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.
Nowhere in my post did I say that men "dont realize it" when they demean women. I said that real women know the ways they affect men in ways that men don't even recognize half the time. Your good Pop failed you in that respect, apparently. Here's the deal: women, once they reach puberty, affect men profoundly and a lot of the times, men aren't fully aware of how they're affected, but a real woman is and she respects that "power," if you want to call it that, that she has over him and doesn't takes advantage of it unless she has to (!); men are in their way uniquely and extremely vulnerable when it comes to females.
A girl, a silly female, an idiot woman, 1) fails to understand the hold she has over men by virtue of being female and 2) expects to be treated as their equal. She expects to be respected by men when she herself treats them with disrespect.
I'm not going to insult your dad, the real man who raised you. I insult YOU and say that your understanding of "real men" is piss-poor BECAUSE obviously you think you're being "demeaned" by men when you're not. Now me, I'm demeaning you because you're insulting a WHOLE lotta Real Men FReepers by accusing them of demeaning and insulting women, when all my years here, I have RARELY seen that happen. You need to get your head screwed on right, start tuning in more closely to the real man who raised you, and start tuning out American pop culture that has you thinking men and women are equal. They never have been and never will be, THANK GOD.
LFR, putting women on submarines IS treating people with disrespect -- namely, men and the warrior culture. Putting women in combat situations IS treating people, men who are trying to do the job of fighting in combat, with disrespect (see mylife's posts, in particular #302 above).
GET A CLUE, stop whining like a pissy female that this is somehow "demeaning" to women, and start showing TRUE respect for other people. So far, you are the one indicating that you endorse DISRESPECT and (typical of a woman!) insist on calling it a form of respect. Yeeeeeesh.
LOL, nice try.
I would guess you would get called up for calling someone who hogs the shower a “water buffalo”...i’m glad i did my time on subs years ago...it was hard enough just dealing with moody guys...i can’t imagine the drama this will cause...i shudder just thinking about it.
You don't mention "married" or not.
Divorced. It is on the left side.
Hope love can heal your anger some day.
I was wondering what your punch line was going to be. FYI, I have lots of love in my life.
Hope you find more.
Finny,
Thank you for this excellent post.
You guys are just proving her point.
And what point is that?
Then why are you here?
No problem.Submariner family. This is nuts, and one more chink in our readiness that doesn’t need to happen except to achieve political fairness for some academy female grad looking to punch a ticket. The problem here is that the whole ship is the weapon. There is not backup for failure— usually in combat it would mean complete destruction of the vessel and all crew. No room for “touchy touchy” in any sense, fem-fem (love type) or male-male (love type) or the even more destructive/protective female-male (love type). Like your tag in Latin it is “Primum Non Nocere”
That....”FR used to be a decent site, now it is filled with name calling, woman bashing, and outright disrespect.”
Your comment in post 115 is a perfect example of what she was referring to.
You will never convince people of something they don’t want to be convinced of.
Your comments are clear and there is no reason to misrepresent them like that.
Shake the dust off your feet....
I think women should be able to serve in the military but not on the front lines under pressure with the men.
Many women already work on sub tenders. They do a great job, but I know that the world on a sub tender and that on a sub are galaxy's apart.
We just don't operate like the surface navy.
Next thing ya know there will be mixed SEAL teams
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