The malcontents have hit the panic button so many times, one wonders who still believes such hype...
Posted on 12/18/2004 1:34:07 AM PST by huac
"Officials Ignore DoD Rules, Congressional Notification Law The United States Army plans to force female soldiers into land combat units, despite current regulations and a law requiring prior notice to Congress. CMR has learned that some Army leaders believe there might not be enough male soldiers to fill the new “unit of action” combat brigades. They are therefore making incremental changes in policy that will soon force young unprepared women—many of them mothers—to fight in land combat.
Information and official briefing documents obtained by CMR indicate that the soon-to-deploy Third Infantry Division is ignoring a Defense Department rule that exempts female soldiers from support units that collocate with land combat troops such as the infantry. Defense Department and Army officials have also violated a law requiring prior notice to Congress if rules affecting female soldiers are changed.
Left unchallenged, these actions could quickly affect all land combat units, including Special Operations Forces and the Marine Corps.
Since March of 2004, both civilian and uniformed Army officials have been trying in various ways to gender-integrate sub-units of combined infantry/armor “units of action” (UA) combat brigades in the 3rd Infantry Division.
Strategies tried so far have involved violation of current rules governing the assignment of female soldiers in land combat units, unilateral redefinition of those rules, or implementation of inefficient organizational plans that would sacrifice the advantages of self-contained, modular organizations in the Army’s new combat brigades.
In pursuing these shortsighted courses of action, the Army has already violated current regulations regarding women in combat, which were established as official policy in 1994 by then-Defense Secretary Les Aspin. Officials have not provided any rationale for ignoring DoD policy, compromising the efficiency of the new units of action, or forcing female soldiers into land combat units for the first time in America’s history.
Nor has the Army complied with the law mandating prior notice to Congress over a period of 30 legislative days, when both Houses are in session. The 2002 Defense Authorization Act also requires that formal notice include an analysis of the impact of proposed changes on the constitutionality of young women’s exemption from Selective Service obligations.
To CMR’s knowledge, no such notice has been given. Some Army officials have even made the unsupported claim, contrary to plain language in the law, that prior notification to Congress is not required. In fact, they say, formal approval by the Secretary of Defense is not required. President George W. Bush and members of Congress must not allow this arrogant non-compliance to stand.
Courageous female soldiers are serving well in the War on Terrorism, and the nation is proud of them. That pride, however, does not justify acceptance of the illicit arrangement being implemented initially by the 3rd Infantry Division, which is due to deploy to Iraq early in 2005.
Army Moves to Repeal Collocation Rule
The Army’s most recent plans, as presented to House and Senate Armed Services Committee staff members on November 3, 2004, would force female soldiers into support units that are organic to and collocated with combined UA infantry/armor battalions. These plans, which are already in progress, constitute violation of current Defense Department regulations, and an unprecedented departure from sound organizational practices for combat units. They also continue a pattern of dissembling and misleading semantics designed to circumvent the law.
The organizational charts presented on November 3 purport to “move” the forward support companies (FSCs) from the maneuver battalions into the gender-integrated brigade support battalions (BSBs), and thereby avoid the responsibility to report the rule changes to Congress. This is similar to a course of action initiated at Fort Stewart in May, which the Army admitted could be seen as a form of “subterfuge.”
Whether “assigned” or “attached” on paper to one unit or the other, in real life the forward support companies will live and work with the maneuver battalions, 100% of the time. Since the battlefield of today has changed, the collocation rule should be strengthened, not weakened. The only sound policy is to stop the equivocation, keep these units all-male, and apply the collocation rule consistently in all units that are organic to or collocated with direct ground combat forces.
Female soldiers should not be forced to participate in deliberate offensive or defensive actions on land, under conditions where they do not have an “equal opportunity” to survive, or to help fellow soldiers survive.
Policy will Not End With New Land Combat “Unit of Action” Brigades
At the very least, President Bush and members of Congress must insist that the Army comply with the law before new precedents are set that could cost lives in combat. Incremental steps in the wrong direction would inevitably lead to radical change in all land combat units, including the Reconnaissance, Surveillance, Target Acquisition (RSTA) squadrons of the new Stryker Brigade Combat Teams (SBCTs), Special Operations Forces, and the Marine Corps.
