Woman VMI Cadet Prepares for Iraq Duty

American Forces Press Service ^ | Amy May

[SandRat]

CAMP ATTERBURY, Ind., June 21, 2007 – Like many college students, Sarah McIntosh will work an internship this summer. She won’t be working in the mailroom, at a bank or acting as a gofer for an advertising agency, though. Her internship will be a little more intense and adventurous.

Cadet Sarah McIntosh acquires a target through the sights on her M-4 rifle during training on June 19, 2007, at Camp Atterbury Joint Training Center, Ind. McIntosh is the first woman cadet to serve in a United States war from Virginia Military Institute. Photo by Staff Sgt. Russell Klika, USA   
(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.

The Virginia Military Institute cadet is going to the Middle East with the Virginia National Guard’s 429th Transportation Company. The 20-year-old specialist is the first woman VMI cadet to deploy.

She joined the Virginia Guard when she was in high school. She did not have to deploy with the 429th when it was activated because she is a student, but she chose to fulfill her Guard duties.

“I just want to get experience before I become an officer. I don’t think you should be an officer until you’ve had some experience,” she said.

The Guard will help her with that. The 429th will run transportation missions in Iraq, which is one of the more hazardous duties in the country.

McIntosh admitted to being afraid about some parts of what lies ahead. “Who wouldn’t be?” she asked. “But it will also be exciting. I’ve never been in that situation before.”

Her Guard membership has also benefited her college career by helping her complete the rigorous requirements at VMI, she said. Cadets undergo nine months of basic training, plus they attend regular college classes and have cadre time.

“Everything I learned in (Guard) basic, they re-taught at VMI. … M-16, leadership, it was all review, but it was good,” she said. “I crystallized it in my memory.”

McIntosh decided she wanted to attend VMI when she was in the sixth grade and growing up in Lexington, Va., the home of VMI. She comes from a military family. Her parents are Air Force veterans, and her aunt and uncle were also in the military. Her older brother, Joe, also attends VMI and is also in the Army National Guard, but he plans go into the Air Force after graduation.

Her family is worried about her deployment, McIntosh said, but they also understand her desire to go, and they are excited for her. Her dad talked to the leaders of the 429th to make sure they are “watching out for his little girl,” she said.

Although there are a few 18-year-olds in the 429th, McIntosh will be one of the youngest soldiers.
She is a sophomore majoring in Spanish. McIntosh will graduate in 2008 and receive her commission to the Army, where she hopes to make her career. She plans to stay in the Guard until graduation and then revert to active duty.

Her tour of duty will benefit her military career in the long run, she believes, but right now, she is concentrating on training and preparing for the mission.

“I just want experience in general, and obviously to learn more about the military, get leadership skills and have a little fun if I can, such as being with my unit, being in a different country and driving the big trucks,” she said.

VMI gave McIntosh permission to leave for active duty. The school has allowed cadets to participate in conflicts throughout history, beginning with the Civil War, where 10 cadets died on the battlefield.

The 180 soldiers of the 429th are training here for deployment later this summer, said Staff Sgt. Robert Thompson. They will drive 915s, the military semi trailers, on supply runs that could last one to four days. The soldiers initially will go to Kuwait, but Thompson said he’s not sure exactly where they will be based in Iraq.

The training they are receiving is helpful, Thompson said. The soldiers are becoming familiar with the equipment and learning what to expect as far as improvised explosive devices and other threats are concerned.

“They’re giving us good info. It’s helpful,” he said.
Sgt. Channing Lynch was deployed in 2003 and has noticed a difference in the training.

“There are lots more hands-on activities this time,” he said. IEDs were just becoming a threat as the soldiers were finishing their training four years ago, he said.

“We didn’t hear much about them until we were there. We trained more for small-arms fire and mortars,” he said.

At Camp Atterbury this summer, the soldiers will spend quite a bit of time learning to react to IED attacks, as well as sniper fire, mechanical failure and injuries they might encounter on a combat logistical patrol mission.

Spc. Zachary Adler, who is on his first deployment, said the soldiers are being trained for every possible scenario. He is especially impressed with the first aid training. The unit will have emergency medical personnel, he said, but other soldiers are learning how to give basic care to the wounded until the medics can take over. “It’s good that everyone has some (first aid training),” he said.

The transportation mission is one of the most important in the military, Lynch said.

“Transportation is the backbone of the military. Without supplies, they would not be able to support themselves,” he noted.

Thompson added that the 429th, which is made up of soldiers from several units, is banding together and is ready to take on the mission.

“It’s something we volunteered to do. We have a lot of good unit cohesion, so we’ll take care of each other,” he said.

