51-year-old mom holds her own during Basic Combat Training

At 9 o’clock this morning, Sgt. Sandra Coast will graduate from Basic Combat Training on Fort Leonard Wood, officially beginning her Army career — at 51 years old.

According to the U.S. Army Recruiting Command, the average age for an Army Reserve recruit is about 23, making Coast one of the oldest people to go through Basic Combat Training.

“Everybody in the world thinks I am a total nutcase,” Coast said. “I just want to support our troops. I love all of them.”

From 1982 to 1993, Coast devoted her life to the U.S. Navy. She gave up her lifestyle as a Sailor to raise her son, Jeff, who ironically led her back to the military she left behind years ago.

“When Jeff graduated high school, he joined the Marine Corps. When I was at the recruiter’s office with my son, I walked into the Army recruiting office and said ‘I want to join,’” Coast said.

For as long as she can remember she has had a special place in her heart for troops and a hunger to serve.

“I have a friend in the Navy that was emailing me from Afghanistan. It’s his third combat tour in seven years. I don’t know, I can’t explain it, I just had this overwhelming desire to give back to the military somehow. I was doing the same job day after day after day; I can’t live my life that way,” Coast said. “There is more to life than this, so I ended up in basic training.”

She was stunned to learn that as a paralegal specialist she would have to go back to basic training — this time, Army-style.

“I wasn’t quite expecting to be running around with a M16 and all of this gear,” Coast said. “This is nothing even remotely similar to being a Sailor. I was blown away by the total difference of it. We carried M16s during Navy Boot Camp, but we never shot them. Here we are shooting several times a week. Shooting this weapon with all of the gear on takes a toll on me.”

Coast started preparing for Basic Combat Training months prior to stepping foot on Fort Leonard Wood.

“Before the recruiters would even talk to me I had to lose 30 pounds. I went from sitting at home every night eating ice cream to exercising and watching what I ate. I also started getting up at 4 o’clock in the morning to exercise and tried to go to bed early at night. I knew I needed every advantage I could have to get through this,” Coast said.

Her 10-week journey from civilian to Soldier was spent in Company B, 2nd Battalion, 10th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Chemical Brigade. Her first sergeant said when he first heard he had a 51-year-old headed his way he was perplexed, “Wow, that’s strange,” he said. Now, 1st Sgt. John Byars has a new perception of his elders.

“I was impressed because she can do everything the younger Soldiers do,” Byars said. “She never expected us to feel sorry for her. She even got one of the highest Army Physical Fitness Test scores in the company. She is a prime example that age is just a number. She ran faster than Soldiers young enough to be her kids.”

“I am still kind of blown away by that. I even ran faster than all but one female,” Coast said.

The APFT may have been a breeze for Coast, but she said one of the hardest things for her to adjust to was the divide in life stages between her and her fellow roommates.

“Everything about basic training is pretty tough, but living with more than 30 teenage females is one of the hardest things,” Coast said.

Despite the age gap, 1st Sgt. Byars said Coast was treated just like every other Soldier-in-training.

“We don’t treat her any different, and we don’t see the privates treat her any different,” Byars said.

Coast agreed. “They treat me as an equal. The males especially have the utmost respect. They will do little things that they probably aren’t suppose to do, like give me their seat on the bus and hold the doors for me. It’s the little things that mean so much,” she said.

Although, Coast recalls an instance during hand-to-hand combat training that was particularly tough for one of her battle buddies.

“We had to slap each other in the face. The poor guy that was up against me said ‘I cannot do this, I cannot slap her.’ I told him I would pay for his counseling when we were done. I was slapping him — he finally slapped me,” Coast said.

The thing Coast is looking forward to the most today is wrapping her arms around her son.

“I am thrilled to wear the title of sergeant in the U.S. Army, but the title that is also very near and dear to my heart is Marine mom. You can’t beat that. I feel totally blessed,” Coast said.

Pfc. Jeff Coast didn’t think his mother was serious when she expressed interest in joining the Army, but recently he started seeing a side of her that was new to him.

“She is doing what most people her age would consider crazy,” Jeff said. “I think she is hardcore. I hope when I get older I am still active and do all kinds of cool stuff.”

Sgt. Sandra Coast feels like she made it through boot camp because of the support family, friends and even outsiders expressed to her.

“It blows my mind that I am able to accomplish this. I couldn’t have done it without the support of my Marine mom friends. I get more mail from them than anybody. That support keeps me going. They are constantly cheering me on. Even random people around here will tell me they are cheering for me. At the dining facility the workers walk up and tell me they are cheering for me,” Coast said. “I cry pretty much every day. Not a lot because it’s not an Army thing to do I know, but it’s mind boggling to me how supportive strangers can be.”

She is delighted to be at the end of her boot camp adventure, and thankful for all of the new experiences she had.

“This has been very challenging. It makes me realize that I can do all of this. I got to do some really fun things. After the repelling tower, I decided to start rock climbing when I get out of basic training,” Coast said.

Coast is also looking forward to her life in the Army Reserve. She said she enlisted hoping to work directly with active duty troops, but instead was attached to a reserve unit. On the plus side she will be able to work near her son’s reserve unit.

“I wanted to go active duty, but they are not taking people as old as me for active duty. So, I got attached to a virtual unit. Everything I do will be by the internet and phone,” Coast said.

Being in Army Basic Combat Training left Coast with a new respect for combat Soldiers — and a new respect for herself.

