MARSOC and other special operations commands are included in a 2013 Defense Department order to open all units to female troops by 2016. While certain exceptions to the order may be granted by the Secretary of Defense, MARSOC Commander Maj. Gen. Joseph Osterman told Marine Corps Times he was conducting planning for a possible integration order.
“We’re bringing in folks to conduct a review of our standards within MARSOC and our training pipeline,” Osterman said in an interview. “Just to make sure that we’ve got a good objective set of gender-neutral standards that are there.”
To ensure that the review was as objective as possible, Osterman said staff from the United States Office of Personnel Management would be coming to MARSOC headquarters in North Carolina to conduct it. Their analysis is expected to take place within the next two months, Osterman said, in order to coincide with the close of a Marine Corps-wide evaluation of training and assessment standards through the all-volunteer Ground Combat Element Integrated Task Force.
“By the time we get to the summertime and all that we can start to bring all the analysis together and get the recommendations together and meet whatever implementation timelines may be required,” Osterman said.
OPM officials did not respond to emailed questions about the scope of their assessment and how many personnel would be involved.
On top of the OPM review, Osterman said MARSOC is also doing internal planning to meet prescribed requirements for integration, focusing on the command’s ability to mentor its Marines throughout the potential transition. Preparation also involves ongoing conversations with Brig. Gen. George Smith, head of the force-integration planning effort, and with Army Gen. Joseph Votel, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, he said.
While no MARSOC Marines are participating in the GCEITF, now training at Camp Lejeune, Osterman said he and other MARSOC leaders are closely monitoring the work of the task force.
“There’s an awful lot of parallels there that will apply to us,” he said.
Little so far has been revealed about how the various forces within Special Operations Command are planning in light of the upcoming integration deadline.
In 2013, SOCOM officials revealed they were conducting a study examining the social implications of integrating women on special operations teams. The command also commissioned a study from the RAND Corporation on behavioral and cultural aspects of gender integration.
Female soldiers will soon undergo a one-time assessment at the Army Ranger School, set to start in April with about 60 female volunteers on board. Those who graduate the course will receive a Ranger tab, officials have said.
The Navy has announced plans to open up its SEAL track to female sailors as soon as this fall if the Department of Defense ordered the service to integrate. Officials said they don’t plan to conduct any test classes ahead of the integration order, however.
In the Air Force, Secretary Deborah Lee James said last fall she plans to open the service’s seven male-only jobs — including special tactics officer and pararescue — to female airmen by next spring.
Osterman’s comments provide the first look at what MARSOC is doing ahead of a possible integration order. The command has a grueling and lengthy training pipeline for its critical skills operators: after an assessment and selection process, Marines undergo the nine-month Individual Training Course. The four phases of ITC cover everything from Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) to irregular warfare and urban combat.
In the larger Marine Corps, efforts to prepare for integration have met with mixed results. More than 100 female Marines graduated from enlisted infantry training over the course of a one-year test period. However, the Infantry Officers Course has yet to graduate a single female officer in two years of trial integration.
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford is required to make a report to the Secretary of Defense on the Corps’ women in service research by next January; he can request specific exceptions to the integration order if he chooses.
