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The move is a major milestone on the road to fully integrating women into combat jobs. The Army is taking a leadership first position by first placing female soldiers in leadership roles in combat roles that were not previously open to them, then allowing those women to train and mentor female enlisted combat soldiers.

Nonsensical gobbledegook from the Pentagon.

'Major milestone' is redundant.

Why aren't the female soldiers serving as infantry grunts first since no women have yet served in combat? Why are they being parachuted into leadership roles without the so-called required experience?

And if a 'fully integrated' Army is the objective, why do we need females and only females to 'train and mentor' female and only female soldiers? Isn't such sex-specific tokenism and segregation the polar opposite of integration? Did we integrate the Army racially but set aside units for black leaders to 'train and mentor' black soldiers? That was and is as nonsensical as this PC Pink Panty Brigade idiocy made even more idiotic by the doubletalk used to sell it.

Why aren't the female soldiers serving as infantry grunts first since no women have yet served in combat?

I am firmly opposed to allowing females into the ground gaining combat arms and into Special Operations. but I find your post to be gobbledegook. Female soldiers, Marines, and other services have served in combat for over 25 years now. Their role to date has not been ground warrior, but all soldiers must be able to engage in combat when required and women have done so, suffering wounds, death, capture by the enemy, and have been recognized for acts of valor.

The change is that they will be allowed to become full members of infantry, armor, Special Forces units and will be expected to perform all assigned tasks across the full spectrum of combat. This, women cannot do, even including the exceptional physical specimens. This is a political and social engineering stunt and will fall on its face as will do the women convinced to signing up for it.

As for your understanding of what will happen going forward, you have a faulty grasp of the next steps. These women, from several commissioning sources will be commissioned as Second Lieutenants in Armor or Infantry branch subject to meeting physical standard and will be sent to their officer basic branch course. They will then be assigned to a unit as a platoon leader. Second Lieutenants, while the authority of command are not expected to demonstrate proficiency. Teaching them how to do this is the job of their first Platoon Sergeant. Lieutenants are advised to pay attention, learn, and recognize that the Platoon Sergeant is a real soldier and you are only so by Act of Congress.

Those women who fail will end up in some other branch, many of them through no fault of their own, but simply because the job requires physical skills that they will not have. No one in Washington will give a damn what might happen to them.