Females begin infantry training at all-male school

Stars and Stripes ^ | 9/26/2013 | Thomas Brennan

[markomalley]

The former all-male Infantry Training Battalion East issued its first combat load to 15 female Marines to research gender integration in combat specialties.

The Marine Corps announced Wednesday the arrival of 19 females to the battalion. Of that group, four have voluntarily withdrawn. The group will train with Delta Company. It is the first of 17 groups to train at the battalion in the next year. The Corps' goal is for at least 300 females to attend through August 2014.

In January, former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta overturned a policy prohibiting females in combat specialties. Panetta's decision mandates full integration by 2016.

Leon Pappa, the lead investigator overseeing research for the Marine Corps' training and education command at Headquarters Marine Corps, said females will endure 59 days of basic rifleman and infantryman instruction, during a media telephone interview Wednesday.

"There will be no standards changed for this research," he added.

Infantry Training Battalion has five training companies and is among three schools making up the School of Infantry East, which trains 17,600 students annually. ITB trains infantry and Marine Combat Training Battalion trains non-infantry Marines. The Advanced Infantry Training Battalion trains Marine leaders in advanced infantry tactics.

During recruit training at Parris Island, S.C., 114 females were screened with fitness test scores. Of the 42 qualified females, 19 volunteered.

"Volunteers not meeting the standards will receive the same remediation as their male counterparts," Pappa said. "A volunteer may recycle to a follow-on company no more than once to complete the ... periods of instruction."

At Parris Island, the females learn they can withdraw any time without penalty. By Day 29 of training, females must pass the curriculum or they are sent to MCT. Students must maintain an 80-percent average to graduate.

The female graduates will earn the infantry designation, but won't operate in the Corps as part of the infantry, Pappa said.

The results are due for the Commandant of the Marine Corps' review by October 2014.

Each female, regardless of completion, will be given an exit survey analyzing injuries, medical issues, academics and more, said Pappa.

"Females will be subject alongside the males to a physical and medical pre-screening as well as weekly physical checks to ensure they are not hiding injuries (during training)," Pappa said. "We've also inserted reconfirmation briefs where essentially we will sit down face-to-face with the volunteers at different points during the ITB training to reconfirm their volunteer status."

The confirmation briefs, Pappa said, will be "subtle" and without "excess scrutiny" on the female Marines.

"The reason we want to reconfirm them is because ... attitudes do change," Pappa said. "Males are not given that opportunity because this is their military occupational specialty assignment."

Data collectors are embedded with the training company to track volunteers. Three female combat instructors from MCT have been assigned to mentor and advise the ITB staff. A senior enlisted female Marine will advise the command and assist the three combat instructors, according to Pappa.

Female Marines will not be segregated during training, but will be housed separately from the males in the barracks. In the field, the Marines will berth together but will not share tents, Pappa said.

The training marks the first phase of the integration, which consists of preparation, research and evaluation. Phase 2 will set conditions for implementation during Phase 3

[little jeremiah]

It is so far gone that no one can do anything about it. Here’s Cruz speaking his heart out for 21 hours and “fellow R” are slamming him.

It’s going to take something Very Different than the regular methods to set things to rights.

Electing better guys next time?

Don’t make me laugh.

[little jeremiah]

It wouldn’t hurt you to lose the condescension — condescension toward me, and condescension toward female warriors.

---

I take back my apology for being snarky, you deserved it and then some.

[Taxman]

For the moment, the only thing we can do is keep the pressure on the Bozos in WDC, and make another run at conservative control of the House and Senate in 2014.

A win in ‘14 would be a start.

Perhaps by the time the 114th Congress meets for the first time in 2015, there will be a strong enough case such that impeaching, convicting and imprisoning Ophonybama and his entire posse will be possible.

There may even be enough testicles not in a lockbox to get that done!

[little jeremiah]

I hope you are right. I do think many people are waking up and waking up mad. I just think those holding the reins won’t give up easliy.

[cunning_fish]

>>>Any gun trainer will tell you that women are usually better shots than men, because they don’t have bad habits to unlearn.

In WWII, the Russians’ best snipers were women. The Wehrmacht genuinely feared them.

It wouldn’t hurt you to lose the condescension — condescension toward me, and condescension toward female warriors.<<<

In fact a top Russian sniper who scored the most kills for some reason turned to be female but it doesn’t mean that the rest of female snipers averages better than men.
Sniper is a very specific role, pretty much different from conventional infantry or specops.
Women did good in Soviet Air Force as well but their top female ace only scored 12 individual kills and 4 shared (less than half are Bf-109, the rest are bombers and transports). Needless to say a score like that couldn’t make a male ace in WWII. A man had to score at least 50 kills for an ace title.

Bottom line: women doesn’t make a good soldiers and even worse sailors.
They can make a good pilots because it doesn’t take too much to pull controls. They can hide in wait with a rifle for that same reason but it is completely unnecessary these day if you aren’t at risk of total racial extermination like Russians were at WWII.

[Utilizer]

Fully loaded down should be fun to see them waddling around.

