Posted on 10/11/2017 6:21:44 PM PDT by markomalley
The Army will expand the number of installations where it assigns female soldiers serving in previously all-male, front-line combat jobs as more women enter the infantry and armor fields, a top general said Wednesday.
To date, more than 500 female soldiers have completed training to serve in infantry and armor jobs that only became opened to them in December 2015 when the Pentagon eliminated rules barring women from serving in certain military jobs, Lt. Gen. Thomas C. Seamands, the Army’s chief of personnel, said during the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual meeting in Washington.
“These are citizens who a few years ago would not have had the opportunity to be infantry or armor soldiers, and they are now doing it and doing it quite well [and] with distinction,” he said.
So far, the Army has assigned about 100 of those female soldiers to units at two posts — Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Fort Hood in Texas. Women are serving in infantry and armor units within Fort Bragg’s 2nd and 3rd Brigade Combat Teams in the 82nd Airborne Division and in Fort Hood’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division and 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment.
The other roughly 400 soldiers in those fields are now in various training programs while they await assignments to combat units.
But as more women enter the previously closed fields, the Army will need to expand the number of installations where it assigns female infantry and armor soldiers, said Lt. Col. Naomi Mercer, the Army’s chief of command policy who is helping develop the gender-integration process for the service.
The Army said last month that it had an additional 184 women attempting to join the infantry and another 125 attempting to serve in armor jobs.
The expansion of posts with female infantry and armor soldiers could come within the next year, Mercer said.
She declined to identify which Army installations were being considered, but she said female infantry and armor soldiers would likely begin their careers at larger posts with multiple combat units.
Fort Hood and Fort Bragg were chosen because they are large installations with extensive resources for soldiers serving in combat arms fields, Mercer said.
“The consideration is based on the opportunities for the [soldiers] who go there,” she said. “The reason that we picked Fort Bragg and Fort Hood in the first place is that those are armor and infantry hubs.”
Just as the Army has done at Fort Hood and Fort Bragg, it will place at least two female officers or noncommissioned officers in a unit before it moves junior enlisted soldiers —in the rank of specialist or below — into those units.
The Army calls that structure a leaders-first approach to integrating women into fields that were traditionally all male. Mercer said the structure has been effective so far and the leaders are paving the way for new soldiers just out of initial entrance training programs to move into the combat force.
“We’ve been preparing for this since 2012 and it has proven it works,” she said. “Everybody is filtering in. It just takes time.”
Can lady troops use the Family & Medical Leave act? In my office it made things tough when they had the baby, dropped it off at the grandparents then toured Europe or played house mother for three months while the rest of us picked up their slack.
That’s another `rat legacy *Clinton that should be ****canned.
We can avoid the chivalry problem to some degree by having all female combat battalions.
Probably wearing pink helmets.
What has been the real world experience during this decade plus of "colonial" war?
Here is the critical question that these PC bozos are not asking:
“How does having women in combat increase our ability to kill people and break things?”
Watch “Band of Brothers” or “the Pacific” and then ask yourself if women can be combat infantry soldiers.
You are absolutely right, and I do believe they were called WASPs. I am a bit of a history buff and now feel like I have to look this up. :)
As an aside, my Dad wanted to fight in Korea, but he had just taken the bar exam for law and his blood pressure was too high, so he was rejected. :)
Take care, FRiend. :) Julie
I hasten to point out that none of the women you alluded to served in combat or in combat vessels!
Women in ships was one of, if not THE, biggest mistakes the USN has made since WW II!
There are a whole host of reasons for my saying that, not the least is the sex at sea reason!
I am of two minds on this.
Women serve well in the Israeli Army. They service in combat.
Many, many years ago, women served alongside my husband in the MP’s and did outstanding.
I believe if they are treated as soldiers rather than women soldiers, they can serve and succeed. The problem arises when the military expects one thing and then accepts another.
Currently, women expect special treatment and men expect to be able to take advantage of women soldiers without consequence.
After WWII, the Democrat Party (or the Comintern which runs the Democrat Party) decided that America would never win another war.
The best we can hope for is a draw, to be continued later.
That might work! I am sure those pink kitten hats will come in handy! ;)
When wars/military actions start female soldier pregnancies skyrocket.
Just watch “Cops” when a woman police officer has a confrontation with a perp. I’ve never seen one time that the woman officer could handle a male perp that is out of control! Just ridiculous!
Women can’t do the job. There isn’t one that I couldn’t take out hand to hand, and I’m way past my “sell-by date”. Feminism is a lie, and it kills. We need to stop the “if they can do the job” blather. Women are as unfit for being infantrymen as they as for being NFL D-linemen. We don’t need “studies” to know these things.
That is true. I am a big fan of NCIS and loved Ziva (I think that was her name). They can be pretty tough.
And they have certain skills...think Mata Hari. ;)
That is rather ingrained into us, so it had occurred to me as well.
Can’t they train that out men?
Seems to me it adds a dynamic that wouldn’t be a plus for sure.
Thanks.
I like your test. That should serve to weed out some of this stuff.
>Women serve well in the Israeli Army. They service in combat.
They served so well that Israel lost their last ground war against Hezbola in 2006. That’s the only actual war to employ female grounds units in large numbers.
You will find out why the military is considering women for combat positions.
We simply cannot recruit enough fit 18-20 year olds to fight a war.
I have sat in many briefings about this exact subject. It's not necessarily that they want women in these positions, its the inability to recruit and retain qualified males.
I am 100% conservative, Until we double military pay, we aren't going to get the quality people we need.
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