The vision of transformation in the Army should be allowed to proceed and be tested in combat without the burden of social friction and operational inefficiencies. The Army should be making combat units and all forms of training more efficient and effective, not less so.
The Center for Military Readiness has issued a CMR Policy Analysis of the Army’s latest plans, and sent it to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, House and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairmen Duncan Hunter (R-CA) and John Warner (R-VA), Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and other high-level civilian and uniformed officials in the Departments of Defense and the Army. That document is posted on CMR's web site at the link provided at the end of this article.
In response, the Army issued a three-sentence non-denial that tried but failed to conceal the truth. (See link posted here.) With all of the controversy about whether there are enough troops in Iraq or not, it is disheartening to see officials of the US Army planning to send female soldiers into land combat. The same people who retained counter-productive gender recruiting quotas to meet Clinton-era social goals are now forcing unprepared female soldiers to pay the price for their short-sighted, poor judgment. In doing so, they are knowingly compromising combat efficiency in the new unit of action combat brigades, which don’t deserve to be saddled with unprecedented social burdens in a time of war.
Americans who care about men and women in the military, and oppose policies that will make their jobs more difficult and more dangerous, should call or write the Chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA, 202/225-5672) and Sen. John Warner (R-VA, 202/224-2023).
President George W. Bush, who can be reached through the White House Opinion Line, 202/456-1414, should be asked to intervene immediately to bring the Army back into compliance with law and policy. Forcing female soldiers into land combat should not be allowed to stand as the first major policy change in President Bush’s new administration."
http://cmrlink.org/WomenInCombat.asp?docID=241
CMR
The malcontents have hit the panic button so many times, one wonders who still believes such hype...
Which hype?
| policy that will soon force young unprepared women—many of them mothers—to fight in land combat.
|
My Dad is dead now; so I cannot further his comments and questions to him in present day combat scenarios under Rummy's Pentagon with Franks running the war.
Regardless, I BELIEVE that my Dad was probably right.
BTW, My wife of 33 years is one tough ... And we are both proud suppporters of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy!
Cheers, Boys and Girls!
Merry CHRISTmas!!!
Bubba did it.
He bowed to the femzazis during his presidency.
IMO Women do have a role in the military, but not in ground combat, for lots of reasons.
I suspect I'll get a lot of heat for that last statement but, after having been there, I stand by it.
"Women who'd been brought in and were far out of shape and could not handle their pack or their gun or something," she says.
But the military has been so desperate to up its numbers of women, it's changed the standards for them.
For instance, in olden days, drill instructors would run everyone silly. But in today's military, Gutmann saw women recently recruited who couldn't run at all.
"So there was one ability group where basically people just kind of strolled leisurely around the track, kind of chatting with each other," she explains.
"The women didn't have the upper body strength to get over the wall, so they could go around the wall," says Charles in reference to women on the obstacle course. "The men still had to go over the wall."
The Army found few women could throw a grenade far enough to not blow themselves up.
"A great percentage of the recruits could not throw out of bursting range," says Gutmann.
So the standards were changed for grenade throwing.
"At one camp they were allowed to just kind of pitch it over a wall," notes Gutmann
"Low standards get people killed on the battlefield," states Hackworth.
