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Army looking to add female infantry, armor soldiers to new posts
Stars & Stripes ^ | 10/11/17 | Corey Dickstein

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.”


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government
KEYWORDS: antifags; antisocial; feminazis; spoiled
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To: Maine Mariner

“Women served with distinction in WWII, women pilots ferried planes everywhere, WASP’s I they were called.”

The only women I know serving in combat zones in WWII were nurses, and they weren’t engaged in combat.

“There are many women serving as deck officers and marine engineers on merchant ships chartered to the navy.”

There is a big difference between merchant ships and Navy warships.

Historically and culturally we the USA have not required or desired that women be engaged in actual combat. It is against every principle we subscribe to.


81 posted on 10/12/2017 12:21:29 AM PDT by wita (Always and forever, under oath in defense of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.)
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To: sargon

>I don’t think there’s anyone out there who can deny that there were some Russian women who were extremely effective as snipers during WW II. Some of them, such as Lyudmila Pavlichenko (”Lady Death”) were as deadly as they come.

I can. Only idiots believe Soviet propaganda. The fact that they never used female snipers again indicates it was a lie.


82 posted on 10/12/2017 12:28:05 AM PDT by RedWulf
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To: sargon

The Russians stopped training new women snipers in 1943 because the women snipers were being killed at a higher rate than the men snipers. Women already assigned as snipers continued in that roll until the end of the war.


83 posted on 10/12/2017 1:40:03 AM PDT by Bull Snipe
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To: DoughtyOne

Women should not be in the military. That is all you need to know. Either should faggots and weirdos.


84 posted on 10/12/2017 1:47:57 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: RedWulf

It wasn’t a lie. They did use women snipers, they also used women in tank crews, artillery crews, infantry unit medics, infantry unit radio operators, they used them as fighter and bomber pilots and crew members. The fact that they did not use them after WWII shows how desperate the Reds were during the War. After the war ended and the Red army demobilized, there was enough manpower to meet the military needs of the post war Soviet Army, so women were no longer assigned to these rolls.


85 posted on 10/12/2017 1:50:45 AM PDT by Bull Snipe
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To: T-Bone Texan

Winning what ... ?


86 posted on 10/12/2017 1:51:56 AM PDT by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now it is your turn ...)
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To: Molon Labbie

Forced marches only happen if all the women agree, and only for 25 yards or 25 feet - depending on mood and attention spans of those females involved.


87 posted on 10/12/2017 1:53:57 AM PDT by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now it is your turn ...)
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To: Bull Snipe

The Soviet Union had women in the military before ww2 as well. They were an advanced Marxist/feminist nation after all. The women made good propganda copy but were disbanded in 1944 when it became clear they were more of a liability than an asset. The Marxist propaganda on the subject continues to live on spread both by Marxists and their useful dupes.


88 posted on 10/12/2017 2:35:39 AM PDT by RedWulf
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To: RedWulf

REMF: Lieutenant General Thomas C. Seamands is the product of an Army Family. He earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Management from the University of Dayton and was commissioned through the ROTC program into the Adjutant General’s Corps. He is a graduate of the AG Officer Basic Course, AG Officer Advanced Course, and the Army Command and General Staff College. He attained a Master of Science Degree in Management from Webster University, was the Army’s Leadership and Management Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and a Fellow at MIT’s Seminar XXI: Foreign Politics, International Relations and the National Interest. Lieutenant General Seamands assumed his current assignment as the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-1, United States Army, Washington, DC in May 2017.


89 posted on 10/12/2017 5:48:07 AM PDT by Bookshelf
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To: FreedomPoster

Or read about the Marines at Hue in 1968. No place for a 100 lb grunt.


90 posted on 10/12/2017 7:16:40 AM PDT by Oldexpat
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To: Duchess47

I was originally commissioned as an Armor officer and spent my first years as an Abrams platoon leader, before transferring to the MP corps. IMHO, women have no place in the combat arms. I would not have wanted to be a tank platoon leader with one or more females in the platoon for any number of reasons, many of them already cited on this thread.
On the other hand, I worked with any number of female MPs and CID agents and they were indispensable in situations where it came to searching/transporting female subjects, non-combatant civilians, third country nationals or interviewing victims of sexual assault, rape, domEric violence etc.


91 posted on 10/12/2017 7:29:28 AM PDT by Joe 6-pack (Qui me amat, amat et canem meum.)
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To: RedWulf

In 1945, 20% of the soviet tanks in Zhukov’s & Konev’s armies storming Berlin had women crew members, including at least one tank battalion commander that was a women.


92 posted on 10/12/2017 12:56:52 PM PDT by Bull Snipe
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To: RedWulf
I can. Only idiots believe Soviet propaganda. The fact that they never used female snipers again indicates it was a lie.

False. The fact of female snipers is no lie. Was it "Soviet propaganda" when Deborah Samson enlisted in the Continental Army during the American Revolution, was wounded twice, and ultimately received a soldier's pension due to her honorable service?

And the fact that there were Soviet women snipers—who were effective at their job—can't be legitimately dismissed as "Soviet propaganda". The evidence is too strong.

The actions of these women are documented well enough, and if they were killed at higher rates, that doesn't change a thing. Nor does the fact that the Soviets didn't see the need to use women snipers again.

Joan of Arc led armies and fought. The French Resistance also had women who served in guerilla roles. That's combat, sir. Women serves as snipers in WW II, as infantry in the American Revolution, Kurdish women are right now fighting against ISIS, etc., and though their contributions may have been "minor", they have doubtless saved lives in numerous cases. I dare you to go and tell any of these brave and capable women that they aren't fit to be doing what they're doing.

So only idiots believe outdated male chauvinist propaganda.

Nobody is saying "women in combat" should be the norm. But becoming unhinged about the rare exceptions is ridiculous. In a world where men and women are supposed to be treated equally, when a woman wants to serve, and can meet the physical demands dictated by the parameters of her service, then let her. A woman has as much to lose as a man, so who are men to dictate whether they can fight or not?

I've read many anecdotes from male soldiers who were proud to have served alongside women, and who considered them indispensable to their units.

The days of hysterical dogma insisting that women can't fight are gone. If women want to fight, and can do their job, then let them fight. It'll obviously still be a rare thing, but men don't have a monopoly, and never did...

93 posted on 10/12/2017 3:20:56 PM PDT by sargon ("If we were in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, the Left would protest for zombies' rights.")
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To: sargon

Sure there were female Soviet snipers. It’s their effectiveness that they lied about. A woman has the combat effectiveness of a 12 year old boy.


94 posted on 10/12/2017 6:57:06 PM PDT by RedWulf
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To: RedWulf
Sure there were female Soviet snipers. It’s their effectiveness that they lied about.

Bullsh!t. Women can shoot just as good as men.

95 posted on 10/12/2017 7:10:59 PM PDT by sargon ("If we were in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, the Left would protest for zombies' rights.")
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