Airborne Servicewomen: How the Female Paratroopers of the 118th Military Police Company in Grenada Challenged the Combat Exclusion Policy

In October 1983, President Ronald Reagan authorized U.S. military forces to invade the Caribbean island of Grenada over concerns about communist expansion, Soviet and Cuban investment, and political unrest. Operation Urgent Fury last for about eight days, and resulted in the toppling of the sitting government, the installation of a new prime minister, and the ouster of Russians and Cubans from Grenada. Approximately 8,000 U.S. troops participated in Operation Urgent Fury, including more than 100 female paratroopers with the 118th Military Police Company (Airborne). Although the servicewomen were technically banned from combat, the women of the 118th Military Police challenged the combat exclusion policy. Their presence on the “front lines” of the invasion raised questions about whether the policy was enforceable on the battlefield and practical in a gender-integrated military.

The official Combat Exclusion Policy went into effect in 1977; by the late 1970s, with the advent of the all-volunteer military, the elimination of the gender-segregated Women’s Army Corps, and the integration of the service academies, U.S. military leaders, politicians, and the American public began discussing what it meant to integrate women into the armed forces. In 1973, Private Joyce Kutsch and Private Rita Johnson became the first servicewomen to graduate from Basic Airborne School at Fort Benning, Georgia, paving the way for the women who would go on to serve in Grenada. The primary issue was combat service, but Operation Urgent Fury revealed the blurred lines between combat and noncombat action in war. This paper will examine the actions of U.S. servicewomen in Operation Urgent Fury as a way to illustrate the impracticality and unenforceability of the combat exclusion policy in a gender-integrated force.