Right.....
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."
It’s bad enough when a young man is killed, but when a young woman is killed in combat, the enemy kills our future. Make all women eligible for the draft.
To echo and reinforce your remarks. I was teaching at West Point (DMI) to include running committees at Beast and at Buckner when women were first admitted. I can tell you that the standards were revised before the first woman raised her hand on the Plain based on extensive physical tests of female enlisted soldiers. Women (and their male classmates) did not see the same training that was in place before women were admitted. The standards were revised once again while I was there to adjust to performance metrics. I suspect that there have been changes since I left. I have a good friend who is currently the Comm, I haven't asked him about the current situation, it would put him in an uncomfortable position.
I lived next to a lady who was a Olympic Shotputter.
She could do it. Carrie Nation could hold her own in a bar (true she carried a hachet). Calamity Jane was fairly famous for being tough as nails. Ginger Rodgers did everything Fred Astaire did, backwards, in heels.
Keep the standards, and let who qualifies qualifies.
A bank was sued because they gave a test to pregnant women. They were not allowed to work if they couldn’t stand with their toes touching the wall. The court ruled that all employees had to take the test. They lost one pregnant clerk, and 3 vice presidents.
Why would they want to?
I’ve asked a couple dozen vets of Iraq and Afghanistan what they’re really doing in the field.
The first problem I see for “women in combat” is that the typical, average woman simply cannot hump 100lb loads. Period, thanks for playing.
It’s the same deal with me: I can’t hump 200lb loads.
When you get near to carrying your own body weight, you simply cannot do it for long.
My God......they want the women dead before they can get pregnant. The country club Democrats aren’t going to have their little princesses in the Infantry. A dead woman bears no children. They would have to include women in the draft. Where would you put all the inner city women? In the Infantry. This is just another attempt by the Democrat party to reduce the number of Blacks in our country.
You are correct. while a few women can do it, that number is less than 5%.
As an old retired guy, nothing looks dumber than mixed gender PT - the women sweating, the guys trotting along.
Women In the Military Program (WIMP).
I served in the Marine Infantry in the 80’s and I can tell you it was full of a bunch a filthy mouthed, sexist, nasty, men with the minds of adolescent boys. A perfect bunch IMHO to kill people and break things. I could not imagine any women even being around us. With the exception of the Marine Corps Ball, most guys would rarely allow their wives or girlfriends anywhere near us.
See my comments #11 and #22. That's the great fallacy of this whole nonsense.
I left out homophobic.
One American service woman died as a result of enemy fire in Vietnam.
Lt. Sharon Lane was a nurse and was killed when a piece of shrapnel from a commando led mortar attack hit Ward 4 of the 312th Evacuation Hospital, Chu Lai.
Women in the infantry are great......in the movies.
Liberal policies, always trying to fool Mother Nature, always failing.
and to be clear, lots of “men” today can’t carry 100 pounds for a long time, much less 200. i could do maybe 80 fairly comfortably. but i’d be wiped at end of the day.
Right.....
Good picture, except... This individual is an Air Force close air support specialist who jumped into Northern Iraq with the 173d Airborne Brigade in 2003. The point remains valid.
“Liberal policies, always trying to fool Mother Nature, always failing.”
Agreed. I grew up during the feminist bra burning era. I was the daughter of parents educated at top colleges. It’s basic common sense. Sure, teach women like the Israelis do to defend the home front for survival, but don’t send them off to the front lines. Common sense- a commodity in short suppy.
As I’m sure you know, there’s a massive difference between training everyone to the Infantry standard versus assigning women to Infantry Platoons.
When you get shot you know that 120 pound gal next to you will be ready to throw you across her shoulders and dog trot you to the pick up zone.
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