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Military leaders are ready to begin tearing down the remaining walls that have prevented women from holding thousands of combat and special operations jobs near the front lines. Under details of the plans obtained by The Associated Press, women could start training as Army Rangers by mid-2015 and as Navy SEALs a year later. The military services have mapped out a schedule that also will include reviewing and possibly changing the physical and mental standards that men and women will have to meet in order to quality for certain infantry, armor, commando and other front-line positions across the Army, Navy,...

Well, it appears that TRADOC is now well into the process of attempting to destroy the greatest armed force that the world has ever known. Training and Doctrine Command has launched “two major efforts in support of this full integration of women soldiers.” TRADOC has started a scientific review working with U.S. Army Medical Command, U.S. Army Research Institute for Environmental Medicine and Army Research Institute to assist in the development of gender-neutral physical standards for all Areas of Concentration for commissioned officers and military occupational specialties for enlisted soldiers.In addition, the “TRADOC Analysis Center is examining the institutional and cultural...

PARRIS ISLAND, SC (WMBF) - The next war fought by American troops will be fought by men and women on the front line. Today, women are allowed - even encouraged - to serve wherever they're needed. And that has every branch of the military racing to develop a plan to make sure they are not only willing to fight, but ready for the job physically and emotionally. At Parris Island the new role of women in the Marine Corps is changing tradition and attitudes about training at one of the nation's premier boot camps. It has never has been training...

In January, Obama’s soon-to-resign Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said that women will be assigned to combat missions in the U.S. military. The object, we were told, was “to provide a level, gender-neutral playing field” so that women can enter combat positions, since not being permitted to fight holds back careers. This assumes that the purpose of the military is advancing careers, not defending the country. Thus, women will march alongside men into the meatgrinder of war if Congress doesn’t stop it. Feminists have been pushing for the change for at least 20 years. In 1992, the Presidential Commission on the...

Former Tucson lawmaker Terri Proud, who was just hired by the state Veterans' Services Department, was fired Wednesday in the wake of her statement in a news story that menstrual cycles might be too problematic for women to be in combat. The department director who hired her has resigned. Joey Strickland submitted his resignation letter on Tuesday, shortly after the Arizona Sonora News Service story on Proud appeared in the Star. Proud was a personal appointee of Strickland's to the $40,000 administrative assistant position and didn't go through a formal hiring process. She was terminated Wednesday, before she even officially...

The only two women to participate in the Marine Corps Infantry Officer Course (IOC) failed ongoing tests to determine which infantry positions should be available to women, according to the Marine Corps Times: The women failed the introductory Combat Endurance Test, a punishing test of physical strength and endurance, officials at Marine Corps headquarters said Tuesday. The latest class began March 28 at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va., with 110 lieutenants participating. Ninety-six men passed the initial endurance test. Twelve men and two women — the only female Marines taking part — failed. The two women both volunteered to participate...

Did anyone else hear Gen Dempsey's interview on NPR yesterday afternoon? He said that they had to bring women into combat, as only one in four young males in our nation were eligible for enlistment due to the national dropout rate and the increased number of legal problems experienced in the young male demographic. Therefore, they had to allow women to enter previously restricted combat fields in order to meet the military requirements. He stated that the physical standards for these fields needed to be "dusted off" and re-examined, as it might be possible that intellectual and other personal attributes...

Seven Myths About “Women in Combat" Written by G.S. Newbold, Lieutenant General, USMC (Ret.) 17 March 2013 Published here with permission from the author. Written By: G.S. Newbold, Lieutenant General, USMC (Ret.) Marine photo / Cpl. Jennifer Pirante Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Michelle Berglin trains for an upcoming deployment at Camp Pendleton in January. Myth #1 – “It’s about women in combat.” No, it’s not. Women are already in combat, and are serving well and professionally. The issue should be more clearly entitled, “Women in the infantry.” And this is a decidedly different proposition. Myth #2 – “Combat has changed”...

President Obama and Sandra Fluke both callthemselves lawyers and “reproductive rights activists” without giving you any indication that they understand the Constitution or basic biology. I’m not a lawyer, but I understand the Constitution. I’m not a reproductive rights activist, but Iaced Biology 101. So I can tell you that Sandra and Barack are wrong when they classify women in combat and contraception as “women’s issues.” Military combat and contraception coverage are not women’s issues. They are freedom issues and freedom is just as important to men as it is to women. Liberals love dismissing “freedom issues” as “women’s issues”...

