Army stats show that women are injured twice as often as men in combat training

The Wasington Times ^ | August 26, 2015 | Rowan Scarborough

[jazusamo]

Female soldiers suffered double the rate of injuries compared with male colleagues in Army combat training, including jobs in field artillery and repairing the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

The startling statistics come from Army studies obtained by the Center for Military Readiness (CMR), a research group that opposes what the Obama administration is expected to do by year’s end: put women in the direct land combat in infantry, armor, artillery and special operations units.

Retired Gen. Raymond Odierno, who completed his four-year stint as Army chief of staff, said earlier this month that he already has decided to open all artillery jobs to women, except one that embeds with infantry units. The final decision on coed infantry and tank units will be made soon, he told the Army Times.

“We’ve done a lot of pilot programs, we’ve done a lot of physical testing, we’ve done a lot of testing on how we integrate women into units, and those are all going well,” Mr. Odierno said. “We want the best person, if they’re qualified and meet the standards, we want to give them the opportunity to do whatever they want.”

A CMR report paints a less upbeat picture.

The research group filed several Freedom of Information Act requests to obtain documents from the Army on injury rates for women enrolled in combat job experiments since 2012. The Army turned over mounds of reports from its Medical Command and the Army Institute of Public Health.

Data showed that women in the military occupational specialty (MOS) of artillery surveyor meteorological crew member suffered more than double (113 percent) the injuries of men.

Women in basic combat, combat vehicle maintenance and engineers training produced the same lopsided injury ratio.

[tumblindice]

“even this out by injuring more men”

`Sgt. HurtLocker’ could go around and randomly knee-cap sleeping men with a hickory tire-knocker.
It’s the only fair thing.

[centurion316]

Soldiers in the Met Section do not have what I consider to be a physically demanding job, yet females experience 113% more injuries than compared with their male counterparts. What is going to happen when they are assigned to a Howitzer crew? The HE projectile on a 155mm gun weighs 96 lbs.

[jazusamo]

Yep, that crossed my mind also, what a fiasco.

[Ohioan]

This is the true war on women; one that lets the eccentric woman, who wants to compete with men, even where the woman is at the greatest disadvantage, while downplaying the natural advantages of women in the domestic arts, define sex roles.

Feminism is a major pillar of the Leftist war on reality. The fanaticism of those who cannot accept the importance of sex, as a role definer, needs to be addressed; but few are willing to incur the wrath of the radical feminist.

We are not so inhibited: Feminist Delusion.

I do not enjoy incurring the hatred of those claiming to represent the fair sex--although of course they really do not. But what I clearly do not enjoy is seeing young women minus limbs, sacrificed to feminist fantasies.

[sparklite2]

I want women be able to self-actualize — I’m sort of an Alan Alda feminist. The military example I look to is the Israeli Defense Force. Now I read they will exclude women from operating tanks for reasons of physiology. Still, 92% of military positions remain open to women.

[centurion316]

I don’t want to see other soldiers get killed in order to allow some female soldier self-actualize.

[sparklite2]

Yeah, I know. Still, if there is any country under an existential threat, it is Israel. If women is combat was such a losing deal, they would be the least likely to employ it.

[PLMerite]

“What is going to happen when they are assigned to a Howitzer crew? The HE projectile on a 155mm gun weighs 96 lbs.”

As I read many years ago: “A 5’2” 125 lb woman isn’t going to do anything with a 100 lb rucksack except sit on it.”

[GreyFriar]

Odierno was commissioned in Field Artillery. Has he taken a mind washing on how much it takes to lift 105mm and 155mm rounds and their powder charges. I only lifted the 155 rounds a few times, and they are heavy, 95#. I was a 13E, Fire Direction Center guy, but our FADAC weight 200 lbs and the 3Kw generators about the same. The computers are smaller these days, but it still takes strength and endurance to “hump the joes” as we use to say.

[Neoliberalnot]

My wife is a strong woman but a poor shot. She did go through the CCW course with me, but she rarely takes a practice shot.

[elcid1970]

A study done as part of DACOWITZ in 1991 stated thus:

100 men and 100 women, both groups young & fit, were strength-tested using a standard battery of resistance events.

Conclusion: the ten strongest women were only as strong as the ten weakest men.

BTW, a 105mm HEAT main gun round for the M-60A3 tank takes some heavy lifting too, from the ground to the loader’s hatch. Repeat fifteen times.

[fortheDeclaration]

Quick, hide that stat, we can’t have reality!

[wbill]

The Army Ranger women grads are frauds.

There was an article posted to FR recently. It's author was someone who purported to be in the class, and he disagreed.

I've no idea if the article was BS, or not. Will look around for it.

I know nothing about Ranger training, as I'm not military. However, it would not surprise me that there are two women - maybe even a handful more - out of the 10's of thousands in the military who could get through Ranger training, particularly with a little nudge here and there.

Does that mean ALL women are perfectly capable, or that it's a good idea to have women in the field as Rangers? Hardly.

But that's what we're seeing in the MSM. "Anything you can do, I can do better." Bunk.

[vpintheak]

I’d like to see the women who can hump 100+ lb ruck sack with a Mortar baseplate, and a SAW. And then hang while digging a mortar pit and fighting position.
Yeah, apparently 2 exist in the USA. But then can they do that, and haul a man off the battlefield if he’s injured?
Now tell me how it’s so great to have women in combat arms?

[rlmorel]

I saw that on a thread...my impression, and that of many, is that the guy who wrote it was one of those people who stuck his finger in the air, saw which way the wind was definitely blowing, and didn’t want to be on the rank-inhibiting side that states women in combat is a bad idea.

