In the firing line

From Legion Summer 2009

It’s almost a year since the first British service woman was killed in Afghanistan. Corporal Sarah Bryant, 26, of the Intelligence Corps, died in June 2008 when a roadside bomb blew up the Land Rover she was travelling in. Cpl Bryant was accompanying three SAS members through Helmand Province. Her role was to provide communications support but, as a result of her death, her photograph, smiling and pretty on her wedding day, made the front pages of the national papers and brought a sharp spotlight on to the changing roles of women in modern theatres of war.

Before Iraq and Afghanistan the question had been: should women fight on the front line? But now – with troops playing a deadly cat and mouse game in the desert – the rules have clearly changed. The sharp, symmetrical lines of warfare as we have known them no longer exist. The front line is an indistinct blur.

This is a fact that 30-year-old twin sisters Sergeant Kate Hopkinson and Corporal Kerry Hopkinson both acknowledge. The pair have just returned from six-month tours in Afghanistan and have been reunited at the Honourable Artillery Company (HAC) to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Women’s Royal Army Corps.

Kerry, who has been in the Army for 10 years, explains that her front-line role was to set up communication systems for troops, while Kate, who has been in the forces a year longer, worked in the motor transport department, ensuring that vehicles were serviceable. It might not seem high-risk, but part of Kate’s job was also to help set up mobile doctor’s surgeries that offer free healthcare to the Afghan people, which took her into dangerous areas. The risk of suicide bombings means that everyone, including women and children, are subject to body searches. This was the role that put Kate at greatest risk. She explains:

“I wasn’t uncomfortable about the idea of doing it, but when you’re there it is frightening, especially the first couple of times. You have to bear in mind that I’ve never done a job like that before.”

It is something that the twins, who both have husbands in the forces, regard as a grey area.  Kerry says: “A lot of people think: ‘Girls aren’t allowed in the infantry,’ but in Afghanistan female soldiers are on patrol because there are women and children to body-search – it’s really handy having them there.” Kerry adds that most people have the attitude that ‘Kate will be ok, her role isn’t a dangerous one’. “But she was in the thick of it most of the time,” she says.

There are just over 7,000 women serving in the British armed forces today, but it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly how many are serving in Afghanistan and Iraq as the MoD doesn’t differentiate between males and females when compiling this particular statistic. However, a scroll down the fatalities list held on the MoD’s website will tell you that, out of this number, four service women have died in Afghanistan and Iraq to date. Officially, women in the Army are not permitted to serve where the primary duty is ‘to close with and kill the enemy’, which includes serving in the infantry and the Paras regiment. But they can – and do – trail infantry patrols to offer support. They may not be storming buildings, but the risk of injury or death is still high.

Captain Alice Rawdon-Mogg, 26, has been in the Army for nearly five years. In that time she has been to both Iraq and Afghanistan, and during her last tour she commanded a troop that supported an infantry unit with equipment and explosives. “As engineers,” she says, “you get completely integrated with the infantry company you are supporting, so whatever they get embroiled in, you get embroiled in too. Certainly, the Taliban doesn’t discriminate between infantry and engineers. By the end of the tour I definitely felt like I’d used up my nine lives. At certain points in the tour we were coming under contact on a daily basis. But you just get on with it. It isn’t until afterwards that you stop and think ‘that was a close shave,’ or, ‘imagine if I’d stepped left instead of right.’”

The issue of women in the Army is very much an ongoing debate. Although it is clear that a woman can easily be ‘subject to contact’ while on tour, and can be a welcome target for the enemy, there is still a grey area around what exactly she can be directly involved in. But, as was evident in the case of Royal Navy sailor Faye Turney – personnel can find themselves in the firing line, anywhere. In March 2007, Iranian military personnel seized 15 Royal Navy sailors and held them for 12 days – under allegations that they had entered Iranian waters illegally. During that time, Faye, also a mother, was filmed on a number of occasions, admitting the British Government’s guilt and apologising
to the Iranian Government. She also read out letters of apology to the Iranian people on behalf of the crew, which were in turn broadcast to the British media.

The subsequent backlash within the UK’s media included criticisms that she was being used as a pawn to tug at the nation’s heartstrings. It is telling that the men involved were barely televised.

The presence of women in a traditionally male role does often mean that they are singled out as a target for enemy forces. Despite the unisex combat gear worn by the Army while on operations, it is easy enough to identify most females. This is taken into account in training, explains Alice. She says: “One of the biggest dangers for soldiers is to be snatched away from the group. I was made aware that the Taliban tend to pick on the smaller people because they’re physically easier to drag away. When we were in a few situations where there was a crowd rioting I made sure I did not isolate myself.”

The modern demands of warfare mean that full training for troops is more important than ever. Marketing Officer Lenore Russell, who serves as LCpl in the TA and is about to embark on a six-month tour of Afghanistan agrees. “Because the battlefield is changing so much, women need to be trained to the highest level.
If we are going to be put in a potentially dangerous situation then we need the best training.”

The MoD confirms that all soldiers receive basic infantry training before deployment, whether they are in the infantry or not. Specialist infantry training is given to the Paras and infantry.

Hanging out with the boys
However, the biggest hurdle and most widely discussed issue for women working alongside men in the military is the difference in physical strength. Lenore admits: “Both men and women find the physical demands of the job hard. But when you’re tired and really ‘hanging out’, I know I haven’t got it in the bag the same way that a man has.”

