Posted on 02/27/2010 9:04:30 AM PST by ConservativeStatement
The long-standing ban on stationing female sailors in submarines is about to become a thing of the past. This week the Pentagon sent a letter to lawmakers telling them of this change in Navy policy, adding that the first female officers will probably start appearing on nuclear submarines by next year.
This is one more step forward for women in the military, although the ban on females serving in certain combat positions still remains intact. Women now make up some 15 percent of the all-volunteer services, and have become crucial to keeping the nation’s military operational.
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonherald.com ...
Were you a submariner?
I was on a destroyer but spent several weeks on an attack sub.
They should both learn to keep their khakis/dungarees on. Military spouses have been cheating on each other long before this announcement was made.
Where Boomers patrol is one of the most closely guarded military secrets. The whole idea is to not let a possible adversary know where they are patrolling - normally port visits or routine surfacings are a no-no.
11. will submarines have PMS alarms?
I’m thinking that the type of woman that would want to do this is not exactly the man loving type. But women are more fluid than men so I guess anything is possible.
I was told by a guy who used to work on a missile boat that during one deployment, they had a guy seriously injure himself while screwing around. We’re talking coma inducing brain injury.
According to the story I heard, the sub stayed on patrol, even though the guy could have died.
Maybe sub-surface ones.
so I would think that in most cases, they would make arrangements to replace a pregnant women during one of their stops several weeks before her due date.
Wow, you are an idiot! Maybe they could dump everything from a helicopter and 'turn it into a flying gas can' and send it to the sub and hoist the pregnant sailor out just like they sorta did in Hunt for Red October
That's the ticket. Especially since subs don't have anything else to do during their deployments except for liberty port visits. Sure you don't work with Obama, you sure have the insight for it!
That’s what I figured. The patrol will be interrupted. But it’s not really an issue for the Navy anymore. They’ve learned to expect the disruption.
I’ll listen to morons like Erbe when we have a draft that requires, for equality sake, 50% of military being women, including combat units.
Put plainly here by me.. a sane person... WE ARE ALL SO FUC#ED! If you are young and considering having babies.. DON’T! Every day that goes by, we become more terminal. China will roll over our homo armies in a day. There is not one of us.. including your beloved Sarah Palin.. who will say no. There is not a one of us with the guts to say no. We are doomed. Oh, all you gun nuts out there... they will either take your little pop guns in a day, or they will simply kill you. All because there wasn’t a one of us who could look at the fuc$ing cameras, point his/her finger at the lens. and say no. Save your last bullet for yourselves.. you’re going to need it.
“I hope they’re around to accept responsibility for their policies when the wheels come off.”
Ft. Hood.
Doesn’t bode well does it.
Real smart. Recipe for disaster:
1. Add 1 World’s most sophisticated Weapons System.
2. Add ship’s compliment of horny dudes who need to be paying 110% attention to what they are doing on watch, all the time.
3. Add females
4. Stir vigorously and enjoy the fireworks.
Idiots. It has NOTHING to do with sexism. It has everything to do with discipline and performance aboard a dangerous vessel, cruising at dangerous depths, carrying more explosive power than was used in the twentieth century.
*head thumping against bulkhead*
heh.... the Star Trek comment above is dead on!
From a pregnancy standpoint, I would think one of the issues would be the inability of nuclear trained persons to perform their job.
Certain watchstanders and jobs inherently receive higher radiation exposure than others. For instance, an Engineering Laboratory Technician (ELT) samples the reactor coolant and receives a measurable amount of exposure during this evolution. Likewise, machinist mates in the aux 2 lower level receive more radiation exposure. The regulatory limit for declared pregnant women is 500 mrem during pregnancy which would rarely be a problem, however. There is a desire to keep the radiation exposure as low as possible so I could see Engineers/COs re-assigning work to lower the radiation exposure (and this would possibly have an effect on moprale). Additionally, there is a regulatory requirement to keep the dose as uniform as possible so certian high dose jobs would likely not be possible. These are generally related to maintenance in the reactor compartment when the reactor is shutdown.
I was on a sub and thus did not have much interaction with Navy women during my time on active duty. I will say that the women I saw on tug boats as linehandlers were generally a waste of a crewman. They were not strong enough to handle the lines and had to be assisted by the male linehandlers.
A submarine makes several stops during a deployment.
No. A submarine leaving Norfolk or Pearl is far more typically expected to complete its mission completely undetected and return home. Stops in ports are for liberty, not for refueling or repairs, and they are allowed, if at all, AFTER the deployment mission, NOT DURING.
they would make arrangements to replace a pregnant women during one of their stops several weeks before her due date.
The idea of a woman in her third trimester, aboard a submarine, boggles the mind.
If they are in the middle of the ocean and there is a need for immediate medical attention, they would meet up with the nearest surface ship.
Emergency medevacs are accomplished, on EXTREMELY RARE occasions, in matters of life and death, because Emergency medevacs at sea are life threatening in-and-of themselves, and they destroy the submarines undetected staus.
I am a little more raw about this topic than most topics. Three years on a fast-attack will do that to you.
As for the attitude that this is no different than forcing the Golf Club at Augusta to admit women:
I would expect that from the current administration or from the faculty at Berkley. I am surpeirsed to see it on this forum.
We are in a war, and right now the majority of danger isn't below the sea. But the US subs' mission never changes and it isn't a mission that should be subordinated to dumbass social engineering. Only someone who doesn't care about the security of this nation could endorse this plan. It isn't about equal opportunity, it is about national survival. It isn't about womens' rights in the 'workplace' it is about Americans' right to have the defense we as citizens have paid for. This isn't an enhancement.
I’m not Navy but I’ve gotten these impressions of Sub life from various sources:
1) A Nuke sub has 2 alternating crews, Blue and Gold.
2) They leave port and submerge for 60 day tours.
3) Each crewman cross trains to perform every task on the boat. This would put someone pregnant at risk to get more of a dose than someone in her condition should.
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