Free Republic

American troops just had their first real battle with Islamic State militants, after the terror group attempted to overrun Ein al-Asad base in Iraq in the middle of the night Sunday, the Kurdish news outlet Shafaq News reports. The U.S. troops absolutely decimated the militants, forcing a quick retreat. The counterattack was conducted in a joint operation with local tribal forces. The attack occurred at Ein al-Asad base, which currently hosts nearly 100 U.S. military “advisers.” The U.S. troops engaged the militants in tandem with F-18 fighter jets, who provided air support. The battle lasted approximately two hours after an...

WASHINGTON — President Obama signed a secret order in recent weeks authorizing a more expansive mission for the military in Afghanistan in 2015 than originally planned, a move that ensures American troops will have a direct role in fighting in the war-ravaged country for at least another year. Mr. Obama’s order allows American forces to carry out missions against the Taliban and other militant groups threatening American troops or the Afghan government, a broader mission than the president described to the public earlier this year, according to several administration, military and congressional officials with knowledge of the decision.

President Obama would back U.S. advisers accompanying Iraqi troops in battle to combat Islamic State militants if necessary. For now, Dempsey noted, Iraqi security forces are "doing fine," but as Republican, Sen. Jim Inhofe noted, "it is foolhardy for the Obama administration to tie its hands and so firmly rule out the possibility of special operators on the ground." Following Hagel's remarks that the fight will "not be an easy or a brief effort," Dempsey said if it doesn’t succeed, he would not rule out advising Obama to use U.S. ground forces.

A new book by an IDF reserve colonel that studied women's role in combat units says that the women shouldn't be there. "The study found that a particularly high percentage of women who served in combat roles suffered physical harm during their service and will suffer for the rest of their lives from ruptured discs, stress fractures in the pelvis, uterine prolapse and more,” Sagi told Maariv/NRG. While men also suffer injuries during their military service, he said, studies prove that the female rate of injury is much higher and that the seriousness of the average injury is greater,...

Out in front of America’s troops, combat canines and their handlers lead the way onto the most dangerous battlefields on Earth.

Instead woman already in the military ... will find themselves assigned to combat arms to meet a quota designed by a wide–load Member of Congress whose most strenuous activity is the Pilates class she makes once a month. Still, they won’t be seeing the elephant overnight. Right now only a handful of the 203,000 women currently in the military can pass the physical for combat infantry or Marines. When faced with the reality that women can’t pass the test, Congress and Pentagon paper–pushers will change the test until they can pass. Unfortunately, when you lower standards by definition you get...

The Freedom Report podcast today takes on the issue of female marine officer candidates who can't pass the physical requirements to serve in combat roles. Although 3 enlisted female marines have reportedly passed the less rigorous infantry training course, no women have been able to make it through the stricter infantry officer course. In a piece for the Washington Post, Second Lt. Sage Santangelo argues that the reason that female officers are not passing the test is because they are not being trained to the same standards as men. She believes that women are more than capable of doing the...

Earlier this year, the Marine Corps decided to delay the low 3 pull-up requirement for women that they had hoped to apply in 2014. The measure was set in preparation for compliance with the Pentagon’s intent to open combat units to women in 2016. Since less than half of female recruits could make the minimum requirement by the end of 2013, this implementation is being delayed.

Earlier in March, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus revised how to count the size of the U.S.’s battle force inventory. The battle force inventory is important because it measures the size of the U.S. combat fleet. The new definition will make the U.S. combat fleet look larger than it really is. This provides a political shield against legitimate concerns that the Navy is shrinking. Ships included in the battle force inventory had been “warships capable of contributing to combat operations” or ships that contribute “directly to Navy warfighting or support missions.” Aircraft carriers, destroyers, amphibious ships, and submarines are...

The Marine Corps will open new combat jobs to women, allow women to volunteer for combat specialty training previously closed to them and create a co-ed experimental task force to evaluate how female Marines perform as part of a ground combat unit, Marine officials said. The task force will be made up of about 460 Marines, and about one quarter will be women, said Capt. Maureen Krebs, a Marine spokeswoman. The task force will look like a small battalion landing team with attachments such as artillery, tanks and amphibious assault vehicles — similar to the ground combat portion of a...

