"You want me to do what?"

That was my first response to my Commanding Officer. It was the summer of 1975.

"I want you to give a Weapons Familiarization Class."

That sounds like a reasonable request, after all, I was the Weapons Platoon Section Sergeant. We had all the weapons you might find in a Line Unit: Pistols, Rifles, Light Machine Guns, Heavy Machine Guns, 81 mm Mortars, and LAWS, plus the M-79 Grenade launcher. Oh, and Claymores galore.
We had then Equipment. We had the expertise. We had the men.
Did you catch that last sentence? We had the MEN.

The Company Commander was asking me to teach Women. The only women in our Division at that time were either Nurses, or up at the Division Headquarters. They had their own Barracks, and you might see one or two at the Snack Bar or bowling alley. I figured they had a hard enough life surrounded by 20,000 men all under age thirty and in great shape. So I merely nodded at the few I ever walked by. Unless she was an Officer, than I saluted. And female Officers were rarer than soldiers who turned down a pass, or a beer. And a pass and a beer meant something entirely different to a Female Soldier. So I steered clear of them all. (Plus I was still hoping my old girl back home would come to her senses, realize her mistake, divorce him and marry me. LOL)

"I don't know how to train women."

"Nobody does. Until this order came down from Above we haven't trained them in Weapons. Now, we will. You will learn. They will learn. We all will learn. You have a week to come up with a Training Schedule."

"Yes, Sir."

I didn't know what they knew, or didn't know about weapons. So I asked them. I met with a Captain who was in charge of the Women's Barracks. She introduced me to the Female First Sergeant who told me two bombshells in a row. First, Women Officers and Women Enlisted had different Basic training requirements. And none of the Enlisted women had fired a rifle in Basic. Yikes.

Note: I know this sounds like the Dark Ages to you Female Warriors- but it was actually progress at the time! In fact, part of History that led to you Modern Soldiers being sent to Combat. Hang in there Warrior Women -and try not to laugh to hard at me, or say: "Okay Boomer!"

So I ask the First Sergeant what weapons she wants to learn to become Familiar with.

"All of them Sarge. All of them."

"Well, that took some real coordinating. Getting ranges, finding guys that wouldn't try and hit on the Female Soldiers, and making sure that the training met the Army (and my) Standards. I didn't tolerate any of the guys being jerks.

Then on the very first day - one of the Soldiers came over to me and said:

"We are Soldiers Sarge. We won't break. We had DI"s too. Train us like you would any recruit."

So, I did.

I don't swear. I didn't learn how to do that until I left the Army. LOL My Mom and Dad didn't let us swear. My Dad ( A very quiet man) taught us that if someone is swearing at us, move away. It means the next step up is a fight. Since if they are swearing they don't have any words left to explain their feelings or thoughts. So, I didn't swear in front of Troops, or at them.

Then I found out women can swear too. LOL

For those first few days, women were breaking nails, getting frustrated at how heavy most weapons seemed to be, and how much grease we needed to keep the weapons up and running. They were all eager to learn though. And, unlike men that I had trained before, they were not afraid to ask questions.

Did they work hard? Yes. In fact, they seemed to enjoy it, and started asking if they could just try one more time - or go to the live fire and have qualifications.

Well, Familiarization training is not the same as training for Qualifications. It takes weeks to train for Badges, and only about two hours per weapon for Familiarization purposes. Those Soldiers wanted to be Qualified.

The General Agreed. No Mortars. No Heavy weapons. But the M 60, M 16, and M 79 were fair game. So we did that. Three women (two of which were Hunters) got so good during "Familiarization Training", we used them as Assistant Range Instructors.

I asked the First Sergeant why she pushed them all so hard.

"SGT Hughes, you don't know this. You seem fair minded. But all of us girls don't have the luxury of just being okay, or good. We have to be the best. If we have any hope of opening up the Ranks and MOS's to women, we have to prove to the thick headed guys that we are Soldiers too. And good ones."

And man, I saw what she meant just among my own troops who were helping out for various activities. I learned that the Army looks different through the eyes of a Female Officer or Enlisted. At that time, the only equivalent journey was being made by the Black or Latino Soldiers. Only a decade earlier had soldiers of color been allowed to join any MOS they qualified for.

I learned many lessons that summer. One of which is this- good soldiers are good soldiers. Period. The plumbing might be slightly different, but attitude, willingness to learn, and toughness are HUMAN traits, not male ones.

Sure there were (back then...not now) some physical differences. I have seen what Women can carry nowadays - and they are way more physically fit than in 1975. In our After Action Training Evaluation we noted just two physical differences that affected their training. Upper body strength and Finger strength for trigger pull. A rubber band and a wooden "gun" took care of the finger pull issue- and brought their fingers up to firing standard.

Since they didn't have to carry the barrel, base plate, and tripod for the Mortar, or for the Fifty Calibers, just fire them from where they were set up, that wasn't much of an issue either. But carrying the M 60 from the trucks to the training area...well, they did it. Sometimes you might see two or more getting together to carry heavy things, but they would do it.

It was supposed to be just for "Defensive Purposes" but you couldn't tell that by the way those women trained. Most were proficient by the end of the course. Not just Familiar.

I don't know who learned more. Me, or them. I am betting it was me and my stereotypes that came crashing down day after day. Their First Sergeant was as tough and no nonsense as any I had served with. She was the way I liked my Senior NCO"s and Officers to be- tough but fair.

I left the Army decades ago. And they have come a long long way from the days of having only a week of Familiarization Training. LOL

Warriors All.