By Hope Hodge Seck: Complete Post through this link…
The Jax Act, a bipartisan bill introduced in the House, seeks to acknowledge women’s combat service on secretive missions in Afghanistan.
Years before U.S. military women were formally authorized to hold ground-combat jobs, Jaclyn “Jax” Scott was conducting nighttime raids with Special Operations personnel in northern Afghanistan.
They’d kick in doors, Scott said, and she’d enter Afghans’ homes directly behind the breachers, identify any women and children, and marshal them to a safe space for questioning. In Afghanistan’s conservative culture, her presence was intended to be a message of good faith to villagers frightened by the sight of armed American troops.
Male colleagues seldom saw it that way, Scott said, recalling what she and other women assigned to these cultural support teams, or CSTs, said was routine hostility from the Army Rangers and Green Berets with whom they were partnered. “Before they would go on missions,” she said, “they looked at us and they’d be like, ‘I unfortunately have to take one of you, which means I have to get rid of a shooter.’ And I’m like, ‘We can shoot.’”
For many of these women, the reception back home felt equally discriminatory. In 2013, when Scott returned from consecutive deployments, she bore the scars of combat: a brain injury from concussive grenade blasts, and back, neck and shoulder ailments owed to heavy falls. When she sought treatment for post traumatic stress, the Army doctor laughed at her, Scott said. He prescribed sleep aids for jet lag instead.
