As much as the slaughter of Shippler's platoon and the loss of his breakfast pissed him off, they were nothing to compare to what Wittworth knew awaited him back in the rear. Today was "The Day," the day when Second Lieutenant Nancy Kozak, the first female to be commissioned as an infantry officer, was to report to Wittworth's company. The there thought of females assigned to combat arms, let alone one assigned to his company, still was enough to send Wittworth on an emotional roller coaster that took him from blind anger to almost total despondency.
As he and his driver rode back to the rear in silence, Wittworth wrestled with his own feelings and beliefs. Though he had known that this great experiment in equal opportunity had been coming for over six months, he had done little to mentally prepare himself. The briefings by the Test and Evaluation Command officials and data collectors, Wittworth's chain of command, and the Equal Opportunity reps from the Department of Defense had explained how the twelve-month evaluation would work. They had even tried to provide a system for everyone involved to overcome their prejudices through a series of rap sessions, educational seminars, and "encounter" groups. These efforts, however, had failed for the most part. Instead of eliminating prejudices, they had only served to harden them in some of the men in Wittworth's company, Wittworth included.
As hard as he might try, he could not separate out emotions from the problem. Why in the hell, he thought, is it necessary to allow women in combat arms branches? As it was, a number of good infantry officers were being forced to turn in the coveted crossed-rifle brass in order to fill vacancies in combat support and combat service support branches, branches where women already served without problem. Why the people in Washington couldn't leave well enough alone, and let things continue as they had been since the United States Army had been created, baffled Wittworth. It was as if someone in the Department of Defense wanted to see just how much shit they could pile onto combat arms officers before their jobs became impossible to carry out.
Breaking out from the rough and rutted trails, Wittworth's driver crossed the main tank trail and turned the Humvee south onto West Range Road. Wittworth didn't notice. His mind was still wrestling with how he would greet Kozak, an event now only a few hours away. That, coupled with the poor performance of Shippler's platoon, the loss of his breakfast to ants, and the oppressive heat, conspired to crush any tact Wittworth might have begun the day with. And tact was one commodity that people who knew him would never accuse Wittworth of having an overabundance of.
Turning her light blue Chevy Suburban from Hood Road onto Headquarters Street, Second Lieutenant Nancy Kozak slowed and prepared to turn into the parking lot across the street from Building 108. To say that she was nervous would not do justice to Lieutenant Kozak's state of mind at that moment. After years of physical and mental preparation, The Day had arrived, the day she was reporting into her first unit. All the theoretical exercises in leadership, "what if?" drills, and "how to" training sessions that had permeated the military instruction at West Point and during her officer's basic course were over. From here on in, everything was for real. No role-playing, no hypothetical situations, no neat, clean classroom solutions. Her decisions and actions would affect real people and be judged by professional soldiers, those entrusted to her care, those who were her appointed superiors, and those who considered themselves her peers.
As if the simple act of reporting to her first unit wasn't difficult enough, Nancy Kozak would also have to deal with the trauma of being the first female to be commissioned in the U.S. Army as a combat arms officer.
For the next year, she and the unit she was reporting into would be the subject of an evaluation that would attempt to answer the question of whether it was possible for American women to serve effectively as frontline soldiers.
The evaluation plan was quite simple in concept. Three units — one tank battalion, one mechanized infantry battalion, and one field artillery battalion — would receive a number of female officers and enlisted personnel.
Within these units, some companies would remain all male.
These were the "baseline" companies. Other companies, referred to as "mixed units," would consist of both male and female soldiers. Special teams from the Army's Test and Evaluation Command would study the performance of both the baseline companies and the mixed companies while those companies conducted their normal training and duties. The final test, though no one referred to it as such, would be a rotation to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, at the end of the one-year evaluation. Based upon the performance of the units throughout the year and at the National Training Center, and the observations of the evaluation teams, a decision, or so it was hoped, would be made concerning the future of women in combat arms.
To start the evaluation, a number of female officers, one assigned to each of the mixed companies, were to report in first. It was felt that the female officers would be better able to handle the initial shock and "difficulties" that were anticipated when females were introduced into the combat units. The female officers had three months to adjust to the unit, and allow the unit to adjust to them, before the enlisted female soldiers began to arrive. In this way, the female officers would have an opportunity to achieve a level of competence and acceptance, making it easier for the enlisted females.
Unstated in either the evaluation plans or the briefings was the belief that a buffer would be needed between the male officers and noncommissioned officers and the enlisted females. The female officers would serve as this buffer, ensuring that training, discipline, and duty assignments were handled in a fair and even-handed manner. Otherwise, there was always the possibility that the all-male leadership would sabotage the evaluation by harassing the females or pushing them beyond accepted limits. While there was concern over the fact that the female officers were junior to everyone, it was generally accepted that this was preferable to introducing female officers of higher rank, lacking combat arms experience and baseline training, into the evaluation. Besides, as the briefers in the Pentagon pointed out, you can't get any closer to combat than at platoon level, so that was where the focus of the evaluation had to be.
So Second Lieutenant Kozak was exercising extreme care in everything she did. From reading everything she could to prepare herself technically and tactically, to obeying every traffic law on post. Even the manner in which she dressed was taken into account. After sliding into a parking slot and turning off the engine of her conservative and nondescript car, Kozak paused before getting out. Turning the rearview mirror toward her, she gave herself the once-over one more time before leaving the safety of her car.
Her auburn hair, normally worn long, was pulled back and pinned to the back of her head. The length of her hair had been a matter of concern and great debate, not only for herself, but for her fellow female classmates at West Point.
Many had opted to get it cut short rather than mess with it when in uniform or in the field. Others had it cut so that, wet or dry, it fell just above the bottom of the uniform collar, which was the extreme limit that regulations permitted. A few, like Kozak, couldn't part with all of their hair. "After all," she had once told a friend, "everyone knows you're a woman, so why try to hide it." So they tolerated the inconvenience of washing it, tangling with it, and putting it up when in uniform so that they could maintain their pride and joy. Through trial and error, and with a lot of help from other female officers, Kozak had learned how to deal with her long hair in and out of the field. She of course had no way of knowing what her company commander would say about it.