“I came into armor, into combat arms, because I wanted a challenge, and it’s definitely been one. It’s a very physically demanding job, but to anyone that’s interested in joining, it’s exciting. It’s a thrill.”
— Cpl. Amanda Harding
By Sgt. Liane Hatch
3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team Public Affairs Office, 4th Infantry Division
FORT CARSON, Colo. — Cpl. Amanda Harding nears the finish line of a 6-mile ruck march at Camp Buehring, Kuwait, in July 2019, as part of the 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Soldier of the Quarter Board when Harding was a specialist. Developing and testing her Soldier skills is important to Harding, who joined the Army in 2018 in search of a challenge. (Photo by Sgt. Liane Hatch)
FORT CARSON, Colo. — When then Spc. Amanda Harding arrived at Fort Carson in late 2018, she was a brand-new Soldier, fresh out of Advanced Individual Training, ready and eager to report to her first unit. Months earlier, from a recruiting station in her hometown of Eugene, Oregon, an Army recruiter had asked her, “Are you sure? Are you ready?”
It wasn’t that the recruiter doubted Harding; he just hadn’t seen it done before.
“We don’t get a lot of tankers,” she recalled him saying. “Let alone females.”
Though the Army opened combat arms roles to women in 2015, a slow, deliberate rollout meant that by the time Harding enlisted in 2018, many formerly male-only military occupational specialties still hadn’t seen female Soldiers among the ranks.
But Harding was indeed ready. She reached her first unit: the 1st Battalion, 68th Armor Regiment, 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, as one of the first few enlisted female tank crewmen to join the ranks of the “Ivy” Division.
Now a corporal who’s currently attending the Basic Leader Course in hopes of soon becoming a sergeant, Harding said the past year of her career has been a time of tremendous growth, and her leadership agreed.
When she first came to her platoon as a specialist (thanks to her degree in criminal justice), Harding’s leadership assigned her to a tank crew and taught her the responsibilities of an M1A2 Abrams driver. Then, before she knew it, she was on a plane, bound for Kuwait for her first deployment.
Harding spent that deployment developing her skills as a driver and learning exactly what it meant to be a tanker. During the nine-month deployment, the battalion conducted two tank crew qualifications, or “gunneries” and a multinational training exercise in Jordan called “Eager Lion.”
A few months after the brigade returned stateside, the battalion began reconstructing crews to accommodate for changes in personnel, and Harding, after only approximately a year in 1st Bn., 68th Armor Reg., 3rd ABCT, was thrust into the role of gunner.
“It’s always challenging to learn a new job, and when Harding took over, she only had a few months to (prepare) and get ready for gunnery,” said 1st Lt. Alfred Girardot, Harding’s platoon leader. “As a gunner she’s had to learn how to instruct her peers, so it’s two new, different roles she’s had to step into. Watching her learn the gunner’s role, how to control the turret, how to work with her (tank commander), and accomplish that all in a short time frame? She’s done really well.
Cpl. Amanda Harding
So well, in fact, that Harding’s crew were the top performers in the platoon during tank crew qualifications this past fall, Girardot said. Out of 1,000 points, her crew shot 898 — just two points shy of earning a “distinguished” qualification.
“Definitely our crew was the main reason for our success at gunnery,” Harding said. “We all knew our part and what roles we had to play to go to gunnery, and we did good. My biggest takeaway from gunnery and the live fire … was how to work on the tank and maintain your area in the tank. So that when faults pop up, whether you’re on the range or off the range, you learn what to do. A lot of times I didn’t know what was going on, so we talked through it as a crew and got it done. We learned a lot about maintenance, how to deal with one another under pressure.”
Staff Sgt. Kevonta Cropper, Harding’s tank commander, predicted that the camaraderie and teamwork the crew developed over the past few months will serve them well at the brigade’s upcoming rotation at the National Training Center (NTC), in Fort Irwin, California.
“If we’re not able to communicate as a crew and then as a platoon, it becomes very dangerous — very unsafe,” Cropper said. “Our ability to communicate with each other in the moment, our will, and our drive — that’s what’s really contributed to our success as a crew.”
In the short term, Harding is eager to continue to gain experience as the brigade prepares for NTC.
“I’ve never been to NTC, so I’m excited to get my first experience with it,” she said. “I’ve heard there’s some really great training opportunities out there, and I’m just excited to send more bullets down range. There’s nothing like it.”
And in the long term, while Harding is happy as a tanker, she’s looking to expand her horizons, and plans to apply for a slot to attend Officer Candidate School.
“If they keep me in Armor for that, that would be awesome because I already know the field, but if not, I know I’ll be able to start a new job and learn somewhere else,” she said.
All in all, Harding said that so far, being an armor Soldier has certainly met her expectations.
“I came into armor, into combat arms, because I wanted a challenge, and it’s definitely been one,” she said. “It’s a very physically demanding job, but to anyone that’s interested in joining, it’s exciting. It’s a thrill. And yeah, you may be doing maintenance for a month straight, but when you get to go to the field and send live rounds downrange, it’s fun. There’s nothing like it.”