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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: 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.
61 posted on 04/24/2012 3:22:15 PM PDT by central_va ( I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: Echo4C

Oh, good to know that!
Now, about the training.
Watching the documentaries of the FETs and Lionesses, it seems like the training of these female clerks and drivers to go along with male foot patrols into hot zones was kind of made up as they went along.


62 posted on 04/24/2012 3:23:05 PM PDT by silverleaf (Funny how all the people who are for abortion are already born)
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To: Eagles6

Excellent, E6.

Octogenarians should begin complaining about discrimination in the military.


63 posted on 04/24/2012 3:23:05 PM PDT by xzins (Vote Goode Not Evil! (the lesser of 2 evils is still evil))
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To: jazusamo

I gotta’ give it to today’s military “Man”. I don’t think I’d be willing to serve in today’s military.


64 posted on 04/24/2012 3:23:58 PM PDT by Terry Mross ("It happened. And we let it happen." Peter Griffin - FAMILY GUY)
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To: silverleaf

You’ve made your point. We get it, you are in favor of this PC moral depravity. Proud?


65 posted on 04/24/2012 3:24:30 PM PDT by central_va ( I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: elpadre

Had you been a factory manager in 1910, you would have made the same arguments about why society could not put women next to men on the factory assembly lines


66 posted on 04/24/2012 3:25:43 PM PDT by silverleaf (Funny how all the people who are for abortion are already born)
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To: silverleaf
I'm aware of their current assignments and the need for women to be able to make contact with Muslim women in strict Muslim countries. It's more of a special forces type assignment at present from what I've read.

Integrating women in ground combat positions in the Marine Corp and Army is a whole nother ball game, I believe.

67 posted on 04/24/2012 3:25:43 PM PDT by jazusamo ("Intellect is not wisdom" -- Thomas Sowell)
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To: elpadre
The Marine women will be well trained and probably do fine

I agree with all you wrote except the above part b.

You can't train someone to do something they are physically incapable of doing.

68 posted on 04/24/2012 3:26:24 PM PDT by xzins (Vote Goode Not Evil! (the lesser of 2 evils is still evil))
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To: jazusamo

Woman should be allowed in to front line positions IF and ONLY IF they have to meet the same physical and combat standards that men have to meet.


69 posted on 04/24/2012 3:26:55 PM PDT by Thunder90 (Romney barely won in OH with a 12-1 money advantage, he can't beat Obama that way.)
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To: silverleaf

You should also realize that, in the Marine Corps, all women (like all non-infantry men) go through Marine Combat Training before going to their MOS schools. MCT gives the basic knowledge necessary to do combat-related tasks like foot patrols.


70 posted on 04/24/2012 3:27:15 PM PDT by Echo4C (We have it in our power to begin the world over again. --Thomas Paine)
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To: central_va

Is there a moral bottom?

Yep. It’s called Hell.


71 posted on 04/24/2012 3:28:16 PM PDT by xzins (Vote Goode Not Evil! (the lesser of 2 evils is still evil))
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To: jazusamo

As I pointed out during the “Tailhook Scandal” if women cannot protect themselves during a Cocktail party, how than they protect a country during a war?


72 posted on 04/24/2012 3:29:09 PM PDT by N. Theknow (Kennedys=Can't drive, can't ski, can't fly, can't skipper a boat, but they know what's best for you.)
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To: Molon Labbie

Dare you to call a female Gunner’s Mate a Gun Bunny. That would net you 45 and 45 with half months pay x 2.


73 posted on 04/24/2012 3:29:25 PM PDT by Mathews (Ecclesiastes 10:2 (NIV))
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To: central_va

Proud

and retired USAF

and whose memories of moral depravity seem to focus back on strippers in the O’club at Minot and the behaviors of married male fighter pilots when TDY to ROK and PI


74 posted on 04/24/2012 3:29:48 PM PDT by silverleaf (Funny how all the people who are for abortion are already born)
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To: silverleaf
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.

I didn't get the memo that the US has morphed into an Ashcan village.

Do women have a role?

Yes.

On the battle field, NO!

75 posted on 04/24/2012 3:29:57 PM PDT by Las Vegas Ron (Rush Limbaugh = the Beethoven of talk radio - http://www.istandwithrush.org/)
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To: jazusamo

This is madness, utter madness and it tells us just how far pc mentality has snuck into the military.

My son was a rifleman in the 101st AB in Iraq and he’s not a sexist by any stretch but he is adamant that NO WOMEN be in the infantry for some of the reasons mentioned already in this thread.

The things that happen in combat- the risks that soldiers/marines take and the way they necessarily conduct themselves in battle is unsuited for women and men together- regardless of how tough they are. It will handicap the MEN and the mission.

You want women in combat- segregate them and let the very few who will volunteer for it and be physically equipped to handle it be our Amazon brigade- but do NOT mix them with the men. (Even this would never work- it’s not pc enough.)

ScreamingEagle Mom


76 posted on 04/24/2012 3:31:42 PM PDT by SE Mom (Proud mom of an Iraq war combat vet)
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To: Coldwater Creek

Amen FRiend....and, thank you!


77 posted on 04/24/2012 3:32:24 PM PDT by Las Vegas Ron (Rush Limbaugh = the Beethoven of talk radio - http://www.istandwithrush.org/)
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To: lacrew

To DECREASE our readiness, just like dumbing down our students, shipping jobs overseas, etc, etc.

To make Mrs Obama proud.


78 posted on 04/24/2012 3:33:17 PM PDT by huldah1776
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To: xzins

DADT now this. What’s next, how do we go lower from here?


79 posted on 04/24/2012 3:33:28 PM PDT by central_va ( I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: elpadre

I agree that it will hurt combat effectivness and for the reasons you mentioned plus more. The vast majority of women are not physically as strong as men, they’ll probably do okay most of the time but it’s the life threatening times that bother me.


80 posted on 04/24/2012 3:35:16 PM PDT by jazusamo ("Intellect is not wisdom" -- Thomas Sowell)
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