So let it be written. So let it be done. - TTG

Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said Thursday that he is opening all jobs in combat units to women, a landmark decision that ends a three-year period of research with a number of firsts for female service members and bitter debate at times about how women should be integrated.

The decision opens the military’s most elite units to women who can meet the rigorous requirements for the positions for the first time, including the Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces and other Special Operations Units. It also opens the Marine Corps infantry, a battle-hardened force that many service officials had openly advocated keeping closed to female service members.

“There will be no exceptions,” Carter said. “This means that, as long as they qualify and meet the standards, women will now be able to contribute to our mission in ways they could not before.” Carter said that the chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force all recommended that all jobs be opened to women. The Marine Corps recommended that certain jobs such as machine gunner be kept closed, but the secretary said that the military is a joint force, and his decision will apply to all services. (Washington Post)

*******************************

This news shocked me, although I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. The decision was probably make months ago by the culture warriors in the Administration. What does this mean? Our very own Fred made a comment that “the goal here is solely to have a woman be chief of staff or chairman of the JCS.” Fred’s right. Now I am pretty damned sure that there is or will be a woman or two out there who can be a competent chief of staff or chairman of the JCS.  I’ve known a very good commander of an aviation element and another very good medical company commander who were female. Anything’s possible. But those were not combat outfits.

I have two problems with this decision. First, the way this decision was made is a slap in the face to the Services and those officers who were studying this question. The Army and the Marines spent a lot of time, money and effort and were about to recommend keeping some positions closed to females. Knowing the way the political winds were blowing, those combat officers had to feel quite strongly about their recommendations. Not to wait for the Services to present and defend their case before issuing this decision was an act of gross disrespect. 

The second problem I have with the decision is the effect it will have on the platoon, company and battalion level of our combat units. Our combat units will become social experiments... experiments were the data will be skewed to fit the desired results. Sure females have passed the Ranger Course. Those women are probably fine officers, but the process corroded the Army. They were not treated as equals. They were given many more chances to succeed than their male counterparts were afforded. A general officer came to the field and walked lanes in order for the female students to pass their final patrols. Do the Washington bureaucrats think the troops would not notice? Clearly the bureaucrats have no respect for those troops. Females in combat units will be cut slack whether they want it or not. That’s the nature of command influence. The final test for this social experiment will be administered by our enemies in combat. They will not skew the data.

Finally, this process will be unfair to the very female soldiers and officers that this decision is supposed to help. One or two might make it on their merits and will become legends. Most will be tainted by the effects of command influence and the ensuing corrosive command climate. Their careers and perhaps their souls will inevitably suffer. 

TTG

Comments

[elaine]

The Peshmerga have some all female fighting units & they seem to do ok., now I'll go hide under my desk cause I know what's incoming.

[The Twisted Genius]

elaine,

No need to hide under your desk. You are right. The YPJ female units seems be doing fine, although the press they get is way out of proportion to what they actually do. I believe the Syrian Arab Army has at least one female unit as well. The Soviets had success with women in combat, especially snipers. Of course these are all extraordinary circumstances. One of the recent Marine tests put an all male, an all female and a mixed infantry unit under combat conditions. I'll look for the article in the morning. Perhaps in 20 to 30 years, we'll wonder what all the hub bub was about. But I think it's going to be a miserable five to ten years at least.

[glupi]

one result will be a surge in the rape rates.
Judging from the duffelblog (not the recent version), there is too much simmering anger out there fueled by single mothers, unfair divorce settlements, female bosses etc. Couple this with daily exposure to porn and video games, dreadful combination is born. The tantalising closeness of the untouchable (or something)

i'll permit myself to repeat my comment from the San Bernardino shooting article:

The female is the deadlier of the species, as per Kipling

it is said that women come to the visible frontlines, only once a group's core interests are at stake.
as example, Jewish women in the military, the change of their societal role

the order of battle of the ancient Asian tribes at their most vigorous:
-males
- blind singer, preferably old, long white beard and staff
- women and children close at the back, taunting the weakening and reminding them what is at stake