“Their gear is heavy and they are doing this constantly. We have some really awesome troops out there,” Coast said. “I am 51-years-old, and I can do this.”

If she did better than most of the young men on the test—and they passed—then she did meet the same standard as the young men.

Have the standards in general been changed in order to make more women pass? I suspect so and I suspect this is not a good thing. If the only upper-body strength test was pushups, it is easy to see how that would enable more women to pass.

It appears to me the basic army boot camp standards aren’t that high, and she was appropriately routed off to an appropriate role anyway—reservist paralegal.

But for anything approaching combat, I don’t see why either age or sex should factor into the physical fitness standards at all: you are either sufficiently fit and strong or you aren’t.

So that’s your answer to information that doesn’t match your view of the world? It must just not be so?

I’m for high, common standards for men and women of any age in any situation for which physical strength may be called for. Clearly the vast majority of women don’t have the upper body strength of reasonably fit men.

But I don’t see the reason to deny simply stated circumstances for a story that does nothing to undermine my position.

78 posted on Sunday, February 19, 2012 2:20:40 AM by beaversmom: “What's a virtual unit.”

I can't speak for her situation; I don't know. Enough people have asked that I probably should find out.

What I do know is the military is encouraging “work from a remote office location” or even “work from home” situations that make it possible for people to do certain jobs without moving to high-cost areas like the Pentagon or various headquarters locations. It's a win-win for the budget and for people who don't want to move to major urban areas.

I have no idea how that works out with uniformed personnel as opposed to civilian DOD employees and contractors. I don't know if this means she comes to her reserve unit a certain number of days per month and does paralegal work on the office computers, or if it means something different. I don't want to speculate without facts in front of me.

On the broader issue: This article is talking about a woman serving as a paralegal, and given the training she'll need in case her unit gets deployed. It's not talking about women being deliberately put in combat units.

Having women in the military really is a settled issue and has been by act of Congress since the 1940s, expanding emergency measures taken during World War II to recruit women and making them permanent. We can debate how and where women should serve, and what MOSes should be open to women, but the issue of whether women can serve in uniform got settled long before most of us were ever born. If you don't like that, you are welcome to take it up with your Congressman, but I think he or she will in many cases give you a very strange look for trying to overturn things that have been settled law since before the Korean War.

The discussion ought to be on keeping women out of roles they cannot perform without risking the survival of their fellow servicemembers, not whether they can wear the uniform at all.

Thanks to you both for your notes.

@ Fr-Freak: We're in agreement about the rise of political correctness in the military. I'm not going to give examples in public that could come back to bite me or hurt the careers of colonels and generals, but I've heard enough things with my own ears to leave no doubt about the truth of what you said. Sometimes I wonder if generals are thinking when they make certain comments in front of reporters with tape recorders running.

For me, it boils down to this: not every job in the modern military needs upper body strength, and not every woman in the modern world is a shrinking violet.

In an all-volunteer force for which a significant majority of American males do not meet the qualifications to serve, I have no problem with letting women who do meet the qualifications put on the uniform for some duties.

I think it's best to leave it to the senior enlisted personnel, and to the generals who typically pay a lot of attention to E8 and E9 personnel on that subject, to decide how to design the tests to make sure we don't put people, whether male or female, in positions where they cannot perform as needed.

It's not that women can't fight and kill it's that we should be too decent as a society to send our women to be raped and tortured by the enemy when we haven't even been invaded. It's reprehensible to send women into the combat zone and it defeats the purpose we're fighting for.

The Godless Obamunists insist that they just have to send women into combat or we won't have enough troops to do the job, even as they plan to cut our military by over fifty percent.

For me, it boils down to this: not every job in the modern military needs upper body strength, and not every woman in the modern world is a shrinking violet.

Difference in upper body strength is only one of many differences between men and women. There are physical differences, there are biological differences, and there are psychological differences. Upper-body strength is the least of our concerns. The fact is that men's bodies and minds are optimized for combat. Women are not. Of course, women are capable of combat, but they will never be as good as men. Adding women to men's combat units will drag the men down. Women who go against men in any serious combat, armed or unarmed, will die.

Anyone who has spent time in a combat zone knows the stress associated with it. It is not just a 10 minute or even 12 hour battle, it is days, weeks, or even months of preparing, digging foxholes, prepping weapons, sitting in forward positions waiting for the hell to begin. And then once the hell begins, you do not sleep, you do not rest, you do not relax. You spend endless hours in the mud, the dirt, the heat or the cold, not knowing whether you'll ever go home, not knowing what end you'll face, and all the while knowing that the one who must keep you alive is YOU. And beyond that, you must keep your fellow soldiers/marines alive. That level of stress, that sort of psychology, where you just might throw yourself on a grenade to save the lives of the few guys next to you, requires a mentality, a world view that is particular to men and that can be accomplished by men. Denying this is to live in a fantasy land. Very few who have lived through this type of thing live in the fantasy land. However, increasingly more of those who have never experienced it do live in this fantasy land, and then they convince themselves that they are qualified to make policy.

She OUTSCORED them only. The scores are weighted by age and sex. So a 51 yr. old female has to do far fewer pushups and situps and get a lot more time on the run to get the same score. Good on her for being in decent shape for her age. But she never really did “better” than her peers.

I hate this sort of PC propaganda. Her story is actually pretty compelling, returning to service after raising her son. It’s very commendable, IMO. But by pretending that she outperformed the other recruits is stupid, it demeans her, and it really demeans her fellow soldiers.

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