Male, female Fort Stewart soldiers tested in study of physical demands in combat

If she were younger, Army Capt. Nartrish Lance would consider joining male soldiers in a front line occupation.

But 21 years into her Army career - including the last eight as a commissioned signals officer - Lance will leave the likely future openings in infantry platoons, cavalry troops and tank and cannon crews to her more youthful female comrades.

Even so, the 40-year-old soldier jumped at the opportunity to volunteer for a study being conducted at installations across the Army to determine exactly how physically taxing such combat occupations are on troops.

"It is a demanding field," Lance said of the military occupational specialties, or MOSs, currently closed to females. "We've had the opportunity over the years to integrate into other (formerly male-only) jobs, so I don't see that there is a great challenge as far as integration. I think it is a great opportunity for women to actually get into those combat MOSs."

Although officials stressed the Army Physical Demands Study Lance and nearly 160 additional Fort Stewart soldiers participated in during recent weeks at the Coastal Georgia post won't directly impact how the Army decides to open new jobs to women, it did give the captain and 57 other female soldiers their first ever opportunity to train specifically for those positions.

"It's a new challenge for the females to actually integrate with the male soldiers in the combat arms, and it's an opportunity to make history being the first to actually go through this test," Lance said.

Once completed, Army officials with the service's Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) and the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine (USARIEM) intend to use their research to structure a basic physical aptitude test to be administered to soldiers interested in front line jobs.

Officials compared it to the ASVAB - Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery - a standardized assessment of a potential recruits' cognitive and intellectual abilities that helps qualify them for certain jobs.

"This is almost going to turn into the physical demands ASVAB test, if you will," said Maj. Gen. Mike Murray, the commander of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division and the top general at Fort Stewart. "There will be a set of tests to determine if this soldier is capable of performing the tasks associated with these MOSs from a physical standpoint. So, not only from a mental standpoint, but from a physical standpoint, as well.

"It's very much about matching the right soldier to that (right) specialty."

Tasks among most demanding

For five weeks the soldiers who volunteered to take part in the Physical Demands Study were relieved from their regular duties and tasked to focus on only one assignment - learn the tasks they'd be tested on as well as possible.

The study's designers worked with the Army to ensure those tasks - a total of 31 including basic skills all combat soldiers must posses and others specific to their specialty - administered during the study were among the most demanding skills soldiers typically come across in their particular field, said Edward Zambraski, the chief of USARIEM's performance division.

The test to be built from the gathered data once officials have concluded the study ­- by late 2016 - will be based on the same standards the Army has expected of its combat arms soldiers for decades, he added.

"The tests are to determine who can essentially do this task to standard or who ... doesn't have the required attributes," Zambraski said. "You may not have the height, you may not have the agility or the strength to do this kind of task - maybe something else might be better for you."

Testing soldiers on both their mental and physical abilities before they enter a demanding job will strengthen individual units and the Army as a whole, said Col. Scott Jackson, the commander of the 3rd ID's 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, the unit that most of the soldiers in the study at Fort Stewart are assigned to.

"This is about making the Army better," Jackson said.

Through 24 years in the infantry, the colonel said he'd seen a number of soldiers whose ASVAB score may have qualified them to serve on the front lines, but physically they couldn't handle their responsibilities.

Often that means other soldiers around that individual were forced to pick up the slack - an issue that Jackson said can affect the health of his soldiers, their morale and unit cohesion.

"There are certain physical requirements for every job, and that's what this study is about - if you can't get the job done, you're putting yourself at risk for injury, you're not going to perform well, and you're also putting your unit at risk," the colonel said.

"This test is gender neutral, and it will make the best infantryman out there, and make the best tanker out there, and make the best mortarman out there as possible."

Women in combat

Army Spc. Rachel Wickline's eye remained focused on the mouth of the 120 mm mortar tube that towered over her head.

With precise focus the 24-year-old soldier guided a round up over the combat helmet she wore and into the nearly 6-foot tall tube. Just a month earlier the task was extremely difficult, but by March 12 she'd nearly mastered it, Wickline said.

