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  1. #1

    Female Grunt Platoon Commander...

    Lieutenant becomes first woman to lead Marine infantry platoon

    First Lt. Marina A. Hierl has reportedly made history by becoming the first woman in the Marine Corps to lead an infantry platoon.

    The 24-year-old is one of four platoon commanders in Echo Company, a group of 175 Marines and Navy sailors who were recently sent to northern Australia, The New York Times reported Thursday.

    Hierl is one of two women to the 13-week Marines Corps’ Infantry Officer Course, according to the Times.

    “I wanted to do something important with my life,” she told the newspaper. “I wanted to be part of a group of people that would be willing to die for each other.”

    She is now leading a platoon of roughly 35 men for six months of training exercises in the Pacific, the Times reported.

    Capt. Neal T. Jones, commanding officer of Echo Company, reportedly asked for Hierl to be assigned to his unit.

    “If you’re the first to do something, that implies you have so many positive traits,” Jones said. “And that’s not always the case when it comes to every lieutenant — including myself.”

    Women has been eligible for combat roles in the military since 2013, when former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta lifted a ban.

    Now there are 184,473 active-duty Marines, of whom 15,885 are women — including 80 serving in previously restricted combat roles, the Times reported.

    The newspaper noted that other Marines in Echo Company made what were described as sexist jokes when Hierl arrived, adding that the jokes have subsided as training continued.

    “She’s one of us,” Lance Corporal Segura said of Hierl.

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  2. #2
    Out of curiosity, anyone know the regiment and battalion?


  3. #3
    most recent Aussie deployment info I can find is from 2016


  4. #4
    Yeah, I couldn't find anything either. I have my doubts about this working very well, of course, I heard they come into the wire every night now. There might be something to this modern Marine Corps. Maybe we had to live like animals for nothing.


  5. #5
    It wasn't for nothing, Russ......look at all the fun we had.11954773_809076102547446_3189838117907787473_n.jpg


  6. #6
    Echo 2/4 is in Australia

    https://www.marines.mil/News/Marines...deoPlayer27131

    Other than that nothing. Not on the Corps, 2/4s' or any military website. Just the New York Times, the Hill, and the daily beast.


  7. #7
    propaganda????? for "the masses"??????


  8. #8
    By Scott A. Huesing Special to ConnectingVets.com


    If U.S. Marine First Lieutenant Marina A. Hierl is ‘the fewer.’ I am ‘the prouder’ in this case. Unequivocally, she embodies ‘The Few. The Proud’ in the Marine Corps’ widely recognized moniker. She’s the first woman to serve as a U.S. Marine Infantry Officer, and I’m proud that she is doing it in the unit I commanded as we fought in the deadly streets of Ramadi, Iraq in 2006—Echo Company, 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, affectionately called, “The Magnificent Bastards.”


    To say Hierl leads, trains, and motivates a forty-man platoon of infantry Marines would be a thing of the past—now it is a forty-person platoon. The bar has been set not to a different standard, but a new standard that at age 24, Hierl has the daunting responsibility to define on her own. When most naysayers scoff at her historic accomplishments and assume that she is just an anomaly, a test case, or some phenom that slipped through the cracks of the Infantry Officers Course (IOC) in Quantico, Virginia—they’re wrong. Having personally gone through the thirteen-week, unrelenting bastion of patrolling, tactics, and hiking I can assure you that no one ‘slips through’ IOC.


    I’ve absorbed my share of electronic sniper attacks and snide comments from friends, fellow Marines, and total strangers about my approval of this landmark shift impacting a male-dominated profession.


    I recently got a message from a friend who asked, “if she can do it?” My response was quick. It’s not a matter of “if” she can do it—she’s doing it. I belayed their concerns by saying, “The U.S. Marine Corps and its leadership don’t make moves like this on a whim. It is always based on the right person, for the right job, for the right reason. That’s Hierl.”


    Hierl is making an impact. The impact she’s making as a leader of Marines may not be apparent to her at the moment. That’s the thing about leadership and making an impact—sometimes you don’t see it at the moment. Sometimes it takes ten, twenty, or fifty years to realize the impact you’ve made on those you lead.


    I don’t need to delve into the long history of the role females have played in the military over the centuries, both in the U.S. and around the world—it’s an undisputed fact they have been there all along. I’ve known and fought alongside many.


    I’ve written and talked extensively about how we punted female combat-integration into the grandstands of life as a military. Our own cultural hubris, or foolishness, perhaps. We failed to effectively employ the talents of female warriors as we fought for over a decade and use their skill to tap into the other half of an entire population in Iraq—women. Let that sink in for a second. Fifty-percent of a country glossed over because we couldn’t get past gender differences and wrap our heads around how to make it work.


    Collectively we failed because we didn’t understand that part of the culture the way it needed to be understood, leveraged for information, and help us win a brutal insurgent war.


    We can't move forward and continue to miss out on the talent of the other half of the population. The standard for our warriors remains the same. Those who meet it and redefine it will change. I’m proud of Hierl and her accomplishments—prouder to call her a fellow Magnificent Bastard. Semper Fi.






    Major Scott A. Huesing USMC (Ret) is the bestselling author of Echo in Ramadi – The Firsthand Story of U.S. Marines in Iraq’s Deadliest City(Regnery, 2018). He is a proven combat leader with 10 deployments over his career to include Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Horn of Africa. He has planned, led, and conducted hundreds of combat missions.



  9. #9
    All I can say is...times have indeed, changed. In most of our time, this would not have even been considered. However, in Nam, we did have the 3/5th , which was known as the " Love you Long Time Regiment ". They had stock piles of Mama-sons in their rear area. As Russ will verify.
    However, I agree, if a female is tough enough and determined enough to be a leader of a Snuffie Plt.........so be it....As, I knew male Marines that was worthless as Grunts......just saying


  10. #10
    Yes Billy, though we had a large stockpile of mamasons, as you know it's never enough. After a while, you run out of virgins.

    And I agree that some of the fng's were not worth a shiit, it was like for some reason they didn't want to be there with us out there. If they were scared, why the hell did they join the MC? At any rate, most of them were the 1st ones to go. I remember telling my bud's "thank God for the fng's or the gooks would be getting more of us."


  11. #11
    don't forget, Russ, that starting 1966, we were blessed with DRAFTEES.... most of whom did their job just like the enlistees, but there were a FEW that never should have worn the EGA.........


  12. #12
    Yeah, I did run across 2 that said they were drafted, I didn't know them very well. The ****birds that I saw were in the rear for the most part. The new guys that came out to us were initially so scared, I think of us actually, that they kept their noses pretty clean. And later, if they lived, they became just like us. Hard not to pull your weight out in the Arizona.


  13. #13
    you got that RIGHT.....


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