Face of Defense: Guard Medic Focuses On Miss America Title

Face of Defense ^ | Staff Sgt. Rebecca Doucette, USA

[SandRat]

WASHINGTON, Jan. 17, 2008 – Utah Army National Guard Sgt. Jill Stevens’ “personal combat zone” has shifted from Afghanistan to Nevada, from a minefield to a beauty contest, from combat boots to high heels.

Utah Army National Guard Sgt. Jill Stevens, who is competing in the Miss America pageant as Miss Utah, plays with children while serving as a medic in Afghanistan in 2004. (Photo courtesy of Sgt. Jill Stevens)

  
(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.

The 24-year-old Stevens also is Miss Utah, and she is a contestant in the Miss America Pageant in Las Vegas, which will be televised Jan. 26 on The Learning Channel.

Stevens, a combat medic with the Utah Guard, has a resume that isn’t what you would typically expect from a soldier, or a pageant contestant, for that matter: graduate, summa cum laude, Southern Utah University; soldier, Army National Guard; veteran, Operation Enduring Freedom, Afghanistan; contestant, 2008 Miss America Live.

If she wins the crown, Stevens will be the first Miss America to have served in a combat zone, a pageant spokesperson said. She would become the 80th Miss America overall for the pageant, which began in 1921, according to the Miss America Web site. (There were eight years when a new Miss America was not named).

In her duties as Miss Utah, Stevens has traveled from Florida to California, from the destruction of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana to the streets of Washington, D.C. She has spoken to generals from 40 countries.

Back in Utah, she talks about her military experiences with students from preschool through college and challenges them to push-up contests.

“We have our personal combat zone,” Stevens tells students. “I served in one in Afghanistan. We all have them in life, whether it be with school, family, peer pressure or finding a career. It’s our own minefield and we have to learn to dodge the mines by keeping focus on the target, not doubting ourselves, and believing what our potential is and what we can do.”

Like other citizen-soldiers and -airmen, Stevens stays busy and balances life out of uniform with life in uniform. She recently said she hopes the pageant audience and judges see beyond her military uniform to the full complexity of her life.

“I don’t want to showcase this in a, ‘Oh, look at me, I’m a soldier, I serve my country, you should pick me’ kind of way,” she said. “I want them to think. I want them to look at Jill Stevens and see the whole picture of everything that I do, and being a soldier is a huge part of that, but there’s a lot more.”

Nevertheless, her pageant platform mirrors the Guard’s domestic playbook: “Ready when disaster strikes – emergency preparedness for everyone.”

“That comes from my soldier side of being ready for anything,” Stevens said. “As a medic, we have to be ready for any injury that we face on missions.”

And Stevens draws on her Guard experiences – from Basic Combat Training to a combat zone – in her talks with students.

“I talk about going through the gas chamber, and I relate that to doubt in our lives,” she said. “I talk about shooting at a range, relating that to goals – how we need to keep focused on the target. I talk about running through a minefield in life.”

The final stop on her run for the title of Miss America is a four-day competition in Las Vegas, culminating with the crowning of the winner on national TV.

Conspicuously absent from the competition will be Stevens’ military uniform. But with the help of the American Legion, at least 50 of her fellow soldiers will attend the final night of the pageant at Planet Hollywood on Jan 26.

That arrangement started when a former Miss America, Sharlene Wells, called the Miss America Organization to say that a group of Utah National Guard soldiers wanted to come to the pageant and show their support, but had no budget to buy tickets.

The organization in turn called the American Legion, which offered to sponsor the soldiers and pay for their tickets to attend.

“The motto for the American Legion is ‘for God and Country,’ and that’s exactly what Stevens is doing,” said Joe March, the Legion’s public relations director. “She stands as a great example of a proud American who is dedicated not only to her country, but to her community and her comrades.”

As she goes into the competition, Stevens said “My target is Miss America. The military has taught me if I practice, work hard at it and keep focus on the target, I’ll be ready.”

(Editor’s note: Staff Sgt. Jim Greenhill contributed to this report. Greenhill and Staff Sgt. Rebecca Doucette work for the National Guard Bureau.)

[tired1]

with this idiocy WE ARE DOOMED!

[ECM]

[Travis McGee]

There is hope!

[geopyg]

Not sure what you mean by your “we are doomed” post, but I thought this sentence was apropo:

“The motto for the American Legion is ‘for God and Country,’ and that’s exactly what Stevens is doing,” said Joe March, the Legion’s public relations director. “She stands as a great example of a proud American who is dedicated not only to her country, but to her community and her comrades.”

[RDTF]

I hope she wins!

[DuncanWaring]

Preparing for the "Talent" portion of the contest?

[junkman72]

Good lookin’ woman with a gun, nothing finer. Hope she wins.

[varyouga]

Preparing for the "Talent" portion of the contest?

Handling the M-16 in an evening dress?

I'd like to see some of that...

[tired1]

what do you want? is it a killing machine or T&A?

i have an ex-sister in law that stands about 5’ 1” that is Army trained parachute/assault. it’s a complete joke. my guess is that they have to put leg weights on this little girl to keep her heading towards the ground.
i’ve personally trained dozen’s women in self-defense and only encountered two that had had the body strength to match a man’s.

women in combat - NO WAY! (unless you want to get a lot of people killed for no reason).

[varyouga]

i’ve personally trained dozen’s women in self-defense and only encountered two that had had the body strength to match a man’s.

I don't think women are put in combat roles where body strength is an issue. There's plenty of stuff to do in the field that doesn't require brute strength.

OTOH, having female and male soldiers together for long periods probably causes other problems...

