SHAKO: Women’s History Month 2019, Part IV

Women in the Army.

This is the fourth and last installment of 4GWAR’s tribute to Women’s History Month featuring  photos illustrating the contributions of women in the four armed services. With the exception of one historic first or trailblazer for each service, these pictures focus on women doing their jobs — some dirty, difficult or dangerous — but all essential to keeping the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps ready to defend the United States of America. This week we look at women Soldiers.

(Army photo by Timothy Hale)

Army officers and non-coms — male and female — participated in a combat fitness test at Fort Bragg, North Carolina on March 15, 2019, to familiarize themselves with the new age- and gender-neutral  Combat Fitness Test.  Army senior leaders approved the new six-event fitness test to better prepare soldiers for combat tasks and reduce injuries across the three Army components (active, Reserve and National Guard) beginning in October 2020.

(Air Force photo by Technical Sergeant Christopher Hubenthal)

Army Private First Class Diamond Her leads the way in a ground survey during a decontamination training exercise at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar on February 22, 2019. Her is a unit supply specialist with the 1st Battalion, 43rd Air Defense Artillery (ADA) regiment of the Army’s 11th ADA Brigade. Air Force and Army participants from the 379th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron and the 1-43rd ADA, shared Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and high yield explosives (CBRNE) best practices, and tested their response proficiency during the training.

(Army photo by Paolo Bovo)

Army 1st Lieutenant Ashley Rae Selfridge, a paratrooper assigned to the 173rd Airborne Brigade, puts the finishing touches on face paint camouflage before airborne operations onto Juliet drop zone in Pordenone, Italy, Feb. 21, 2019.

The 173rd Airborne Brigade is the U.S. Army Contingency Response Force in Europe, capable of projecting ready forces anywhere in the U.S. Europe, Africa or Central Commands’ areas of responsibility.

 

(Army photo by Sergeant 1st Class Jason Kriess)

U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Angela Gentry of the Washington Army National Guard, discusses battle drills with her Malaysian army counterpart, Major Nurkhairunisa, during Exercise Bersama Warrior in Malaysia. Bersama Warrior is a joint bilateral exercise between the Malaysian Armed Forces and the United States military. The exercise focuses on planning and conducting joint and coalition peace enforcement operations and was held in Kuala Lumpur from March 7-15, 2019.

(U.S. Army Reserve photo by Master Sergeant Michel Sauret)

Standing at the front of formation, Army Private First Class Keylin Perez bears the unit guidon during a field training exercise at Fort Meade, Maryland on January 13, 2019. Perez is a reservist assigned to the 200th Military Police Command’s Headquarters Company.

(Army photo by T. Anthony Bell)

Culinary arts Specialist Adriana Elliot, a member of the Fort Bragg, North Carolina culinary team, plates her main dish in Chef of the Year event March 8 during the Joint Culinary Training Exercise (JCTE) at Fort Lee, Virginia. With teams from every branch of the Armed Forces, the JCTE is the largest military culinary competition in the United States.

(Army photo by Captain Justin Wright)

Army 1st Lieutenant Victoria Oliver,  a platoon leader assigned to Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion of the 101st Airborne Division‘s 187th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team addresses her soldiers during a training exercise at Fort Polk, Louisiana on March 21, 2019. Her unit in the Air Assault division was going through a rotation at the Joint Readiness Training Center in Louisiana.

(Courtesy photo)

TRAIL BLAZER: Captain Delana Small is the only woman (so far) to serve as an Army Special Forces chaplain. Between May 2015 and December 2017, Captain Small — a Protestant minister — was deployed with the 5th Special Forces Group to Turkey and Jordan.  That’s not the only milestone the captain achieved. Earlier in March, she was inducted into the Army Women’s Foundation Hall of Fame for being the first female chaplain to serve in a combat-arms battalion with the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). That historic first occurred in June 2012, when she reported to the 4th Brigade Combat Team of the 101st at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, as chaplain for the 4th Battalion, 320th Field Artillery. She graduated from the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary in Springfield, Missouri just about six months before she reported for duty as an Army chaplain. She was the first of some 10 female chaplains sent to combat units. She deployed with the 4-320th Field Artillery to Afghanistan and later went to Airborne School, which led to her assignment with the Green Berets.

(Photo by Stephen Standifird, Fort Leonard Wood Public Affairs)

TRAIL BLAZER: Sergeant Hailey Falk, a combat engineer with 39th Brigade Engineer Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, is the Army’s first female enlisted Soldier to graduate the school and earn the Sapper shoulder tab. Sapper is an ancient term for military engineers. In olden days they designed and dug the trenches, built the forts and figured out how to break into castles. The photo shows her receiving the coveted Sapper tab from Captain Timothy Smith, Sapper Training company commander at the U.S. Army Engineering School in December 2018, where Falk completed the demanding 28-day Sapper Leader Course at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.

(Defense Department photo)

A member of the U.S. Army Band takes part in an Armed Forces Full Honors wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, in Virginia on March 26, 2019. In addition to the U.S. Army Band, there are 29 active duty Army bands around the country and overseas, as well as 18 bands in the Reserves and more than 50 National Guard bands. The U.S. Army School of Music is located at Joint Base Little Creek-Fort Story, in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

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SHAKO is an occasional 4GWAR posting on military history, traditions and culture. For the uninitiated, a shako is the tall, billed headgear worn by many armies from the Napoleonic era to about the time of the American Civil War. It remains a part of the dress or parade uniform of several military organizations like the corps of cadets at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York.