Oh, god... to think of even one of the females I knew in the military even attempting to walk about with the kind of pack I carried brings a huge grimace on. I am not certain that any of them could even stand up with it, let alone hump the basic pack and extra ammo...

[KAESNO2]

>>I take back my apology for being snarky, you deserved it and then some.<<

I bet 90 percent of the women in the IDF could outshoot you on the range or on the battlefield.

[little jeremiah]

A. I am a woman

B. I am a poor shot.

C. You are an idiot.

[KAESNO2]

A. I am a woman

B. I am a poor shot.

C. You are an idiot.

---

Well, if you are a poor shot, then all women must be poor shots. I mean, it’s just logic.

[wardaddy]

its also a mental issue

and a profound cultural one

and anyone on a conservative forum like the assclown you replied to is a damned fool

and then some

[fr_freak]

I bet 90 percent of the women in the IDF could outshoot you on the range or on the battlefield.

Good God, you must be a closet lefty, because only someone with the simple mind of a leftwing nutbag would pull out some completely made up feeling as an argument. You merely feel that this is true. You have no factual basis, whatsoever, for asserting this. It is merely what you feel so it must be true. It simply must be.

[KAESNO2]

>>You have no factual basis, whatsoever, for asserting this. It is merely what you feel so it must be true. It simply must be.<<

So only lefties are allowed to have hunches and suspicions. Thank you for filling me in.

I have a hunch that if Obama is not a Muslim, it is so only in the same way that Charles Lindbergh was not a Nazi. In other words, Obama is everything but a Muslim, just like Lindbergh was everything but a Nazi. All they lacked was the signed membership card. ... But since that is a hunch, I must be a lefty.

I also have a deep suspicion that Obama is on the down low. ... But since that is a suspicion, I guess that makes me a lefty as well.

You certainly are a helpful fellow. I had no idea I was a lefty, but I do now. Thanks.

[fr_freak]

See, your problem is that you cannot seem to distinguish a factual debate from some free-for-all gossip session with the girls. We were having an honest debate here regarding the wisdom of women in combat, which posters were conducting by making an assertion, then backing up that assertion with evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, and you jump in with your opinion and your feelings, then get all shocked and confused when we don't take you seriously.

As a general rule, you need to back up any assertion with at least SOME evidence or observations, especially if you are going to make an assertion that goes against "common knowledge" (Freepers do this all the time). You attempted that at first, God bless you, when you pointed out that the Israelis have used women in combat. However, you were quickly countered with the assertion that the Israelis abandoned that view years ago. Now, if you thought that assertion was incorrect, you could have said "That's not true" and proved it or ask for proof that the assertion was true. Instead, you started going on about how you, personally, feel about the question, as if that matters one whit with regards to serious debate.

Now you're doing the common leftwing redirection: playing the poor victim.Why don't I get to express my opinion? You're so mean! Now its supposed to be all about your feelings AGAIN, instead of the question at hand. Whether you are politically a lefty or not, you have the thinking handicap of a lefty.

[olezip]

I think women in any kind of actual combat situation in Israel has actually been happening for only 15 years or so.

I met an Israelite couple (one man, one woman) in Montreal, Canada, just after the six day war. In talking to them, I found that they had both participated in the six day war, and, just an aside, they were vegetarians. They had both been called to service. That was in the summer of 1967.

[X Fretensis]

During WWII about 34 million people that served in the Soviet Army. Included in that number are 800,000 women, 1,000 of which were trained as snipers.

[cunning_fish]

Yes, they served in any possible combat role (with the exception of navy) but it proved a total failure most of the time. Snipers, pilots and field medic were a few barely fit for their roles.

[KAESNO2]

>>Now you’re doing the common leftwing redirection: playing the poor victim.Why don’t I get to express my opinion? You’re so mean! Now its supposed to be all about your feelings AGAIN, instead of the question at hand. Whether you are politically a lefty or not, you have the thinking handicap of a lefty.<<

I have been a faithful reader of FR since 1998, when I first read about this site in an Andrew Sullivan column about Monica Lewinsky. I never bothered to register, however; I was content just to read. I have come to regret that decision profoundly, because now I have to listen to harridans like Jeremiah call me a noob while she brags about what a bad shot she is. (The women I love and admire are excellent shots.) And I have to suffer the likes of a condescending Johnny-come-lately like you put words in my mouth and feelings in my heart and then insult me for them. ... Well, failing to register in 1998 was not the first mistake I made in my life, and it won’t be the last, so I guess I will just have to move on. Go on and have your masturbatory fun. Pardon me if I don’t shake your hand.

[MortMan]

“Segregate”, to a female Marine recruit, means that they have completely separate training platoons, and I think even battalions. They train separate from the men, not side by side.

This experiment is idiotic, but the description provided here is accurately worded, IMO.

The hygiene issues are long known problems that nobody seems able to overcome.

[MortMan]

You are seeing the defensive side of the equation, and ignoring the offensive side.

Defense loses without offense. For confirmation, check the history of the Maginot line.

[KAESNO2]

>>You are seeing the defensive side of the equation, and ignoring the offensive side. Defense loses without offense. For confirmation, check the history of the Maginot line.<<

I’ll grant you that.