[DMZFrank]

Those of us who have seen the grim horror at the sharp end of infantry combat (as I did in a Mech Infantry outfit in Vietnam) are concerned at the rhetoric of many of those pushing the women in combat agenda. Daily we are regaled by the sight of 110 lb. women routinely beating the stuffing out of 250 lb male behemoths in choreographed entertainment fantasies like Buffy the vampire Slayer, Dark Angel, Tomb Raider and the Matrix Reloaded. We all listened breathlessly to the initial (later revealed as inaccurate) reports of brave little Jessica Lynch mowing down hordes of Iraqis.

It is only natural that with this continual barrage of opinion shaping that an attitude will begin to form that women are just as generally capable of participating in infantry combat as men are, with a comensurate erosion of the rationale for excluding them in the first place.

This is not to say that women can not serve in positions that enhance military capability, they are already serving in them, and serving well and honorably. It was Nazi Armament Minister Albert Speer who cited the German failure to mobilize their women in the manner that the Allies did in WWII as a significant factor in the Nazi defeat. In situations involving large scale mobilization, they are essential. (Don’t forget that the Soviets only did it because of the hugely staggering quantity of casualties that they suffered, on a scale that we can scarcely concieve of) That is not the case now as most personnel requirements could be met with the available pool of qualified males. Today, the issue is clouded by feminists and their societal influence ranging from lefist cum Marxist to liberal gender equity advocates. All too often combat readinesss, morale and unit cohesion is secondary to remaking the military institution into one which advances a radical social agenda. The decision to incorporate such large numbers of women into today’s military is a political decision, not one of military necessity has was the case with the Soviets during World War II.

One of the problems in assesing the impact of this issue vis-a-vis the Iraq war is the fact that we handily defeated them with the forces that were already in place in the invasion phase. Due to a combination of the skill of our superbly trained, equipped, motivated soldiers; and the ineptitude of our enemy (but they are getting better) our casualty rate has been thankfully far lower than we should have been reasonably able to expect given historical precedents. Notwithstanding this the question must be asked as to what would happen should we face an enemy that could inflict the sort of casualties on us has was the case during the fighting in northwest Europe in WWII? The United States Army was forced to comb out military personnel who had been assigned to the Army Specialized Training program as technical personnel (aircrew, radar operators, etc) and convert them to infantry to replace the staggering losses. Since 14% of the Army is not deployable to such duty (women) this does not bode well for such an eventuality. While we can continue to pray that we will never again face an enemy that will be able to attrite us as the German and Japanese Armies did, we MUST not plan as though it will never again happen. The Iraq conflict as it is presently playing out IS NO TEST OF THIS PROPOSITION.

Many commentators are relentless in their determination to ignore the considerable body of factual evidence indicating that the present policy of sexual intergration is inconsistent with certain vital forms of combat readiness. Study after study (reinforced by my 20 yrs of anecdotal observation in the active duty military and NG) highlight the physical unsuitability of most women for the tasks of the combat soldier, and often even the support soldier. My personal observations include the inability to change the tires on military vehicles, clear routine stoppages on M60 medium MG’s and .50 cal HMG’s, carry heavy loads any appreciable distances at necessary speeds, lift and evacuate casualties, and an inordinate disposition to injury. The reason that the military adopted “dual physical training standards” was to ensure politically acceptable numbers of women, since 40-60% of them would be washed out if they were required to meet male physical training requirements. My son, a reservist in a NG chopper unit, is contemptuous of what he describes as continual coddling of female soldiers. He is planning to transfer to an infantry unit.

In situations of full mobilization, women are essential. I believe that women are a militarily valuable asset, provided that asset is used in a manner that makes the military ready to fight, and subordinates feminist social engineering to that end.

Hundreds of thousands of women have served and are serving their country honorably and well. I honor them for their service and accept them as comrades and fellow veterans. We can only hope that their service will be continued in such a manner as to enhance the ability of the military to fight. The potential consequences for the individual soldier and the military’s mission are too serious to subordinate to social engineering.

[DuncanWaring]

PPV!

[FortWorthPatriot]

"Handling the M-16 in an evening dress?"

Probably some close order drill.

[tired1]

In situations of full mobilization, women are essential.

Hundreds of thousands of women have served and are serving their country honorably and well.

Sir:
i am in full agreement with you. i maintain that women have no place in combat, there are more useful ways to serve. the Israelis’s tried it as did the Soviets. the ladies did what they could, however it was an error.

FWIW: my neighbor, a Marine who has seen combat in many of our less publicized theaters thought that the story about a pregnant Marine was the first line of a joke. BTW: thank you for your service.

[DMZFrank]

Thanks for the reply. To further illustrate the dishonesty on this issue, I have never recieved an adequate answer to this question, Why don’t the armed forces allow men who can only meet the female physical fitness standard to be assigned to the same tasks as women? I think we know the answer to that question.

[tired1]

i could recount more horror stories. suffice it to say that PC is deadly.

[livius]

There are probably some women who have fairly equal strength, but the majority do not. I think testing should be pretty equal on this level, which would eliminate women who could not do something like drag their buddy out of a burning Humvee. There are some women who could, and that’s fine and they should go ahead. Other women who wish to join should be assigned to desk work.

However, I think mixed forces can be a problem for purely non-military reasons.

[AFreeBird]

Yowza!

God Bless the US of A!

[AFreeBird]

I guess you missed the part where it said she was a MEDIC. She's not there to kill, (although I suspect she can shoot just fine if she had to), but to take care of our people, and do so while being shot at.

I can respect that.