Truth To VAWA: Libs wink at violence against women by Daniel Clark Congressional Republicans’ halfhearted resistance to the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act has been portrayed as evidence of the GOP’s “War on Women” – a campaign that we know exists because Jay Leno’s wife tells him so, and that’s corroboration enough to satisfy most news editors. The bill would have sailed through, if not for the addition of several Democrat amendments. The most controversial of these allows non-Indian men who are accused of assaulting American Indian women on reservations to be tried by the tribal courts, thereby...

The real war against women is the announced plan of the Obama administration, using outgoing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta as the fall guy, to assign women for the first time in American history to fight our nation’s enemies in military ground combat. That’s real war, with real guns, real bullets and real deaths. This war doesn’t involve only women who have volunteered to serve in our military. It’s a real war against all 18-year-old American girls, because for the first time in our nation’s history they will be required to sign up for the draft and be ready for...

The military leadership is proving to be a solid ally of President Obama in political Washington, adopting his social revolution and willing to serve as backdrops to the White House's campaign-style drive to win the budget battle with Republicans. The armed forces have launched an unrelenting lobbying effort on Capitol Hill with a flood of briefing charts to defense staffers. They show the damage that automatic budget cuts called "sequestration" would do to the troops -- and to jobs in congressional districts. The charts coincide with the White House push to blame congressional Republicans for the spending cuts, which begin...

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says that he is hopeful that making the combat roles of women official will create a greater environment of respect for women, which in turn may have an impact on instances of sexual harassment and assault. “I believe it's because we've had separate classes of military personnel, at some level,” he said at a press conference Thursday. General Dempsey was quick to add that sexual assault is “far more complicated than that – but when you have one part of the population that is designated as warriors and another part...

This one’s long but stick with it. The good stuff doesn’t start happening until after we’re treated to the thousandth iteration of Charlie Rangel’s master plan to end war as we know it by reinstituting a military draft which virtually no one supports and which Congress will never again feel safe voting for. A draft which, incidentally, he thinks should now include women: “Now that women can serve in combat they should register for the Selective Service alongside their male counterparts,” Rangel said in a statement. “Reinstating the draft and requiring women to register for the Selective Service would compel...

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says Hillary Clinton inspired his decision to allow women in combat. “And in many ways, I have to tell you, it was her inspiration that encouraged me to move forward to be able to bring down the last barriers for women in the Department of Defense and to give them the ability to have a chance to engage in combat. I thank you for that inspiration,” Panetta told Clinton at a Pentagon ceremony on Thursday. …

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he would “feel not only comfortable but proud” if he had a daughter serving in a front-line combat position in the U.S. military. … Sen. McCain has seven children, including four sons and three daughters. His son Jimmy served in the Marine Corps and two others—Jack and Doug—are or were Navy pilots. …

Two decades ago, the Commandant of the Marine Corps declared that women serving in the infantry “would destroy the Marine Corps.� General Robert Barrow explained that, “in three wars—World War II, Korea and Vietnam—I found no place for women to be down in the ground combat element.� He cited the 1950 fighting retreat from the Chosin Reservoir in temperatures of minus 20 degrees, with one Marine division pitted against eight Chinese divisions. Had women comprised 15 percent of his division, Barrow concluded, the Marines would have lost the battle.  “The very nature of women disqualifies them from doing it (killing...

Martin Dempsey, the Army general who's now chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was a division commander when he got to Baghdad in 2003 and climbed into a Humvee for his first trip off base. "I asked the driver ... who he was (and) where he was from," the general remembers, "and I slapped the turret gunner around the leg and I said, 'Who are you?' And she leaned down and said, 'I'm Amanda.' "And I said, 'Ah, OK.' So female turret gunner protecting division commander." One of the things that makes a good commander is the speed...

A senior Defense Department official said the ban on women in combat should be lifted because the military's goal is "to provide a level, gender-neutral playing field." I'd like to think the goal of the military should be to have the toughest, meanest fighting force possible. But let's look at "gender-neutral playing field." The Army's physical fitness test in basic training is a three-event physical performance test used to assess endurance. The minimum requirement for 17- to 21-year-old males is 35 pushups, 47 situps and a two-mile run in 16 minutes, 36 seconds or less. For females of the same...

