The GCEITF (“The Experiment”) was the greatest social and cultural experiment in the Marine Corps.

Colonel Matt St.Clair, Commanding Officer, GCEITF

In the previous post, I explored the origins of the Marine Corps’ gender Experiment. It wanted to build a unit, approximately battalion-sized (700+ individuals). They wanted to test women in ground combat specialties – infantry, artillery, tanks, combat engineers, amphibious assault vehicles and light armored reconnaissance. The Marine Corps had,

. . . toyed with the idea of forming a battalion-sized integrated (male & female) unit, conducting some sort of workup (training), and then deploying the unit. They would survey the unit to try to understand the implications of integration. The problem with the idea was the lack of rigor. Surveys are notoriously error-prone, especially if they are not conducted properly. Rigor was an important characteristic of the anticipated research for a very important reason. When the policy (that prohibited women from ground combat jobs and units) was rescinded in January 2013, the Services were given the opportunity to ask for a limited and narrowly tailored exception to policy if they had rigorous evidence that implementing the policy change was detrimental.

The Experiment of a Lifetime: Doing Science in the Wild for the United States Marine Corps by Paul Johnson (emphasis added)

With this in mind, senior leaders looked to the Marine Corps Operational Test and Evaluation Activity (MCOTEA) to turn their idea into reality. Paul Johnson – a former Navy corpsman who had hiked with infantry Marines during his time with the Navy, who also happened to be married to a Marine – turned out to be the right person in the right place at the right time. He understood the heavy physical demands in the infantry and had great respect for female Marines as Marines. He wore bow ties to formal meetings and always had a smile on his face. If his jovial demeanor fooled anyone, it wasn’t for long. He was also a steely-eyed scientist who could break down complicated statistical analyses into common language for anyone (especially senior leaders).

As he developed The Experiment, Paul sought data. He “knew there were critics forming up on both sides of the argument who were ready with fact-free, emotional arguments for and against the integration of women in combat arms”. It was his job to provide “evidence that could weather criticisms”.

In his book, Paul stated, “The Marine Corps also knew, at least anecdotally, that smaller (male) Marines with less physical strength didn’t fare well in these occupations.” Yet the Marine Corps allowed these male Marines to serve in the infantry. For Paul, the central question remained, “so what?”

So there were physiological differences between men and women . . . but does it really matter? After all, when the Marines operate, even at the lowest levels, they still operate as squads, crews, and teams – not as individuals . . . and in the context of Marines operating as a small group or unit, physiological differences may have no practicable, measurable impact on their combat capability.

The Experiment of a Lifetime: Doing Science in the Wild for the United States Marine Corps by Paul Johnson

Paul designed The Experiment to test the effect of gender on combat effectiveness.¹ To do this, he first needed to define combat effectiveness – quantitatively. This was inherently impossible. And we all knew it.

Think about it for a moment, or return to our first conversation about combat effectiveness. It is possible to have a numerically superior force, better technology, faster and stronger individuals and still lose. It is also possible to lack all these things and win. We all know there is a lot more to winning than strength or speed. The Marine Corps has long relied on subjective assessments of combat effectiveness and individual performance. Some thing are equally as, or more, important than strength and speed. Generally, this serves the Marine Corps well (for reasons discussed in future posts).

But to answer the gender question, quantifying combat effectiveness, and measuring any actual difference in that effectiveness between all male teams and gender integrated teams, became the central question. Because the Defense Secretary wanted quantitative data, no amount of subjective judgments, gut feelings or long explanations about “combat experience” would suffice. So he needed to try. The Marine Corps was relying on him to figure out this complex and difficult problem.

