By ELISABETH BUMILLER

MARJA, Afghanistan - They expected tea, not firefights. But the three female Marines and their patrol were shot at late on a recent day, when a burst of Kalashnikov rifle fire came from a nearby compound.

The group jumped to the ground, crawled into a ditch and aimed its guns across the fields of cotton and corn. In their sights they could see the source of the blast: an Afghan man who had shot aimlessly from behind a mud wall, shielded by a half-dozen children.

They held their fire so as not to hit a child, waited for the all-clear, then headed back to the base, survivors of yet another encounter with the enemy. “You still get that same feeling, like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m getting shot at,’ ” said Lance Corporal Stephanie Robertson, 20, speaking of the firefights that have become part of her life in Marja.

“But you know what to do. You’re not, like, comfortable, because you’re just . . . ” She stopped, searching for how to describe her response to experiences that for many would be terrifying. “It’s like muscle memory.” Six months ago, Lance Corporal Robertson arrived in Afghanistan with 39 other female Marines from Camp Pendleton, California, as part of an unusual experiment of the American military: sending full-time “female engagement teams” out with all-male infantry patrols in Helmand Province to try to win over the rural Afghan women who are culturally off limits to outside men.

The female Marines, who volunteered , were to meet with Pashtun women over tea in their homes, assess their need for aid, gather intelligence, and help open schools and clinics. They have done that and more, and as their seven-month deployment in southern Afghanistan nears an end their “tea as a weapon” mission has been judged a success.

But the Marines, who have been closer to combat than most other women in the war, have also had to use real weapons in a real fight tougher than many expected. Here in Marja - which, seven months after a major offensive against the Taliban, is improving but remains one of the most dangerous places in Afghanistan ? the female Marines have daily skirted the Pentagon rules restricting women in combat.

They were sidelined in July for three weeks midway through their tour while their rules of engagement were clarified. They have shot back in firefights and ambushes, been hit by homemade bombs and come under mortar attack. None of the 40 women have been seriously injured. But some have seen good friends die. One of the women, Corporal Anica Coate, 22, was on patrol in early September in southern Marja 1.5 meters behind Lance Corporal Ross S. Carver, 21, when he was killed by an insurgent sniper. A week later, at a memorial service in Marja , she said she would not volunteer again.

“It’s not the living conditions, it’s not the mission, it’s this,” she said, gesturing toward a memorial display of boots, rifles and dog tags belonging to the dead Marines. She was, she said quietly, “too much of a girl to deal with these guys getting killed.” For Captain Emily Naslund, 27, the women’s commander, the sacrifices and the frustrations have been worth it. “This is going to be the highlight of my life,” she said. But to Captain Naslund, the military’s stance on women in combat is absurd when there are no front lines ? and when members of her team are taking fire almost daily on foot patrols. “The current policy on women in combat is outdated and does not apply to the type of war we are fighting,”

she wrote to her parents, friends and a reporter in an e-mail after the legal review in July. Since then, she has grudgingly accepted that the Marine Corps is a long way from allowing women in the infantry, and that she will live within the guidelines. With their tour soon ending, the replacements for the female Marines arrived in late September in Helmand, 45 young women from Camp Pendleton. The old team introduced the new team to the Pashtun women with whom they have built relationships, with the hope the contact continues.

“Just making a small improvement in somebody’s life, that means something,” Captain Naslund said. “And if that means that someday women don’t have to wear a burqa, great. If it means that they’re getting beat up and they’ve got some place to go to tell somebody, great.” In the end, she said, “They’re going to remember what we did.”


Female Marines are attached to all-male infantry units in Afghanistan in an unusual military experiment aimed at Afghan women.