Senseless advice and nothing nice; that’s what little-girls-in-combat policy is made of. The obvious has already been said about placing women in front-line combat positions. Their presence will reduce unit cohesiveness; male soldiers’ natural instinct to protect women will influence battlefield decisions; there will be the problem of sexual impropriety within the ranks and of rape when women are captured; women will have more trouble measuring up to the physical and psychological demands of battle; special accommodations will no doubt be made so that women may tend to feminine concerns; and, as the high pregnancy rate aboard naval vessels has...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Another one of the many military jobs on the front lines of combat may be opening to women: Flying the high-tech helicopters that move special forces under cover of darkness for missions like the one that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. The Army's most elite aviation unit has proposed a test program to let women serve as pilots and crew chiefs, pending congressional approval. The 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, based at Fort Campbell, Ky., and known as the Night Stalkers, decided to give women a trial as pilots and crew chiefs as part of...

New London — Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey said the military's ban on women in combat had become embarrassing, and the decision to lift it may one day affect the draft. "What we've really done is spun the paradigm on its head," Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in his first visit to the U.S. Coast Guard Academy Thursday. The question isn't "should a woman serve" in a job specialty, Dempsey said, it's "why shouldn't a woman serve?" "Will this expand into the selective service? It might," he said. "But that's a decision of Congress. I can...

BARSTOW • Women will officially be allowed in combat for the first time in U.S. history, the Secretary of Defense announced last week, and Fort Irwin’s commanding general says he welcomes the change. “Since the onset of the conflict (in Afghanistan), I’ve seen men and women do exciting things on the battlefield and that is truly amazing,” Brig. Gen. Terry Ferrell said. “The enemy we face doesn’t distinguish between men and women.” Ferrell said the National Training Center has placed women in different Military Occupation Specialties (MOS) since May 2012. “From a normal progression, it’s not surprising,” he said. “Our...

And so it came, the coup de grace. The final "barrier" to "opportunities" for women in combat is no more. With a stroke of their pens, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin E. Dempsey decreed that no battlefield mission or military role is off-limits to the female sex. The defense secretary and the general thus liberated mothers, daughters, sisters and wives to kill and be killed in the infantry, commando raids, even in Obama administration "overseas contingency operations." In so doing, they also slashed away at that last institutional protection for the space that separates...

adies, for the first time ever, Uncle Sam soon may be pointing at you. Days after the Pentagon cleared women to take certain combat roles, advocacy groups for military women say another new hour has arrived for all young female adults to register with Selective Service, the giant pool of names collected by the government should America ever opt to revive the draft. The movement to require women ages 18 to 25 to sign up for Selective Service — mirroring the law for all U.S. men in that demographic — is rooted in both active-duty and veteran circles. The Service...

COLUMBIA -- When Jonathan Proffitt, a 28-year-old infantry drill sergeant, first joined the military in 2003, if a woman was present, “we’d just get real cautious.” Nearly a decade later, he said the division’s culture is still unique. “Infantry is its own little world inside the military.” But that world is changing. And even talking about it changing is making people cautious. On Thursday Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced an end to the ban on women in direct combat. Fifteen percent, or nearly 202,400, of the U.S. military’s 1.4 million active personnel are women. And more than 280,000 women...

Yes, Dear, I Mean Yes, Sir, I mean Yes Ma’am, I mean Yes, Ms., I mean… It’s absolutely stunning that we’re even talking about this. Have we taken total leave of our senses? --snip-- Opening combat positions to women, our clueless commander in chief says, is an “historic step toward harnessing the talents and skills of all our citizens.” If Obama imagines that one woman in a hundred has what it takes to be a kick-butt, infantry ground-pounder, he’s led a more sheltered life than I ever imagined. Obama ends his statement with this howler: “Today, every American can be...

The head of Special Operations Forces (SOF) says he supports the integration of women into the elite force. “It’s time to do this,” says the organization’s top officer, Adm. William McRaven. “We’ve had women supporting direct Special Operations for quite some time,” he added in remarks Tuesday morning at the Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict conference in Washington. The necessity, he said, is ensuring that all special operators are in peak physical condition. “The one thing we want to make sure [we do is] we maintain our standards,” McRaven said. .... McRaven said that he has been reading recent Pentagon guidance...

This week, the administration that rode to a second term decrying a fictitious war on women by the opposition, opened real fronts on the war on women, perpetuating feminism's worst inconsistencies through its contradictory programs and in the words and deeds of the avatar of these inconsistencies, Hillary Clinton, the "Athena" of low information women voters. Only CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson by her persistence and competence keeps me from burying my head in shame. As the Weekly Standard's Daniel Halper noticed, there was a serious disconnect this week in the administration's approach to women. On the one hand, the president's...

