Cheerleader, rugby player take different routes into This Woman's Army

By Megan Maughan Roe

November 30, 2004 | From the cheerleader next door, to the rugby player who sluffs seminary, today's Army attracts all kinds of women.

With a smile as wide as a Humvee, Spc. Jeannine Brenchley sat on her calves, pushing her shins into the milk chocolate brown sofa beneath her. Unlike her flowing white skirt, she spoke in uneven, quick spurts.

"I'm being deployed," Brenchley chirped. "In January. To Germany. I'm so excited!"

Brenchley, a former high school cheerleader from Hyrum said when she got the call informing her of her deployment, she "instantly started sweating and shaking."

"I was like, 'Oh my gosh!'" Brenchley said. "This is really real. They're not kidding."

Bouncing up and down eagerly on her knees, Brenchley looked excited but anxious. Her dangly pearl earrings flopped around like wind chimes on a windy day.

"I was told to prepare for at least a year, with an emphasis on 'at least,' out in the field," Brenchley said.

With her girlish appearance and personality, Brenchley doesn't seem like your typical soldier. In reality, the Army attracts women from all walks of life.

Not only is Spc. Tara Earl on the USU women's rugby team, she starts and finishes almost every game.

"You know the quarterback in football?" Earl questioned, "Well, I'm that position in rugby."

Just barely home from a weekend tournament, Earl rubs her eyes and yawns.

"I actually got injured on Saturday," Earl frowned. "I was mad about that because they made me come out."

Speckled with freckles, Earl sat with her elbows planted on a long, wood table and used her hands to emphasize her disappointment. The Smithfield native's fire-red hair was slicked straight back into a bun. Her light gray Quicksilver T-shirt was the exact color of her eyes. Her black leather wristband matched her black leather belt, the only force holding her baggy blue jeans up.

"I'm not a sissy-la-la," Earl asserted.

Earl and Brenchley are both in the Army Reserve. According to the Army Reserve home webpage, women make up 24.7 percent of the Reserve, making them a minority, but a growing force. Many wonder why, with the difficult physical training and male dominance in the Army, women choose to join.

"I joined because I wanted school paid," Brenchley said, blinking her pale pink eyelids.

Not only did she benefit from having her schooling paid for, Brenchley said she also got her job as a respiratory specialist at the University of Utah from her experience in the Army. She said the Army paid for most of her new laptop and each month she gets an extra $350 "kicker," as long as she can prove she's in school. She also receives payment for serving one weekend a month and two weeks a year in the reserve.

Money was not Earl's motivation to join the Army. She said in high school, she was "sluffing seminary" when an Army Reserve recruiter approached her and asked if he could tell her about the reserve. Seeing this as an excuse to be out of class, Earl jumped at the chance to listen. She said she was really interested in the things the recruiter told her she would be involved in.

"I've always loved traveling, being outside, working in any condition," Earl said. "I love the structure, the discipline, and because my grandpa was in the Army and loved it with all of his heart. I sort of did it to make him proud."

Not only do these women differ in why they joined, they both had very dissimilar experiences in boot camp.

Earl said her nickname at basic training was "Private Act Right," because when drill sergeants were around she would do everything she was told. She said she never got in trouble but instead did push-ups for other people.

"Boot camp was definitely what you make of it." Earl said. "If I had a plane ticket to do it all over again, I'd do it in a heartbeat."

In contrast, Specialist Brenchley knew how it felt to do push-ups for her own mistakes. Resembling mini-boomerangs, Brenchley's well-groomed eyebrows got her into a lot of trouble at basic training. She said one day a male drill sergeant stopped her and yelled at her for almost 10 minutes for plucking her eyebrows.

"What guy knows about arched eyebrows?" Brenchley inquired.

She was ordered to throw away her tweezers, all of her razors and ordered to never shave her armpits or legs, or pluck her eyebrows. After this incident, Brenchley said the drill sergeants always made fun of her bushy eyebrows.

Though Brenchley and Earl are extremely different, they both agree that, while women don't have the same physical abilities and makeup as men, women are strong enough to be good soldiers.

"There's a line off of G.I. Jane, 'I'd go to war with you any day,'" Earl said. "I was told that by some of our guys. I wasn't in the front of the pack, but I could pick up all the slack."

Army Opinions about Women in the Army, by Judith Stiehm, a Professor of Political Science at Florida International University, reported the results of a survey of men and women in the Army. The study indicated that men and women in the Army have differing opinions on whether women have the physical strength to be a soldier.

According to the report, "When the question is generalized to women's ability to meet the physical demands of being an Army Soldier, about two-thirds of women at every rank agree that women are 'just as able.' About 40 percent of enlisted men agree, although almost as many disagree. However, close to two-thirds of male officers disagree."

Earl and Brenchley said they were treated just the same as men in the Army and didn't feel inferior to their male counterparts.

Through all their differences, one common objective has made these two women identical. That is their goal to serve their country.

Earl is a truck driver in the 854th Quartermaster Company and drives anything with wheels. She has done this for four and a half years and she will be done in less than two, but wants to re-enlist at that time because of the war in Iraq.

"What will keep me in it is what's going on in the world right now, with the war, wanting to help," Earl said.

"I don't want to just sit around and wait. Something's going to happen."

Similarly, Specialist Brenchley said, while money was her original motive for joining, her attitude toward being in the Army has changed.

"When I got to basic training, I remember sitting there and thinking, 'You know I'm glad I joined for the money but,'" Brenchley said, "I'm really glad to be in it for the service too."

Brenchley, a respiratory specialist from the 328th Combat Support Hospital, just returned from two weeks of training at Camp Parks, just outside of San Francisco. She said she was in charge of setting up a make-shift hospital out of tents at the training. This is what she may have to do in a real-life situation when she is deployed in January.

With the global war on terror raging, both women have come to understand the sobering reality of being a woman in a combat situation.

"I love when I read things that say 'Pray for your soldiers,'" Brenchley said, "because I am a soldier. Even though I'm not out there yet, I still wear the colors."

Earl said Sept. 11, 2001, brought the situation especially close-to-home.

"When the towers went down, I got a phone call from my company saying I was on alert. I probably said no more than 10-20 words that entire week."

Earl said, "Now, three years later, the reality is still there but I've become almost immune to being scared and nervous."

Earl said though the nerves are gone, her emotions ran high when she heard of the death of Lance Cpl. Michael Allred, of Hyde Park. She said her mother encouraged her to wear her uniform and stand by the road as the funeral procession went by. Earl said she couldn't do it for fear her emotions would take control.

"It's really hard for me to hear Taps." Earl said. "It's hard to be a tough soldier and cry."

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