The Truth About Women in Combat (Cultural Support Team)| Stephanie Rotolo

Stephanie Rotolo joins us to talk about her path from Mortuary Affairs and MP work to joining the Cultural Support Team program and deploying to Afghanistan with Special Operations Forces. She breaks down CST selection, working with Afghan female tactical platoons, going out on missions with ODAs, and how those experiences shaped her later work in Civil Affairs across West Africa.
Find Stephanie here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-r-d-rotolo-1b01641a6?trk=public_post_feed-actor-name
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"Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio"
00:00Start
01:43Stephanie’s origin story and path to the Army
07:20Mortuary Affairs and working at Dover
12:53ROTC, commissioning, and becoming an MP
17:04MP life in Germany and barracks chaos
25:31Discovering the Cultural Support Team program
28:14CST selection and Ranger-led training
33:08Cultural training and preparing for Afghanistan
38:11Training Afghanistan’s Female Tactical Platoon
48:00Operations with ODAs, Rangers, and JSOC
58:00Coming home, reintegration, and CST program gaps
1:04:36Smokey the deployment dog
1:12:10Switching to Civil Affairs and language school
1:15:18West Africa missions in Senegal and Benin
1:26:30Naples, the reserves, Altru, and final reflections


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