"it doesn't matter one lick that any women were with them, the results would have been the same or worse, because they were basically unprotected except for their personal weapons. " I wasn't claiming that men could fight their way out. I was claiming that this was an instance of women being assigned to units that prepare to support troops in an active combat zone. Infowarrior says that Jessica's Direct Support Maintenance Battalion functions only at the corps level, but I'm not clear if he knows if its assets exclusively operate there or if they are expected to support battalion or brigade HQs.
Re the PT tests. Why should women have lower PT targets than men if they are expected to do the same job? I don't want to come across as some kind of right wing ideologue freak, but it seems that the two are incompatible. There are of course greater inconsistencies that Marines (and civilians) put up with, but unless someone has a better explanation than I can come up with, that's always going to be a thorn in the side.
I'm not even against women in the military. I dated a good one for several month (just after she got out on a hardship discharge for being a single mom). I'm just against pretending they're something that they're not (equal to men in combat support performance) and then treating them with all the special care that ladies should have. I say pick one, any one.
I think that if we're going to let little teenage cuties drive into combat zones among barbarians, we need to make it very clear to them the horrors that they risk, that they're going to be judged by male standards, that their privacy and dignity as a ladies will not be guaranteed. And to some degree, they need to train under those conditions, not just pull out of support roles when most needed. I'm sure there are some women who'd thrive in those conditions. And I suspect Jessica would choose another path.
So for women like Jessica, if we want to take advantage of the benefits they can bring to our military, there are needs in division and higher level units that could very much use their skills and service. I believe that those positions should be specialist positions, being an exception to the Marine's policy that everyone is a rifleman first, so that standards can be adjusted to their nature.
Having a two option service path should satisfy the radicals who truly just want equal opportunity as people who recognize our differences. And having different standards for each should eliminate the contradictions currently in our integration.
The Marines have raised the bar for women as far as the PFT is concerned, and the level of training women go through in boot camp is exactly the same as their male counterparts.The Marines fought bitterly to keep a seperate but equal boot camp rather then go the co-ed route and it has served them well, where as the other armed services have had a number of problems with Co-ed recruit training.
The incidences of sexual harassment inside the Corps have fallen to better then just acceptable levels and women in the marines feel like they are part of the Marine Corps family, so what did the Marines do right.
Like racism The Corps to the issue of women in the ranks head on as only Marines can do, They raised the training standards, they raised awareness of sexual harassment, and they decided that any such B*$# S*&* towards Women Marines would not be tolerated or condoned. A hard line approach was ordered, and the marines followed that order, and because of it Women Marines are better trained and meeting the higher standards set. Does this mena that sometime in the future Women Marines will be involved in combat, yes, but not because the MOS's directly involved in combat have been opened up to them. They will be involved in combat because in the battlefields of the future in this war on terrorism no one is safe where ever they are, even in america, But they will be ready to fight back, they will have been trained to fight, and as the saying goes "Every Marine is a rifleman".
PFC. Lynch didn't choose to fight on the front lines, but it was the front lines came to her unit.
And she wasn't protected by the male soldiers in her unit either, some of the male soldiers in her unit escaped that ambush, they got away while the rest were captured...
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1741236.php So much for the having to defend the little ladies that everyone opposing women in the military is so afraid of, and that they won't be able to hold their own in a fire fight. The facts speak for themselves.
It now becomes not a question of can they defend them selves if called upon to do so, or should they even be allowed to, but one of are they trained well enough to do so in the future, so that next time this type of incident occurs results will be better.
Raise the standards, increase the training, toughen the young women for what they may have to do, and you will do more to "protect" them from the horrors of war then telling them to sit on the sidelines, you will have given them a fighting chance at protecting themselves and their fellow soldiers.