.”

Narhi agrees that any discrimination likely comes from the physical arena.

“A lot of the challenges that women have to overcome would be probably all he guys thinking that we can’t do it because we’re not as strong as they are and we’re trying to always prove them wrong,” she said.

Dove said that she has faced males who question her physical abilities and that she just shows them that she can do exactly what they can do. She said that even in high school sports there are guys who dismiss girl’s sports. Often, according to Dove, a lot of women end up doing a lot better at physical challenges then some of the men. When Dove first started out she could barely do pushups at all and she ran a mile in about ten minutes. However, by the end of basic training she could do 68 push ups and could run two miles in 14 minutes. Keuss is another example; she said in her old detachment all the guys used to try to keep up to her on the runs.

DeMillio related an experience of an Ishpeming High School Alumnus who recently came back to visit the school while on leave.

“She said on her floor in her training school there were a couple of times where male sergeants came in and did not say “man on floor,” and did not give warning and it made her feel uncomfortable,” she said. “Those are things that men aren’t dealing with.”

Danielle Narhi, who is considering either the Air Force or the National Guard, like her sister, said that if she does not end up enlisting it will probably be for financial reasons or because she comes to the conclusion that it is not “right” for her.

DeMillio says there are some positive aspects to joining the military and they do not necessarily differ for men or women.

“Certainly, for some of our students who are graduating it is a home, family and community that they may not have experienced here in their real family life,” she said. “It is a means of support, financial and otherwise, and a means to get an education.”

In the end, DeMillio urges girls considering the military to do a lot of research.

“I just want to make sure that students to their research and know all of their options before they make a decision for the beginning of their adult life,” she said.

Editors Note: This story was written by Lane Whitley, 13 and Erin Bozek-Jarvis, 14.