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MILITARY: Female Marines to get combat assignments
NC Times ^ | April 24, 2012 | Mark Walker

Posted on 04/24/2012 2:26:42 PM PDT by jazusamo

The Marine Corps said Tuesday that it is taking another step toward allowing women to serve in combat roles.

Gen. James Amos, Marine Corps commandant, said selected groups of female Marines will get combat unit assignments later this year as part of a study on the appropriateness of women on the battlefield.

Amos announced the initiative in a message posted on a service website.

The program calls for assigning women officers, gunnery sergeants and staff sergeants to combat artillery, tank, amphibious, engineer and assault units.

Current law restricts women from serving in direct combat in all but a few assignments, such as motor transport or aircraft crews.

But in practice women have served in combat jobs as special "attachments" during the Iraq war and in Afghanistan. More than 140 U.S. military women have been killed in the wars.

Last year, Congress ordered a review of the policy formally excluding women from combat roles.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta took that a further step in February by directing the services assign women to some combat roles and study the results.

(Excerpt) Read more at nctimes.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bam; combat; marines; usmc; women
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To: diogenes ghost

trust me....Lieutenants, Captains, and even colonels must sometimes step in and launch a round.

Even in trainining it establishes credibility with the troops. Can you imagine the cred established when the company commander can’t even lift the thing?


41 posted on 04/24/2012 3:04:38 PM PDT by xzins (Vote Goode Not Evil! (the lesser of 2 evils is still evil))
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To: diogenes ghost
women officers, gunnery sergeants and staff sergeants to combat artillery, tank, amphibious, engineer and assault units

Also, read the above again: "women" modifies the entire list that follows.

A woman staff sergeant is definitely doing grunt work.

42 posted on 04/24/2012 3:06:35 PM PDT by xzins (Vote Goode Not Evil! (the lesser of 2 evils is still evil))
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To: jazusamo

So Rush’s “All-American First Cavalry Amazon Battalion” becomes a reality.


43 posted on 04/24/2012 3:08:53 PM PDT by dfwgator (Don't wake up in a roadside ditch. Get rid of Romney.)
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To: x1stcav

MAny of the civillians are not silly.

Perhaps when the leadership and such are more or less wiped out because of our silliness, those of us left will not entertain such silly notions. And get rid of those that want to.


44 posted on 04/24/2012 3:09:23 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (I'd like to tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.)
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To: jazusamo

“Last year, Congress ordered a review of the policy formally excluding women from combat roles.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta took that a further step in February by directing the services assign women to some combat roles and study the results.”

What elese could he do?

Options are:
1)Obey the directives from Sec Def & Congress
2)Resign
3)Openly defy chain of command & use the fall back position of defending the Constitution against all enemies, foreign & domestic. Unfortunately, the framers of the Constitution assumed we would continue to have a smattering of common sense.
4)”assign women to some combat roles and study the results”...it would not take a stacked deck to come to the conclusion that women in combat roles is a stupid idea. Not as stupid as allowing queers in the military, but a stupid idea, none-the-less.


45 posted on 04/24/2012 3:09:30 PM PDT by BwanaNdege (Man has often lost his way, but modern man has lost his address - Gilbert K. Chesterton)
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To: xzins; jazusamo

“If I were the last man on the planet to think so, I would want the honor of saying that no woman should go before me into combat to defend my country.” - John Piper

http://www.worldmag.com/articles/13474

I agree with Piper.


46 posted on 04/24/2012 3:09:44 PM PDT by smoothsailing
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To: Las Vegas Ron

In the villages of Afghanistan, women can go places, hear things, and do things men cannot, like pat down and control the women and children while their men are being interrogated and searched.

They are needed on the “battlefields” of what are today’s “wars, in fact have been servingn on them without receiving the official designator of serving in “combat” (or receiving combat pay, or training)


47 posted on 04/24/2012 3:11:30 PM PDT by silverleaf (Funny how all the people who are for abortion are already born)
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To: USMCWife6869
Thank you, USMCWife, I wasn't aware of that.

I knew he spoke out against the repeal of DADT but said he'd do what he was ordered to do, when it was repealed he supported it. Something didn't seem right about the whole thing if he really strongly objected at first.

48 posted on 04/24/2012 3:11:50 PM PDT by jazusamo ("Intellect is not wisdom" -- Thomas Sowell)
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To: smoothsailing

Same here. And he’s correct. He’s correct for more reasons than the protective role men should assume toward women.


49 posted on 04/24/2012 3:12:21 PM PDT by xzins (Vote Goode Not Evil! (the lesser of 2 evils is still evil))
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To: xzins

I guess it is going to be “Lead from the FRONT (Unless you have cramps...” SPIT!

