Marines to consider lowering combat standards for women

[waltky]

And then there was one...

One Woman Remains in Marine Special Ops Training
Aug 16, 2016 | Five days into the first U.S. Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command assessment and selection course to admit women, one female Marine has washed out and one remains.

Capt. Nicholas Mannweiler, a spokesman for the command, told Military.com that two women, a staff sergeant and a corporal checked in Aug. 9 at the command's headquarters near Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and began the first 19-day phase of assessment and selection on Aug. 11. The staff sergeant washed out of the course the following day during a timed ruck march, Mannweiler said. The news was first reported by Marine Corps Times. Both the corporal and the staff sergeant came from administrative military occupational specialties, Mannweiler said. He did not disclose their identities or ages.

Mannweiler said he couldn't say how many started the A&S class for operational security reasons, but noted that 32 Marines, including the female staff sergeant, have departed the course so far. The first phase of assessment and selection tests physical fitness and a range of aptitudes to ensure Marines are physically and mentally prepared for what will be 10 months of intensive follow-on training to become Marine Raiders. Alongside physical training, Marines receive classroom instruction in land navigation skills, MARSOC and special operations history, and nutrition and fitness. In January, Maj. Gen. Joseph Osterman, then the commander of MARSOC, called A&S Phase 1 a holistic profile for the Marines who qualify to enter the training pipeline.

Marines with the Lioness Program refill their rifle magazines during the live-fire portion of their training at Camp Korean Village, Iraq

Military.com broke the news in March that a female staff sergeant had been accepted for A&S, just months after a mandate from Defense Secretary Ash Carter had required all military services to open special operations jobs and other previously closed fields to women. Osterman said then that MARSOC leadership had leaned into the new reality, reaching out to all eligible female Marines through the command's recruiting arm to give them the opportunity to apply. The current A&S phase is set to conclude Aug. 22. If the female corporal in A&S can make it through this phase, she will enter a second, more secretive three-week A&S phase. Following that is MARSOC's individual training course, which covers survival, evasion, resistance and escape [SERE], special reconnaissance, close urban combat, irregular warfare and more over the course of nine intensive months.

Those who wash out of A&S have up to two chances to re-enter the pipeline, Mannweiler said, as long as they have enough time left on their contracts and until their next promotion, and the command has enough boat spaces to accommodate them. While MARSOC recruiters have received interest from other female Marines, the command is not currently processing any other applications from women, Mannweiler said.

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2...-training.html

[Cletus]

Womens inna Green Berets...

Two Female Officers Get a Shot at the Army's Green Beret
Jul 25, 2016 | WASHINGTON — Two female Army officers have been approved for initial Special Forces training, the first step in the long process to earn the coveted Green Beret, an Army spokeswoman said Monday.

We tried that back in the 80s. It didn't turn out well.

[The Xl]

The NFL, NBA, and MLB don't lower standards, so why should the marines? There is more at stake here too.

[Ethereal]

Political correctness causes empires to crumble.

Empires crumble because they are unsustainable and immoral...

[Mister D]

Empires crumble because they are unsustainable and immoral...

Not sure I agree. Empires (e.g. Rome, Britain, Hapsburgs) lasted a very long time. They surely declined but all entities are sure to. Also, what exactly do we mean by empire? As I see it, there are two imperial conceptions and only one entails the sort of political dominance you find immoral.

[waltky]

Uncle Ferd goes fer a woman in uniform...

Military Leaders: ‘We’re Seeing a Lot of Interest’ from Women Looking to Join Combat Units
October 25, 2016 – During a panel discussion Monday at the Center for a New American Security, top military leaders said they are seeing “a lot of interest” from women who want to join combat units.

“The Army strategy was to try to build the leadership cadre before really trying to move out training on a larger scale, and we knew it would take some time. All these things take a little time,” Army Secretary Eric Fanning said. “People need to see … that we are sticking with it, but we’ve seen a lot of interest. “We have women leaving West Point, branching into combat arms, but we knew it was going to be slow at first. All the numbers, all the data that we had told us that it was gonna start slowly, but we think it’s moving at the pace … we anticipated it would,” he said. “We’re also seeing a lot of interest, but very frankly, I think that may be the wrong question,” said Navy Secretary Ray Mabus.

“The notion was to set standards, make sure the standards had something to do with the job, and then things like gender, who you love, color of skin become irrelevant - that it’s opening up. It’s saying, if you meet the standards, you get the job, period,” Mabus said. “It’s not forcing people out because simply gender or color or sexual orientation or something like that, and from that point of view, I think that going forward it’s been a big success, and you’re gonna have those standards,” he said. “Nobody is suggesting lowering the standards, but … once you know what the job entails, then gender, sexual orientation, whatever, shouldn’t matter,” Mabus said.

Army 1st Lt. Shaye Haver, center, and Capt. Kristen Griest, right, were the first female soldiers to graduate from Ranger School. Here, they pose with other West Point grads after a graduation ceremony in August.

When asked whether he was seeing women applying to be part of the special operations force or the Navy Seals, Mabus said, “I think you will see that.” “The cycle is such that we haven’t seen it yet, but that’s not a surprise. It’s a fairly long cycle, and I will say this about the Seals. They’ve had the same standards for years - 80 percent of men don’t make it. The Seals haven’t been discombobulated at all about opening it up, because the notion is, you meet the standards, you go through the same things we go through, we don’t care,” he said.

