Posted on 02/26/2010 4:44:12 PM PST by SandRat
WASHINGTON, Feb. 26, 2010 – Female sailors will begin serving on submarines by the end of next year, with Naval Academy graduates leading the way, Navy leaders told a Senate committee yesterday.
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Navy is in a good position to move forward with integrating women onto submarines.
“We think we learned a lot about integrating women in the services years ago, and those lessons are relevant today,” Mabus said. Those lessons, he said, include having a “critical mass” of female candidates, having senior women to serve as mentors, and having submarines that don’t require modifications: the SSBN ballistic missile and SSGN guided-missile subs.
Finally, Mabus said, “We have the lesson learned to make sure any questions are answered, … and we’re very open and transparent on how we’ll do this. We think this is a great idea that will enhance our warfighting capabilities.”
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates notified Congress on Feb. 19 of the intended change to Navy policy. Mabus had pushed for the change since taking office in May. Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, endorsed the change, saying in a statement released in September that his experience commanding a mixed-gender surface-combatant ship makes him “very comfortable” integrating women into the submarine force. The Navy changed its policy to allow women to serve on combatant ships in 1993.
“We have a great plan, and we’re ready to go for the first women to come aboard in late 2011,” Roughead told the Senate committee yesterday. In a prepared statement to the committee, he said the change would enable the submarine force “to leverage the tremendous talent and potential of our female officers and enlisted personnel.”
Besides the incoming officers from the academy, the first women submariners will include female supply corps officers at the department head level, Roughead said. The change will be phased in over time to include enlisted female sailors on the SSBN and SSGNs, he said. Women will be added to the Navy’s SSN fast-attack submarines after necessary modifications can be determined, he said.
“This initiative has my personal attention, and I will continue to keep you informed as we integrate these highly motivated and capable officers into our submarine force,” Roughead told the committee.
Is it like “excuse us, we need this torpedo now”?
They happen all the time.
And there is no back up. You are on independent ops, Alone.
That is not the place for this social experimentation.
Um no.. LoL
If you don't mind me asking, what was the name of the government labor union you belonged to?
I guess I have to confess ignorance to how often crew gets hurt on board a sub doing things they are supposed to do. That would be nasty, to get tangled up with the guts of a motor. Just dealing with the heavy equipment like that would be challenge enough.
At that time they were represented by the Policeman's Benevolent Association. Now I have heard they switched to the Fraternal Order of Police.
This is a government union right?
We're you a policeman or a corrections guard?
Whoop....I mean police person....
Policewoman....er....
Well at least you answered my question as to whether I was misinterpreting.
Glad you find this sh*t so amusing.
The equipment to drive an attack submarine at the speed, duration, and depth of a US Navy SSN is fraught with peril, to borrow the phrase from an earlier century.
The Battery is a floating bomb that could blast the whole boat a quarter mile high if you shorted the thing
The oxygen generator is literlly nicknamed "the bomb".
Reactors that are handled unprofessionally - i.e., Soviet Navy reactors - have killed more sailors than cholera.
The missiles and torpedos are designed to kill people, and only complete discipline and professionalism prevents that from happening
Now, picture in your mind a man and a woman, deeply devout family types, performing work on these systems.
After 45 days at sea, he will at least be thinking about how she makes him remember his wife and children, when his mind is supposed to be 100% on the wiring of the torpedo motor....
But as long as you find it amusing.........
You epitomize why women don’t belong on submarines.
Ya...Lets put women on military ships...Screw the torpedo motor.
one track mind, haven’t you.
I did not like the comments of a few posters.
Did your government union provide you protection and look out for your best interest?
I've got an acquaintance who is a Vegan (no meat, no eggs, no dairy, no animal products at all) because she thinks it's a cruel way to live. She's had chronic health problems ever since she made the decision at the wise age of 18 (she's now in her 50s), got pregnant while she was vegan, and her doctor told her that she HAD to start ingesting animal protein, in dairy or eggs or fish, if she wanted a healthy pregnancy. She refused; her doc told her to take a hike, and she had to find a new doc. She had a HORRIBLE, miserable pregnancy, the baby was born extremely underweight and very slow to develop, had allergy problems, etc., wouldn't eat, etc. She also so weakened her body that she was rendered unable to ever have kids again after that pregnancy. To make a long story short, her stupid and stubborn insistence that she and her child could live healthily as vegans, caused untold harm and misery to herself and the kid. The truth was that no matter what she wished, the chemistry just wasn't there. She wanted 2 plus 2 to equal 5, dammit! And she and that kid have payed a heavy price; the idiot (of course she's a liberal) has never admitted it.
Biker Chick, no matter how much you WISH it wasn't true, the fact is that women and men are different by nature, by chemistry, NOT by nurture. When you put a bunch of women in a mix of men, no matter how much you wish it wasn't so, women serve as distractions to them.
I'm a woman. I am not bashing women when I say that women DO NOT belong in combat, not on the ground, not on ships, and sure as hell not on submarines.
I'll bet you don't know the first thing about life on a submarine -- you've probably never read "Hunt for Red October," or "Iron Coffins," or watched "Das Boot," or socialized much with submariners. I have done all those things and I can tell you -- introducing women on submarine crews is really, really, stupid and suicidal. An all-male fighting force will KICK THEIR ASSES when the sh*t hits the fan. The military is no place for I-wish-it-was-so social engineering.
No matter how nice it would be, 2 plus 2 doesn't equal five. Women in the RIGHTLY, NATURALLY masculine field of warrior fighting forces equals disaster. They will make the fighting force weak. If I wanted to sabotage an enemy fighting force you BET YOUR BUTT I'd have them a) include women in all their combat and fighting units and b) have them tolerate open homosexuality in their fighting forces. I would do that because my own country's all-male fighting force could much more easily then KICK THEIR ASSES.
If subs were the size of the Enterprise, where everybody has their own private or semi-private room, complete with a bath and replicator...
NOT UNTIL.
They negotiated contracts and such.
They negotiated contracts and such.
On your behalf right?
So your government did provide you protection and look out for your best interest?
Right?
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