Women head for war in record numbers

Sweat, mud and camouflage cream smeared across her face, her hair plastered to her forehead, Amanda Washbrook cut a bedraggled figure as she crawled on her belly through the nettles.

Weighed down by a drenched uniform, webbing pouches and sleep deprivation, she nevertheless sprang forward as she commanded her soldiers to attack the enemy position. Within seconds deafening gunfire erupted and the screams of casualties mingled with the stench of smoke grenades.

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Days earlier the 26-year-old had been enjoying a parallel universe far from the cacophony and mayhem of that soaked afternoon on military exercise. Clad in a pale cream suit, she had been punting down the river in Cambridge, headed for a champagne picnic - her own wedding reception.

But, while most brides might have opted to spend their honeymoon dining in Tuscany, Ms Washbrook had chosen boil in the bag rations, sleep deprivation, filth, pouring rain, bug bites, nettle stings and the indelicate attentions of a group of ferocious Sergeant Majors with foghorn voices - in other words, the Territorial Army officer commissioning course.

Once mocked as weekend warriors, TA soldiers – along with their Royal Navy and RAF counterparts - are increasingly being expected to serve in Afghanistan or Iraq. In the past year alone, eight reservists, including four special forces, have lost their lives in Helmand. Royal Marine reservist Lance Corporal Matthew Croucher, 24, was awarded the George Cross, the highest honour for gallantry alongside a Victoria Cross, for diving on a live grenade to save comrades in Helmand.

Yet a growing number of young women who hold down professional jobs are packing military manuals in their briefcases so they can study tactics on their commute into work and swapping leisurely weekends in the pub for a spot of combat camping.

In the past decade there has been a 40 per cent jump in the proportion of women training as TA officers alongside men, and they now represent a fifth of each annual intake. Perhaps most surprisingly the sharpest rise has been in the past three years – more than 17 per cent. Almost 18 per cent of the TA is female – double the proportion in the regular army.

Just two days after getting married, Ms Washbrook was standing nervously at the gates of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, an institution with two centuries of history and a fierce reputation for testing British Army officer cadets to their limits.

After two years of preparing for this moment, Ms Washbrook – or the new Mrs Scadden - was not going to miss the final three-week commissioning course that would decide whether she truly had the mettle to be judged a TA officer.

Pushing her filthy hair from her forehead last weekend, she managed an exhausted smile: "Everyone keeps saying ‘how's your honeymoon going?'"

Currently completing a MPhil in post apartheid South African literature, Ms Washbrook also runs her own fitness and personal development business.

"I honestly don't know why I joined. I thought I would have a crack and it turned out to be quite fun," said Ms Washbrook. "You meet people who don't want to go home and veg out in front of some vacuous reality TV show. You become more robust and resilient."

Those completing the TA commissioning course become probationary Second Lieutenants and are considered non-operational but their status changes upon completion of further training. Once commissioned, Ms Washbrook plans to learn Pashto at the Defence School of Languages, from where she will be expected to complete at least two tours in Afghanistan.

With the regular force now stretched to breaking point, 15,000 TA soldiers have served so far in Iraq or Afghanistan often supplementing under-manned regiments. In its centenary year, the TA - with a current strength of 36,790, down ten per cent since 2002 - is under review by the Ministry of Defence along with the RAF and Navy reserve services. The review will "consider the scope for greater integration into the Regular Forces".

"My life for the past two years has been work and the TA," explained engineer Lisa Bruton, 28, from Blaydon, Tyne and Wear, who has already served one tour in Iraq as a Corporal in The Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME). "I can be at work at 5am, finish and drive eight hours down to London for TA training. Head home on Sunday night, get four hours sleep and go to work Monday morning."

While the regular army commissioning course lasts 44 weeks, the TA do most of their training at regional centres around the country before completing the last three weeks at Sandhurst. For the past year, however, the regional centres have come under the control, and exacting standards, of the military college.

In a symbolic reflection of how the reservist training is being brought into line with the regulars, Ms Washbrook's intake who had their passing out parade in July were the first to receive the Duke of Westminster's Sword – a version of the Sword of Honour given to the best cadet on a regular course.

At Sandhurst, they come under the direction of a group of regular army officers and NCOs. Major Jason Gunning, the Royal Signals officer commanding the TA course, said: "The beauty is they are so motivated. They don't need to be cajoled. The few that fail, it is either through injury or because they have panicked."

Certainly there was no quarter given for their "civvy" status on exercise as they were expected to follow night time ambushes against Royal Gurkha Rifles soldiers with day time section attacks through the woods. Some conceded they were so exhausted that they had begun to hallucinate – one had imagined a Buddhist temple, another an ice-cream vendor among the trees. A few had been reduced to tears. But noone complained.

The women, often smaller than their male counterparts, are expected to lug the same heavy webbing along with their SA80 rifles and haul bergens (rucksacks) weighing as much as 35kg.

"I think it is tougher for us. We don't get any special treatment and we are physically carrying all of the stuff around. We are working twice as hard at times," said Anna Reed, 30, a Cambridge biological scientist.

By far the smallest on the latest course, Leanne Christmas, 26, a chartered accountant with Barclays, seemed undaunted. Her ripped combats taped up, she said: "I really want to go out (on operations). Otherwise there is no point in going through this hellish, rain soaked training."

Numbers for the TA officers' course, which peaked at 202 in 2002, fell off dramatically by 2005 to just 87 but have bounced back to 150 in 2007. An undoubted sign of how keen the military is to supplement its force with reservists, is the launch this year of the Defence Career Partnering scheme in conjunction with businesses such as BT. Sandhurst insists that TA training – and the core values of selfless commitment, courage, discipline, integrity, loyalty and respect for others – will provide the employers with better motivated staff. In return, the corporations will be prepared to release them for operational tours.

The exercise battle over, Ms Washbrook swayed on exhausted legs as she gave her debriefing, devastated that much of the attack she had commanded had gone awry. In the real world she would have had four dead soldiers on her hands.

"It was a disaster," she said with a dejected look, unaware that in the background her instructors had admired her skilful leadership, experienced enough to know that the errors made had not been her fault.

From a distance, Company Sergeant Major Matt Smith, of The Grenadier Guards, nodded his head in approval and proclaimed quietly: "That girl's done well."