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a39c6ca7330fe.htm
"I will never forget when, as a lower than whale-**** new cadet, we had a 6 mile road march. First of, our packs were lightened to avoid fallouts. There were concerns that the girls would not make it. We were less than 2 miles into the march when I heard an awful sound behind me. It was a girl (one of the most gung-ho I might add) sobbing and carrying on. I asked her if she was okay. She said no; she could not hack it. Shortly thereafter she fell out and our platoon sergeant basically had to carry/push her the rest of the way. On top of that, a girl accross from our column was moving so slowly that the the entire road march slowed down to accomodate her; we weren't supposed to have ANY fallouts. Later on in a 12 mile road march, a girl in my squad insisted that she could no longer hack it. She wanted to fall back like she usually did. I refused to let her until a guy up the column insisted that I let her. He gave her slack; I gave her slack. Combat gives no slack...Women do not belong in support roles. They are frequently unable to perform jobs as mechanics, medics and truck drivers and are sent to do administrative work, while the unit does not get a qualified replacement. Why can they not do these jobs? Many female mechanics cannot lift their toolboxes and they, like truck drivers, are unable to use heavy torque wrenches to remove tires. Female medics cannot carry wounded soldiers, much more dead men who are just nothing but unevenly distributed weight. In 1981, 64% of the Army's jobs were listed in the Deparment of Labor's "Very Heavy" category (lifting of more than 100 lbs.), and an additional 12% were listed as heavy (lifting of 100 lbs.). These jobs have been proven as being too strenuous for the vast majority of women. Why? Their bone density is far less than a man's. Their upper body mass and strength is undeniably less than a man's, a fact which the DoD admits in allowing a double standard in PT scores. Due to this, women need greater medical attention for stress fractures and other "sports" injuries (torn muscles, sprained ankles, broken bones). Statistics show that they require more time off for "personal reasons"...In the Gulf War, some units lost as many as 20% of their combat strength because the females found a way out (either through pregnancy, or personal reasons like a newfound objection to the military's job of fighting wars). 20% losses in combat are disastrous and make a unit combat ineffective...Super women, like Kara Hultgreen are a big show. She died a very public death when she ejected from a botched carrier landing. She was supposed to be the one who could do it. The facts prove otherwise. As a trainee pilot, she was kicked out of the program because of her poor record. Due to political pressure, the Navy send her back and passed her, despite grave indications that she was uncapable of being a good pilot. Her own error and poor flying ability caused her death...A good friend of mine was a field intelligence operative in an specialty that accepts women. He carried a 25 lb. M-60 machine gun. He was assigned a female assistant gunner. She could not carry the corresponding tripod and ammo., so he carried it all. Ask him about women being able to hack it in combat. Several years ago, the Canadians opened their infantry to qualified women. They took the expense of training over 1,000 women (slots which could have been filled with qualified men). Only 1 woman made it through. In the late 1970's, the U.S. Army did a test with women to qualify for the expert infantryman's badge. None of the girls qualified for the basic, yet coveted award..."
http://www.hackworth.com/women2.html
Bingo!
PUSH-UPS:
AGE GROUP MALE MIN MALE MAX FEMALE MIN FEMALE MAX
17-21 42 71 19 42
2-MILE RUN:
AGE GROUP MALE MIN MALE MAX FEMALE MIN FEMALE MAX
17-21 15:54 13:00 18:54 15:36
http://www.per.hqusareur.army.mil/Services/MPPD/FW%20ALARACT%2009297%20%20APFT%20STANDARDS%20CHANGES.txt
The above are the basic pass scores for the US Army PT test (APFT). The minimum number of push-ups a man must do to pass is 42; a women, 19. The minimum time for a man to pass the 2-mile run is 15:54 minutes; for a woman, 18:54 minutes. The Army has no choice but to acknowledge the physical differences between men and women and lower the standards for women accordingly. Combat does not make this politically correct distinction. If you are weak in combat, you and your buddies die, plain and simple.
Not from me , you won't.
The local TV station is putting on Christmas greetings from Nat. Guard troops in Camp Shelby, MS who are preparing to go to Iraq in a few weeks.
Most of the troops gave a chin up greeting....the one woman SGT who was shown was crying!
"If those women can't handle the job, then why are they there in the first place???"
A very good question. A better question, at least in my opinion, would be: Why is it still happening (or as this article would indicate, accelerating) with our current "conservative" administration, which is so concerned about militarty effectiveness?
I agree, if you willingly sign up, you have no one to blame but yourself.
It is sad that some people's definition of equality, including some people here on FR, is men always getting the short end of the stick.
