Do they let females play a role as a pararescuer? The daughter is interested, sophomore in highschool, and really really interested. If women arn't allowed yet or whatever, I'm going tell keep her first ideas (aerospace engineering) in thought. Thanks guys.

Sorry, they are not allowed in an front line combat role.

About the most high-speed job a woman can do in the military is EOD in the US Navy.

They accept women, and they dive & jump.

It's no-slack, however...

Good luck to her, whatever she chooses!

The Coast Guard allows women to serve as rescue swimmers, a pretty hoah job if you ask me.

Aerial gunner positions aboard helicopters are now open to women in the Air Force as well.

Im sure shes as tough as some of the cones here at Kirtland.

Make sure you help your daughter do what she truly wants to do with her life, no matter what. Aerospace Engineering and PJ type careers are DRASTICALLY different. I was in her boat when I was in highschool and it took me three years of AE and ROTC to realize that was not the life for me. I have since left both for a career in Combat Control, something COMPLETELY different from where I was going in college. I hope she makes a wise decision and I wish her only the best. Remember, ultimately she has to live with her decision, no matter how hard it is for a parent to accept. God bless you both.

Jack

As has been mentioned, she can enlist as an aerial gunner or as a flight engineer. In either capacity she can ride into battle on a Rescue helo. If she goes in as an officer, she can fly the Rescue helos and can serve as a navigator or pilot on AC130 gunships. Outside the Special Tactics arena, she could of course fly any combat aircraft in the AF (F15, F16, A10, B1, B52).

Isn't combat weather open to women as well?

Weather PARACHUTIST is open to women (you can wear the grey beret if you've been to jump school and are a weather dude); combat weather is male only.

Which is not to say there is anything wrong with aerospace engineering...

Parachute rigger units allow women. They attend basic jump school and can even attend MFF(HALO) school.

OK - Here's the deal on women in USAF Weather Parachutist positions.

It's currently possible for women to serve in a very small number of jump positions in Weather.

All of those positions are in support of US Army conventional airborne units which allow women to serve in them.

My GUESS is - Once a shreadout AFSC and formal pipeline is approved for Special Tactics Weather, those opportunities will go away.

An alternative reality would be to allow women to attend the entire pipeline but only allow them to be assigned to a very small number of positions. I really don't THINK that's going to happen, but who knows what the PC police will come up with.

The truth is, allowing them to attend the pipeline would be an interesting idea, but would only be useful and credible if the physical training requirements remained gender-neutral.

In addition, only having a few positions open to women would have a significant negative impact on their promotion opportunities.

Finally, having specially-trained personnel who can only be asigned to limited positions would drastically reduce the flexibility of the force and would be an overall negative aspect to consider.

Okay, women can be:

Rescue Swimmers
Riggers
Gunners
Flight Engineers
Pilots
EOD
Weather Parachutists
SERE (Survival Instructors)

And a host of other AFSCs not related to combat...they cannot be:

PJ, CCT, TACP, or Combat Weather...

This is not the site to give enlistment advice...the summary above should suffice...if pj990002217 has other questions...I'm sure he'll ask.

Topic closed.