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.
I understand. Been fishing off So. Cal coast and have seen subs pretty close...Mean machines that pretty much have dooms day weapons on board. Putting females on board them is just utterly stupid IMO.
Don’t feel too bad about your Bishop. This Cardinal Mahoney guy in Los Angeles wanted to open his churches to illegal aliens and other criminals...A really pathetic individual.
Nobody does anything sophomoric on a sub.
Believe me.
like how they “burn trash in the reactor”?
Have any of these numbnuts making policy ever BEEN ON a submarine?
Do they think it’s like the Starship Enterprise, where the interior spaces are all fantasies created in studios, where each crew gets a little stateroom?
On subs, the crew dress and undress in front of each other, in a few square feet of space. They have no privacy.
So sure, add twenty year old girls! What morons.
We’ve been putting “barf alerts” etc in par marks forever. You are just noticing this?
Now I'm going to go drink myself a nice big saucer of milk -- after that bit of cattiness on my part, I deserve one! I am female, after all, and even the best of us get catty at times. LuvFree, I really don't think you'd know a real man from a bag of Candy Corn.
>>like how they “burn trash in the reactor”?
If you don’t recognize that as someone joking, you’re just too clueless about the hardware involved to do more than read and learn.
HEY! Watch it, Bud! I resemble that remark!!! ;^) (Just ask my poor long-suffering husband)
Why would I mention it if there wasn’t something WRONG with it :-)
Thank you for the reality check at 78.
Most of the people on this thread seem to base their understanding of women on subs on viewing Star Trek....which is fiction, where every crew member has a private stateroom, and nobody every uses a head (toilet) or shower.
Show of hands on this thread of everybody who has ever spent two days and a night on a sub??????
Two of us so far.
Subs ain’t the Starship Enterprise, folks!
The average age of a crew is less than 20 years old. They work hard and spend months away from family and friends with only sporadic breaks from the routine.
In the end, boys will be boys. You can’t stifle them completely without destroying morale.
As tight as the quarters are on surface ships, they are ten times tighter on subs.
As mylife said: 80 crew, 4 toilets, 2 showers. So, how to divide them, when a dozen females are aboard? Not to mention no “dressing rooms.” You dress and undress in the narrow space by your triple decker rack, with other sailors passing by on their duties.
Just how will having women aboard submarines enhance our Navy’s warfighting abilities?
If you are losing your female cool over this silly thread, you think you can hack the pressure of three months in ultra-close quarters, without seeing the sky?
Are you married?
107 is dead-on and bears repeating:
“When everything is going right, the sun is shining, nothing is burning and no one is dying, then women can handle most jobs, or have a male lift something for her, or turn something, or push or pull something for her without a problem, but when a third of the crew is dead or dying, metal is twisted and warped, the ship is burning and at threat of being lost, when hydraulics are out and ammunition and fighting equipment has to be muscled and wounded carried up and down ladders, then the 50% lessor, upper body strength of the female and the 1/3 less leg strength of the female, comes into play.”
***I’m guessing the men will be a majority.
I would say within two months of going out, the sub will experience it’s first fight between two sailors over a woman.***
It will be an underground soap opera. Why do supposedly smart people ignore the fact that humans are hard wired to do the nasty?
“I did not say anything about men in general, i pointed out that certain comments were inappropriate.”
That thin-skinned PC attitude will be enforced aboard subs, and a pressurized job will be ten times worse. You would not believe the sick, morbid, disgusting incredible humor that prevails on subs to keep the edge off.
Then Stasi Susan Squeelerchick is going to come aboard, and start putting people on report for telling off-color jokes that are perceived as “sexist.”
Oh yeah, that’ll be great for morale and mission readiness.
I sure am finding the insights you offer on this thread just fascinating and worthwhile. Thanks for sharing your stories. And thanks for being a submariner to protect ME and MINE. It is greatly appreciated.
Oh, we’ll just paint a picture of the sky on the ceiling (oops, the overhead).
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