Posted on 03/28/2013 7:19:51 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
NORFOLK
Even before the secretary of defense announced that the military would rescind the ban on women in combat roles, the Marine Corps was already devising a set of standards to determine who is capable of doing those jobs.
This summer, the Corps will begin testing male and female Marines and correlating the results to determine the best measure of who is physically eligible to serve in combat units.
The Pentagon's decision in January was hailed by many who believe that women who can meet military standards for combat jobs should be allowed to serve.
Marine Corps Col. Susan Seaman offered another view Thursday in a speech to women involved in the defense industry.
Inside the Corps, Seaman said, Marines of all ranks are voicing concerns about whether integrating women into infantry, tank, amphibious assault and other units could end up compromising combat effectiveness.
Seaman leads the headquarters and service battalion at Marine Corps Forces Command in Norfolk. She spoke Thursday to about 50 members of Women in Defense Greater Hampton Roads.
Marines' abiding concern is "ensuring we don't lower our standards thereby lowering our combat effectiveness," said Seaman, who described herself as one of just 16 women colonels in the Corps. "How are we going to balance that? How are we going to balance this need to fully integrate women while maintaining our standards?"
Seaman, who served three combat deployments to Iraq and Kuwait in the first and second Gulf wars, said there are enormous physical demands on combat troops.
A soldier or Marine in a combat zone will carry about 85 pounds of gear even to stand guard, she said. He is loaded down with body armor and a helmet, with battlefield items hooked onto his uniform, in addition to his rifle.
On patrol, a soldier will also carry a rucksack with food, water and job-related equipment.
He needs to move fast despite that weight and might need to put a fallen comrade on his back to haul out of harm's way.
"I've been there and was often unable to move with speed and agility," Seaman said.
So, she asked, what formalized physical standards should a Marine meet to qualify for the infantry?
"For example, does an infantry Marine need to pick up a 120-pound man and go 50 yards with him on his back with all his gear on, or is it a 160-pound man or a 200-pound man?" Seaman said.
Even if women do pass the qualifying tests, they aren't likely to exceed the standard under such tough physical conditions,and might have trouble earning the trust of their peers and subordinates.
"Women in the Marine Corps recognize their physical differences from men, especially after a decade of war and seeing what's expected from the infantry on the battlefield," she said. "And we have real concerns about what women and how many women would really be able to shoulder that load - and I mean, literally, shoulder the load."
Seaman also noted concerns about sexual dynamics in units traditionally manned by men 21 and younger - and how these dynamics could affect morale and unit cohesion.
The Marine Corps is already putting women into some combat positions in small numbers to "test the water and see what comes up," she said. The integration should be implemented by 2016.
"My hope is that emotion and good intentions do not affect our ability to prevail in the face of our future enemies," she said.
"My hope is that emotion and good intentions do not affect our ability to prevail in the face of our future enemies," she said.
Hope is a poor way to plan to win a war...
That’s what she’s saying.
Do we really want to see our daughters, wives, mothers in full blown frontline combat. Can you imagine if they were on the frontline at Normandy or Iwo Jima. The very idea of it demonstrates the utter stupidity of ANYONE even contemplating that.
“How are we going to balance that? How are we going to balance this ‘”NEED” to fully integrate women while maintaining our standards?”
A more false premise has NEVER been spoken. Makes me marvel as to how the USMC ever managed that 80 mile withdrawal from Hagaru-Ri at the Chosin Resovoir to the port of Hnngnam without women infantry.
NONE OF THIS is necessary and NONE OF IT will enhance the ability of the armed forces to fight. This issue is being impelled by radical feminist activist politics and cultural marxism. Now we are being told that women are MORE suitable for recruitment for the armed forces than men. This ids the sort of propoganda that those in the cultural marxist homosexual activist movement employ when they imply that homosexual couples are more suitable to raise children than heterosexuals. Anything to achieve their objective of “fundamentally changing” important societal institutions.
This notion of placing women into combat roles is just so easy to refute. Many of you may have heard of a little dustup called World War II. At the peak of United States involvement in that war there were 12 ½ million personnel in uniform, many of them women. Over 400,000 personnel were killed in the line of duty, against the toughest battlefield enemies this country has ever had to face, ones that were capable of and often did inflict shattering BATTLEFIELD defeats upon our sea, land and air forces. Despite this no one saw any need to place women into combat roles that had the responsibility to directly close with, engage, and destroy the enemy..