The experience of one of the most successful, sustainable organisation in history - the Catholic church - is interesting in this regard. Its leaders are relatively old men with no immediate family, who have only one way to immortality (the other is through one's children. So the church leaders don't have Obama's or Blair's problem to have to provide for children.)
And these great-educated. highly organisationally motivated men promote the Virgin Mary

[Trey N]

The Red Army had women effectively serving in many types of combat units during the Great Patriotic War. Among these:

Marina Raskova formed an all-female fighter regiment which flew the Yak-1. Its most successful pilot was Lydia Litviak, who became an ace.
Another Red Air Force female regiment, the "Night Witches", flew Po-2 biplanes on night bombing/harassment missions.
Most of the women who saw combat on the ground served as snipers or with anti-aircraft and partisan units, though some did serve in the armor and infantry (I believe most of these latter were withdrawn from front-line service after the crisis of 1942 had passed).

By far most of the females who served in the military during WW II saw duty in the support units (signals, medical, supply, etc) rather than at "the tip of the spear," but their work freed up hundreds of thousands of men for the front lines.

[Tyler]

TTG,

When will you understand that the Left in the country hates you and everything you stand for, everything you fought for?

You write all this pretty prose without realizing this and it drives me up the wall. THEY HATE YOU, WHITE MAN.

[Tyler]

Elaine,

peshmerga units are propaganda tools for the most part cause they know the West has a giant hard on for taking a photo of a woman with a rifle in camo before they invent a story about a lesbian mother who wishes she could vote for Hillary killing some IS honcho.

The fighting and dying is done overwhelmingly, as it always has been, by men over there.

[Emad]

TTG,

Your skepticism is, to put it mildly, warranted. But I think in the longer term, technology will settle the issue in favor of feministas.

- Can't take it any more? No problem. Here's a pill to soothe the female psyche after hours on end of sleeplessness.

- Rucksack's too heavy? 20 miles is beyond your legs? Have I got a little something for you....

[glupi]

The enemy is already using females in virtual and actual combat at all levels

******

Let me tell you a love story. A modern Romeo, let's call him Syed, and a modern Juliet, let's call her Tashfeen.

Tashfeen could not show her face to Syed's family out of shame, because she was not a virginal bride. At mid-20s she is a little bit long in the tooth to be an unmarried Pakistani female. Her first family were killed in the Afghanistan/Pakistan troubles. That's why she could abandon the new baby - the eyes of the buried were with her, day and night
I wonder what "Tashfeen" means

Syed had to marry an unsullied woman from the home countries, as do most of USA-born Indians, UK-born Pakistanis, Germany-born Turks. So he went looking.
How did he end up with Tashfeen, who, let's face it, was not a physical beauty such as this one by Mahyar Gudarzi:
https://1x.com/photo/133521/all:user:141877

Perhaps he was simply starved for gentle, loving care and she was "a dancing shape, an image gay, to haunt, to startle, and waylay"

*****
On a different angle, we could save ourselves a lot of trouble if we could understand and accept the Spartans, the openly bisexual fathers who gave us Marathon, and the Amazons, who stopped Alexander

[Old Microbiologist]

The wisdom or folly of this decision will be revealed over time. My second wife was a tiny 4'10" warrior (now Colonel in a very dark wet ops Intel unit) who could out perform almost every male soldier I have ever known including myself, purely on her intense spirit alone (which continues today into her late 50's and she is still a deployable asset). So, I think it is past time in this age of equality to make it so. However, most women and men simply cannot perform many of the tasks required for particular combat arms jobs and even many support jobs. Back in the WAC days (early '70's), I worked at a Troop Medical Clinic at an Army Depot repair facility in Nellingen Germany. We had a contingent of 50 female welders on a base of roughly 5,000 personnel. Our daily sick call had at least 10 and sometimes up to 20 women every day (out of a rough average of 150 soldiers on a normal day) and these were real bruisers obviously capable of the heavy work. It was not their mental temperament which caused them problems nor their physical prowess which was enormous. Even so the injury rate was amazingly high and I wonder how these women fared later in life. Of particular note we did have one woman welder who cut across her hoses and received 99% burns (and died 1 day later). This was devastating to morale on the base. With that in mind, I wonder if the reckoning years down the line will balance the costs to these women and our society for this decision. Only time will tell.

