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.
You have just demonstrated how you jump to the conclusion you preconceive. Thank you.
Gotcha. Thanks.
Lol, that isn't always easy, I guess you have noticed that they can suddenly be a thousand miles away inside a privacy bubble. The living in close quarters seems to make them able to separate themselves from the people in the room without any effort.
I was reading your posts, smiling..You’re making way too much sense.
I would like to see those.
If I have to worry about the lib press or whatever before every post I make then it's over. I might as well join the other side.
It is a major crime what is being done to our military!
Do you take offense at the proposition that we could save lives, reduce accidents, and mitigate traffic congestion just by removing 50% of the bad drivers from behind the wheel, if we didn't allow women to drive?
I learned that submariners were without exception: a)crazy and b) above-average in native intelligence. Not just any dope could serve on a sub.
Well put. And I’m in ATL metro, so I’m well aware of the PC stupidity that led to the events you describe.
On the general idea, have you ever seen the show on submarine damage control training? It’s serious business, and there are a lot of situations where pure upper body strength MATTERS, and matters a lot.
It’s like firemen - I’ll take a 50th percentile male over a 10th percentile female if it comes down to saving me or my loved ones from a burning building, and physical strength is involved.
Oh puhhleeze.... You are sounding like a troll
Everybody has their hot-button issue; mine is the safety of the lives of submarine crew. My skin is pretty thin on that topic.
I live in Virginia, in the Diocese of Richnmond, and I am a Roman Catholic. Up until a few years ago, the aboslute most extreme, far-left, pro-abortion, communist, anti-American Bishop in the United states was our Archbishop, Walter Sullivan. He put an article in the diocesan newspaper, praising some scum-of-the-earth-left-wing-aging-hippies who broke into Newport News Naval Shipbuilding to sabotage the watertight seals on the Tomahawk hatches for LA class boats under construction. My blistering letter to him got my kids black-balled from diocesan schools.
Okay, I'm a hothead on this issue.
MEOW!
I notice that none of those who are pro-women-in-sub-crews have managed to address your very interesting and applicable comments.
Color me unsurprised.
Thank you for your service.
How about going to a church that’s Christian for a change?
Well. Its basic and guttural.
If you’re already live on the edge with little and some one else comes in all demanding, AND unwilling to to pick up slack there will be issues.
Now introduce sex as a tool. Bad Idea
Accidents are common. Medical aboard a small ship is an Independent Duty Corpsman, in a larger boat, you may have a doctor fresh out of med school.
I don’t know what is more scary, being hurt, or having to treat an injury that you know you would not be allowed to touch state side.
Picture a shipping container 130 degrees, packed with moving machines and with three other people and you get an idea of what is happening in an engine room. And that is when things are working as planned.
okay, okay, i’m not trying to make fun of anybody. though certain folks seem to be doing a pretty good job of making fun of themselves, without trying.
but it raises another question: why are crews allowed to pull sophomoric pranks on one another aboard subs if they are this dangerous? it just sounds stupid.
That makes you wrong at least twice on this thread, congrats.
Speaking of disrespect, I find it disgustingly disrespectful of MEN to want to force the presence of women on them when they're doing men's work, and no matter how much one thinks it isn't fair (nobody said life was fair, anyway, not even -- especially not -- God), combat fighting in the military is men's work. It is HARD WIRED in the vast majority of little boys, not taught, to be warriors. It is HARD WIRED in the vast majority of little girls to be nurturers. Little girls don't have to be taught to like dolls or cajoled into playing house, like little boys. And little boys don't have to be taught play shoot-em-up or taught to crave danger and do risky things. They do it all by themselves.
It is human nature, plain and simple; people who don't like it should take it up with GOD, not the U.S. Military at the risk of endangering and DISRESPECTING the fine men who serve there. And they sure as hell shouldn't whine that it's "woman bashing" when women like ME recognize it when women's lib results in disrespect to men.
Men bond in ways when women aren't around that are crucial to survival in warfare. Women don't belong there; it is pure disrepect of masculinity to insist that we do.
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