Her Title: Cryptologic Technician. Her Occupation: Warrior.



Shannon Kent, shown during her first combat deployment in 2007 to Iraq, illustrated an unspoken truth: that for many years women have been doing military jobs as dangerous, secretive and specialized as anything men do.

By Richard A. Oppel Jr.
Feb. 8, 2019

Given who she really was, military officials had little choice in how they described Shannon Kent. They said only that she was a “cryptologic technician,” which anyone might assume meant that her most breakneck work was behind a desk. ... In reality, she spent much of her professional life wearing body armor and toting an M4 rifle, a Sig Sauer pistol strapped to her thigh, on operations with Navy SEALs and other elite forces — until a suicide bombing took her life last month in northeastern Syria. ... She was, in all but name, part of the military’s top-tier Special Operations forces. Officially a chief petty officer in the Navy, she actually worked closely with the nation’s most secretive intelligence outfit, the National Security Agency, to target leaders of the Islamic State.

The last few years have seen a profound shift in attitudes toward women in combat roles. Since 2016, combat jobs have been open to female service members, and they have been permitted to try out for Special Operations units. More than a dozen have completed the Army’s Ranger school, one of the most challenging in the military. Some have graduated from infantry officer courses, and even command combat units. And in November, a woman completed the Army’s grueling Special Forces Assessment and Selection course, the initial step to becoming a Green Beret.

Yet Chief Kent illustrates an unspoken truth: that for many years women have been doing military jobs as dangerous, secretive and specialized as anything men do. ... She would sometimes muse that conversation — even with people who had top security clearances — would be simpler if she could just join a Special Operations unit.
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More than 1,000 people attended Chief Kent’s memorial service on Friday at the United States Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis, Md., where she was posthumously promoted to senior chief petty officer and awarded five medals and citations. The awards described her Special Operations work and also said she had been the noncommissioned officer in charge at the N.S.A.’s operations directorate for four years.
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Even though she was considered cancer-free, the military’s rules blocked her from becoming a commissioned officer. But the rules still allowed her to deploy to the most hard-fought combat zones. ... She pressed her case with Congressional representatives, and her husband followed up with the Navy after her death. This week, the Navy modified its rules to make it easier for enlisted service members who wish to become officers to petition for medical waivers. ... “The Navy fixed everything that kind of screwed Shannon,” Mr. Kent said.