[William R. Cumming]

Sources IMO reliable say this decision necessary for reinstitution of the DRAFT which is being studied by the Administration!

Am I correct that all drafts after the WBS were instituted by Democratically controlled Congress and signed by Democratic Presidents?

[Seamus Padraig]

Yeah, but those are ALL female units. There is no sex-integration of the YPG. Consequently, holding every member of the unit to the same standards is still quite feasible. On the contrary, having to cut certain members of a unit 'slack' on account of their sex may be corrosive of morale and esprit du corps. I believe that that is the point Col. Lang was trying to make.

[harry]

The exceptional females who might makes it on merit will be hamstrung by this approach.

[AEL]

Canada has been totally open to women for a long time. The comments from our allies have not changed before, or since. They don't complain about our quality, but they do complain about our lack of numbers.

[turcopolier]

AEL

How many women now serve in Canadian Army infantry units at company level? Actually, how many non-militia Canadian infantry troops at company level are there? Canada's forces, like those of the UK are so small that they are a kind of hobby shop project and are not a serious combat force anymore. pl

[Fred]

elaine,

Margaret Thatcher did a pretty good job in the UK.

[Fred]

TTG,

I agree with your comments in the post. Sadly the junior enlisted ranks are going to have a number of problems affecting moral and combat effectiveness. But at least those from the spit on the troops generation can take in their having imposed "equality". Violence and destruction in service of the state in order to win a war? Apparently it hasn't occurred to them that that is the purpose of the armed forces.

[AEL]

Last time I checked, about 1% of enlisted infantry are women but about 4% of infantry officers are. Only exceptional women join and stay in the combat arms.

And yes, we have less than 5000 effective bayonets (9 battalions). Not being a serious combat force has its advantages - it reduces the number of adventures our politicians can entertain.

[JM Gavin]

Anyone who has not served in combat recently with the US military, in the current socio/political environment, has no firsthand experience or knowledge upon which to form an educated opinion on this subject.

[JM Gavin]

That did not come out as I intended. I'm not as eloquent as most here. What I am trying to convey is that you need to have served in combat recently to understand the actual ramifications of this directive in today's military.

[mbrenner]

I suggest taking a look at a marvelous movie available on You Tube: "Deadlier Than The Male" - with Elke Sommer. Rated PG for all sexes

[turcopolier]

JM Gavin

You have told all the old soldiers here to shut up. Is that what you want to say? So, you think war is "different" now? pl

[The Twisted Genius]

These articles describe that Marine experiment I mentioned last night. Looks like it was mixed units with all male units as experimental controls. If anybody finds an official version of the results, I'd like to see it. Living only a few miles from The Basic School at Camp Barrett, Quantico, I've followed the attempts to get a woman Marine through the Infantry Officer Course. I'm impressed by the seriousness of the effort and the absolute refusal to bend the standards to reach a desired (by some) goal.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-marines-women-20150912-story.html

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story/military/2015/09/07/grunt-life-marines-dish-corps-women-combat-experiment/71632666/

[Nightsticker]

TTG,

A Satanic scheme!

Nightsticker
USMC 65-72
FBI 72-96

[turcopolier]

TTG et al

I recall my women cadet students at USMA. They were fit. They were strong. They had a good attitude and they broke down physically under the training and PT burdens that the men cadets carried routinely. Stress fractures, hernia in the abdomen, ripped cartilage and ligaments. These were commonplace among them. Like the old microbiologist here said I wonder about their injuries having had complications in later life. IMO this is just Obamanite Borgish social justice BS. pl

[The Twisted Genius]

JM Gavin,

I had the same reaction as Colonel Lang to your initial remark. Are you saying the ramifications today are different from the ramifications of such a directive if it was made 30 or 40 years ago?