Peter1469
05-20-2015, 04:19 PM
The military’s Cultural Support Teams (http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/05/19/the-armys-all-women-special-ops-teams-show-us-how-well-win-tomorrows-wars/?hpid=z12)
Often attached to SoF units, the military's Cultural Support Teams are made up of women who can do sensitive tasks such as interview / searching local females in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the early hours of a fall pre-dawn night, Lt. Treadmont — an Army intelligence officer who’d also deployed to Bosnia years earlier as a 19-year-old enlisted soldier — clambered up a mountain in eastern Afghanistan, part of a platoon crossing a dense grove of trees that blocked nearly all moonlight. The Afghan terrain typically resembled a moonscape, but tonight the sightline was obscured by vegetation, complicating the night’s mission.
Eventually they reached a tiny village where the men of 75th Ranger Regiment were at work seeking the weapons and insurgent who was the target of their mission. The Rangers’ translator summoned the men of one house to come out, and in a matter of minutes the soldiers queried them in hopes of identifying the man they wanted and locating the weapons they suspected.
Then Treadmont heard the Rangers’ call over the radio. “CST, get over here.”
On arrival, the lieutenant removed her helmet to reveal long hair, tied back in two braids, and show that beneath all the gear — night vision devices, M4 assault rifle and M9 pistol — she was a woman: Amber Treadmont (whose name has been changed here and in my book, “Ashley’s War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield (http://www.amazon.com/Ashleys-War-Soldiers-Special-Battlefield/dp/006233381X),” to protect her identity). Her Cultural Support Team, or “CST,” an innocuous name for a groundbreaking concept, was born of a battlefield imperative — gathering intelligence from Afghanistan’s women.
https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/unnamed.png&w=1484
Often attached to SoF units, the military's Cultural Support Teams are made up of women who can do sensitive tasks such as interview / searching local females in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the early hours of a fall pre-dawn night, Lt. Treadmont — an Army intelligence officer who’d also deployed to Bosnia years earlier as a 19-year-old enlisted soldier — clambered up a mountain in eastern Afghanistan, part of a platoon crossing a dense grove of trees that blocked nearly all moonlight. The Afghan terrain typically resembled a moonscape, but tonight the sightline was obscured by vegetation, complicating the night’s mission.
Eventually they reached a tiny village where the men of 75th Ranger Regiment were at work seeking the weapons and insurgent who was the target of their mission. The Rangers’ translator summoned the men of one house to come out, and in a matter of minutes the soldiers queried them in hopes of identifying the man they wanted and locating the weapons they suspected.
Then Treadmont heard the Rangers’ call over the radio. “CST, get over here.”
On arrival, the lieutenant removed her helmet to reveal long hair, tied back in two braids, and show that beneath all the gear — night vision devices, M4 assault rifle and M9 pistol — she was a woman: Amber Treadmont (whose name has been changed here and in my book, “Ashley’s War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield (http://www.amazon.com/Ashleys-War-Soldiers-Special-Battlefield/dp/006233381X),” to protect her identity). Her Cultural Support Team, or “CST,” an innocuous name for a groundbreaking concept, was born of a battlefield imperative — gathering intelligence from Afghanistan’s women.
https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/unnamed.png&w=1484