(Amy May is a staff reporter for The Crier at Camp Atterbury, Ind.)

Related Sites:
Camp Atterbury, Ind.
Virginia Military Institute

[H.Akston]

Making Ruth Bader Ginsburg proud

[William Terrell]

Get every single woman remotely threatened with actual combat, out and back to the rear for administrative duties.

[donna]

“Men of America, what’s wrong with you? These women were in Iraq doing your job! . . . Would you send your wife downstairs at 2 a.m. to investigate a suspicious noise? If there’s a fight on the corner, would you send your sister to break it up? It’s the same thing.”
- Lou Marano -

[SandRat]

Liberal Metro-Sexuals would. That includes Al Bore and Silky Pony Edwards.

[CatoRenasci]

The Institute will be heard from today....

When I was a cadet, few cadets were reservists, except through our ROTC enrollment; and, since the reserves were generally not called up, we didn't have Brother Rats or friends off on deployments - just some drop-outs who got drafted and the alumni who were commissioned. It was always sobering when (too frequently) there would be an announcement at Supper in the Mess Hall that an alumnus had been killed in action in Vietnam. Toughest was the first one from the class that had been Firsts when we were Rats - our dykes class and we knew them all.

'70

[CatoRenasci]

None of that, thanks.

I was against letting women into the Institute, but now that they're there, and going through the same Ratline as the male cadets, they're as entitled to wear the Ring and call themselves VMI women as any man is to call himself a VMI man.

'70

[sschaloc]

(Guard) basic - IS basic.

It’s good any officer candidate wants some “experience” before commissioning. It will serve The Army well.

Personally, I think all officers should have to EARN at least E-5 before they can even be considered for a commission, but I don’t see any pigs flying yet.

It doesn’t take a lot of strength to thumb the trigger on a MaDeuce. It alway was a surprise, though, to see those little bits of AirForce fluff in the turret!

She’s a soldier in harms way. Pray accordingly.

[mathurine]

My friends here in conservative backwater America well in the blue zone have two grandaughters who are female blackhawk pilots in Iraq, one for the second and one for the third time. Let’s hear it for the “can-do spirit,” And praise to this Keydette who is ready and willing to go. The man she is replacing probably wasn’t and isn’t and never will be much of a man anyway in my book. Hopefully the mollycoddle has taken a job in a war plant to “free a woman to fight.”

[sschaloc]

Doesn’t matter what the south end looks like - if they can fly it, I want a ride!

You should be a proud Grandma!

Prayers up for your kin!

[DieHard the Hunter]

Cadet Sarah McIntosh: NOT a War Wimp.

Well done, Soldier McIntosh. Thankyou for your willingness to Volunteer, whereas many others have declined.

Keep yer head down, your helmet on and your powder dry, and God send you home safe and well decorated, Mission Accomplished. The Western Civilization as we know it should be proud of you: I certainly am.

*DieHard*

[SandRat]

She also better remember these

1. Don’t forget nothing.
2. Have your musket clean as a whistle, hatchet scoured, sixty rounds powder and ball, and be ready to march at a minute’s warning.
3. When you’re on the march, act the way you would if you was sneaking up on a deer. See the enemy first.
4. Tell the truth about what you see and what you do. There is an army depending on us for correct information. You can lie all you please when you tell other folks about the Rangers, but don’t never lie to a Ranger or officer.
5. Don’t never take a chance you don’t have to.
When we’re on the march we march single file, far enough apart so one shot can’t go through two men.
6. If we strike swamps, or soft ground, we spread out abreast, so it’s hard to track us.
7. When we march, we keep moving till dark, so as to give the enemy the least possible chance at us.
8. When we camp, half the party stays awake while the other half sleeps.
9. If we take prisoners, we keep’em separate till we have had time to examine them, so they can’t cook up a story between ‘em.
10. Don’t ever march home the same way. Take a different route so you won’t be ambushed.
11. No matter whether we travel in big parties or little ones, each party has to keep a scout 20 yards ahead, 20 yards on each flank, and 20 yards in the rear so the main body can’t be surprised and wiped out.
12. Every night you’ll be told where to meet if surrounded by a superior force.
13. Don’t sit down to eat without posting sentries.
14. Don’t sleep beyond dawn. Dawn’s when the French and Indians attack.
15. Don’t cross a river by a regular ford.
16. If somebody’s trailing you, make a circle, come back onto your own tracks, and ambush the folks that aim to ambush you.
17. Don’t stand up when the enemy’s coming against you. Kneel down, lie down, hide behind a tree.
18. Let the enemy come till he’s almost close enough to touch, then let him have it and jump out and finish him up with your hatchet.

