Capitaine Collette: La vie d'une femme sur la ligne de front

1. In wich country can women have combat position?

This document deals with the story of a women soldier, she has in charge a platoon of sixty men send in Afghanistan. Captain Ashley Collette depends of the Canadian armed forces. In fact Canada is one of the only country were women can have a combat position.

2. Which countries are considering doing the same?

This text explain to us that lot of countries do not agree with the fact that women can have combat position. In fact most of them think that women like soldier is not possible. They think that women can’t have the same level and the same strength as men. That’s why there is no many country who agree with the fact that women can become soldier. However some countries are changing their mind like Brazil and The United States of America. Those countries are working to integrated women in combat roles “The US and Brazil are currently in the process of working out the best way to place women in combat roles”. The United Kingdom doesn’t want to change is position for the moment, they maybe will changed their mind in the next five years: “The UK which has not yet taken this step, will review its policy in the next five years”

3. Captain Ashley Collette did hold it together in Afghanistan, What does it mean?

We learn in the text that a soldier of Captain Collette’s platoon was killed by a bomb. Sgt Jimmy McNeil was a close friend of Captain Collette and all soldier of the platoon liked him. His death was hard for Captain Collette and the rest of the unit. “Captain Collette did hold it together in Afghanistan” It means that the entire platoon has been affected by McNeil death, and that’s why despite the situation Captain Collette has to motivate his platoon to stay strong and to not give up.

4. In Afghanistan was she respected by her subordinates? How did local leaders perceive her?

Captain Collette has a good reputation of Platoon Commander. When she was in Afghanistan the entire of his platoon were respected her, she became like a sister for them. And those platoon were not hesitated to shut up attachment soldiers who were speaking about Captain Collette’s appearance: “Soldiers from my platoon would look at those attachment Soldiers and say, “that’s really irrelevant in this scenario. Keep your comments to yourself-that’s our platoon commander”” This quote show that Captain Collette was really appreciated and respected in his platoon.

Moreover she also was respected by local leaders. At the beginning she was scared about the fact that Local Leaders will not listen to her because of the sex, finally local leaders didn’t care of the fact that she was a women and all of them have been listening to her normally like listening to a men: “I thought that they wouldn’t even listen to me”, “but they didn’t care at all”.

However Chief wives were not as open minded as their men: “Although the village chiefs accepted the fact that of Collette’s gender, their wives were incredulous”. In fact women asked to Captain Collette to come and speak with them to know if she was going to settled down of a Muslim boy, to know what she was thinking about the Afghanistan etc… It was not easy to be accepted by women but finally she did it. She was also liked by the children

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