Good GOD Almighty, what has happened to the Corps? (rhetorical
I swear it seems as if it is a prerequisite lately, that you be a freakin queer loving, politically correct, do whatever it takes to get along with Libs, perfumed prince, to be on the JCOS, and NOT that you be a warrior!!


50 posted on 04/24/2012 3:14:19 PM PDT by MagUSNRET (I have always been proud of my country, it is my government that I am ashamed of!)
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To: Responsibility2nd

Pretty soon they will adopt a policy of no heterosexuals of different sex can serve together. Talk about a wiggy world.

They’ll still get pregnant. It’s just an awful, awful idea all around.

Seriously, if a woman wants to be GI Jane just work for a firearms company, firearms trainer, work with weapons, do survival training out in the parks and such. Don’t do it in the military. If and when you change your mind, you leave other military guys at risk because they were counting on you.


51 posted on 04/24/2012 3:14:34 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (I'd like to tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.)
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To: xzins

and I want to be an Army Ranger even though I have a broken back, an artificial hip and am well past my prime. It is, of course, all about me and if I want it, I should have it. (Do I need the /sarc tag?)


52 posted on 04/24/2012 3:15:00 PM PDT by Eagles6
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To: jazusamo

in practice women have served in combat jobs as special “attachments” during the Iraq war and in Afghanistan

There ya go. They have already been doing “combat mission” in the villages streets and LOC’s in the WOT and in the skies over Iraq and Afghmaistan.

Just without being called “combat missions”. And without combat training. And without combat pay.

Look up “Operation Lioness” and the term “FET” (female engagement teams)


53 posted on 04/24/2012 3:15:58 PM PDT by silverleaf (Funny how all the people who are for abortion are already born)
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To: smoothsailing
I agree with Piper.

Amen to that, he's dead on the money.

54 posted on 04/24/2012 3:16:55 PM PDT by jazusamo ("Intellect is not wisdom" -- Thomas Sowell)
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To: Las Vegas Ron

SPOKEN LIKE A REAL MAN! THANK YOU!


55 posted on 04/24/2012 3:17:36 PM PDT by Coldwater Creek (He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty Psalm 91:)
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To: MagUSNRET

I’m a retired chaplain, Mag. This nation is in a moral abyss, and it’s flailing away at problems that shouldn’t be problems at all.

OF COURSE, a woman shouldn’t be in combat role. Neither should 400 pound couch potatoes. What is hard about that??


56 posted on 04/24/2012 3:18:56 PM PDT by xzins (Vote Goode Not Evil! (the lesser of 2 evils is still evil))
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To: silverleaf

You do realize that combat pay is given regardless of the kind of unit you’re in, right? Everyone in the theater receives it. So yes, women get it.


57 posted on 04/24/2012 3:19:59 PM PDT by Echo4C (We have it in our power to begin the world over again. --Thomas Paine)
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To: MagUSNRET

and if you had been sent to SWA to drive a truck or track supplies and instead ended up detailed to a FET or Operation Lioness to accompany combat patrols into the villages and engage and search the women, what would you have called it, if not “combat”?


58 posted on 04/24/2012 3:19:59 PM PDT by silverleaf (Funny how all the people who are for abortion are already born)
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To: xzins

When are we going to hit bottom? Is there a moral bottom? We seem to dive lower when I think it can’t get any worse a story like this pops up. Start the dang CWII and lets get it over with.


59 posted on 04/24/2012 3:21:23 PM PDT by central_va ( I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: jazusamo
I witnessed the introduction of women into a heavy industry plant in the early 80’s.. The women did fine, it's the men in the crews. There were several problems all of which had an adverse effect on efficiency and as a result plant production suffered.

1. Many times a romance blossoms and often one or both are married. Then the other guys become jealous or harbor resentment.
2. Sometime there is a coxswain in the crew who brags to the others how he is going to bed her and many times does. Again the rest of the crew harbors ill feeling.
3. The crew meets in the parking lot and following some serious drinking arguments flare up, usually having to do with the female.
4. The Anglo-Saxon male instinct as the protector of wife and family takes over men try to make her load light and do things to accommodate her. (hard to explain)
5. Once we inadvertently hired a slut who used her body to cause havoc on the whole shift. 6. there are more situations like these, but I'm having a senior moment. I think you get the point.

IMO - Mixing men and women in combat will not work. We are designed differently (physicaly, mentally, socially, etc.)and created for different purposes, and when they mix nature's beautiful design, trouble brews. The Marine women will be well trained and probably do fine, but the guys will be have a problem dealing with it. This will no doubt seriously affect the combat effectiveness of the unit. And that, of course, leads to casualties.

60 posted on 04/24/2012 3:21:37 PM PDT by elpadre (AfganistaMr Obama said the goal was to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-hereQaeda" and its allies.)
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