U.S MARINE CORPS PHOTOS
strength of a movement determined to open more opportunities for women. After the Nixon administration abolished the military draft and introduced the all-volunteer force in 1973, it was clear the service branches would have to work harder to attract quality recruits. In 1975, under the leadership of Gen. Louis Wilson, 26th commandant, the Marine Corps began to prepare its equal opportunity plans for Women Marines. The Corps authorized women to be assigned to all occupations except those in combat-related fields: infantry, artillery, armor, and flight crews. In small numbers, Women Marines began to move into formerly male-dominated positions, such as military police, and the number of the Women Marines grew by nearly a third during the mid-1970s. Public Law 90-130 allowed for the promotion of women to flag rank, and in 1978, Margaret Brewer, the seventh director of the Women Marines, became the first woman Marine to attain this rank when she was promoted to brigadier general. The increasing integration of Women Marines into the enlisted and officer ranks had led the Marine Corps to do away with it as a separate organization, with its own distinct lines of command. In 1977, 243 men and 22 women, newly commissioned and appointed officers, went through The Basic School at Camp Barrett, Quantico, a 21-week course in the basics of being an officer in the Marines. A Washington Post article from February of that year described the scene: “For the first time, newly commissioned female marine officers are being trained in the field alongside male officers in patrolling, amphibious operations, the use of terrain, offensive and defensive weapons, and under-fire tactics.”
LEFT: Female members of the 2nd Platoon, “C” Company, The Basic School (TBS), off-load an amtrac during the Basic School Exercise, April 20, 1977. RIGHT: Second Lt. Gayle W. Hanley prepares to reload a magazine with ammunition during a lull in action while participating in the Basic School Exercise, April 20, 1977.
The Women Marines was disestablished as a formal organization on June 30, 1977. From that point on – officially, at least – there would be no distinction between male and female Marines.
Becoming Warriors When the Marine Corps’ Officer Candidates School (OCS) at Quantico was gender-integrated in 1977, its first female platoon commander was 1st Lt. Nancy Anderson, who led the first three gender-integrated OCS companies. Anderson would later command the Headquarters and Service Battalion at Headquarters Marine Corps, Arlington, Virginia, before retiring from the Marine Corps as a colonel in 2002. Her career neatly encompassed the time between one historical event – the dissolution of the separate Women Marines – to another, the 2001 terrorist attacks that launched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was arguably the most transformational period in the history of female Marines, as Anderson has documented in her book The Very Few, The Proud: Women in the Marine Corps, 1977-2001. Despite all the progress made in the post-World War II era, female Marines were still overwhelmingly uniformed clerical workers as the 1970s drew to a close. Given the service’s renown as the nation’s elite forward-deployed fighting force, it seemed fair to ask: What kind of Marine could you be if you weren’t allowed to serve in an MOS for which you were qualified? Two events, Anderson said, compelled the Marine Corps to reconsider how it viewed and trained women. On Nov. 21, 1979, mobs of angry protestors attacked several American posts in Pakistan, including the American Consulate in Karachi. The six Marine
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