Characters

  • 1LT Willaim MacGregor
  • CPT Mirav Mizrachi

Locations

  • 213th BN HQ, Boise, Idaho

Well, 1LT MacGregor is starting to accept and internalize that his hoped-for command has been usurped… and by someone he knows and respects and has a hard tome being angry about. Buck up, Lieutenant, being an XO on a deployment looks good career-wise.

So people may remember that when we first met Mirav Mizrachi, she was a Staff Sergeant. Later, she got a direct commission to become an officer, specifically a junior-most officer or “Second Lieutenant”. She wore a gold bar (sometimes called a “butter bar”) on her hat and was assigned to the 213th Battalion as their Intelligence Officer, since their original Intel Officer, Captain Wronick, was killed.

Then, during my Thanksgiving special in 2016, she was seen wearing the solid black bar of a First Lieutenant. I didn’t make much of it but just let it be seen. She would have been promoted to 1st Lieutenant probably the moment she got back to the States, and she was still in Active Duty at the time.

So, a couple years down the road and she has since been promoted to Captain, “off-screen”, so to speak. She got out of Active Duty and is looking for a job in the Reserves –as mentioned in prior comics– but now someone may remember to ask, “But wait, isn’t she an Intelligence Officer? How can she take over a Combat Engineer company?”

It is very common for soldiers, officers and enlisted alike, to come from Active Duty and have to switch jobs. The roles they trained for in Active Duty may not exist in their local Guard or Reserve units, and re-training is needed. So in order to be qualified to take this command, she’ll have to go to a familiarization course and “branch over”. At this early stage in the mobilization process, she has time to get re-trained but she’ll have to hurry.

As for females taking over Combat Engineer positions, now all branches of the military are open to females, even Infantry. However, BOHICA Blues takes place “a few years ago” (I refer to things that happened in a time span from about 6 to 10 years back) when the roles were still kind of muddled and just beginning to change. For example, Infantry was considered a “direct combat” position, while Engineers were considered “combat support”. Even though the two groups frequently did the same things, the title of “support” meant women could serve in leadership roles at the time, but not in direct battle. If you think that distinction sounds odd and meaningless, that’s because it is.

In 2003 and 2004, then-Captain Kellie McCoy served as a Combat Engineer Company Commanding Officer (C.O.) in Iraq, with the 82nd Airborne Division. Her convoy was ambushed by insurgents and she was one of the first to lead wounded soldiers to safety while under fire. She and the platoon she was with eventually beat back the ambush and made it to safety. This was before women were “allowed in direct combat” but could serve in “support” roles.

So Mirav Mizrachi’s appearance here is not unheard of and certainly within the bounds of historical reality, so I figured, “why not get the band back together”? I may have others from the past come back.

Characters

  • 1LT Willaim MacGregor
  • CPT Mirav Mizrachi

Locations

  • 213th BN HQ, Boise, Idaho

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