Erika Eichelberger
Posted on 10/05/2012 3:55:13 PM PDT by presidio9
Women could be poised to breach the final frontier of military macho. For the first time yesterday, women were included in a Marine Corps infantry officer training, a grueling three-month course at Quantico, Virginia, where Marines are schooled in making command decisions under extreme stress.
Women have fought and died in every American war, and more than 280,000 of them have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, but they are still barred from the infantry. In February, as my colleague Adam Weinstein reported, the Department of Defense urged Congress to allow women to serve in more combat-related jobs, and has since then opened up new jobs for women closer to the front lines. This training program is part of a Pentagon experiment to develop "gender-neutral physical standards," and collect data on whether women's bodies can actually handle this kind of Rambo job. .
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According to USA Today, the training program involves being dropped into the woods pre-dawn with scant instructions and some 70 pounds of gear. They do he-man feats and march for miles, never stopping to rest all day. A quarter of men drop out or don't pass.
Predictably, some think even letting women on the training program is taking gender equality a step too far. After all, as Maj. Scott Cuomo, director of the Infantry Officer Course, told USA Today, "Sometimes... Marines are fighting with their bare hands against the enemy." Grrrrr! Others worry that allowing ladies in could water down standards and makes us bad-guy targets.
But "[t]he women are expected to do everything that the men do," Marine Col. Todd Desgrosseilliers, who commands the organization responsible for basic Marine officer and infantry training, told USA Today. "We haven't changed anything."
In the face of discrimination and assault, women have been slowly moving their way into the ranks in recent years, now serving on submarine crews, living at forward bases, and flying combat aircraft. But females make up only about seven percent of the Marines, the most male-dominated of the armed services. (Women comprise 14 percent of active duty forces as a whole.)
For his part, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James F. Amos, has lots of faith in the future of women in the armed forces. "I'm not one bit afraid of the results of this," he told the New York Times in April. "I'm very bullish on women."
Oh brother. Here we go. "Gender-neutral physical standards" only means that they go in one direction - DOWN!!
A woman dies, a whole family dies.
Nope—As soon as a war starts they will be pushed to traditional roles: Cooking and washing and keeping records, serving important roles mind you-—Only a small % of an army is on the front lines— Woman may have to fight if the enemy makes a breakthrough—like at Battle of Bulge. But the division of labor is ancient and works well—All armies who tried to break it—suffered in the end.
The enemy should be aware of this and try to figure it out before even sneezing or taking a footstep.
social experiment to destroy the military
That's quite an assertion and one that is not supported by the facts. For example, women did not fight in WWI, WWII, Korea, and Vietnam though certainly some died in these conflicts while serving as noncombatant nurses and auxiliaries. This statement exposes the article and the feminist movement position - it has nothing to do with the military or women in combat, it's just a ploy to advance an agenda that creates a special victim group that includes more than half of the population.
And when there is a DRAFT, the GIRLS BETTER BE DRAFTED, TOO!!! All the women LIBBERS will INSIST on it....NOT!
Erika Eichelberger
Here's how this works. Women are allowed into a training course, branch, or military specialty. Leaders proclaim that nothing has been changed, the standards remain exactly as they were before women were admitted. Then statistics reveal that graduation rates among women lags far behind the men. Standards are changed at that point until the graduation rates come back in line. The result is a military that is less capable of doing the job the country expects them to do.
I attended West Point from 1988-1992. Much of our first and second summer’s training was Infantry based....and women were included.
While I’m sure there are exceptions to every rule...in general, the women could not do everything the men could. No offense to women...its just how nature made us different.
But beyond that, a few other considerations:
1. Infantrymen use a buddy system, and practically sleep on top of each other.
2. Infantrymen change clothes in front of each other.
3. Infantrymen do tick checks on each other.
There are valid reasons to keep the Infantry unisex.
I suppose there are a handful of women out there who are both capable of being in the Infantry, and want to....and their career possibilities may be limited by their exclusion.
But, is it worth changing the entire military, to accomodate a few?
You’re right about this. While the draft isn’t presently in effect 18 year old males must register. Why not women? What happened to equal justice under the law?
That is exactly what my husband says, who was an officer in the military. He also says (I think with a bit of satire, although I am not sure), that an all-woman military, however, would be better than an all-male military, as women are a lot meaner and tougher than guys...I normally punch him when he says that.
I’ll DEMAND IT!!!!! And my LIBERAL in laws can wave goodbye to their granddaughters!!
I hope not. Men and women are not the same, and a society that does not recognize their differences will not flourish.
Any society that sends its women to fight before it sends the non-shaving boys and cane-borne old men is fatally flawed.
Today’s US Military. Where Political Correctness trumps fighting effectiveness.
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