Here is an interesting article about two ROK female infantry NCOs that were awarded the US Expert Infantryman Badge:
Two women have earned the U.S. Army’s coveted Expert Infantryman Badge — and they’re members of the South Korean army.
Staff Sgts. Kim Min Kyoung and Kwon Min Zy are the first women, Korean or American, to earn the special-skills badge created in 1943.
“There were 21 soldiers from the (South Korean army’s) 21st Infantry Division that competed with them, pushing and pulling each other, helping each other out,” Kwon, 21, said through a translator. [USA Today]
You can read more at the link, but the article is a bit misleading by making it appear these are the first women to pass the EIB test. The US Army has for years allowed women to take the test:
Two Soldiers received special honors Friday during a ceremony at the Hilton Field Softball Complex recognizing those Soldiers who recently completed a week of tasks to earn the Expert Infantryman Badge.
Sgt. 1st Class Scott Wilkie, a drill sergeant with Company E, 3rd Battalion, 34th Infantry Regiment, was the only Soldier who received the “true blue” designation, meaning that he completed all the tasks without making any mistakes. Capt. Michelle Roberts, commander of Company F, 2nd Battalion, 60th Infantry Regiment, was the only female Soldier who passed the test.
Wilkie and Roberts were two of 42 Soldiers who passed from a field of 97 who began the testing.
“This is the first year that (I’ve seen) a (woman) compete in the 27 years I’ve been in the Army,” said Sgt. Maj. Michael Love, the noncommissioned officer in charge of the Expert Infantryman Badge, or EIB, testing. “I think it’s great.”
Roberts, an activated National Guard Soldier, said she believes it is her duty to be trained as well as possible in Soldiering skills, which is why she did not want to pass up the opportunity to go through the test and the two-week training in preparation for the EIB. [Army.mil]
The problem that females that pass the EIB test have is that they are not in an infantry MOS, so they cannot wear the badge, but they receive the training certificate. This is the same for non-infantry MOS males as well. People have complained about this for years that the infantry branch are being badge protectors by not allowing other branches to wear the badge. Since the ROK NCOs are in the infantry branch they get to wear the badge on their uniforms. This seems very unfair to everyone else that has passed the testing that they cannot wear the badge, but foreign military personnel can.
This whole EIB testing gets back to my whole point of view on this that women should not be barred from any MOS or training as long as they meet the same established standards. So did the ROK soldiers meet the same established standards as the US soldiers? According to this comment left on Facebook by an NCO claiming to have graded the testing, they did not:
If this claim is true and the ROK soldiers did not have to meet the same standards as US soldiers than this was nothing more than a PR stunt by 2ID. The statistics may also give some indication that different standards were used. According to the article only 18% of 2ID soldiers passed, but 18 of 21 (85%) of ROK soldiers passed the testing. That is a big difference in percentages though the ROK Army likely sent 21 of their best soldiers. Even if it was their best soldiers should the percentages be that skewed? Anyway I would be interested to hear what others who may have been part of the EIB testing have to say about this issue.