Of course, these same people have no problems forcing a draft down the throats of young men who want to have nothing to do with the military and make them kill and die under threat of imprisonment so the that they can fight for other people's freedoms that they themselves never had.
Tragic how little freedom there is in the 'Land of the Free'.
Don't we have female cops all over the United States?
Aren't they in the line of fire all the time like the men?
Aren't they expected to handle tough situations with the same training and know how the men have?
We have the ability to provide separate facilities in the field.
Even away from base, there shouldn't be a problem.
Having to urinate is a natural function and any women who would freak out, or any men who would act weird are too immature to be in the Army anyway.
Same thing with nudity. I learned at a very young age not to have a concern over nudity. Learned from a young girl, at church camp. God always works in mysterious ways.
soldiers who say they can't resist sexual urges if exposed to nudity or quartering with females is just making excuses.
The mind is stronger than the temptation. Only if you tell it you will not resist, do you then rationalize that your genitals outwitted your conscious mind.
There is no reason in the world that women do not fight on the front lines, in equal numbers. I chose DO NOT, instead of CAN NOT, because There is no reason they can not.
In Israel, for example, it is my understanding that women are on the front lines in every branch of the military. Swat, Special Forces, Hostage Teams, etc.
Israel also, IIRC, has a working air travel anti-terrorism tactic. It is one worth considering. During 9-11 Some of the passengers on the jet that crashed in a field chose that option.
Citizens are considered part of the defense of the country, and know which 'side' they are on. If SWAT teams come to an airliner with terrorists holding hostages and making demands, the SWAT team responds with something that corresponds to 'up yours'.
They make their best plans and Take out the terrorists. If citizens are killed, they sacrificed their life for the defense of their country.
Because the only way to deal with that, and what we have gone through, enforce the law, refuse to cooperate, then shoot the guys with bombs or guns. Giving in to demands never discourages further terrorism. It's a simple thing.
Seems everyone could learn a lesson from the Israeli's here. The IDF seem to have sussed out the integration of Women into the armed forces in a way that works for everyone without compromising combat readineness.
You have nailed the real problem. Some other posters did too.
Women get 'nervous' during battle conflicts, or overwhelmed by the noise, they say.
Well, so do the guys, to some part.
Women can't get over the wall. Have you watched FEAR FACTOR? Watched women kick several guys asses in different events, and not the ones you would think.
The real problem is that the women have not been an equal part, they get away with going emotional, and they are not being trained the same, or held to the same physical standards.
Make the standards the same, and see what happens.
Humans are pretty good at adapting to requirements when it is necessary. But they, in general, will only go as far as specified by their leaders.
What would be wrong with having about the same number of VERY HEALTHY, VERY STRONG, combat experienced FEMALES coming back out of the military as there are men?
The females I knew in the military that got 'into it' also had a healthy sexual appetite. Usually goes with being more fit.
There would likely be a lot less wife abuse going on.
If you married one, should could kick the neighbor's ass for bringing his dog to your yard to crap all the time.
She can carry the other end of the washing machine when you have to move it.
Out on the town, having your wife say "I've got your back", would so much more believable than the drunk at the bar that thinks your his friend.
Robberies might taper off.
A few less weak, whiny, easily traumatized females in America seem like a good thing.
No, I agree with you. I believe one of the reasons we crushed the Nazis in WWII was that our auxiliary was motivated women and theirs was starving slaves.
But women in combat or anywhere near is still a travesty... a sick joke. It claws at the guts of the home front and lends dangerous credence to the anti-military efforts of the leftists.
I think it's not that we value the lives of the men any less but that when we see a woman dead or captured we know she really didn't have a fair chance to defend herself against the enemy. Women are smaller and have less upper body strength than men. They have far less testosterone (thankfully), and far less innate aggressiveness.
Of course there are exceptions. As Ann Coulter put it, some women are admittedly more of a distraction on the battlefield than others.
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Elaine needs to turn her job over to some chivalrous man. I will tolerate hearing that crap from a member of my own sex, but coming from her, it just sounds like a Brahmin whining that she got what she wanted.