FORT SILL, Okla. — Should Alisha Stone of Sequim be called into combat in a war zone, she said she will be ready and eager to fight.
Stone, 19, a 2014 Sequim High School graduate whose maiden name is Hagberg, is the second woman from Washington to train for an artillery role in the U.S. Army — a combat role only recently made available to women.
In December 2015, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced his decision that all combat roles be open to women in all branches of the military beginning this year.
“Honestly I think it would be exciting” to participate in military operations in a combat zone, Stone said recently over the phone from Fort Sill, Okla.
Stone, daughter of Eric and Tracy Hagberg of Sequim, graduated from Army basic training March 23 and currently is training with 1st Battalion, 78th Field Artillery at Fort Sill.
She is slated to complete training later this month.
‘An experience’
Going into combat “definitely would be an experience,” Stone said.
“I probably would like it a lot. When you go overseas you get to shoot a lot more, and as far as my job — we are not close to the enemy at all. Our cannons shoot extremely far.”
The explosive side is what convinced Stone to join up in the first place, she said.
“I showed up to the recruiter, and I said I don’t want a basic desk job in the military,” she said. “I want to blow stuff up.”
The recruiter replied that he had the “perfect job” for her in artillery, Stone said, and asked if she wanted to shoot cannons.
Stone didn’t give it a second thought.
“Shooting cannons for a living?” she said. “No one gets to do that.”
2nd woman from state
Stone is the second woman from Washington training for artillery, according to Jeff Crawley, Fort Sill public affairs officer.
“We can verify that she is one of two female soldiers in the current 13-bravo — class 13-b — which is military occupational specialty cannon crew member,” Crawley said.
“There is another soldier in the class, her name is Tianna Langdon. She is from Washington state. They will be graduating May 13.”
Langdon, 19, of Sedro-Woolley, is the first woman in Washington to enlist in the Army as a cannon crew member, and the second woman from the state to enlist in a combat position, according to the Skagit Valley Herald.
The other woman — McKenzie Griffin of Deer Park — chose a career as a combat engineer, according to the Spokesman-Review.
Mutual respect
The men in Stone’s unit have been respectful and supportive of the women training with them, Stone said.
The men “are testing everything out with us, and it is kind of cool — setting the standard for all the women that are in the next platoon behind us,” she said.
“We get to standardize everything for them. It is kind of cool being a leader and showing them how it is supposed to be done because we have to do our own trial and error. We don’t have to do a trial and error based on other people.”
When Stone could not pass a physical endurance test in which she was tasked with loading and unloading a predetermined number of 100-pound artillery shells within 15 minutes from the back of a truck, her comrades encouraged her to do better, she said.
“When I first did the test — you get multiple tries at the test — I failed epically” and “was very upset with myself,” she said.
“My sergeants were very supportive. They took me to the gym every day and they had me lift the 100-pound rounds up four flights of stairs and then come back down and tell me to do it again a million times.”
By her second test, Stone “got the second fastest time,” she said.
“There was only one girl who had a faster time than me, and so I put in a lot of work and it was really cool seeing this big change. I couldn’t even complete all of it the first time I did it.”
Pulling the trigger
Starting last week, Stone said she began actually firing her artillery piece — an M119-A3 Howitzer that uses 105 mm ammunition.
“I am really excited, especially because I am the gunner for my weapon,” she said.
“Basically I put the coordinates in where we are going to shoot and I pull the trigger. I am really excited I get to actually pull the trigger.”
The hardest part is memorizing all the fuses, which control when the shell will explode, she said.
Back home in Sequim, Stone’s mother, Tracy, is proud of her daughter — a middle child with one older and one younger sister — but astounded she chose to enlist.
“It was definitely a shock,” Tracy said.
“If anybody would have asked me what daughter of yours is going to sign up and go to the military, I never would have picked her, not in a million years. It was totally out of left field.”
As a parent, Tracy will worry should her daughter enter combat, but stands by Stone’s decision, she said.
“Of course, you are always concerned about your child’s safety,” she said.
“I would have wished she had signed up as the head potato peeler, but I think that you just have to embrace their decisions moving forward. I think this really is a great avenue for her and will do a lot for her future in opening up doors.”
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Reporter Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56650, or cmcdaniel@peninsuladailynews.com.
