Assessing the Assignment Policy for Army Women

The current U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) policy for assigning military women was issued in 1994, and the U.S. Army's assignment policy dates to 1992. In the ensuing years, the U.S. Army has undergone significant technological and organizational transformation, which has changed how it organizes and fights. There is concern that, in the course of operations in Iraq, the Army has not been adhering to its own assignment policy, as there are several important and potentially problematic differences between the DoD and Army policies. For example, the DoD policy prohibits the assignment of women to units whose primary mission is direct combat, whereas the Army policy prohibits the assignment of women to units with a routine mission of direct combat, and their definitions of direct combat differ. The research finds that the Army is adhering to the DoD assignment policy but may not be complying with the separate Army assignment policy for women. Assessing the Assignment Policy for Army Women serves to inform DoD decisionmaking with regard to the clarity and appropriateness of the current DoD and Army assignment policies, especially given how units are operating in Iraq.