First, Paul and his team spoke with experts in the ground combat specialties to understand what highly performing teams looked versus mediocre performing units versus poorly performing teams looked like. Next, he and his team identified the most physically demanding tasks in each specialty and devised ways to test them scientifically. The Marine Corps focused on the most physically demanding tasks because one assumption was that women were as smart as men. Therefore testing non-physically demanding tasks was unnecessary. The tasks varied from casualty evacuation to loading and firing a weapon system to hiking several kilometers and moving on an objective. The testing included nine specific ground combat specialties and two provisional ground combat specialties²:

• Infantry rifle squad
• Mortar squad
• Machine gun squad
• Assault/Missile Squad
• Provisional infantry rifle squad
• Provisional machine gun squad
• Artillery
• Tanks
• Amphibious Assault Vehicles
• Light Armored Reconnaissance
• Combat Engineers

Quantitative measurements basically came down to strength, speed and accuracy. His measurements included things such as:

• Heart Rate, Location, Pace, Time
• Shooter Accuracy, Hits, Near-misses (“suppressive fire”), Time, Location
• Number of Medical Visits, Diagnoses, Light Duty Days, Injury Mechanism
• PFT, CFT, Height, Weight, Body Fat, Test Scores, Rifle Score, Proficiency & Conduct Ratings (performance evaluations)

Paul used specially designed target systems that enabled him to know who shot at a target, whether they hit it, and how close they came. The technology, statistical analysis and amount of rigor that went into The Experiment was impressive. He collected qualitative data as well:

• Fatigue, Workload
• Task Cohesion
• Subjective Observations by Leadership and Staff and Data Collectors

Paul knew (as we all did) there was a lot more to ground combat success than strength, speed and accuracy:

When putting a group of Marines together, some key characteristics can drive outcomes in a way that would interfere with determining whether gender integration was an important contributor. The main components turned out to be cohesion, leadership, experience, equipment, position and personality.

The Experiment of a Lifetime: Doing Science in the Wild for the United States Marine Corps by Paul Johnson (emphasis added)

Like any good scientist, he knew he had to control for these factors. The key was randomization. Usually, Marines worked together as a unit for long periods of time. They do this for good reason. Working together and training together as a unit, Marines learn how each other think, move and act. They learn to rely on each other’s strengths and compensate for weaknesses. They tend to stay in one position (job) for a certain length of time, because it takes time to learn how to do a particular job. Leadership can also make a big difference. Units led well can outperform similar units led not so well.

Paul planned to control for these things by creating “pools” of Marines within a specialty – male and female, all shapes and sizes. Each time The Experiment ran an iteration of a task, Paul would pick Marines from this pool at random to complete the task. The Marines would not know with whom they were working, or what position on the team they would be serving, in advance. Each iteration of the task would include all male-teams, and gender-integrated teams. Over a certain number of iterations of the task, Paul and his team would take the data and compare how the two types of teams performed.

This was a great idea, except for one big problem. This entire Experiment would be a live fire exercise. Marines would be moving and shooting live rounds throughout The Experiment. Marine Corps leadership, beginning with the unit’s commanding officer, Colonel Matthew St. Clair, voiced strong objections to the randomization concept. It was a safety issue. You simply cannot have Marines who do not know each other doing live fire exercises together.

In my time in the Marine Corps, I participated in one live fire exercise. It occurred toward the end of the six months of initial officer training. Our instructors wanted all of us to have at least one experience with a live fire exercise. Those of us outside the infantry might not do this again unless we found ourselves in an actual combat situation.

I’ll admit it. I was terrified. I was scared I might accidentally shoot someone. Not shooting during the exercise was not an option. Instructors walked around us the entire time, to ensure we shot a few rounds, to see we were looking where we were shooting, considering things like fields of fire and who was in front of us and behind us. That is the whole reason for the exercise. Combat does not occur on safe, controlled gun ranges The enemy does not line up very considerately at the end of a gun range so you can shoot them. Combat is a moving, amorphous thing. Your buddies will be in front of you and behind you. There will be a million things happening all at once.

The Marine Corps says, “train like we fight”. We should be training in peacetime the way we will fight in wartime. We bring Marines together in units to train, deploy and fight together. Over months of training together, they learn their job, each others’ habits, strengths, weaknesses, how they make decisions and their leadership styles.

Then Paul comes along and does away with all that. Initially, Colonel St. Clair and others protested. Eventually, Paul convinced them The Experiment’s validity rested on randomization. It required controlling for “cohesion, leadership, experience, equipment, position and personality”. The unit did it, and did it well. But it didn’t happen by accident.

At the end of The Experiment, Paul and his team concluded that, generally the average sized man was stronger and faster and shot more accurately than the average sized woman. (with a few exceptions³)

Groundbreaking.

