Corporal Sarah Bryant died in the depths of Taliban country on a vital mission
in the heart of Afghanistan. Deep in enemy territory the 26-year-old British
intelligence specialist was vulnerable and assigned a four-man SAS close
protection team as a precaution.
The journey on Tuesday afternoon had taken them out to the border between
Helmand and Kandahar provinces. Bryant and her SAS team had taken a Snatch
Land Rover. It was a decision that would later attract attention because of
the lack of protection its light armour offers against bomb attack. Their
choice was a practical one, however. They took a Snatch precisely because it
was relatively small and unobtrusive and thus far less likely to draw
attention to their objective
But senior army officers are certain her death and those of three of the SAS
reservists who were with her were the result of a targeted Taliban ambush.
There was no other reason for the 100lb remote-controlled bomb that ripped
their vehicle apart so far from the main road and in an area where British
forces rarely if ever go. A defence source noted: It’s clear the whole thing
was compromised. There is no doubt this was an ambush.”
Bryant and two of the SAS soldiers were killed immediately. By good fortune
rather than by dint of the Snatch’s flimsy Kevlar protection, one of the
other two SAS men was still capable of calling in assistance. A Chinook
helicopter with a “Mert” – Medical Emergency Response Team – on board was
scrambled from the British base at Camp Bastion, 25 miles away.
Within half an hour the team were ferrying the two surviving SAS men back to
the British military hospital, where one of the men died. The SAS trooper
who called for help survived – just – and is now in a stable condition.
On any other day it would have been the deaths of three members of the SAS
that grabbed the headlines, but for one thing: Bryant was an attractive
young woman working in a dangerous role. She might have been following in
the footsteps of all those 19th-century subalterns, but she was a very
different 21st-century equivalent. It would have been unthinkable in
Victorian times to send a young woman out into the Helmand deserts to seek
intelligence from local tribesmen.
Times have changed. Women are now well established in the armed forces,
serving in increasing numbers and in more dangerous roles. But Bryant’s
death, the first of a British woman in Afghanistan, provoked a debate about
how far female soldiers should be placed in the line of fire. Should our
notions of equality be extended to the very front line of combat? THE
British Army does not allow women to take part in operations where they
would be expected to “close with and kill the enemy”. In practical terms
this means that they are banned from infantry and cavalry units, but can
serve in any other part of the service.
It is not for an absence of heroic attributes that women are kept from the
front line. The undercover operations performed by 39 female members of the
Special Operations Executive in occupied France during the second world war
saw three of them awarded the George Cross, the civilian equivalent of the
Victoria Cross, for their bravery.
More recently British women have displayed great gallantry in Iraq and
Afghanistan. They include Michelle Norris, a 19-year-old British Army medic
who became the first woman to win the Military Cross. In 2006 she leapt out
of her Warrior armoured vehicle to rescue her wounded sergeant while under
sniper and machinegun fire from insurgents in Iraq. Six service-women have
died in Iraq.
The reason why women are denied roles in frontline operations is primarily
because of Practical precedent.
In the 1948 Arab-Israeli war the fledgling Jewish state was fighting for its
existence and brought its egalitarian underpinnings to the military arena.
Women were assigned to fight alongside their male colleagues.
It did not work. The Israelis found that the men worried so much about the
women that they were not doing their own job. An innate sense of chivalry
led them to keep one eye on their female comrades when they should have been
concentrating on fighting the enemy.
While the Israeli experiment is 60 years in the past and men have become used
to working closely with women both in and out of the armed forces, experts
argue that its lessons remain true to the battlefield where instinct comes
to the fore.
“There is this terrible fear about women getting captured and being torn
apart,” said Charles Heyman, a former infantry officer who is editor of
Armed Forces of the United Kingdom. “There is something primeval about the
male belief that you have to be protective of your women and that when the
chips are down you must defend the women to the last.”
The Israelis quickly abandoned the experiment and in Britain there was little
challenge to the principle that combat was a male preserve.
However, in 1997 new Labour came to power pledging to lift the ban on gays
serving in the military. From there it was just a short step to debating
whether women should serve on the front line. After a nine-month review,
which took into account the Israeli example and suggestions that women could
not bear the physical strain involved in infantry service, the ban remained.
Many female soldiers now believe this stance is outdated. “I have come across
a number of women in my time who could have served with the infantry,” said
one serving female army officer. “As far as the principle goes, if a woman
can pass the same physical standards and meet all of the selection
standards, then I think she should be given the opportunity.”
There is no doubt that a number, albeit probably a small minority, could meet
the physical challenge. In 2002, having previously failed twice, Captain
Philippa Tattersall became the first woman to pass the nine-week all-arms
commando course and earn the right to wear the Royal Marines green beret.
She remains the only woman to have passed the course.
In both the other services women can occupy almost all roles. In the RAF they
can serve in any position except the infantry-like air force defence. There
are about 10 female pilots flying combat planes, with many more taking
control of other aircraft such as helicopters.