[fwdude]

It's author was someone who purported to be in the class, and he disagreed.

Anyone currently active duty is required to agree with all the policies of this administration on the pains of severe ramifications. Sorry, but you cannot trust the testimony of service members under the thumb of this regime, which hates the military with a passion and is trying to undermine it at every turn.

Same with the Marine outfit that was "just fine" with the openly "gay" unit member. It's all bullshit.

[rlmorel]

You are correct. It is a done deal. There have been a number of threads on this lately.

This explains the physical aspect. I drew this up, and it might not be completely accurate, but explains it, especially the red hatched area:

Freeper smoking frog provided the excellent link to the document below, which I urge anyone to read.

Women in Combat - The Question of Standards

It was written by a Marine who happens to be female (Jude Eden, and I specifically avoided calling her a "former Marine, a description used for people like John Murtha and Lee Harvey Oswald) who spent time in the Middle East. I found her article to be depressing, sad, brilliant, uplifting, and ominous all at the same time.

Depressing because it is true: There are AMERICANS who are pushing this agenda with no regard to national security, battlefield readiness, or the lives of the men and women who will be sacrificed when the bullets begin to fly.

Sad, because this is where we are: most men in the military are bending over backwards not to have their voice heard saying: "This is a bad idea. We cannot integrate women into combat units without severely degrading readiness and the ability to perform the mission.

Brilliant: If I can take the money passage: "...Meanwhile, the argument to maintain the combat exclusion makes itself easily in every aspect. Including women in combat units is bad for combat, bad for women, bad for men, bad for children, and bad for the country. The argument for the combat exclusion is provable all the time, every time. Political correctness has no chance against Nature. Her victories are staring us in the face at all times. The men just keep being able to lift more and to run faster, harder, and longer with more weight on their backs while suffering fewer inju- ries. They just keep never getting pregnant. The combat units have needs that women cannot meet. Women have needs that life in a combat unit cannot accommo- date without accepting significant disadvantage and much greater expense. Where 99 percent of men can do the heavy-lifting tasks typical of gunners, but 85 per- cent of women cannot, there is no gap women need to fill..." That pretty much sums it up.

Uplifting, because this Marine who wrote the article is a Marine, and has demonstrated and successfully argued that there is a role for patriotic, dedicated women who want to serve their country as she did, and her service means no less because she wasn't kicking down doors. She is an American Woman, and her heritage and ideals have more in common with the tough as nails frontier women who conquered this country with their men. She makes the feminists look like the petulant, spoiled, anti-American no-loads that they are. This sailor salutes her.

Ominous, because this movement, like the liberal cancers it shares all qualities with, is not going away. The article you linked, smoking frog, describes this perfectly, and why it is inevitable. Because military readiness and capability is being sacrificed on the altar of an Orwellian concept that men and women can do the same tasks exactly the same. This altar will run red with the blood of both men and women, and we are going to suffer lives needlessly ended, battles lost, and a national humiliation the likes of which we haven't seen.

It won't happen now, and it won't happen during some years of the peacetime military. But when we get to a point we are fighting an enemy who is going to be evenly matched with us, we are going to lose, because they cannot be stupid enough to follow the path we have. And when it happens, the people who will scream the loudest in protest, are going to be the successors to the people who made this all happen, since they will likely be kicking back somewhere, comfortable in their Monday morning armchairs, talking about how it wasn't the emasculation of the military combat units that caused this, it was that we didn't spend enough time, money, and effort to make it work.

Anyway, one more time, the link for those of you who want to read it: Women in Combat - The Question of Standards

[rlmorel]

From Brian Mitchell's book "Women in the Military-Flirting With Disaster" from 1997, here is one of his money quotes:

"...When 61 percent [of female West Point plebes] failed a complete physical test, compared to 4.8 percent of male plebes, separate standards where devised for the women. Similar adjustments were made to other standards. At Annapolis, a two-foot stepping stool was added to an indoor obstacle course to enable women to surmount an eight-foot wall. Mitchell also reports that when women were integrated into the Air Force’s Cadet Wing, The [Air Force] academy’s physical fitness test included push-ups, pull-ups, a standing broad jump, and six-hundred-yard run, but since very few of the women could perform one pull-up or complete any of the other events, different standards were devised for them. They were allowed more time for the run, less distance on the jump, and fewer push-ups. Instead of pull-ups, female cadets were given points for the length of time they could hang on the bar. They fell out of group runs, lagged behind on road marches, failed to negotiate obstacles on the assault courses (later modified to make them easier), could not climb a rope … . The women averaged eight visits to the medical clinic; the men averaged only 2.5 visits. On the average, women suffered nine times as many shin splints as men, five times as many stress fractures, and more than five times as many cases of tendinitis.

[jazusamo]

Excellent post! Thanks, rlm.

[wbill]

hmmm. If it was BS, then why write an op-ed about it? I'd just keep my mouth shut. Unless the author was ordered to write it, which wouldn't surprise me in this day and age.

Or, the op-ed was a total fabrication. Which wouldn't surprise me with this administration, either.

Or, as rlmorel suggested, it was a career-advancing (or non-career limiting) option.

Who knows. But, as I said, it wouldn't surprise me for the military to find someone - say, some top-notch female athlete wanting to make a name for herself - that could sneak into the bottom 10% of the class. Especially with the military being used for a social experiment - there's got to be plenty of pressure to find women who are "Just as Good as Men". Doesn't matter if you're 1st or last, you still get Ranger Tabs for passing.

But finding the exception to the general rule, doesn't make it a standard, or even a passable idea. Which is what the mass media is touting this situation as.