my only reply would be, see post#1... 8^)
Posted on 01/09/2015 3:03:30 PM PST by Chode
The story was indeed news. Up to that point, of the 24 women who had attempted the CET, only one had passed, and she had reportedly later been dropped from the overall course due to an injury. Struggling to get enough female officers into the course to produce a statistically significant result for its study of introducing women into combat roles, the Corps had directed that more seasoned female officers could attempt the course. Now three had made it over the first hurdle.
When all three were cut from the course last week for not meeting physical standards in subsequent training events, the news was not as widely reported. I have only found it here in the Christian Science Monitor, which, to its credit, has closely covered this issue from start:
When they begin the 13-week IOC, officers are told that if they “fall out” of more than one “tactical movement” during their time in training, they will be asked to leave the school.
“That has always been IOC policy,” Major Flynn says.“The key part is not just to conduct a movement. You need to lead that moment, and you can’t do that if you’re falling out.”
The standard pace for “tactical movements” – otherwise known as hikes – at the IOC is about three miles per hour, he says.
During the first march in which the three female – as well as three male – officers were issued a warning, the Marines were given about two hours and 40 minutes to move 7-1/2 miles. At the time, they were assigned to carry roughly 104 pounds each.
If at any point one of the students falls 75 or 100 meters behind the unit, an instructor “will start walking with that Marine,” Flynn says. “We start sticking on them.”
The instructors ask: “Hey, where’s your unit right now? OK, you need to get up with them, because you’re not leading anyone from back here.”
From that point, the officers have about five minutes to start catching up. If they don’t, they are put in a truck.
Officers at the IOC say it’s a safety issue. If the unit gets strung out too far, it’s dangerous not to know where troops are.
The Marines are then told that if they fall behind to a similar degree again, they are out of the course.
“The class adviser pulls them aside and says, ‘That’s your one. You don’t get any more. Understand?’ ” Flynn says. “They’ve been counseled that they have failed a hike, and we don’t tolerate more than one failure of a tactical movement.”
That’s what happened last week, this time during a nine-mile march. The students had three hours to complete it, carrying 124-pound packs.
When three men and three women fell behind for a second time, Flynn had to break the news that they were out.
This story highlights what IOC graduates already knew: that despite the hype surrounding the initial Combat Endurance Test in the press, that event is by no means the most difficult evolution at the three-month course. It may not even crack the top three. Passing it is a meaningful accomplishment, but only insofar as it certifies that the officer has demonstrated sufficient mental and physical toughness to attempt the rest of the course.
Perhaps there is less enthusiasm in covering this most recent turn of events because, unlike the three officers passing the CET, their subsequent departure from the course is part of a repeating and, as yet, unbroken pattern: By my count, 27 female officers have attempted the course, and zero have made it to graduation—with 23 not making it past the CET on the first day. (Roughly a quarter of male lieutenants also do not graduate.)
The law of averages being what it is, if the Marine Corps continues on this course long enough, a female officer will eventually graduate from the course. This Marine will have every right to be extremely proud of herself and of her accomplishment.
But advocates outside the Marine Corps are getting impatient, and pressure is beginning to grow on the Marines to lower their standards.
The change in tone is well summarized in the headline the editors at the Christian Science Monitor chose to give their story: “Three pioneering women in Marine infantry course are asked to leave. Why?” The first half of the story is a by-the-book recounting of the news, after which advocates of getting women into the infantry by any means necessary are given a substantial amount of space to air some good, old-fashioned special pleading:
Retired Army Col. Ellen Haring, an advocate for women in combat, says that although the entire formation was supposed to complete the hike in three hours, it took most of the group closer to four hours.
“Despite the fact that none of them could keep the pace that was set that day, they were considered failures. But the whole unit failed to meet those parameters, not just those six people,” she says. “Who maintains the rate of the march?”
The Marines haven’t always been clear about the parameters for the course, says Greg Jacob, policy director for the Service Women’s Action Network.
At the enlisted training school, Mr. Jacobs, who served as a Marine, recalls that students were told they could walk no faster than three miles an hour, and every hour they had to take a 10-minute break.
In the IOC, “it’s up to the person in front to set the speed of the hike,” he says. “There doesn’t seem to be a standard around these movements.”
As a result, he adds, “it seems like the goal posts just keep moving.”
Colonel Haring argues that this is particularly tough for the women who are endeavoring to become infantry officers. “I’m sure all of these women did this course because they thought they could complete it,” she says.
Considering the objections presented by Haring and Jacob, all that can be said is that the Marines who were cut from the course, especially the women, must be mortified. With friends like these, who repeatedly imply that female officers deserve special treatment in order for them to pass the course, who needs critics?
