and America takes another one in the........
Posted on 06/17/2013 3:18:27 PM PDT by jazusamo
The Pentagon is planning to open the ranks of the Navy SEALs, the Army's elite Ranger units and other specialized combat outfits to female soldiers for the first time, according to reports.
The first opportunity female soliders will have to join the military's elite combat units will be with the Navy, according to Pentagon plans outlining the transition, obtained by the Associated Press on Monday.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel could officially announce plans to expand access to those units as soon as Tuesday, according to the AP.
Hagel's pending announcement builds upon former Pentagon chief Leon Panetta's decision in January to end the military's long standing ban on women in combat.
The time lines set by the Department of Defense (DOD) to open Ranger and SEAL units up to female soldiers and sailors are still being reviewed by senior military leaders.
Navy officials will open up the service's Riverine Forces to eligible female candidates, beginning next month, the Pentagon plan states.
Women sailors who fit the service criteria will be able to enroll in the Riverine Combat Skills course, a rigorous 33-day program designed to teach "basic expeditionary combat training necessary to ... perform high risk operations when assigned to Navy Riverine Force Organizations," according to a service website.
Next up will be the Army, whose leaders plan to open up the service's Ranger School at Fort Benning, Ga. to female candidates beginning in 2015.
The service's vaunted Ranger regiments specialize in small-unit combat tactics, airborne assault operations and are seen as the main entryway into Army Special Forces.
Service leaders expect to have new training and qualification requirements for female Ranger candidates by July 2015, the AP reports.
A year later, according to the Pentagon's plans, women sailors will be able to participate in the Navy's Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training program at the Naval Special Warfare Training Center in Coronado, Calif.
BUD/S is seen as one of the most intense training programs in the U.S. military, with roughly 70 percent of SEAL candidates failing to complete the program.
SEAL teams are responsible for some of the most sensitive counter terrorism and combat operations conducted by American armed forces.
Members of the Navy's Special Warfare Development Group, also known as SEAL Team Six, conducted the May 2011 raid in Abottabad, Pakistan that ended with the death of al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.
While allowing female soldiers and sailors the opportunity to join Ranger or SEAL teams is major milestone for the Pentagon, female soldiers have already begun to play a key role in U.S. special operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
All-women units, known as Female Engagement Teams, already work alongside American regular and special forces units to train and equip U.S.-backed local militias in Afghanistan.
Female soldiers and officers have also risen through the intelligence and personnel fields within Special Operations Command and the command's service components.
But with special operations forces set to grow, in both size and operational tempo, the opportunities for women within the command to take part in operations worldwide will only increase.
Those opportunities will likely fall under "indirect action" missions, such as long-term training and advising efforts with foreign militaries, rather than direct combat-type operations, like the Bin Laden raid.
Mountain Phase of Ranger school nearly killed me. If I had gotten recycled that phase I would have had to quit. You’re walking straight up mountains with a huge ruck. There is no way any female who joins the Army can do it.
and America takes another one in the........
There goes ALL of our once great military!! IDIOCY!! Women are NOT capable of this UNLESS they have been SPURNED!
The defenders of Pointe du Hoc, German 916th Grenadier Regiment, would have been taken aback seeing women climbing the cliffs. After laughing awhile about it, the carnage would begin.
And it is more than just about what an individual can and cannot do. There is unit cohesion, and the overall degrading effect. Relationships form, and things happen.
Paula Broadwell’s and Petraeuses are out there.
And when a voluntary relationship forms as it is nearly guaranteed to, the other guys in the unit feel very disgruntled. Grunt life sucks. But it needs to suck pretty closely among the guys in a unit. If one is getting laid, or even just getting some female attention, the others will be very unhappy. It matters not whether she is in top athletic form too.
They are bad for morale.
Not to get too graphic but you could tell what kind of MRE they had eaten the night before. But at that point nobody cared. Would a female do it? Would I want to witness a female do it? Short answer, to accomodate females, they will have to alter doctrine. That will get people killed.
If you read one of my previous posts on the subject I stated that women are not physically able to compete with men in military units such as the SEALS or Rangers. Its ridiculous to even contemplate it. Call the Pentagon its their bright idea and if memory serves its all men up there.
BTW, it pleases me that the first family is going on a lovely Safari. Hopefully, there will be many really hungry cheetahs there with an ill wind be blowing. They are beautiful, impressive creatures. ; )
This is also going to cause a lot of good men in these elite forces to leave because they don’t want to risk having sexual harassment charges being filed against them.
****
I agree.
That is a dishonest argument, the standards are always lowered, women have their own standards in the military that are different from the real soldiers, or else they couldn't be there.
After 40 years of this simple fact, then it is disingenuous to keep pretending that 'keeping standards the same' has any place in this conversation, because that is not realistic.
Yeah, but that's not the way it's going to work. Odierno and Dempsey are pushing this crap. Their collective stars are on the line to see "success" in it's implementation. There will either be two sets of standards for the same qualification or a total lowering of standards to ensure a successful completion rate for females commensurate with traditional rates for men. After all, success of social experimentation must occur at any cost regardless of the consequences.
In the interest of "fairness" this PC BS is going to get even more of our men and women in uniform killed.
Yep. Just what the 0bama regime ordered.
5.56mm
Well, fair's fair. You point the finger at this guy and you have three fingers pointing back at yourself. To an observer, it would seem then, that you have three times the issue with men than the poster supposedly has with women.
In tanks we didn’t even dig a trench. We slept on the tank and hopped off to do our business.
well, to begin with, it's not fair...
“So will the obstacle course include parallel parking a Humvee?”
Now that is just downright funny and oh so true:)!!
“But I wouldn’t close the door to the 0.0001% who can.”
That percentage should be making Americas next families.
So I would close the door. It isn’t about them and their personal misguided dreams. It’s about the mission and the unit. Their very presence degrades that unit.
Among other things, men are being told a woman can do this. Fair, unfair, it makes that job less attractive to men, that’s just a fact.
And their presence is a distraction, denying that putting fit young people in adrenaline filled situations is asking for them to bond sexually. Not PC, but true.
“Ate they going to give them hystorectomies or just calendar their missions?”
As a wife of a former SF soldier, I can’t fathom any woman enduring the training and/or the missions of these men much less while they are bitchin on their period.
Sorry not seeing it. You have no argument there. All of my posts are pro men. Except when some guy just can’t help himself and has to come on to make a totally inappropriate remark about the women in the military who are out there doing their duty just like the men. They are not on board ships to sexually service men. Thats what he was saying and I called him down on it. It was pretty pathetic. Why didn’t you call him out on it?
“But I wouldn’t close the door to the 0.0001% who can.”
I would. Women have no business in combat jobs, period.
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