Last Thursday Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and other U.S. military leaders lifted the ban on women serving in combat positions. I, for one, think this is a great idea and have a few modest proposals, if the brass inside the beltway is open to suggestions, on how they should deploy the dames (and whom they should deploy). First off, if you truly want to eviscerate the enemy—namely Muslims—then I propose sending the most nerve grating and foul women Hollywood has to offer straight into hot zones as our forward armies. I’m a thinkin’ starting off with Roseanne Barr, Joy...

Since delusional liberals think that there is no difference in men and women, that women can do anything a man can do, and they want them in the army infantry, Navy Seals and other Special Forces, here is what REAL EQUALITY is........ The NFL will now be 50% females, at all positions. The WNBA will be abolished, women will have to play in the NBA. The NHL will be 50% female. They will play with men. Professional boxing will be for both men and women. The MMA (extreme fighting) will be for men and women, they fight each other. All...

(CNSNews.com) - Gen. Martin Dempsey, President Obama’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Thursday that the U.S. military could figure out ways to preserve the privacy of young ladies serving in frontline combat units, including special forces combat units such as the Navy Seals and the U.S. Army’s Delta Force.

Now that Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has decreed that women may not be excluded from front line combat positions, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey ordered a review of the standards applied to personnel in these positions. Dempsey's order specifically requires all commanders to justify any minimum standards that would tend to disproportionately impact women. “As it stands now, many of the physical requirements imposed on combat troops are beyond the capabilities of the vast majority of female soldiers,” Dempsey said. “This makes the standards inherently discriminatory and denies these female soldiers equal rights. The...

The makeover is already underway. The armed services are “now developing gender-neutral standards for all of their jobs,” reports the New York Times, replacing the less demanding physical standards for women that each branch has been using heretofore (oh, you mean you didn’t know about those lowered standards?) with a single standard for men and women. The Pentagon “has vowed” that the new gender-neutral standard will not be crafted in order to make it easier for women to join combat units. If you believe that, you probably also believe that colleges hire professors on a race- and gender-blind basis. Here’s...

No one should be surprised at the announcement that women are now going to be serving in combat roles in the U.S. military. This has been heading toward us for a long time, and the only thing surprising about it is that so many people are surprised. Now the only thing that stands between your daughter and involuntary combat service is a determination by some president (or other) that we need to return to conscription, followed by one court decision. There are three points to be made about this in response. First, opposition to this monstrosity is a function of...

When she heard that women would be allowed to serve on the frontlines of battle, former Camp San Luis Obispo garrison commander Lt. Col. Nicole Balliet’s first reaction was, “Well, it’s about time!” The Atascadero native then had to better understand the announcement and its implications. “It’s very overwhelming,” she said of the decision. “It’s a huge validation for all the hard work women have done serving in combat for the past several decades.” The official announcement came after initial reports Wednesday of the Pentagon’s reversal of the 1994 ban on women serving in small frontline combat units. In his...

WASHINGTON (BP) -- Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's announcement that the military will remove its ban on women in combat drew criticism from several Southern Baptist leaders, who expressed concern over privacy and military effectiveness and also warned the move is part of a larger societal effort to blur differences between men and women. Panetta made his announcement Thursday (Jan. 24), saying the removal of the ban had unanimous approval from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. With the removal, about 237,000 positions on or near the front lines of combat are now open to women. "If members of our military can...

With little discussion or fanfare, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta lifted the ban on women in combat that has been in effect for as long as there has been a U.S. military. Feminists and some women serving in the military are applauding the move as a victory for equal rights. They claim that justice requires nothing short of opening all positions to females, regardless of the consequences to combat effectiveness, unit cohesion, or military readiness, factors whose importance they minimize in any event. What is perhaps most striking about Secretary Panetta's action is that it reverses the combat exclusion policy that...

When outgoing U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced that he had lifted the Pentagon’s ban on allowing women to serve in front-line combat roles, one of several questions it raised was: Is that unusual? Do a lot of countries allow women to serve in combat? The answer is that many Western, developed countries have women on their front-line forces. But outside of the West, it’s rare. The map at the top of this page shows in red which countries formally permit women in combat positions. Shown in orange are countries that allow women to serve in military roles that involve...

