Posted on 02/06/2013 3:46:10 AM PST by Kaslin
A senior Defense Department official said the ban on women in combat should be lifted because the military's goal is "to provide a level, gender-neutral playing field." I'd like to think the goal of the military should be to have the toughest, meanest fighting force possible. But let's look at "gender-neutral playing field."
The Army's physical fitness test in basic training is a three-event physical performance test used to assess endurance. The minimum requirement for 17- to 21-year-old males is 35 pushups, 47 situps and a two-mile run in 16 minutes, 36 seconds or less. For females of the same age, the minimum requirement is 13 pushups, 47 situps and a 19:42 two-mile run. Why the difference in fitness requirements? "USMC Women in the Service Restrictions Review" found that women, on average, have 20 percent lower aerobic power, 40 percent lower muscle strength, 47 percent less lifting strength and 26 percent slower marching speed than men.
William Gregor, professor of social sciences at the Army's Command and General Staff College, reports that in tests of aerobic capacity, the records show, only 74 of 8,385 Reserve Officers' Training Corps women attained the level of the lowest 16 percent of men. The "fight load" -- the gear an infantryman carries on patrol -- is 35 percent of the average man's body weight but 50 percent of the average Army woman's weight. In his examination of physical fitness test results from the ROTC, dating back to 1992, and 74,000 records of male and female commissioned officers, only 2.9 percent of women were able to attain the men's average pushup ability and time in the two-mile run.
In a January report titled "Defense Department 'Diversity' Push for Women in Land Combat" Elaine Donnelly, director of the Center for Military Readiness, points to U.S. Army studies showing that women are twice as likely to suffer injuries and are three times more undeployable than men. Women are less likely to be able to march under load -- 12.4 miles in five hours with an 83-pound assault load -- and to be able to crawl, sprint, negotiate obstacles with that load or move a casualty weighing 165 pounds or more while carrying that load. Plus, there are muscle-challenging feats, even for men, such as field repairs on an M1A1 Abrams tank.
Then there's the pregnancy issue, which makes women three to four times as likely as men to be undeployable. And once deployed, they often have to be medically evacuated, leaving units understrength. Finally, there's another difference between men and women rarely considered in deliberation about whether women should be in combat. All measures of physical aggressiveness show that men, maybe because of testosterone levels 10 times higher, are more aggressive, competitive and hostile than women. Those attributes are desirable for combat.
Here are a couple of what-if questions. Suppose a combat unit is retreating in mountainous terrain in Afghanistan, where a person's aerobic capacity really makes a difference, and the women in the unit can't keep up with the men. What would you propose, leaving the women behind to possibly be captured by the Taliban or having the unit slow down so the women can keep up, thereby risking causalities or capture? What if a male soldier is washed out of the Army's Advanced Infantry Training program because he cannot pass its physical fitness test whereas a female soldier who can't perform at his level is retained? Should male soldiers be able to bring suit and be awarded damages for sex discrimination? How much respect can a male soldier have for his female counterpart, who is held to lower performance standards?
There's another issue. The Selective Service System's website has the following message about draft registration: "Even though the Secretary of Defense has decided to allow women in combat jobs, the law has not been changed to include this. Consequently, only men are currently required to register by law with Selective Service during ages 18 thru 25. Women still do not register." How can that, coupled with differences in performance standards, possibly be consistent with the Defense Department's stated agenda "to provide a level, gender-neutral playing field"?
I've always wondered why the N.A.Gs (National Association of Gals) never demanded equal rights in enrollment into Selective Service? I mean, if they truly want equality, they should have been demanding to be included in the draft registration for years.
Women in combat isn't about women in combat. It's about women officers commanding combat units so they can get the extra points towards promotion, ultimately to the General officer level.
I find the notion that the US Military is a “playing field” to be extremely disturbing...
I believe that every woman who want’s to be equal to a man must spend 4 years as a “roughneck” on a drilling rig prior to joining the military. That will give them the needed physical “bulking up” to even attempt to exhibit their manly traits and physical equality to men.
I don’t have a problem with women taking up their 2A arms in the defense of restoring a legal and Constitutional America from Enemies foreign and domestic.
The whole thing is just a diversionary ploy by Obama, his skeet pics being the latest smokescreen.
His dictatorship lives to create division, to create smokescreens, to use one hand to get attention while the other is stealing your wallet.
Personally this situation will just have to be endured until America finds some way to get the stagehook upon this clown.
If we assume that all of the info in the article is factual, it would seem that placing women in combat units is an insane thing to do ,and something that will get a lot of people killed.
Political correctness carried to insanity.