"Now I can do it no problem," she said, admitting sandbags stacked around the mortar's plate helped her get an extra couple inches of reach.

"We didn't have the sand bags down there when we started, but it really helps," the 5-foot-2 soldier said. "In reality, out in the field, the base would be buried, so the sand bags actually make it more realistic."

A combat medic who has been in the Army about two years, Wickline's current job could land her alongside men on the front lines in combat. She hasn't deployed since enlisting, so she hasn't experienced that environment, though she's more than willing.

"I think it's a lot different than serving in the infantry," Wickline said of her current job. "As a medic you're focused on helping people - making sure they're taken care of if they get hurt, but it's out there (on the front lines)."

Asked if she'd consider joining the infantry, Wickline didn't hesitate.

"If it were open? Yes, I can see doing it," she said. "I could see myself as a mortarman. I could definitely do it."

Her desire to join a combat position, however, is rare among women in the Army.

A recent survey found fewer than 8 percent of current female soldiers expressed a desire to serve in positions currently closed to them. The same survey also found evidence that some male soldiers viewed integration negatively and believed it could harm their units.

Still, the Army is "going full steam" toward preparing to integrate women into all combat military occupational specialties outside of special operations fields by 2016 as ordered by the Pentagon in early 2013, Murray said.

The general, who has been an infantry officer for 32 years, has often said the Army should open combat positions to women.

By closing certain jobs to otherwise qualified soldiers - just because they are female, for example - the Army is not getting the best out of all its personnel, he said. That's especially important currently when just fewer than one-in-four American high school graduates meet the minimum standards to enlist in the service.

"We learned a long time ago that diversity is a strength," Murray said. "There are lots and lots of female soldiers (currently) serving in key positions.

"The Army is after the best talent we can find. We want the best talent that we can possibly get, and we can't be exclusive or we're not going to get the best talent that is out there - as long as they meet the standards.

"I think the Army will be better 10 years from now because of this effort."

'The best tasks'

Nearly exhausted after lugging weighty ammunition cans back and forth across a motor bay in the heart of Fort Stewart for several minutes on March 12, Capt. Lance sat down in a chair as several USARIEM scientists began removing their monitoring equipment from her uniform.

Despite the intrusive appearance of the long, pointed blue mask and the length of yellow, black and gray wires that connected to a pair of analyzing units strapped to her back, Lance said the equipment used to monitor her breathing and other functions as she performed were barely noticeable.

What she did notice, the signals officer said, was that after five weeks of training, the tasks for which the soldiers were tested between March 10 and 19 became immensely easier.

"When we started, it was very challenging," Lance said. "We'd never experienced any of these tasks before. Once you rehearse multiple days and go over it over and over again, it becomes more just allowing your muscles to memorize what you're doing, and it becomes much easier after a while, for the men and especially for the women, too."

The tests seemed like appropriate measures of combat tasks, said experienced soldiers such as Sgt. Robon McKay, an infantryman who has served in both Iraq and Afghanistan during his 13 years in the Army.

"Any time you're able to get good, solid training in, it's going to help," said the 32-year-old who has deployed six times to the Middle East. "I think the Army chose the best tasks to test us on - they're definitely some of the most difficult things we do."

While McKay said he had no problem with women joining an infantry unit, he said, what does worry him based on his own experiences in combat, are soldiers who don't fully contribute to the mission.

The Physical Demands Study, he said, might put an end to that.

"It's great for (TRADOC and USARIEM) to get all this data to try and see what they can do in the future with the Army," he said. "It's really important. It's a lot of teamwork, and you want every individual to pull their own weight in any type of mission or anything like that."

Gender, he added, doesn't seem as if it would be much of an issue out on patrol in a war zone.

"If I know the guy or the girl next to me is going to do their job, I'm good with that," he said.

Some day, Spc. Wickline said, gender - like so many other issues in the past - likely won't be an issue.

Hopefully, the medic who trained as a mortarman for the study said, that day is sooner than later.

"I would deploy with any one of these guys I've trained with tomorrow," she said. "They've told me the same thing. That's nice. That means a lot."