Posted on 10/28/2016 6:05:40 AM PDT by pabianice
WASHINGTON — Ten women who were commissioned Army officers in the spring graduated from the initial infantry training course Wednesday, becoming the Army’s first female infantry lieutenants.
The women were among 166 soldiers to complete the Infantry Officer Basic Leadership Course at Fort Benning in Georgia, a 17-week class that provides new officers the basic skills to lead a rifle platoon into combat, said Army Lt. Col. Matthew W. Weber, the commander of the unit that oversees the course. Officers are commissioned through ROTC, Officer Candidate School or the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.
The infantry officer course is a “critical step” toward leading a rifle platoon, but the soldiers who graduated the Army’s first gender-integrated infantry class Wednesday will not join a combat unit for nearly a year, Weber said. They will attend additional courses to prepare them to serve in the traditionally all-male infantry. Those classes include the famously grueling Ranger School, Airborne School, Stryker Leaders Course and Mechanized Leaders Course, Weber said.
Eventually they’ll become platoon leaders at Fort Hood in Texas or Fort Bragg in North Carolina.
“This, the training of an infantry lieutenant, is a process until they step into a rifle platoon,” Weber said. “This is but the very first step in the process.”
The Army did not identify the graduates by name, and the graduation ceremony was not open to reporters.
The class began with 12 female officers. It was not clear Thursday whether the two who did not graduate would be given the opportunity to try again.An Army official said he could not comment on individual students.
In December, Defense Secretary Ash Carter ordered all military jobs, including those in special operations, open to women, clearing the way for female servicemembers to serve in front-line combat roles. related articles
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Interest among women to serve in those positions – primarily in the infantry and armor fields – has been limited, Army officials have said, but Lt. Gen. James C. McConville, the Army’s deputy chief of staff for personnel, said he expects interest to rise as more women enter those jobs.
The female officers who graduated Wednesday join one other woman as Army infantry officers.
In April, the Army approved Capt. Kristen Griest to transfer from military police into the infantry branch. Griest and Army Capt. Shaye Haver became the first female soldiers to graduate Ranger School in August 2015. One other female soldier, Army Maj. Lisa Jaster, has completed Ranger School. To date, 29 women have attempted the course.
Griest remains in infantry training, and she will join the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg in November. Haver also has been approved to transfer from aviation into the infantry, but she is awaiting official orders to attend training, said Brig. Gen. Peter Jones, the commandant of the Army’s infantry school at Fort Benning.
Jones said the new female lieutenants – just like the women who graduated Ranger School – faced the exact challenges as their male classmates. The standards were the same as those faced by the men who served before them.
“They are going to be standing in front of their formation, and they are going to be judged based on their leadership skills, not on whether they are male or female,” he said.
The Army will likely soon have more female lieutenants serving in combat arms jobs. There are 10 recently commissioned officers attending Armor Officer Basic Leadership Course, which is also at Fort Benning. Their class will graduate later this fall.
Including women in front-line combat positions will strengthen the Army because it provides a much larger talent pool to draw from, said Maj. Gen. Eric J. Wesley, the commander of the Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning.
“This whole issue has driven us to ensure that we have the right standards aligned to each occupational specialty in the Army,” Wesley said. “We have created a gender-neutral, standards-based training environment, where it no longer becomes a question of male or female. … It makes us better.”
dickstein.corey@stripes.com Twitter: @CDicksteinDC
It’s actually spelled “milquetoast” which I know because of another Heinlein story “The Year of the Jackpot.”
Infantry School Commandant was on TV saying something about having science to back up the standards being applied. He then said that his wife is smarter than he is, and she’s a general, and he’s a general. So, there. Nothing to see. Move along.
Gotta have some leadership for the transgendered butt-boy battalion.
That's code for, "We changed the standards."
Combat is organized murder, not an "occupation". It is physically strenuous, psychologically demanding, and only succeeds because young men are convinced to overcome what few moral scruples they have in them kill other human beings, sometimes face to face.
Women, writ large, don't have it. Most of the young women we get in the service are short, plump little things completely unsuited for the rigors of combat. They are the clump of people we see trailing far behind in the morning run, usually accompanied by a grinning male sergeant. There are, rarely one or two women that show up that are able to keep up - they are not in any way the majority and no amount of training will make them into the killers we need. Face reality.
Worse, adding women to infantry units will only add sexual dynamics to a situation that absolutely requires equality of judgment and togetherness. Imagine the fun as PFC A "falls in love" with Sergeant B, who in turn "loves" Corporal C. Will we actually trust that their life and death decisions will be made fairly? How to you think all of the other unlucky men without partners will respond in combat, under stress? Any idea how much you could depend on couples, 18-20 year olds, placed in isolated positions like outposts or listening posts who are fired up with attraction and the survival of the unit depends on their absolute dedication to attentiveness?
This whole "women in combat" thing is a cruel joke. Before you go off in the direction of telling me to serve my country, I have: I've spent 17 months in the most vicious combat including nearly dying of wounds and it can't work.
Somebody has to say it. How many of these female soldiers used to be men?
In 1974 the Airborne Course known as Jump School had its first female’s, and they had their separate Black Hats and separate training that did not require them to do much more than learn to parachute - they were not physically harassed every single moment of the course. In those days women soldiers became clerks and that school allowed them to be assigned to the 82nd Abn Div; the first three women in the Division headquarters had mixed results, for various reasons related to biology and relationships between men and women. I would guess the standards for male soldiers are dropped accordingly and they will hve to make up the physical qualifications as actual platoon leaders once they reach their units. I would like to see the careers followed for 20-30 years so see how the men fare during their careers who received this training as opposed to those under the old standards; and see the results in combat.
Ten female infantry officers will attend Ranger school and ten female infantry officers will fail to complete the course.
Seriously, men, would you follow a female lieutenant into battle? Obey an order to charge a pillbox or flank an armored column? Especially if there was some question as to how she managed to get her credentials to begin with?
I am a 65 year old woman who lived in swampy areas on gulf coast 43 years. I have killed MANY cotton mouth, copperheads, rattlers, coral snakes which r as poisonous as Cobras, IN MY YARD! Three in 2013. We had gators there. One a block from our house was 13 ft 1 inch. No longer the record as of 2016. We moved, we now have coyotes. These women will have no problem with snakes.
Oh please. You are attributing your experience and declaring that every woman can do the same.
Sorry lady, it doesn't work like that.
I suppose that could be true.But now let's move on to North Koreans...Chinese....Russians...Iranians...jihadi moslems.
Any chance that they'll have a problem with *them*?
Good post.
I wonder how the chicks got 100% select rate to got to Ranger School? Wonder what their male counterparts in the same Infantry officers course selection rate to attend was? Bet is was no where near 100%. Not getting special considerations and changed standards my a$$.
Rush Limbaugh’s idea as well. . .His point was a group of women eventually align their “time of the month,” and we just wait until that time and send them into combat then. . .
A comedienne wrote a song about that in the ‘80s and had a routine. I have the cassette tape in a box somewhere...
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