1. Sexuality. Despite the Left's drive to ignore the aspects of this fact of life, we are pushing young men and women together into intimate proximity already in the services but it becomes a whole new issue in combat. As it used to be, you had units of men in isolated, miserable and highly stressed situations all suffering together. We developed a cohesion based on mutual deprivation and trust and we did our best for each other. Introducing some women means that some lucky individuals will have functioning relationships and they will focus on each other and inevitably to the exclusion of the others. The rest of the unit without relationships will resent those that do. Friction within the unit will damage cohesion and these rivalries will damage their combat effectiveness. Damaging combat effectiveness could mean that more people die than would normally be necessary.
2. Women usually can't keep up, as the article implies - the clusters of stragglers in most unit runs are mostly made up of women - because each infantry or other combat unit relies on each member of the team doing their jobs as integral parts of the unit, fire team members or squad members who can't keep up/do their job degrades the unit's performance. Therefore, more dead/wounded and greater chance of losing the fight.
3. Combat has not changed. We have had a couple of light counterinsurgency fights over the last decade that give the impression that wars are fought in vehicles and outposts but these are anomalies: most combat is of the high intensity maneuver variety and requires sustained exertion and continuous brutality. If you examine Tarawa, Hue City, or vignettes like the Battle of Fallujah and you get the picture. War has not really changed, we just conveniently think that it's changed - like a video game or something. Imagine how intense and vicious the fighting will be if we have to engage Iran or China sometime in the future.
These plans always come from people with no direct experience in combat - and always from people who won't be risking their own children. No, today's "decision makers" always risk somebody else's children with their social experiments.
Pregnancies won’t be as big an issue as in the past.....they’re going to be majorally a faggot/dyke force..... AIDS will be a bigger threat than pregnancy.
Our air fleet is geriatic. Drones can't see underground or underwater.
Generals are always fighting the last war especially if they won it (not sure if we won Afghanistan or Iraq) The next war may not be insurgent. We may have to go against someone who will fight back with modern weaponry.
This has NOTHING to do with “equality” or “equal opportunity”.
This is about destroying America and it’s infrastructure.
Tearing it down, brick by brick.
Equal opportunity would apply to officers more so than enlisted. The enlisted women I know want no part of combat. The officer ranks are a different story. They are more into getting promoted and being a woman with no combat experience can be a hindrance in the Army or Marines.
In the Air Force women can attain high ranks without any combat. It used to be aircrew in the AF would get all the rank. Aircrew who flew fighters and bombers saw combat so they had a higher rate of promotion. It is still like that. No one really cries about it because aircrew face danger and deserve the extra promotion points.
The Democrats consider the military to be "meals on wheels" and world policemen. That is consistent with the new world order desired by communists, socialists, and Democrats. What suffers is combat readiness because too much is spent on social experiments, retrofitting ships to accommodate women, and deliberately insulting God.
You will see nothing related to the cost of taking care of pregnant women in the military, or the cost of accommodating women in formerly men only operations. I would guess that our military is only 60% of what it was before women and gays were brought into where they do not belong.
Being able to win is less important to Democrats in my opinion. Democrats value their warped and twisted view of a "Utopian" world where people are happy giving according to their ability and receiving according to their needs as determined by a centralized government.
They want to keep the infrastructure that we built.
That’s how I see it...this is yet another diversion (i.e. my photo above) to distract and pair off people that otherwise would not even consider this a topic of discussion...
This is to cause more division among troops and veterans...
Females I served with that were MP’s did what was expected of them - but to go after the 11B MOS - none of them wanted it nor would they have sought it out...
Liberals know this is going to strike a cord - while the time wasted in discussion - they further their plans elsewhere....
Kinda like the current ACU that is about to be replaced AGAIN with a newer digi-camo...and as an officer who just purchased new uniforms - these will last until the end of the year - until the NEWER ones come out...wasteful in time and money - just like thinking that the 11B will open up and females will run in and join - and PASS...doubt it...but as you have stated - it’s one more traditional platform they want to destroy!
“They want to keep the infrastructure that we built.”
You’re kidding, right?
Energy production,
Public Education,
Obamacare,
Farming,
Defense Industry,
Banking,
etc...
My only comment concerning sending women in combat is no culture, or Nation, or Empire in history that has sent its women into combatwhile its men stayed home has survived. We, as a Nation, wish to demonestrate that.
I agree 100%. All diversion, all the time...as Obama does his real dirty work.
What convinced me was his releasing that ridiculous DON’T YOU DARE PHOTOSHOP THIS pic of his skeet shooting.
We are in big trouble.
Yes.
That I can still meet the current “standards” as I turn 60 this year, is less a tribute to me, than a condemnation of the erosion of “standards”.
Good for you brother! Yes - I’m once again training for the APFT — got away from it - no excuses — once a warrior - always a warrior - therefore training never stops...
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