Posted on 01/19/2011 11:11:11 PM PST by neverdem
Heather Pfleuger -- an exuberant, all-American, girl-next-door -- was transformed when she arrived in Afghanistan. She'd shrug into her body armor, strap on her helmet, yank on gloves, goggles and scarf, and slide down behind her turret-mounted Mark-19, a 40mm grenade launcher. From there, she could kill an armored vehicle and everybody in it a mile away.
When she whooped with glee and led a convoy outside the wire, local Afghan fighters, hard men who'd faced down the Russians and the Taliban, fell respectfully silent.
"Specialist Pfleuger can hit anything," her squad leader. Sgt. Kevin Collins, told me proudly. "I feel sorry for anyone who gets in her sights."
That was nine years ago, when Pfleuger was deployed to eastern Afghanistan with the 511th Military Police Company. At the time, I wrote a story boldly asserting that with women like Pfleuger easily accepted in the ranks, doing well at war and liking it, the argument over women in combat "is over."
It wasn't over. In fact, it's about to heat up again. A study commission chartered by Congress is poised to send up to Capitol Hill a recommendation that the last remaining barriers to women – those that formally exclude them from infantry, armor and special forces -- be removed.
Those "close combat" troops -- roughly 14 percent of the military -- are the ones that most jealously guard the all-male cohesion and camaraderie they insist makes them effective in the chaos and stress of long-term exposure to combat.
Never mind that some 200,000 women like Pfleuger have served in wartime Iraq or Afghanistan, that 134 have been killed and 721 wounded in action. With women attacking insurgents with strike fighters and helicopter gunships, machine guns and mortars, riding shotgun on convoys through IED territory and walking combat patrols with the infantry, the Defense Department and the military services have labored mightily to define just what it is that women cannot volunteer to do.
That hasn't been easy, given that in today's wars there are no front lines and no safe rear areas, as the saga of Army Pvt. Jessica Lynch aptly demonstrated (a 19-year-old supply clerk, she was captured and hospitalized by Iraqis after her military convoy got lost in 2003 and her truck crashed during an ambush).
The Army has tried to block women from joining units that "engage an enemy . . . while being exposed to direct enemy fire, a high probability of direct physical contact with the enemy's personnel, and a substantial risk of capture."
That seems to precisely define the situation of Army Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester, an MP, who won the coveted Silver Star for her actions in a firefight in Iraq in 2005. When the convoy she was escorting was caught in an ambush, she leapt out and attacked an enemy trench. Then, with her squad leader, she cleared two trenches, killing three insurgents with her rifle. At the time, she was 23 years old.
Getting the award for heroism "really doesn't have anything to do with being a female," she told reporters. "It's about the duties I performed that day as a soldier."
A group of female Army cooks apparently felt the same way. They were deployed to Iraq where they discovered all the cooking was done by civilian contractors. Instead, they were pressed into service as infantry and came home proudly wearing the highly prized Combat Infantryman Badge, earned only by participating in a firefight with the enemy while a member of or assigned with infantry or special forces.
That's a piece of evidence cited by the Military Leadership Diversity Commission, the group of retired senior military personnel, academics and other civilians whose recommendations on lifting the barriers will be published this winter.
Despite the boots-on-the-ground reality that women serve well and honorably and bravely in combat, what looms ahead are months of contentious congressional hearings and hot-tempered talk show shout-fests and angry op-eds, just like the season of "Don't Ask Don't Tell" of 2010. And this time, the pivotal House Armed Services Committee is led by GOP conservative Buck McKeon of California, who opposed allowing gays to serve openly in the military.
As with the "Don't Ask" debate, the argument will come over whether the presence of women, in small units that must operate for extended periods under fire, would be disruptive.
Would women – if any actually volunteered for and could qualify for an infantry unit -- actually break its tight cohesion and cripple its fighting spirit?
"There's a growing number of women out there who have served 'outside the wire' on combat missions," said a woman who served on active duty in Iraq as an Army intelligence officer. "We carried a full basic load of ammunition and fired the SAW [squad automatic weapon, a light machine gun], .50-cals [heavy machine guns] and M-4 [rifles]) to protect our fellow man and to defeat the enemy," said this young officer, who asked not to be identified by name because of her current job. "We have endured the same harsh living conditions as men, where hygiene isn't exactly a priority," she said.
