Posted on 09/20/2015 1:06:09 PM PDT by jazusamo
A battle is brewing in Washington over the military's push to open all combat units to women.
The Marine Corps is reportedly poised to ask that some positions remain available only to men, following a nine-month study that found units with all genders did not perform as well in combat.
The issue is stirring a passionate debate in the military community, pitting the Marine Corps against its own service secretary and creating a bitter divide on the House Armed Services Committee.
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, who is the service secretary for the Marine Corps, blasted the study of the Marine units as biased and said he plans to open all jobs to women.
Backed by members of Congress, Marines quickly fired back, with some who participated in the study telling the Washington Post that Mabus threw them "under the bus."
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), a former Marine and member of the House Armed Services Committee, sent a letter to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter calling for Mabus’ resignation.
Hunter's chief of staff, Joe Kasper, said the congressman thinks the decision of women in combat roles should be up to the Marines, not Mabus.
“You don’t go and take a giant crap on the men and women in the Marine Corps and then expect them to continue giving you respect and admiration,” Kasper said.
A spokesman for Mabus said he was aware of the letter from Duncan and declined to comment.
Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), another member of the House Armed Services Committee, backed up Hunter in a letter sent Friday that asked the Pentagon to release the full study on the Marine units.
"I am concerned the Department of Defense is withholding information regarding the findings of this report," Kline wrote in the letter, which obtained by The Hill.
"As a 25-year Marine Corps Veteran, I am offended by the comments made by a senior leader in the Department of Defense," he said. "They were inappropriate given the hard work and dedication of the men and women that volunteered for this important study."
Meanwhile, female lawmakers on the House Armed Services Committee are calling for greater scrutiny of the Marine Corps's study, questioning whether it was designed to “undermine” then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s 2012 directive integrating women into all combat positions.
"Secretary Mabus’s concern that the Marine Corps study was designed with a predisposed notion that women undermine combat effectiveness is of grave concern to all of us," Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) said in a written statement Friday.
"We must know whether this is the case, because so many questions have been raised about the study’s scope and methodology. This isn’t information that would justify barring women from serving in any combat position — indeed we know from our allies’ experiences that all positions should be open to anyone who qualifies," she added.
Lawmakers are pressing the Marine Corps for more information about the study.
Rep. Susan Davis (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the panel's military personnel subcommittee, said she has requested and will soon receive a briefing from the Marine Corps on the findings.
Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) said she has had "a number of briefings" with the Marine Corps, and has expressed to the service the same concerns as Mabus.
"I am disappointed that this report is essentially being used as a way to exclude women," she said in a statement to The Hill.
"We are not asking for standards to be lowered, all we are asking is for women to have the opportunity to pursue whichever roles in the military that they wish to pursue."
"Opening up all roles to women will ultimately strengthen the military and our nation, and this is something the U.S. Marine Corps needs to understand."
A summary of the report released last week stated that all-male Marine squads were faster in each tactical movement than integrated squads. The all-male rifle groups also scored better on accuracy.
In addition, the summary said the female Marines had more injuries, such as stress fractures, than the men.
The Marine Corps has been exploring whether to open the infantry and all other combat jobs and units to women, as the Pentagon moves to implement Panetta’s order by 2016 — a presidential election year where defense and national security issues will be at the forefront.
The Marine Corps has allowed women to volunteer for its Infantry Officer Course, but none passed. Enlisted female Marines had better results.
The Marine Corps also relieved a female commander of duty for what she said was pushing female recruits to perform better. Marine officials say the commander’s reassignment was due to a clash between her and her supervisors, as well as complaints from females in her unit.
Meanwhile, the Army has opened up the Ranger School, its elite leadership course for soldiers, to women after two completed it.
The four services are due to submit any requests for exceptions by the end of September to Carter, who will review those requests and make final decisions by January.
In a briefing Tuesday, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook told reporters that while the recommendations may go through the service secretaries, Carter “will hear input from as many people as possible.”
Very disappointed that the other services didn't have the guts to stand against this dilution of our combat capabilities. That whole Ranger School fiasco was disgusting: senior army officers did everything possible to get a pair of women to graduate - to prove what? Passing a reasonably rigorous school doesn't justify mixing young women in with the males and putting all of them into the meatgrinder that is the infantry's job.
Combat is organized killing and it cannot be adjusted to accommodate social ambitions.
At the first sign that a national emergency is imminent, most of the females will suddenly become pregnant and be taken out of the picture.
How long will it take for those 35 million Muslims to make their way to American borders? What else can men do but make an army to fight the invaders?
Future soldiers won’t even think about the draft because they will be fighting in American streets for their lives. They’ll be happy to join up. The draft will look like an opportunity, not coercion.
