51-year-old mom holds her own during Basic Combat Training

Fort Leonard Wood Guidon ^ | 2/16/2012 | Melissa Buckley

[9YearLurker]

If she did better than most of the young men on the test—and they passed—then she did meet the same standard as the young men.

Have the standards in general been changed in order to make more women pass? I suspect so and I suspect this is not a good thing. If the only upper-body strength test was pushups, it is easy to see how that would enable more women to pass.

It appears to me the basic army boot camp standards aren’t that high, and she was appropriately routed off to an appropriate role anyway—reservist paralegal.

But for anything approaching combat, I don’t see why either age or sex should factor into the physical fitness standards at all: you are either sufficiently fit and strong or you aren’t.

[ansel12]

If you ever want to be respected, then don’t use this woman /warrior, thing

[ansel12]

If she did better than most of the young men on the test—and they passed—then she did meet the same standard as the young me Stop lying to yourself, fight 1984.

[9YearLurker]

So that’s your answer to information that doesn’t match your view of the world? It must just not be so?

I’m for high, common standards for men and women of any age in any situation for which physical strength may be called for. Clearly the vast majority of women don’t have the upper body strength of reasonably fit men.

But I don’t see the reason to deny simply stated circumstances for a story that does nothing to undermine my position.

[9YearLurker]

Oh, and if you want to be respected as something other than a simple-minded idiot, don’t flash your stupidity when trying to appear hard ass.

[darrellmaurina]

78 posted on Sunday, February 19, 2012 2:20:40 AM by beaversmom: “What's a virtual unit.”

I can't speak for her situation; I don't know. Enough people have asked that I probably should find out.

What I do know is the military is encouraging “work from a remote office location” or even “work from home” situations that make it possible for people to do certain jobs without moving to high-cost areas like the Pentagon or various headquarters locations. It's a win-win for the budget and for people who don't want to move to major urban areas.

I have no idea how that works out with uniformed personnel as opposed to civilian DOD employees and contractors. I don't know if this means she comes to her reserve unit a certain number of days per month and does paralegal work on the office computers, or if it means something different. I don't want to speculate without facts in front of me.

On the broader issue: This article is talking about a woman serving as a paralegal, and given the training she'll need in case her unit gets deployed. It's not talking about women being deliberately put in combat units.

Having women in the military really is a settled issue and has been by act of Congress since the 1940s, expanding emergency measures taken during World War II to recruit women and making them permanent. We can debate how and where women should serve, and what MOSes should be open to women, but the issue of whether women can serve in uniform got settled long before most of us were ever born. If you don't like that, you are welcome to take it up with your Congressman, but I think he or she will in many cases give you a very strange look for trying to overturn things that have been settled law since before the Korean War.

The discussion ought to be on keeping women out of roles they cannot perform without risking the survival of their fellow servicemembers, not whether they can wear the uniform at all.

[darrellmaurina]

Thanks to you both for your notes.

@ Fr-Freak: We're in agreement about the rise of political correctness in the military. I'm not going to give examples in public that could come back to bite me or hurt the careers of colonels and generals, but I've heard enough things with my own ears to leave no doubt about the truth of what you said. Sometimes I wonder if generals are thinking when they make certain comments in front of reporters with tape recorders running.

For me, it boils down to this: not every job in the modern military needs upper body strength, and not every woman in the modern world is a shrinking violet.

In an all-volunteer force for which a significant majority of American males do not meet the qualifications to serve, I have no problem with letting women who do meet the qualifications put on the uniform for some duties.

I think it's best to leave it to the senior enlisted personnel, and to the generals who typically pay a lot of attention to E8 and E9 personnel on that subject, to decide how to design the tests to make sure we don't put people, whether male or female, in positions where they cannot perform as needed.

[Tailgunner Joe]

It's not that women can't fight and kill it's that we should be too decent as a society to send our women to be raped and tortured by the enemy when we haven't even been invaded. It's reprehensible to send women into the combat zone and it defeats the purpose we're fighting for.

The Godless Obamunists insist that they just have to send women into combat or we won't have enough troops to do the job, even as they plan to cut our military by over fifty percent.

[fr_freak]

For me, it boils down to this: not every job in the modern military needs upper body strength, and not every woman in the modern world is a shrinking violet.

Difference in upper body strength is only one of many differences between men and women. There are physical differences, there are biological differences, and there are psychological differences. Upper-body strength is the least of our concerns. The fact is that men's bodies and minds are optimized for combat. Women are not. Of course, women are capable of combat, but they will never be as good as men. Adding women to men's combat units will drag the men down. Women who go against men in any serious combat, armed or unarmed, will die.

Anyone who has spent time in a combat zone knows the stress associated with it. It is not just a 10 minute or even 12 hour battle, it is days, weeks, or even months of preparing, digging foxholes, prepping weapons, sitting in forward positions waiting for the hell to begin. And then once the hell begins, you do not sleep, you do not rest, you do not relax. You spend endless hours in the mud, the dirt, the heat or the cold, not knowing whether you'll ever go home, not knowing what end you'll face, and all the while knowing that the one who must keep you alive is YOU. And beyond that, you must keep your fellow soldiers/marines alive. That level of stress, that sort of psychology, where you just might throw yourself on a grenade to save the lives of the few guys next to you, requires a mentality, a world view that is particular to men and that can be accomplished by men. Denying this is to live in a fantasy land. Very few who have lived through this type of thing live in the fantasy land. However, increasingly more of those who have never experienced it do live in this fantasy land, and then they convince themselves that they are qualified to make policy.

[jjm2111]

She OUTSCORED them only. The scores are weighted by age and sex. So a 51 yr. old female has to do far fewer pushups and situps and get a lot more time on the run to get the same score. Good on her for being in decent shape for her age. But she never really did “better” than her peers.

I hate this sort of PC propaganda. Her story is actually pretty compelling, returning to service after raising her son. It’s very commendable, IMO. But by pretending that she outperformed the other recruits is stupid, it demeans her, and it really demeans her fellow soldiers.

[ansel12]

What is the information on her and her test scores?

She did not compete against men, what were her scores and what are the age and sex compensation?