The Royal Navy is also open to women on board warships. There is one
exception: women are banned from submarines because of the problems of going
to sea when unknowingly pregnant. Not only must submarines stay submerged
for many months but the atmosphere generated by artificial means is
life-threatening to a foetus.
Those in favour of women having full equality in the services are buoyed by
international precedent. Germany, France, Sweden, Ireland and New Zealand
allow women to serve in their infantry, as well as Canada and Denmark which,
like the British, have troops in southern Afghanistan. A Canadian female
soldier, Captain Nichola Goddard, was killed in May 2006 fighting the
Taliban not far from where Bryant died.
The United States and Australia, the countries that along with Britain have
done the most fighting in the war on terror, have identical restrictions to
those of Britain. Even Russia, which allowed women to fight as infantry
during the second world war – albeit out of necessity – will not allow it
now.
Israel has again tried to put women on the front line. The Lynx battalion, an
infantry unit, is about 70% female. In reality, however, it is a border
patrol unit rather than a frontline force.
Defence sources suggest that the British ban is under constant review but some
argue that the debate is almost obsolete given the “asymmetric” or
“360degree” nature of warfare in Afghanistan. The old pattern of battles
between advancing armies has been replaced by combat in which the enemy is
to be confronted anywhere and sometimes comprises a single suicide bomber.
With female soldiers being used to search Muslim women in Helmand in an
attempt to prevent such attacks, they are effectively on the front line.
A fifth of the 8,000 British troops serving in Afghanistan are women – a
figure that compares favourably to US ratios of one in seven – and while
many are logisticians and planners with no need to leave their bases, those
serving with the artillery, or as medics or, like Bryant, as intelligence
officers, are very much on the front line whenever they leave their bases.
The female officer added: “We’re talking about a theatre of war where you
can’t see your enemy and, like it or not, women like Sarah Bryant are on the
front line because whenever you go to Iraq or Afghanistan, if you’re out in
the field you’re out on the front line.” FOR Bryant’s family such
distinctions were clearly irrelevant. Her husband Carl, also a corporal in
the Intelligence Corps, described her as “an awesome soldier who died doing
the job that she loved”.
Her father, Des Feely, said last week that she was so good at her work that
MI6 had tried to poach her. She had also served two tours in Iraq, one in
Baghdad’s Green Zone putting together intelligence for troops to go out on
operations.
"She didn’t really tell me what she was doing,” he said. “A lot of it was very
secret. Sometimes she would go with them, other times she wasn’t allowed to
in case there was a fire-fight. She wanted to see her work in action and
wanted to go and patrol. She was pretty fearless.”
How women’s roles have changed in the British armed forces
— There are many stories of women disguising themselves as men to serve with
the British military, but it was not until 1884 that the first organised
female military unit, the Army Nursing Service (ANS), was formed
— The first female equivalent of the army was the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps
(WAAC), set up in 1917, which gave women a more extensive role, albeit only
as cooks, medics and clerks. The Royal Navy had the Wrens
— In the second world war the role of women was expanded markedly. The army
and navy units were augmented by the creation of the Women’s RAF. Agents of
the Special Operations Executive became famous for their daring actions
behind enemy lines
— It was not until the early 1990s that women were incorporated as of right
into all three services. Only in 1992 was an automatic discharge for those
who became pregnant phased out. In further reforms in 2000, all roles apart
from the infantry, cavalry, submarine service and airfield defence units
were opened up to women
— There are now nearly 18,000 women in the British armed forces, representing
9% of the total. In the past six years numbers have increased by 12%
— Women are yet to occupy the top three ranks in Britain, but there are two
female army brigadiers and one naval commodore. Altogether there are 3,670
officers, or 11% of the total
There is no push for this in the Army whatsoever. Female soldiers know that only a tiny minority of women could be an infanteer. An infantry rucksack at war scales weighs 140lbs (63kg) and has to be carried over mountains. The 8 mile test with 55lbs is a minimum standard.
Z Smith, London, UK
Erin Solaro, the author of Women in the Line of Fire (Seal Press, 2006) here.
Interesting article: the exclusion of Israeli women from combat duty has more to do with deals cut with the religious parties than any actual combat experience, while ignoring American servicewomen's combat service.
Erin Solaro, Shelton, USA
This is a cunning strategy for terminating the very desire to go to war. In the past, the exhausted soldier, returning on leave from the front, collapsed into the warm, gentle and welcoming arms of his wife or sweetheart. If he did that now, he would bash his forehead on the rim of her helmet.
Edmund Burke, Kingston upon Thames, England
Mr. Smith neglected to mention about Canadian women serving in the combat arms was that physical fitness stands were lowered so that they could pass. Another issue is that many of the wife’s of solders are not enamored with their husbands spending weeks at a time sharing a tent with female soldiers
Stephen Roberts, Toronto, Canada
O.K. send them into battle. The Russians in WWll certainly
didn't shrink from it.
It's time the guys got a break after thousands of years of
warfare.
Now that would be equality!
Jerry Scroggin, Phoenix, Arizona/USA