The physical differences between men and women is only a small part of why women should not be in a combat postion.
Nature has given the male the instinctive “protector” mindset.
Men in combat could not pay full attention to the task at hand is women were present... His “natural instinct” would be to keep part of his attention to protecting the female...
THAT is nature, folks...It won’t change...
It would be more of a distraction for a combat unit.
Why don’t the members of the HOR who haven’t served in combat just SHUT UP and let those who’ve had experiences involving women vs no women in combat units lead the discussion?
There is that, but I’d like to see the military have to deal with this “unintended consequence” after being forced to go all the way with their desired goal of “equality” and “diversity is our strength”. The mlitary has already been so screwed up through social engineering, we need to see this through to the bitter end and all the unintended consequences before we ever have a hope of fixing it. As long as they squeak by through disingenuousness, we’ll never get to fix the problem.
One rule, one standard for everyone. No exceptions. Those who measure up stay. Others go.
I agree. It’s not only the negative effect of women not being to truly pull their weight, it’s the factor of men having an added problem to deal with besides the one of the women being useless in fulfilling their roles.
Including draft registration. Let’s play this all the way through, too late to minimise the damage now.
A friend of mine who was a career Navy man, told me that some Navy women become pregnant to avoid sea duty, or get reassigned from sea duty..
He told me that some Navy girls get pregnant on the ships, and that the fathers of babies are their fellow seamen. But, even though sexual activity is against Navy regulations, people are not disciplined for the transgressions.
You can just imagine, an eager sailor, willing to help out a woman sailor who wants to get off the ship. Holy toledo.......
How long will it be before the majority of recruits will not be assimilated US citizens?
I couldn’t agree more.
The brass in the Marine Corps have the guts to stand up against this pathetic CinC and his butt boys. The Army brass have folded, not only on this but look at Maj Gen Dahl’s testimony regarding deserter Bergdahl the other day about not deserving incarceration. Unbelievable!
There are never going to be very many women or homosexuals at the sharp end, just fractional percentages at best.
The more likely situation is that, other than a few officers passing through combat units in their career progression, they will populate support units as today.
Note though that women already do have some of the dangerous posts in the military, especially helicopter pilots and crew.
In a large scale war, Korea or Vietnam or bigger, the support units which are already full of women will be vulnerable. I’m not sure how the public will handle heavy casualties there. The casualties so far have trickled in, 144 dead in ten years.
Amen
I think if/when we are faced with a real national emergency, all the social engineering stuff will go right out the window and into the memory hole. It will happen with incredible speed.
Within a single news cycle, the MSM will go from all-Liberalism, all the time, to old-fashioned rah-rah patriotism. You’ll think you walked into a time machine and were transported back to 1942.
All the social engineering will vanish like a morning fog. The call will go out for red-blooded young males to show up and defend their country. Talk of homosexuals and women in the military will become unmentionable, just as the deaths, images and video from 9-11 have been expunged from public consciousness.
And it will work, too. The reason it will work is simple: when people are personally, physically afraid for their lives, they no longer have the luxury of social engineering.
That’s all liberalism is, when you get right down to it: a luxury. It’s a byproduct of the incredible wealth of our advanced society and economy. If we return again to existential fear, it will vanish and never be mentioned again.
Or at least, not until the generation that wins that war is too old to bear witness.
The Israelis tried this same concept early on and found that it didn’t work. They probably did it because they really didn’t have that many men.
Nobody is going to willingly sign up for a government that won’t even acknowledge the danger; neither party will ever take steps to preserve the WASP culture that built this country. In fact, both are trying to out-do each other in dismantling it.
Already happen?
The FBI Announces Gangs Have Infiltrated Every Branch Of The Military
Business Insider
10/22/2011
The FBI has released a new gang assessment announcing that there are 1.4 million gang members in the US, a 40 percent increase since 2009, and that many of these members are getting inside the military (via Stars and Stripes).
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2796474/posts
Twenty years ago, I spoke with a former Army officer. He stated at that time there were several women in his outfit; and that when they got the “bug out” alarm, the women (due to weak upper body strength) couldn’t load up the heavy equipment onto the trucks. So, they just simply didn’t bug out. A bad situation in a REAL combat situation. - This stupid idea that “Little Molly” should be able to do ANYTHING she WANTS to do is just that - a stupid idea.
Imagine the public uproar when a unit of Marines composed of 30% LBGT, 30% women, and 40% men are captured by ISIS, and the Muslims threaten to behead, rape, and throw them off high buildings. The idiots in the Pentagon need to be removed and quit these social experiments.
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