Results from a U.S. Army survey show that female soldiers are not enthusiastic about entering combat positions. Maintaining physical standards for soldiers regardless of sex is nearly universally supported. “Less than 8 percent of Army women who responded to the survey said they wanted a combat job,” reported The Associated Press, which obtained the results of a preliminary survey of 170,000 soldiers. The assessment was emailed last year to active duty, reserves and Army National Guard members to gauge attitudes towards women in combat. Only 2,238 of 30,000 women, or 7.5 percent, who responded to the questionnaire said that they...

FORT EUSTIS, Va. — Only a small fraction of Army women say they'd like to move into one of the newly opening combat jobs, but those few who do say they want a job that takes them right into the heart of battle, according to preliminary results from a survey of the service's nearly 170,000 women. That survey and others across the Army, publicly disclosed for the first time to The Associated Press, also revealed that soldiers of both genders are nervous about women entering combat jobs but say they are determined to do it fairly. Men are worried about...

[Snip]...before the Marine Corps moves forward with this concept, should we not ask the hard questions and gain opinions of combat-experienced Marines (male and female alike) as to the purpose, the impact, and the gains from such a move? As a combat-experienced Marine officer, and a female, I am here to tell you that we are not all created equal, and attempting to place females in the infantry will not improve the Marine Corps as the Nation’s force-in-readiness or improve our national security.

The physical demands of combat positions is a job that only a few men and even fewer woman are capable of performing. In a headlong rush to satisfy the utopian stupidity of political correctness, the Washington establishment insistence that women be allowed in combat positions will only emasculate the military that protected this country since its founding. This week the Marine Corps announced that fewer than half of female recruits were capable of meeting the minimum standards required for combat jobs. These requirements are the same for males and females in basic training. In an effort to conform to political...

Female Marines: They’ve got your back – As long as it doesn’t involve upper body strength. (NBC) It's an Obama world… Female Marines can’t do pullups but will be allowed on the front lines anyway. KPCC reported: Starting Jan. 1, every woman in the Marines Corps was supposed to meet a new physical standard by performing three pullups. But that has been put off. The Marine Corps announced it quietly. There was no news conference — just a notice on its social media sites and an item on its own TV show, “The Corps Report.” Lance Cpl. Ally Beiswanger explained...

The U.S. Army general in charge of training recently wrote about the service's examination of gender neutral standards to open the infantry and other combat-arms jobs to female soldiers. The piece by Gen. Robert Cone, commander of Training and Doctrine Command, appears in the November issue of Army Magazine, the same month three female Marines made history by graduating from Marine infantry training. Last January, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ordered all services to open combat-arms roles to women that so far have been reserved for men.

The Marine Corps may have to change its physical standards in order to put females in positions to one day lead infantry platoons in combat. Both the Marine Corps and the Army continue to wrestle with the mandate that former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta issued in January, directing the U.S. military to open hundreds of combat-arms jobs that have been closed to female servicemembers. So far, the Marines have been out ahead.

An Army officer writing in a prestigious journal says the services should not overemphasize physical strength when deciding whether a woman qualifies for direct ground combat. Col. Ellen Haring, on the staff of the U.S. Army War College, says commanders need to downplay obstacle courses and judge a service member’s ability to stay calm and think quickly. The Pentagon has lifted its ban on women serving in the infantry, tanks and special operations, and the branches are examining all their physical standards in preparation for introducing women into these units in 2015. Some military analysts fear the Pentagon will discard...

The military is looking at ways to modify its training for women to help them qualify for direct ground combat roles in the infantry, tanks and special operations. Despite its claim that standards will remain the same for men and women, senior officers this week revealed they’re reevaluating that stance and considering a two-tiered training system. The idea was presented by Rep. Niki Tsongas, Massachusetts Democrat, at a hearing of the House Armed Services subcommittee, who told of a conversation she had with a woman working on combat standards. “Her comment was that, yes, you want the standards to be...

As the U.S. military prepares to send women into the toughest combat billets for the first time, Pentagon medical officers have just released data showing that while “battle injuries” were the leading reason male troops were flown outside Afghanistan for medical care, “mental disorders” topped the list for female troops. That shouldn’t come as a complete surprise. After all, women remain technically barred from the infantry and other units where close-in combat is the norm. But the data also show that despite the ban, women were medically evacuated from Afghanistan at a rate 22% higher than their male comrades.