Posted on 10/05/2012 3:55:13 PM PDT by presidio9
Women could be poised to breach the final frontier of military macho. For the first time yesterday, women were included in a Marine Corps infantry officer training, a grueling three-month course at Quantico, Virginia, where Marines are schooled in making command decisions under extreme stress.
Women have fought and died in every American war, and more than 280,000 of them have deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, but they are still barred from the infantry. In February, as my colleague Adam Weinstein reported, the Department of Defense urged Congress to allow women to serve in more combat-related jobs, and has since then opened up new jobs for women closer to the front lines. This training program is part of a Pentagon experiment to develop "gender-neutral physical standards," and collect data on whether women's bodies can actually handle this kind of Rambo job. .
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According to USA Today, the training program involves being dropped into the woods pre-dawn with scant instructions and some 70 pounds of gear. They do he-man feats and march for miles, never stopping to rest all day. A quarter of men drop out or don't pass.
Predictably, some think even letting women on the training program is taking gender equality a step too far. After all, as Maj. Scott Cuomo, director of the Infantry Officer Course, told USA Today, "Sometimes... Marines are fighting with their bare hands against the enemy." Grrrrr! Others worry that allowing ladies in could water down standards and makes us bad-guy targets.
But "[t]he women are expected to do everything that the men do," Marine Col. Todd Desgrosseilliers, who commands the organization responsible for basic Marine officer and infantry training, told USA Today. "We haven't changed anything."
In the face of discrimination and assault, women have been slowly moving their way into the ranks in recent years, now serving on submarine crews, living at forward bases, and flying combat aircraft. But females make up only about seven percent of the Marines, the most male-dominated of the armed services. (Women comprise 14 percent of active duty forces as a whole.)
For his part, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James F. Amos, has lots of faith in the future of women in the armed forces. "I'm not one bit afraid of the results of this," he told the New York Times in April. "I'm very bullish on women."
The guys I’ve talked to who have been up front in these two wars have told me that when you get all the crap together, they’re up to 100lbs - easily.
Some guys end up getting washed out by the load, but those who don’t are humping 100 easy. The guys who are going spec-ops or long range are humping more than that.
The armor our people are wearing is a big part of the load.
in Spec Ops humping near your body weight is not uncommon!
CSA Ordierno is pushing females into the Ranger Course starting in FY 13. That’s how FUBAR things have become in the Army.
Kruschev would be so proud.
Whatever. Women stopped being feminine a long time ago, hence guys like me (40, single, never married).
Young men and women, continually learn to be more frugal and healthy. Become more self-sufficient each month. Learn to produce something useful. Practice self-defense diligently for the rest of your lives. Be humble. Be nonpolitical. Don’t enlist.
And with it the society dies. Women through the raising of children perpetuate societies. That's a human axiom as it was taught to me in cultural anthropology years ago. I haven't seen anything that makes me doubt it. Most Americans are fine with feminism and by choosing this path choose the nation's destruction.
I know a young lady who served in the green zone in Baghdad. She is beautiful and weighs 100 lbs sopping wet. The physical damage caused by her carrying 70 lbs of body armor has left her with a documented disability from the VA.
In daily PT runs women always always fall out long before men.
To think this will work in infantry is inviting defeat.
That’s what I think. What woman would want to be in the infantry? I don’t know why they want to be on submarines either. Does this mean it would be required or voluntary?
There are usually some babes who are part of the heroic characters in the story line and what do you often see them do in the action part of the films. They get in there and mix it up with the males be they be bad guys or just a friendly bar room fight. You will often see some 120 lb gal knock out with one punch some 260 lb 6 foot 6 inch bad guy (or absorb several of his punches before she lands the coup de grâce .)
Now really! Think about it!
Women on average have half the physical strength of men. (I have seen figures as low as 40% of the strength & as high as 60%. I will split the difference and say 50%) It's not really strength its also the ability to absorb punishment. Women's bodies just don't have the structure to take that many physical blows without a debilitating injury occurring. (Or stress on the joints! There are some revealing labor injury statistics on this !) Men on average can and yes there are always exceptions (And this is NOT the same thing as pain of childbirth!). Every time I see this type of stuff on TV, I start pointing out the physical absurdity of it. My wife yells at me its TV...It's TV!
We have probably had 30 years of this sort of “visual conditioning”. It's no surprise to me that modern “decision makers’ have confused that fantasy with reality.
Confusing fantasy with reality seems to be a common thread in modern society these days.
yeah the armor is killer b/c the ceramics are heavy.
I don't disagree that the tiny percentage of women who can pass standardized requirements deserve a look, but this example is not helpful. First, because all you are saying here is that this women excelled athletically against other women. I ran track in HS. I broke the women's world record for the mile in my freshman year. That made me competitive against other male FRESHMEN in my state. Nothing more. When I was a senior, I would have lapped Mary Decker on an indoor track.
Second, because you are talking about an atheletic specialty. Most shot-putters I've met can barely run one mile. And vice versa. The requirements for basic training are more like a decathelon. Women start with less upper body strength, and a less effecient gait. These are nature's rules, not mine.
“Women in the infantry are great......in the movies.”
Exactly. When you think of women in the military, don’t think of the women you see in the movies. Think of the ones you see every day. I would bet any amount of money that the women I work with could keep up a good jog for more that 2 or 3 minutes. That’s reality, not GI Jane.
The green zone was the home of the headquarters and embassy types, not exactly infantry country. Body armor does not weigh 70 lbs.
You just tell the girls what it’s like to move their bowels in a nighttime alpha alpha and see if they still want to drive on. Or a lay still for ten hours in muddy water in a overnight ambush position.
Or assault a fixed position over broken terrain with a “Pig” and 600 rounds of 7.62 AND the GD spare barrel or tripod.
Or manpacking the tripod or T and E unit from a TOW system for seven klicks over mountainous terrain.
There is no need for this women in the infantry crap and we are losing our minds to even consider it.
So true. This is why Christianity and Western Civilization cherishes women and protects them. This is the reason that our men go to war.
Chesty must be spinning at about a million RPM...
This year's birthday party is going to be borderline revolutionary...Last year's was already close to it...
Yep, that’s it.
Why is it that we never hear about women headed for the NFL? If women can go to the front lines certainly they can play pro football with the guys. Political correctness will send women to the infantry but real football will always be played by big, strong MEN. No girlymen or burlygirls.
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