Much of the pressure for integrating women into combat arms comes from DC-based pressure groups like the radical feminist Service Women’s Action Network and from activists like Haring. Grassroots support for such a move is more limited.
Among female Marine officers, including those who support the introduction of women into combat arms, and those who are personally ambitious to try the infantry for themselves, I have never heard anyone assert that they would like standards lowered for them, so that they can pass the course. Why would they? It would entirely undercut the value of their achievement, and diminish the overall fighting capacity of the Marine Corps. These officers are Marines first and individuals second. They want to succeed on fair terms.
But the objections cited in the Monitor article clearly indicate that outside activists do not share this concern. Under the paper-thin guise of asking for fair treatment, they actually engage in special pleading. Ellen Haring is a retired Army officer who received a fair amount of attention over the summer for arguing that the CET ought to be scrapped as an entry barrier for IOC. Having made an extensive argument for lowering and changing the standards for IOC so that women can more easily pass it, she displayed a remarkable level of rhetorical shamelessness by concluding her article with, “Women Marines don’t want standards to be lowered or changed. They just want a fighting chance to become Marine infantry officers.”
Haring and the spokesman for SWAN, Jacobs, bounce back and forth in their objections to the Monitor between implying that the female officers deserve special treatment to implying that the Marine Corps, presumably from the instructors at the school all the way up to the Commandant, are engaged in thumbing the scales. Their complaints about the procedures of the school indicate that they are perfectly happy to alter and lower the quality of the training to achieve their goal.
There are those whose objections to introducing women into combat arms units—and especially to mixing very young enlisted men and women in such units—extend beyond physical to disciplinary and moral concerns. But setting aside those arguments for the moment, it should be clear that advocates outside of the Corps are engaged in a pressure campaign to lower infantry standards.
Despite the debate on this issue, the maintenance of high standards should be something every Marine should support, as should their friends in the Department of Defense’s leadership and in Congress, not to mention the public. Those Marines who support integrating women in the infantry should consider just what that accomplishment will mean if advocates like Haring and SWAN have their way.
my only reply would be, see post#1... 8^)
The bullets, nap. shrapnel, gas, IEDs, etc. will kill you as fast as they will any politically protected class. Learned that fact 45 years ago. The Marines learned it even farther back than I did.
Good on the marines staying true to combat reality. I just hope their leadership can resist the political (do as I say if you want to stay on active duty, or get the next promotion) pressure that is sure to follow.
BTW - I have an excellent idea - let's run all of the people who are pressing this issue through the crucible and then the advanced combat training course. Hay, I am being nice - I didn't demand that they go through Hell Week!
was a time when lessons learned in blood meant something
Yet ANOTHER STORY that will make Russia QUAKE IN THEIR PANTS, as they continue modernizing and mobilizing for their battle against us.
...I guess, on the good side, the story wasn’t about LGBTs. But those (LGBT) stories have the advantage of making the Russians laugh so hard that we can apply the element of surprise, as they’re unable to stay focused on their monitors.
“Let’s lower standards for surgeons.”
The difference with Surgeons is that, for now at least, we STILL get to choose.
...and I will NEVER choose a surgeon that MAY have gotten to that position because of quotas...and it is NOT hard to identify who they are.
Yuck.
drivel
I imagine Jethro Bodine really did want to be a brain surgeon and a double-naught spy...
His problem was he didn’t have what it takes...What the jobs demand...
Talking the talk is not the same as walking the walk...
The leadership of men in the organized murder that is combat cannot be streamlined, glossed over, or faked. You can either do it successfully or you are a danger to the people you are responsible for and the missions you are tasked to perform.
Infantry war hasn't changed and it won't. It's about killing people and doing the best you can not to get your men killed. It is not anyplace at for social engineering, making aggrieved groups feel better about themselves, or any other stupid agenda.
Argument against, exhibit A.
excellent and 100% descriptive of a possible scenario. I hope the Marines maintain a stiff spine and don’t buckle to the feminists and the Marxists trying to destroy them.
Dont for a second think the radicals have the best interests of the Marine Corps or country in mind, they continue to work to destroy the institutions that made us great. Finally, to my fellow Army Officer quoted in this story, why ddint you go to the MC if you know so much?
You bring something to mind, liberals are always seeking exceptions to use as examples of why we should abandon common sense and history, whether it is finding a tribe of a 100 people in New Guinea that does something different from normal life such as wives having two husbands, or describing examples of females serving in combat.
Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any examples of females dominating large mobile battlefields.
Active Duty ping.
I hear ya.
Devil poodles?
Since the ultimate mission of our military is to win the nation's wars, it means that our armed forces will be less able win our wars.
iirc the Pythons did a skit about the funniest joke in the world that had military applications, but i doubt it could top fags and girl Marines...
nope...
No.
Don’t lower standards for a whiners who couldn’t make the grade.
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