Today with a much smaller and almost hand picked elite Armed Forces, and a population base that is more than twice as large as that during World War II, there is even less need for it now than then.
This entire idiocy is being propelled by the demand for selfish feminists to qualify for chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, nothing more and nothing less than that.
This lunacy WILL weaken the ability of the Armed Forces to fight, just consider the logistical strain that it will place on the Armed Forces for separate housing and the like. The evidence of the disparity in physical suitabilities for combat MOS’s as reinforced by study after study is simply overwhelming. The effort that will be necessary to obtain a relative few qualified women will not result in anything remotely resembling any accepted model of effeciency, but since that is NOT the object any way, why worry about that? This is merely another sop to the perverted Cultural Marxist notion of fairness and equality and another step on the road of “fundamental transformation” of the vital institutions of this nation.
“......and see what comes up....”
The same ‘thing’ that always comes up... and it WILL be a problem.
The left continually attempts to legislate to overcome physics and biology.
Doing so erodes freedom and increases their power and control.
I can’t begin to count the number of recruits with me in basic that were picked up by the cattle cars because they couldn’t force march 15 miles with full load. Of course that was almost 40 years ago. Maybe things have changed.
Excellent!
Thanks for your service, DMZFrank.
I was following a story around 1990 as the St. Paul fire dept was desperately trying to get their first female through the standards.
The female was exceptional, was at her peak in fitness and health, youth and motivation, and she had at least two trainers, was on a special diet, and had all the leadership, management and media pushing her and supporting her.
All of this was in the hopes that on her best day, at her peak, at that snapshot moment of the first day of her hoped for 40 year career, that she would pass the low standard of a mediocre male applicant.
I couldn’t help but wonder what that meant in regards to her having reserves, of her being able to draw on extra when a life and death situation presented itself, what would she be like only 10 years later after aging and chili dogs and beer, family life and children, and all the other things that accumulate and take their toll after her best day, when she barely squeaked through the test.
Look at those guys fighting in Vietnam, look at how skinny they were and know that being men they could still do the job, but could a women, after living on cigarettes and canned peaches and water, for 6 months, dealing with dysentery and jungle heat, and no gymnasium?
I call them cultural barbarians, because that is exactly what they are. They don’t care what they have to destroy in order to create their brave new world. Centuries of history, even reality itself, must be ignored in their quest for what? A fantasy!
Israelis have already tried this and it doesn’t work.
Its ok with me if they can run 3 miles in 21 minutes, do 12 pullups and 60 situps in one minute. Fine. Sometimes you need a short skinny Marine to do something a big assed huge Devil Dog just is to big for. Sometimes a woman can go where men can’t. But they have got to meet the requirements.
They say we are to celebrate diversity, but it’s they themselves who ignore the wonderful differences between men and women. They believe in equal outcome, not opportunity, and they will stop at nothing in their quest for fairness, to include ignoring the natural world and order.
They can’t meet the standards so the standards will be changed. But that’s only part of the problem. There are the sexual problems, the rivalries, the jealousies, etc. If your husband were in combat would you want him serving with women? It’s just insane. Of course it’s being promoted not for any military reason, but in the name of radical egalitarianism.
What you said.. +1
Tell me, where is that?
Wow. She just blew a huge whole in her career....good for her. Honest, straight forward, and clear eyed. She presents the case concisely and cogently and I say a big WHOA!!!! Too bad the dolts in the WH and the hack politico generals aren’t willing to listen to such sanity
This Marine makes me proud. Politically correct she ain’t.
I hope the scumbag African communist CiC doesn’t get wind of this speech.
I didn’t know very many 120 pound guys in that 18-21 year old range.
I think if you did a distribution curve, a physically fit 120 pound guy would be at the left tail of that bell shaped curve, with probably 150-160 lbs near the center.
I hear what you are saying about sometimes needing small size for certain things, but a 120 lb male and a 120 lb female are two different things. The disadvantage with women physically (comparatively speaking) is two-fold: muscle mass, and bone structure. Testosterone and genetics does make a big difference.
I take my hat off to this Colonel. She sounds like a real no-nonsense Marine.
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