In March, the Marine Corps estimated 200 women a year would move into ground combat roles, amounting to two percent of the Marines in those occupations, according to the Associated Press. The Army said it planned to first assign female officers to jobs in the infantry and armor units and then gradually bring in female enlisted soldiers. The first female officers in those units were projected to graduate in October. “Unlike the Army and Marine Corps, the Air Force said it will not assign women in groups to units, and will instead follow routine assignment procedures,” the AP reported.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/...ng-join-combat

See also:

Navy Secretary: 'Norfolk Is at Risk' from 'Sea Level Rise'
October 25, 2016 | "Norfolk is at risk over the next few decades if we don't do something to slow down sea level rise," Navy Secretary Ray Mabus told a gathering in Washington, D.C., on Monday.

Naval Station Norfolk, the largest naval complex in the world, is located in southeastern Virginia. "All our bases are in some way or other at risk," Mabus said. "We're the first responders. We're the ones -- the Navy and Marine Corps are the ones sent. We get a request for humanitarian assistance or disaster relief an average of once every two weeks. And as these storms get bigger, as sea levels rise, as instability follows, a lot of times, our responsibilities increase.

An aerial view of Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia.

"As the Arctic begins to be ice-free, Russia's already said the waters to its north are an internal waterway. They're not. "Part of our responsibilities is keeping the sea lanes open, making sure that international law is followed, making sure that peaceful trade at sea can go where international law says it can.

"And so climate change and things like that are -- it's a risk in the future for things like Norfolk and our bases, but it's here today in terms of increasing our responsibility in terms of what we've got to respond to, in terms of how we have to position ourselves and how we have to think about our roles." Mabus was speaking at the Center for a New American Security along with the secretaries of the Air Force and the Army.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/...s-norfolk-risk

[Peter1469]

Actually there is very little interest from the women currently in.

[waltky]

Uncle Ferd likes women dat know how to handle a gun - long as dey don't use it on him... First Women Graduate US Army Infantry Officer Course October 26, 2016 — U.S. Army women hit a milestone Wednesday, as the first women graduated from the military branch’s Infantry Basic Officer Leader’s Course.

Ten women received their Infantry blue chord at Fort Benning in the southern U.S. state of Georgia, officially making them infantry officers and giving them the ability to lead an Army platoon of infantry combat soldiers. The Army’s infantry is its main land combat force, responsible for defending the U.S. against ground threats, and capturing, destroying and repelling enemy ground forces.

Ten U.S. Army women were the first women graduated from the military branch’s Infantry Basic Officer Leader’s Course, at Fort Benning, Georgia

Including the new graduates, there are 11 female infantry officers in the U.S. Army. Capt. Kristen Griest became the first female infantry officer earlier this year after completing the Army’s Maneuver Captains Career Course and transferring into the infantry. Ranger school Fort Benning public affairs officer Chris Warner told VOA Wednesday that rather than leading a platoon right away, all 10 women graduates have decided to continue the “unspoken tradition” of moving from the Infantry Basic Officer Leader’s course to Ranger school, the Army’s elite combat training course. Only three women — Griest, Capt. Shaye Haver and Maj. Lisa Jaster — have completed that elite course since it was opened up to women in 2015. Haver and Jaster are not infantry officers.

Students from the Infantry Basic Officer Leader Course Class 07-16 celebrate with their families and fellow classmates after graduation, at Fort Benning, Georgia

Officials anticipate a higher likelihood of success from Wednesday’s female graduates, since the Infantry Basic Officer Leader’s Course produces the highest success rates for Ranger School graduates. The Infantry Basic Officer Leader’s course and the Armor Basic Officer Leader’s course were not open to women until this year. The Army is currently training 15 women at the Armor Basic Officer Leader’s Course at Fort Benning, which will be completed at the end of November. The Army's armor division carries out tank and forward reconnaissance operations on the battlefield. http://www.voanews.com/a/first-women...e/3567503.html

[Peter1469]

If they can't pass Ranger school they will likely never be promoted to captain and certainly not major. They will be one term officers. Or they will transfer to some combat support job. Like logistics.

[donttread]

I knew this would happen, they lowered the standards for Police and Firemen because enough women couldnt qualify, it didnt do the professions any good.
I fully understand women on the board arent going to like my opinion. Its not personal but I do believe it.

This is a HUGE mistake if the corp does it.


Two years ago, Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the nation’s top military officer, laid down an edict on the Obama administration’s plan to open direct land combat jobs to women: If women cannot meet a standard, senior commanders better have a good reason why it should not be lowered.
Today, the “Dempsey rule” appears to have its first test case.
The Marine Corps just finished research to see if female officers could successfully complete its rigorous Infantry Officer Course.

A IOC diploma is a must to earn the designation of infantry officer. Of 29 women who tried, none graduated; only four made it through the first day’s combat endurance test.
Corps public affairs said it did not have the data on which tasks proved the toughest for women. But one particularly demanding upper-body strength test is climbing a 25-foot rope with a backpack full of gear. A candidate who cannot crawl to the top fails the test.

Traditionalists see the 0-29 performance as a call to arms by those inside the Pentagon who are determined to have significant numbers of women in the infantry. They are on the lookout for standards they believe are no longer relevant in today’s battlefield.

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...#ixzz3Xu8Nxhuf
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

A few questions

1) How many combat deaths occur in hand to hand combat these days?
2) If it does largely boil down to "fist fights to the death" why spend all that money on technology? Get some swords.
3) Aren't most of the brown people we set out to kill about the size of our avergae woman , making it a fairer fight?
4) The country has become tolerant of seeing their sons come home in body bags to line he pockets of the super rich. Would they be so tolerant of seeing their daughter's come home in body bags for the same reason?