However, it is important to recognise that with the military needing such a wide skills set – women need not necessarily match men in the same way. She explains: “Women have a better ability to forward plan and adapt to change. Men are not so good at thinking things through. They might not be aware of the implications of some of their actions.” It’s a skill that in the politically sensitive arenas of Iraq and Afghanistan can prove invaluable.

There is also a considerable amount of speculation about a woman’s ability to switch off from their emotions while under stressful battle situations, for example, could they carry on with their job and wait until it was safe to help an injured colleague. Alice says this isn’t a fair charge. “We’ve all had the same training” she says, “and men have emotions as well as women. If something happened to a colleague, anyone would find that hard.”

It has also been put to debate whether a man would be more likely to have difficulty controlling his emotions if a female colleague was in trouble, as opposed to a male colleague. Alice pauses at this suggestion, and then says:

“I would like to think that if I was injured or killed, that the men would react in the same way as they would if anyone else in the team was injured or killed.”

But it isn’t just the public opinion the girls have to overcome, but the assumptions of their fellow service men. “I remember the moment my troop finally accepted me as Troop Commander,’ says Alice. “We were on an exercise as part of our preparation for going to Afghanistan. We were making a night-time manoeuvre and one of the group commanders who was leading it read the map wrong.

I jumped out of my vehicle to go and have a word, and did it subtly because I didn’t want to undermine him in front of everybody. But the next day everyone knew. Suddenly they accepted me. It really was an overnight icebreaker.”

And a timely one too. Because after that Alice went on to command around 30 men for a six-month tour in Afghanistan. She says: “It’s always nice to chat with the girls, but in the same way it was just as good to have a drink with the lads. It usually only takes a couple of days and they forget I’m a woman and just accept who I am for the skills I can provide them with.”

Dispelling the myths
The women gathering to celebrate the 60th anniversary of women in the WRAC at the HAC quickly dispel any preconceptions you might have about ‘blokish’ Army girls. They’re all attractive and articulate, and smartly turned-out with impeccable manners. The very epitome of femininity.  Kate laughs at this: “Some people just don’t believe it when you tell them what you do. They’ve got an image in their minds of what an Army girl should look like but we don’t generally fit into that.”
People also ask if they can survive in Afghanistan without girlish luxuries such as hair straighteners, blow dryers and mascara… “Nobody really does it,” Kerry explains, “I want to look professional when I am on tour.” Although she says that when she got back from Afghanistan she did go to get her hair cut. “I said to the hairdresser ‘It’s been a long time since I had my hair cut, I’ve been in Afghanistan. And she said: ‘well, at least you haven’t been anywhere dangerous.’ People just don’t tend to click.”

Kerry adds that she was lucky in one respect when she was in Afghanistan, as she was staying on an American base that had internet access and even a Burger King and  Pizza Express. But for her twin, based in Musa Qala, the conditions were not so comfortable. A toilet consisted of a wooden box on top of a sawn-off oil drum, and the only water available was taken from a well. “That water made her sick,” Kerry says, “It was very rough.” The conditions of the base camps vary, but the sentiment of the girls within the camps is the same. A ‘can do’ attitude prevails.

‘You give as good as you get’
So, is it ever a problem being the only girl in a troop of dozen or so men? “Occasionally, all you want is female company, because you get sick and tired of blokes. All my mates say ‘Wow. It must be amazing being with all these blokes’ but no actually it’s not. They drive you bonkers!” laughs Lenore. But then she concedes: “Men are a lot easier than girls sometimes. They say what they think. There’s no hidden agenda, that’s quite refreshing.”

Among the many and varied posts of the online discussion board on the Army Rumour Service forum, a user who calls herself Jocklass lists all of the most important things a female joining the Army needs to remember. Among her recommendations she advises women to “be confident in your own ability and be robust – you don’t need to lose your femininity, but don’t be a pathetic wall flower that either gets walked over or needs rescuing all the time – you won’t get any respect for it.”

Kate and Kerry laugh at the suggestion of teasing from male colleagues. “Every day you get ribbed.” Kate explains, “but it’s nothing negative. That’s part and parcel of being in the Army, and you give as good as you get.”

The twins say that no matter how daunting an upcoming tour is, they will have been preparing for it physically and mentally for six months before departure. But it can be a different story for their families and friends. For Kate and Kerry’s parents, it was hard to see them both leave at the same time. “We didn’t plan to go out at the same time, it was a complete surprise,” says Kerry. “It’s really hard on mum and dad. This was our fourth tour together, but the first time we’d been to Afghanistan. Mum doesn’t sleep because of the worry. They’re watching the news wondering how their little girls are getting on.” But to the twins, it’s their job, as simple as that. “They are very supportive,” Kate explains, “they won’t say ‘we don’t want you to go’ because they know we have to do it.”

With a year having passed since the death of Cpl Bryant and the intake of women into the Army showing no signs of slowing, it’s clearly an issue that’s not going to go away. The lines between what a woman can and can’t do on tour remain just as blurred as the 360-degree battlefield troops are fighting in. What is clear though, is that for these girls at least, it is a much-loved job, and a happy departure from the nine-to-five norm. “I’d be bored at a desk. I’ll be in the Army until I don’t want to go to work any more,” Kate says. “The same as any other job.”
And like any other job, the girls look forward to home comforts at the end of the day.

Alice still remembers the first thing she did when she got back from her last tour. She says:  “I had a hot bath and a glass of red wine. And then I asked my mum to make me some macaroni cheese. She makes the best macaroni cheese.”