When I heard the inevitable, that Obama, Leon Panetta, and General Dempsey  finally caved into the ACLU, which sued to push women into hot combat zones, I thought back to my tour in Vietnam, when we would fly our Marine helicopters into Landing Zones which were north of the DMZ, and inhabited by Marine grunts - for months at a time. The guys were, quite remarkably, in good spirit, but hadn't bathed, of course, for weeks or more, and  many people  would say they were living like animals in an outpost far, far out there in the boonies of, literally, no...

Get Over It! We Are Not All Created Equal Women can conduct and lead combat operations; that is not the issue. Author: Capt Katie Petronio The Marine Corps Times recently published a handful of articles in regard to opening Infantry Officer Course (IOC) to females and the possibility of integrating women into the infantry community. In mid-April the Commandant directed the “integration” of the first wave of female officers into IOC this summer following completion of The Basic School (TBS). This action may or may not pave the way for female Marines to serve in the infantry as the results...

If you want to stop these pro women in combat lunes dead in their tracks ask them this hypothetical question: You are a General of an Infantry division and your Commander lets you choose one of two enemy divisions to fight. The first enemy division that you could choose to oppose in the upcoming battle is all male. Or you could instead choose to fight the second enemy division that was mixed faggot, women and men. So which enemy division would you choose to fight?

Women can now officially serve in ground combat roles. On Thursday, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta signed an order rescinding the 1994 rule that prevented women from being permanently assigned to combat units. Women have been allowed to serve in some combat roles for years, but this new announcement means women could eventually serve as Navy SEALs. Retired Admiral George Worthington served more than 30 years as a SEAL, and says he supports women serving with SEALs. But, when it comes to women being SEALs , he doesn’t believe they can make the cut. “A lot of the men can't do...

The decision to open up ground combat, front-line roles to women should not be viewed in isolation from a number of significant military policy changes during President Obama’s administration. Some changes have made headlines — the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” women in combat roles, and planned troop reductions– while others, like the ever-increasing influence of international human-rights law in combat operations, have not. There is a common theme, however, and it is decidedly not one of increased combat effectiveness. Following the collapse in morale after the Vietnam War, our nation has labored long and hard to create a...

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday that whether they are male or female "everyone is entitled to a chance" to become a combat soldier in a military that will now adopt "gender netural" standards. “If members of our military can meet the qualifications for a job--and let me be clear, we’re not talking about reducing the qualifications for a job--if they can meet the qualifications for the job then they should have the right to serve,” Panetta said at a Pentagon press conference. The Defense Department announced today that it would rescind its 1994 policy restricting women

Do you believe women should be allowed to serve in combat? Yes No

Sen. John McCain supports allowing women in combat, but says it remains critical for the military to uphold the same high standards that made it the strongest in the world. On Wednesday, outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced that women will be permitted in combat, potentially opening hundreds of thousands of front-line positions and elite Special Forces jobs to women as well as men. … “I respect and support Secretary Panetta’s decision to lift the ban on women serving in combat,” McCain said. “The fact is that American women are already serving in harm’s way today all over the world...

Military-readiness advocate Elaine Donnelly warns that the Obama administration’s decision to put women in ground-combat roles amounts to “social engineering to achieve a political end in the name of diversity.” She adds that the policy shift means “lives could be lost unnecessarily, not just women, but men.” Donnelly’s organization, the Center for Military Readiness, released a 42-page report earlier this week exploring the unintended consequences of putting women on the front lines. “It will do great harm to women in the military, especially those who will find themselves in the infantry—something there’s no indication they wanted,” Donnelly said Wednesday in...

We have apparently arrived at the Golden Age, free from strife and the threat of foreign enemies. Little else can explain so gratuitous a decision as to place women in combat units. The downsides to such a policy are legion and obvious; the only reason to pursue it is to placate feminism’s insatiable and narcissistic drive for absolute official equality between the sexes. Any claim that our fighting forces are not reaching their maximum potential because females are not included is absurd. The number of women who are the equal to reasonably well-developed men in upper-body strength and who have...

Reacting to reports that outgoing Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is lifting the Pentagon’s long-standing ban on women serving in combat, former DOD Inspector General Joseph E. Schmitz tells Newsmax that he believes the decision will lead to a “degradation of good order and discipline” and may even be unconstitutional. Senior defense officials say Pentagon chief Leon Panetta is removing the military's ban on women serving in combat, opening hundreds of thousands of front-line positions and potentially elite commando jobs after more than a decade at war. “Introducing mixed gender combat units in my experience and judgment will inevitably lead...