[DieHard the Hunter]

Classic!

[El Gato]

Get every single woman remotely threatened with actual combat, out and back to the rear for administrative duties.

What rear? And do you want to completely disable the US Military? Women perform way more than "administrative duties", even in the nominally non-combat positions. Who's going to collect the signals intell, keep the aircraft flying they are currently fixing, flying the aircraft and drive the trucks that they are currently flying and driving.

You?

Ha!

[William Terrell]

The "rear" is a position that will not contact the enemy in terms of flying bullets. Any position, whether it be "collecting signal intel", "keeping aircraft flying" and "flying aircraft", that features eventualizing violent contact with an enemy are not the jobs of women.

If there is no "rear" in a theater zone, women should not be in the zone at all. Women are not equivalent to men, do not have the kind of bodies men have and the firmware and operating system that come with the female body is not the same as that which comes with the male body.

Anyone who is confused on those points has been watching to much audiovisual entertainment. These things are physical and natural law, not opinions. Basing physical action on opinion inconsistent with reality is a one way ticket up the creek.

[H.Akston]

Then what was all the fuss?

[El Gato]

I'll be sure to relate your opinion that to the female Hog Driver, KC (Captain (now Major) Kim Campbell), who brought this beast back, sans hydraulic boost for the flight controls. "She's one of the few pilots who ever landed the A-10 in the manual mode." General Richard Myers - Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff.

I was thinking of this thread while showering earlier in the week, especially the remark about not sending your wife down to investigate a suspicious sound. What about women with no husband, widows perhaps, or those whose husband is temporarily away?

I also thought about my grandmother, born in the 1890s. She didn't call grandpa out of the field when she came across a snake making for her henhouse (or most anywhere, Grandma hated snakes), she reached for her hoe and dispatched the serpent herself. Snakes for miles around trembled at the though of Grandma's hoe. (The chickens were afraid of her galoshes, but that's another story) She'd have shot an intruder too if necessary. She did venture out into her back "mud porch" in the middle of tornado. The one that took off half the roof from the house, when she was at an age when she'd have been retired if she hadn't been a farm woman.

So yes, woman are different, but that doesn't mean they aren't capable. Quite capable in some cases.

[CatoRenasci]

Basically, what we've found over the past several years is that there are some women who actually want to go through the VMI system, and that some of them are actually capable of doing it. It's not as tough as it was in my day ("Back in the Old Corps" is the way we put it), but then, when you talk to alumni, it was always much tougher when they were Rats.better that way for most people.

However, I do respect the young women who have made it through the Rat Line and the Institute and who are now out there in this generation doing what my generation did in Vietnam.

[William Terrell]

There are always and exception here and there, but exceptions prove the rule. And no, you can't just let the exceptions in and bar others, politically, especially in the face of militant feminism.

And too, the brightness of exception often pales when examined closely in a political environment where the story is often edited to conform to political mandates. I know this; you know this.

I'm not impressed. Women have no business in combat for a number of reasons.

The main reason is that indicated by the reduction to the absurd, or reductio absurdum, which is a sure pointer to where a principle leads and is a good tool to test the validity of it.

If you take two battalions, equally equipped, equally populated, with equal experienced officers, one entirely composed of men and the other entirely composed of women, and put them against one another in battle, the one of men will win, probably in a rout.

The only thing that may stop it from being a rout, or winning hands down will be the natural, ingrained nature of the man to protect and defend the woman. If the latter is so, my point is still made.

This being so means that for every woman you place in a unit to face an enemy, you reduce the effectiveness of that unit.

It is madness, but politically correct. I repeat myself, though.

[SegerSkriv]

‘was against letting women into the Institute, but now that they’re there, and going through the same Ratline as the male cadets, they’re as entitled to wear the Ring and call themselves VMI women as any man is to call himself a VMI man.

‘70’

Wrong...they (both the little boys and girls) are not going through any ratline whatsoever. While we all had ratlines with many differences between them before coeducation, there is a certain threshold that is a standard of a ratline. They violate this threshold and their parents and themselves can pretend all they want that it is the same. It is not the same.
Hey, but they get the sticker! Keep pretending and thanks for ruining something that was great. I sell bags of dirt and water for $7.00 if you want to breakout and call yourself an alumni as long as the parents council doesn’t object. Just keep pretending...oh but wait, I heard they don’t breakout in the mud that anymore. Don’t they tug a bus across the parade deck or a 1 ton howitzer? 1 ton is a lot of weight!

I thank the lord every day I attended mother ‘I’ before all of this crap happened, and I’m a very happy man for it and nobody can take that away. Don’t let anyone tell you that it somehow the same. It is not. Just go to UVA.