The way that I prepared her was we would actually meet here at the office twice to three times a week and we would physically train to get ready."Īnother significant disincentive for women considering Marine Corps careers is the specter of sexual assault. "She was a little bit concerned about maybe the physical aspect of things. "She kind of had it set in her mind that she wanted to be a United States Marine," Engdahl said. Engdahl's recruits is among the first class of women training in San Diego. Most Marines don't spend their careers in the once-restricted combat roles, and the image actually makes it harder to recruit a broader pool of women. "'Call of Duty,' things like that, and seeing what's on TV," she said. Most Marines come right out of high school, and she said their image of the Corps comes straight out of video games. recruiting office, just outside San Diego. Out of 3,763 Marine recruiters nationwide, 83 are women. Compared with the Army, a relative handful of women have combat roles in the Marines. The Corps was also the only service to fight the Secretary of Defense's decision to open all combat roles to women in 2015. "But the main MOS in the Marine Corps women couldn't do until recently.
"You can do every job that a guy does with a few exceptions in the Air Force," she said. Despite foot-dragging on integrating boot camp, the last two commandants of the Marine Corps have publicly said they want to increase the number of women in the Corps.īooth says one reason there aren't more women is because many of the most recognizable jobs in the Marine Corps - or Military Occupational Specialties (MOS) - had been closed to women. The number of women in the Marines is just under half of that. Women make up close to 20 percent of the Navy. Only about 9% of Marines are women, the lowest percentage of any service. You're always on the move."Ĭredit Steve Walsh / American Homefront The first class of female recruits train at the Marine boot camp in San Diego. "It's a profound transformation," says Lea Booth, who was a Marine from 2004 to 2009. One obstacle for their leaders is keeping these women in the Marines once they prove themselves, and then finding more women like them who want to be a part of the Corps. Soon they will move north to Camp Pendleton, where they will begin rifle training as part of the 13 weeks it takes to become a U.S. The first class of women at San Diego has gone through pool exercises and scaled obstacles in the confidence course. Congress ordered the Marine Corps to fully integrate women into its training battalions at Parris Island by 2025 and at San Diego by 2028. Until this year, the Marines' other boot camp, Parris Island, South Carolina, was the only one that accepted women.
The first class of female recruits is a third of the way through training at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego - part of a Congressionally mandated effort to become the last service to integrate boot camp.
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