![]() ![]() When Marines took over security at the airport gates, two young sergeants found themselves standing on the dividing line between a society opening opportunities for women, and one slamming them shut. As the Taliban advanced into Kabul, painting over ads depicting women in western dress and telling women to stay indoors, the nation saw much of that progress crumble. Germano said, “But every year, more women are out front, bearing the burden more equally with men.”Įxpanding the rights of women, giving them access to education and work outside the home was for years one of the goals of American efforts in Afghanistan. It’s still a small part of the force compared to other military branches, Ms. They now make up about 9 percent of the force. The Marine Corps slowly, often grudgingly, opened all combat jobs to women. A conflict with no front lines often put women in combat, whether it was in their job description or not, and local cultures meant female engagement teams often had to accompany infantry troops on missions to interact with female Afghans. But the two sergeants were also standout Marines in a force that is slowly changing, putting more women in combat roles and positions of leadership.īut decades of insurgency wars fought in conservative Muslim countries forced the military to evolve. The two female sergeants volunteered for a job that in culturally conservative Afghanistan could have been carried out only by women: searching other women and children as they passed through the gates. John Coppola said about Sergeant Rosario in a statement. “Her service was not only crucial to evacuating thousands of women and children, but epitomizes what it means to be a Marine: putting herself in danger for the protection of American values so that others might enjoy them,” Marine First Lt. Sergeant Rosario was commended by her unit in May for excellence in a supply chief job usually given to someone of higher rank. ![]() Johanny Rosario Pichardo, 25, of Lawrence, Mass. Sergeant Gee, 23, of Roseville, Calif., was one of two women in uniform killed at the gate. “She wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else.” “She believed in what she was doing, she loved being a Marine,” her brother-in-law, Gabriel Fuoco, said. ![]()
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