Female Marines to sleep next to male Marines in field

Fox 19 ^ | 1-26-2017

[Snickering Hound]

Female infantry Marines will be sleeping in makeshift shelters next to their male counterparts when out in the field and no special accommodation will be offered to them, a Marine Corps official said Thursday.

Marines in the field stay in everything from a large, single room shelter filled with dozens of cots to sleeping under tarps or nothing at all, said Maj. Charles Anklam III, executive officer for 1st Battalion, 8th Marines at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina - the first gender-integrated Marine infantry battalion.

Female Marines have private rooms and bathrooms in their living quarters, and female bathrooms have been added to buildings where Marines work. But female Marines will be expected to share any living spaces with male squad members in the field to keep unit cohesion and replicate battlefield conditions, he said.

"We're not changing our tactical posture or changing how we operate to accommodate the inclusion of female Marines," Anklam said.

The battalion accepted its first three females in early January, marking the first time the Marine Corps has put three enlisted women in a ground combat unit once open only to men. They will serve as a rifleman, machine gunner and mortar Marine.

Anklam said female Marines deployed to conflict zones have shared tents with their male counterparts at times. But this marks the first time female Marines will be doing so during their regular training with their combat unit.

Opponents of the Obama administration's policy change voiced concern about the two genders sharing tents.

"You're going to have sex, you're going to have love, you're going to have relationships, and it's going to overly complicate the command structure," Marine veteran, Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, told the Marine Corps Times.

[New Jersey Realist]

Reminds me of that sex scene in the great sniper movie, “Enemy at the Gates.”

[E. Pluribus Unum]

What could possibly go wrong?

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

Why not compromise and put them in seperate, segregated units?

[Jack Hammer]

Can’t really see this working on Tarawa or Iwo Jima or at the Chosin Reservoir.

Who promulgated this and, more importantly, will Mattis reverse it?

[bgill]

What could possibly go wrong.

[sargon]

What could possibly go wrong?

These men and women are United States Marines. Nothing will go wrong.

BTW, if a woman can pass the necessary tests to become a United States Marine, I'd bet that she's probably a better soldier than the average army Infantryman.

Furthermore, most Marines who have served with women are proud to have done so, and consider them every bit as useful a member of their unit as any of the men are.

I used to be opposed to women serving in formal combat roles, but warfare has become so very different than it was in the past.

The traditional concept of companies and regiments of soldiers having at each other in a formally chosen battlefield is simply not the norm anymore.

For this and other reasons, the notion that women can't be effective in combat is outdated. As a free human being, a woman has the same rights as a man to bear arms and engage in self-defense, when necessary, and the fact that women, on average, are not as physically strong as men is not a sufficient reason to reject them outright in serving a combat role, if that's what they want to do.

I'm reminded of the Russian women who served as snipers during WWII. These combatants were extremely lethal, and they served both honorably and effectively. It's utterly ridiculous to argue that these women, acting as spotter and snipers, were not serving in a combat role.

I understand males' instinct to be the protector of women, and the attendant resistance to allowing them to serve in combat. But the notion that a woman can't serve adequately in various combat and combat-related roles is a vestige of the past, bordering on sexist, IMHO...

[ForYourChildren]

Kinky warriorettes.

[Yaelle]

Sort of. They would need ultrasounds every 2-3 months to make sure they weren’t creating a uterine lining. If you are creating one, and you don’t let it slough off, you could cause uterine cancer. With the right balance of hormones she could prevent lining creation. If a young woman has blood tests and ultrasounds often enough, sure, she can “stop” her cycle,

[Repeat Offender]

As a free human being, a woman has the same rights as a man to bear arms and engage in self-defense, when necessary, and the fact that women, on average, are not as physically strong as men is not a sufficient reason to reject them outright in serving a combat role, if that's what they want to do

I was in 1/8 during the push for Fallujah.

I have 4 combat deployments in 5 years and am combat wounded.

It isn't about what they want to do. It is about one thing and one thing only, the mission. If you can't hack it, if special accommodations need to be made for you - it detracts from the mission. It risks lives.

I may be sexist. I probably am sexist.

But, I know what it is like to look at another human being and pull the trigger, twice. And then smoke his buddy in the same heartless fashion, all the while carrying more than 75% of my body weight in gear and weaponry through house to house assault.

You, on the other hand are an idiot.

My true feelings on what I think of dumbasses keyboard warriors like you would get me banned from FR permanently. But, just know that what I think you should do to yourself is generally not anatomically possible.

[sargon]

However much you may have disagreed with my opinion, your abusive language was completely uncalled for, and un-Christian.

I never said that the Marines should relax their acceptance requirements for any woman. I simply said that if this woman met those requirements, then she's entitled to the respect that a United States Marine deserves.

I doubt that very many United States Marines would display the disrespect language toward a fellow citizen that you have exhibited, in the total absence of any such language on my part.

So thanks for your service, but not for being a total hotheaded jerk.

[UnwashedPeasant]

In a cozy tent far from civilization, every Marine co-ed will look HOTTT!!

[smokingfrog]

** “We’re not changing our tactical posture or changing how we operate to accommodate the inclusion of female Marines **

riiiight...

[Future Snake Eater]

Kandahar Airfield was a big ol’ bangfest when I was there in 2009-2010. I’m sure it had been that way for years at that point.

[Boomer]

A couple things come to mind other than the obvious nature taking its course when these young men and women are out in the field alone and together and sparks start flying.

One is I see no reason why a sniper and her spotter couldn’t work as a unit if both are women. In fact by by being women they might be able to move about undetected better than two men in some cases and demographics such as by wearing a burka that allows the gear they will be carrying to be hidden better.

The second is you seem to be under the impression people, even a well trained and disciplined Marine, can simply turn their humanity off and become akin to a robot. I categorically disagree with this notion. Testosterone and estrogen will kick in at some point no matter how well disciplined someone is. We can fight nature but in the end nature always wins. Been there done that.

[Bobalu]

The military exists to kill people and break stuff...it cannot function as a co-ed experiment doomed to failure. Mad Dog! clean up this mess!

The left has gone mad.

I long for a return to the day that democrats were liberals. Now they are leftists/Marxist lunatics.

They once were anti-communist, religious, good people. Now they are NOT good people, they are violent and dangerous.

The good liberals who used to be democrats have become independents or republicans... Reagan was a dem back when they were still sane but as they went farther down the rat-hole of Marxism Reagan left the party.

As they become more violent..and they will as Trump rolls back their nonsense, we will be in a state of civil war. The whole country will look like Wisconsin did back when Walker was reforming the state and they occupied the capitol for 6 months and threatened to kill Walker and his wife.

[oldbill]

But what about the transgenders?

[JerryBlackwell]

Perhaps you are right that women can be effective in combat. Nonetheless, it remains a bad idea:

1. It takes one woman to make one baby to continue the nation’s survival as a population. Start losing women in combat and your ability to continue as a nation decreases proportionally.

2. Imminent rapes and degradation for the first infantrygirl captured by ISIS. Or are we expecting ISIS to be all Geneva convention about it?

3. We as a society are dooming ourselves to oblivion by discarding traditional gender roles. Next you will have boys pretending to be girls and demanding the ‘right’ to use whatever bathroom they choose....

[Pelham]

Sure.

What could possibly go wrong?

[Pelham]

Seems to me a certain General Hooker tried something like this during the Late Unpleasantness. Sorta.

[gogeo]

Bo...wacka wacka...