For some of us, the real results of The Experiment lay in everything Paul and his team attempted to control for:

• Leadership
• Cohesion
• Experience
• Equipment
• Position
• Personality

You can’t control for leadership. It’s like air to Marines. It’s so much part of us we often don’t even realize it’s there. Certainly, we’ve all breathed some bad air in our time (and then we definitely notice it). The only way to control for leadership is to ensure that every Marine is equally capable of leading. The only way to control for cohesion is to ensure every Marine knows and works with every other Marine – not just in their small team, but in the larger “pool” of Marines in their combat specialty. The only way to control for position is to ensure every Marine knows how to do every job in their combat specialty, and do it well. The only way to ensure no Marine left the live fire range injured or killed was to ensure they all knew how to work together – safely and effectively.

How did they do it? In the months prior to The Experiment, Colonel St. Clair and his staff incorporated randomization into the training plan. Remember “train like we fight”? That’s what they did. If The Experiment would constantly switch up groups and positions and leaders, then the GCEITF would do that during its workup period.⁴

All Marines would know how to lead in their combat specialty; all Marines within a specialty would know how to perform all the jobs within that small unit; all Marines within a combat specialty would know how to work with all other Marines in that combat specialty. Personality, Equipment and Experience would still play their roles, sometimes in unexpected ways.

In doing this, the GCEITF leadership accomplished something no other Marine unit would dream of attempting. The took a group of disparate Marines and made them a unit. More than that, they created a family. They took Marines and taught them not just how to do one job, but how to do multiple jobs. They took Marines coming straight from entry-level training schools, and taught them not only how to perform in these combat specialties, but how to lead in those specialties.⁵

They did it in record time. The workup period usually lasts 6 months or more. The GCEITF training period officially lasted 1 October 2014 – 18 February 2015. That was just 4.5 months (closer to 4 with time off for the holidays). For a variety of reasons, some of the women did not arrive to the GCEITF until mid- to late-November. They barely had 3 months to train, in their new combat specialties, with their new unit.

When most people talk about The Experiment, they focus on the quantitative results. They talk about the tasks, about how all-male teams performed compared to gender-integrated teams. They gloss over or ignore completely where gender-integrated teams performed well (occasionally significantly better than the men). They also take for granted how much the GCEITF accomplished.

Col St. Clair said he would have taken the GCEITF on an overseas deployment. He believed they were ready, and he believed in the capabilities and leadership of his Marines. That was the next logical step. Deploy the unit. There is much more to combat effectiveness than quantitative measurements of strength and speed. Col St. Clair knew it and so did many others.

Unfortunately, the GCEITF did not deploy. The Marine Corps disbanded the unit upon conclusion of The Experiment. The Marines scattered across the Marine Corps, and many would become leaders in the gender integration effort. The Marine Corps had no idea the long term implications of creating the unit, but its Marines left an indelible impression on the Marine Corps ground combat community.

Future posts will dig deeper into each of the characteristics controlled for (leadership, cohesion, experience, equipment, position and personality) in more detail.

FOOTNOTES

¹My primary qualm with The Experiment is that it failed to differentiate gender from size. It tested the average woman against the average man. It did not test smaller men (height and weight) against average men (height and weight). It did not test average women (height and weight) against smaller sized men (height and weight) to understand what might be a gender difference and what might be a size difference.

²In the Marine Corps, one of our sayings, “cooks, bakers and candlestick makers”, refers to the fact that we are all basic infantry Marines. By this we mean that any Marine can be called upon to do any job, at any time. This is the reason we spend so much time training Marines to become basic infantry Marines (and infantry Marine leaders) when they first enter the Marine Corps. If any Marine is needed to act as infantry, they must have the basic skills. We saw this most recently in Iraq, when artillery battalions became provisional infantry battalions, and deployed to Iraq as such.

³These exceptions will be the content of future posts. It was fascinating (to me) to see where gender-integrated teams performed significantly better than all-male teams.

_⁴A “workup” is the training period that prepares a Marine unit for an overseas deployment.

⁵Because the women had not performed in these combat specialties, they first needed to go to school for their combat specialty. The men did not. They had been working in that combat specialty already.