To insist that gender goes unnoticed in such small units would be "inane," she said; there is a "familial" relationship among the soldiers. "Those who serve for the sake of serving and take pride in their jobs do not feel threatened by sexual orientation, race or gender," she said.
In basic officer training, this young woman was offered the chance to take the physical exam for acceptance into Ranger school, the Army's legendarily tough commando course. She and two other women aced the test – even though they were barred from attending the male-only school or to join Ranger units.
"The truth is that very few women and few men can meet or exceed the desired standards of an Army Ranger," she said. "But some can, and they should be given the opportunity."
In its brief for lifting the barriers, the commission cited research that it said found no negative impact from allowing women to serve in close-combat units. It cited a RAND study which found that "gender differences alone did not appear to erode cohesion." The study was published in 1997, well before women began taking a larger role in combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
That and similar studies are "wrong!" said retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, a combat veteran, historian and former commandant of the U.S. Army War College. "They simply don't understand the nature and character of close combat . . . the 'Band of Brothers' effect," he said recently on Fox TV news.
Scales, an expert on small combat units, said in fact there is no research that settles the question, and that allowing women into such units, in wartime and without knowing how it would affect combat effectiveness, would be risky.
"I've studied this for three decades," Scales said. "The bottom line is nobody knows -- the elements that make up cohesion in a firefight simply aren't known. And to rush into this, in my opinion, could damage cohesion."
And so the battle is joined. Stay tuned.
Black soldiers and quarterbacks wouldn’t have been questioned on their ability to perform “heavy lifting”.
The racist attitude towards blacks centered/centers around intellectual ability.
The problem I see with women in combat is that their fellow male soldiers would have the innate sense of need to protect the woman. It would be a distraction.
Now, this propensity could be trained out of these young men, but would you REALLY want to “train out” their sense of protection of women and physically weaker people?
A study recommends this but no rationale for it is given other then women who serve in non-combat functions are doing ok.
Sounds like global warming.
“Back then, rifle range was three weeks - week 1 for sighting in and instruction, week 2 for practice and week 3 for qualification. We spent hour after hour dry firing, cleaning and reassembying the M-1s.”
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You probably had to fire at a much longer range but in Navy boot camp we had one trip to the range. We were each handed an M-1 and told how to set the sights for windage and elevation at 200 yards. We got forty practice rounds and then fired forty more to qualify at 200 yards. I was one of four or five out of a whole company who managed to qualify. The last sixteen rounds were rapid fire and all sixteen hit the bulls eye. Then the company commander bitched and moaned because we didn’t have more men who qualified. Hell, some of them had never fired a weapon before that day.
“I took training seriously and really tried to keep up with the men. I found I couldn’t. It wasn’t even close. I had no idea the difference in physical ability was so huge.”
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No idea? She obviously didn’t grow up on the farm in the old days. There were some mighty strong girls when they worked the fields but they didn’t play in the boy’s league. When you see a sixteen year old hundred and forty pound lad pick up a burlap bag with two hundred pounds of fertilizer in it and pour it from the bag into a hopper at waist height you realize, “Ain’t no girls doin’ that”, no matter how tough they are.
I was a late maturer, looking like a string bean in high school but some of those boys were scary! I remember one in particular who probably didn’t weigh more than 160 who could pick up a standard cinder block by the center web with one hand and hold it straight out at arm’s length horizontally and carry on a conversation while holding it. That comes from doing hard work beginning no later than first grade.
So what? You could also get male and female nine-year-olds to “squeeze off accurate bursts” as well.
But how about humping that MG up mountains at 10k’? Along with 60# of other gear. And then carrying wounded buddies back to the LZ?
C85
I sometimes think of this quote when I think of women in combat:
Susan: A real woman could stop you from drinking.
Arthur: It’d have to be a real BIG woman.
Why don't some of these women successfully get signed to the NFL first and then prove their talents? The pay is better and it's tribal warfare without the bullets.
Look at thee history of where it has been tried before. The partisans in Yugoslavia to name the most glaring example. The Israelis in their army. In both cases the experiment was short lived. In hand to hand combat where even the slightest edge is critical men will always fare better.This is another stupidity by idiots who insist there is no difference between men and women. Nature says different. In the primitive environment of war where one removes technology there is a great deal of difference between those who can effect trained brute strength and those who simply cannot because they were not designed by nature that way.
