Posted on 02/12/2018 1:41:00 PM PST by MarvinStinson
The U.S. Marine Corps will no longer require prospective officers to pass a punishing combat endurance test to graduate from the service’s Infantry Officer Course.
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller quietly made the shift to standards in November, altering the test from a pass/fail requirement to just one of many exercises measured as part of overall IOC evaluation, the Marine Corps Times first reported on Thursday.
The course is considered among the military’s toughest training programs, with about a quarter of all students failing to complete it, according to the Washington Post. Most of the 30-plus women who have attempted IOC dropped on the first day during the combat endurance test.
Only one female Marine has graduated from the course since former Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced that all military combat roles would be open to women in 2015.
Marine Training Command officials rejected the notion that the change slackens service standards and said it brings the exercise back to its original intent of assessing the "retention of knowledge, skills, and fitness achieved" at IOC, Military.com reported.
"Over the past 40 years, the Marine Corps has made multiple modifications to Infantry Officer Course (IOC) program of instruction (POI) to reflect the requirements of the operating environment," Training Command said in a statement. "The quality of the course remains the same."
Officials said a Marine’s score on the combat endurance test would "inform" their overall graduation assessment.
Though some have proposed abandoning the test as a fail point in IOC, others have said such a change would lower overall Marine standards.
Marine 2nd Lt. Emma Stokien argued in a 2014 op-ed that removing the required passage of the test would negatively impact female integration into the service.
"Changing this rite of passage will be doing female Marines no favors in trying to be infantry officers," Stokien wrote in War on the Rocks. "Female Marines often have to work much harder than their peers to earn the same respect, and entering the infantry under the dark cloud of even perceived lowered standards will make this a practically impossible challenge and potentially cause real harm to unit cohesion and the faith between leader and led."
Swamp level: not drained.
It sounds like those who prove themselves incapable of enduring combat will still be eligible to endure combat.
I can only say, thank the Lord my son is now a former Marine.
Having been forced to work under the ‘supervision’ of female officers, I can agree this is a disaster in the making.
Exactly! Now they will all be physically unfit.
From: Retain Mike Sent: Saturday, December 2, 2017 11:04 AM To: WSJ Letters (wsj.ltrs@wsj.com) Subject: The Tragedy of Women in Combat
As of December 2015, regimental combat teams and special forces units became bureaucratic toys for those imagining equal opportunity and affirmative action could coexist with warriors enduring the brutality imperative for victory.
Combat operations require the most severe restrictions on human emotions and behaviors to foster the uniquely understood high morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion. Human sexuality cannot intrude into this authoritarian meritocracy where only those displaying the greatest savagely can win.
At the point of collision, our troops face situations requiring exceptional physical capabilities and unbelievably sacrificial, primitive, and intimate relations. They continuously face extraordinary stress punctuated by killing other humans within inherently chaotic and brittle environments.
National defense through war involves the ultimate Olympics. There is much less excuse for merging men and women into this hideous ordeal than exists for combining the athletic competitions every four years.
Institutional memories no longer exist for fighting ferocious, shrewd enemies such as Germans, Japanese, Chinese, and North Vietnamese, who utilized a full array of modern weapons. As this tragedy unfolds remember the quote that, “Men sleep peacefully in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf”
Precisely
Correct. I believe this exercise was to insure that the officer in charge of the platoon was physically fit enough to lead from the front...not hang back in the rear.
The military will spend big money saying that the women do EVERYTHING that the men do even though it is a complete lie. Women should not even be in combat engineers where they have long held positions. This mass insanity is hurting America.
Not a Marine, but I think this is a big, BIG mistake. American blood will be spilled because of it.
In days to day ops, we are supposed to be sensitive and empathetic to females in the squadron, then after decades of sensitivity training we go to war and then we men are supposed to flip a switch and be insensitive to what happens to females in combat?
How’s that supposed to work?
You and me get shot down and they threaten to beat and torture you unless I talk. Sorry pal, when this war is over I’ll buy you a beer at the club.
But an EEOC-trained sensitive guy and a female are shot down and they bring in the female and threaten to rape, beat and torture her in front of mr sensitivity unless he talks.
Guess what Mr Sensitivty does?
I guess we men should be easily able to turn off that sensitivity switch.
Chesty is rolling in his grave.
Chesty is rolling in his grave. Bears saying again.
ping
Dumbing down the system to fit more PC progressive cries for equality and diversity. Question: if one gender has requirements not the same of the other gender, how is that equality, anyone?!
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Exactly what are these “genders” of which you speak?
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Kind of a given, yes...or is this some PC language game?
He’d Better get on the stick. Women definitely could NOT have cut Armor in Vietnam.
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