Thank you for raising warriors.
My son was trying to get a RASP contract, but he wasn’t offered one. He even filled out the paperwork at Airborne School, but it was denied. We think it may have been because his PT score wasn’t the greatest (284). Even though the minimum is 240, they have many applicants who have 300 and higher, so they can afford to be picky.
Currently my son was asked if he wanted to go to Ranger School for his Company and he said yes, but he has to wait until he’s been there at least 2 years before they will send him. So he’s got some time to get better and prepare.
“the 11th Gold Star Regiment is about 30 per cent female”
http://www.25thida.com/TLN/tln4-26.htm
The CO sent the 3rd Platoon to escort the remaining convoy to the fire support base.
The remaining 2 platoons went into a column..my tank was lead vehicle. We were on a elevated dirt road, entering a small town..there were no people. On the radio told 2nd Platoon leader we might be going into another ambush. I was a 19 year old SGT..11E40.
Anyway was told to halt...wait. ..”the LT called and asked my recommendation..I said lets get off this road..go right..into the woods..then get on line sweep left” Was told to “wait”.
The order came to do as I recommended. Traversed right..and the 2 platoons went into hell.
B Troop arrived several hours later.
Do not know what would have happened if we continued down the road.
The CO was killed, he was a West Point Grad, just made Captain..he was 24.
19 June 1969 KIA
Carlson, Gary W., CPT
Larimer, Keith W., Sp4 - Age 21
Van Dyke, Stephen D., Cpl - Age 21
They were in their own section of the weapons platoon wih three crews for their 81 mm tubes in each rifle company or a heavy mortar platoon with four 4.2" tubes at the battalion. Each section or platoon had a fire direction center when I was an 11C. That's a while ago. They've gotten new and different tubes these days. It's a little different according to the type of infantry brigade, i.e. straight leg, airmobile, airborne, mechanized and motorized. Here's a sample.
Roger that. I served on the USS Princeton (LPH-5) and the twin 5” weren’t much better. We had to aim at the plane to hit the tow target.
But the topper is we had a boy from TN in my platoon who failed, badly, to qualify. Name - David Crockett XXXXXXXX. No more embarassment necessary.
Cb.. you are right. I had many heart to heart talks with my fellow soldiers, which made me reach the same conclusion. I admit, it was hard to accept that those *real men* had a difficult time thinking of me as anything other than like their mother, sister or wife. I bristled and insisted on doing my share, but I soon found out I appreciated men and myself more when I let someone hold the door. These girls are doing great things, breaking all the norms. Give me a real man, and I will be a real woman. Give me a weapon and I will soldier up and get the job done.. afterwards I want to be treated like a woman by my man. All women have some warrior in them, it comes from the passion for their loved ones, the intensity in which they will guard their babies and home. This can be channeled into the defense of our Country. Go My sister’s in arms.
This is the first sentence in my post...
“I would fully expect all military personnel to fulfill the physical requirements for combat.”
I didn’t say “different” physical requirements.
Did you happen to see the news about the female sailor (Dominique somebody) who *fell* off a destroyer in the Persian Gulf? Her body was just recovered.
It used to be a threat on warships (back in my day) to tell somebody, “Stay off the catwalks!” THis meant, “You might *fall* overboard some dark night. (Warships run darkened ship at night. Zero outside lighting.)
I wonder if Dominique *fell* or was helped? Put 300 young adults from 18 to 30 in ultra-tight quarters for months on end. About like putting 50 people in your house for the next six months. You can climb on the roof and look out windows, but imagine your house surrounded by water. That is what it’s like aboard warships. Except on warships, there are dozens of rarely-visited spaces where sexual liaisons can and do occur.
Imagine all of the sexual tension, jealousies, triangles as men and women fall in and out of love/lust. We know about the astronomical pregnancy rates among female sailors. But what about the rest?
Did Dominique *fall* or was she pushed overboard, possibly by a jilted lover, after a last meeting on a dark catwalk above the waves?
And now we want to inflict his madness upon the infrantry.
Have we all forgotten Iwo Jima, the Battle of the Bulge, Chosin Resevoir, Hue City, Mogadishu, Fallujah?
This country is too stupid to last much longer as a superpower.
See 98.
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