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

[Will Reks]

I agree with most of the critiques here of the new social policy. I think its mostly intended to have a symbolic effect without much thought into the potential consequences.

That being said... I simply don't think combat arms is going to have to deal with more than very small numbers of females. If they can't hack it in training obviously they have no business being out in the field. A few years ago unit cohesion arguments were being made about homosexuals openly serving in the ranks. I think the criticisms voiced then have proven to be mostly wrong. Let's hope we are wrong about this new policy or otherwise combat efficiency and effectiveness could be compromised.

[Ranger Ray]

This decision, unless reversed by a Republican President in 2017, will be the death knell for our military. Unit morale, esprit, and performance in the combat arms will be allowed to erode so that a few female officers can enhance their petty careers. Unfortunately, the proof of that statement will be found in a contest on some distant battlefield with a foe who does not foist social experimentation upon its armed forces. I say that as one who spent nearly 25 years as a Regular Army Infantry Officer which included almost two years in nearly continuous combat in Vietnam. I know from whence I speak.

Furthermore, the above overlooks my heartfelt position that any country that willingly subjects its women to the rigors and terror of infantry combat has lost its soul. I say that as a Christian whose religious foundation has taught me the truth of the previous statement.

[turcopolier]

Ranger Ray

Old friend, how does your son feel about it? pl

[Cvillereader]

And I would say that a nation that sends women into combat has lost its mind, as well as its soul.

But that depends on whether you think a woman is something more than a particular physical form, that signifies nothing in particular.

[Ranger Ray]

He feels precisely the same way I do. We are in sych on this. I should add that the several of his West Point classmates with whom I'm in contact are of the same opinion.

[turcopolier]

walrus

I have looked for the warrior women and have found none except in fiction and film. In "Go tell the Spartans," Burt Lancaster finds one... But the better scene in the film is the one in which he recounts having saluted the French ambassador at a garden party in DC over the head of the ambassador's kneeling wife. When asked why he did that he said it seemed "the right thing to do."
And then in one of Jerry Pournelle's military SF novels (perhaps "West of Honor") a woman guerrilla leader rides into one of Falkenburg's front line positions at the head of 7o farmers with guns, (off world Boers) The mercenary captain in command at the company post asks why the farmers had come with her. She says, "I don't know. I told them I was coming and they came with me..." The captain stands looking at her surrounded by his troops while his sergeant-major goes to study something outside the circle of firelight. "I suppose they did," the captain says, "I suppose they did. I will call Colonel Falkenberg, ma'am. I will call him. Will you have a mug of tea?" pl

[MojaveWolf]

FWIW...
You may feel free to reject this opinion since I am not in the military, but I do work with a lot of Marines and as long as they don't bend the standards this should not a problem. Yes, a lot of the women get hurt on a regular basis even without infantry type training. So do a lot of the men. I've known plenty of both who were constantly injured quite a few of whom were headed to an early discharge as a result. (yes, more women are more severely injured more often, relative to #'s, than men). One of them (not getting medsep, not on light duty, fully functional) actually said "we are all broken" on a fairly regular basis. This person was not even in infantry. And honestly, a huge chunk of men and women in the military are not there because they want to fight, but because it's a lousy job market or because they want the GI Bill or even because someone told them this would improve their chances of getting on a police force or because they want to tech training). All that said ... there are plenty of women who want to serve in the infantry or special ops, and quite a few of them can. There are women who can score 300 on the men's pt. I've known a woman who regularly tapped out the guys in grappling, including a guy who was runnerup in his high school state wrestling division (she was actually not particularly good at PT, btw, not even one of the top women's pt performers, to my shock; incredibly strong but just good enough to get by at the run). I knew one of the women who was going into a special ops training course but she had only just qualified so I don't know how it went; of those who have been in grunt courses, I have a second hand report from a couple of guys who did work with two (one of those two women supposedly consistently scored 300 and routinely beat most of the guys at most things); according to him they actually wanted to be snipers but were pushed into being machine gunners specifically because the expectation was that they would fail. Instead they were superb. Again, I didn't see this, but the guys who told me this were very much NOT sjws and I strongly suspect both were conservative Republicans, and from what they said rather than being helped, their command was hoping the women would fail.

Yes, they were exceptions. And I fully agree with you that the standards for combat fitness should not be changed. But if they are good enough it's wrong to deny them the chance. As for the culture argument...

Again, you are right that plenty of grunts are not going to be happy about this to begin with. I have heard them talk and some of them echo what is said here and worse. But male and female com students work and train side by side and it works out very well. (nI get being out in the field is a whole different ballgame, I am taking this into account while I say this) And in track, cross country and combat sports I have trained extensively with women from high school to college to adulthood and seen the difference in other guys who train with women and almost universally these men tend to have a healthier respect toward women in general. Yes, a few exceptions. IMO they are the problem and not the women.

In sum--if they bend standards for combat roles I agree it will cause issues. If they don't I believe this will work out a lot better than you think (and in most of the examples I gave above, the women and men were not held to the same physical standard in all things, and they still worked together fine). The issues will be because of guys who need to get their heads on better or they probably shouldn't be out there anyway. Most of them, imo, will be fine. And again, yes, I know, there are a lot of people who are ideal to have at your back in a fight who are head cases; not saying get rid of all of them. But most of the morale issues are no different, imo, than convincing people to work with different races and now the military is probably the most racially integrated, colorblind part of American society. I have actually been shocked at the lack of problems from allowing openly gay men to serve (lots of lesbians who have if anything appear to have fewer problems than any other group, if you're going to overgeneralize, many many many fewer openly gay men that I've seen; admittedly including exactly zero grunts, but those who are there seem to be doing fine). This may go a lot better than you think.

& again, I *do* see the potential problems with integrated combat units. I would be happier if they were separate divisions at first not because I think the women can't fight but because I do worry about the attitudes of some of the men. Hopefully pre-deployment mixed training will take care of this, as it seemed to in the case of the very non-feminist men who trained with the women who got slotted into machine gunner training.

[fasteddiez]

Here is another Marin Times article which features statistics:

Mixed-gender teams come up short in Marines' infantry experiment

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story/military/2015/09/10/mixed-gender-teams-come-up-short-marines-infantry-experiment/71979146/

[turcopolier]

MojaveWolf

Have you ever been an infantryman? pl

[gemini33]

I qualified that with a conditional "whose skills are competitive with their own." In other words, I think they'd accept it readily if the women they were fighting beside did not cause them to have to "carry twice as much weight in every way" and you completely ignored that part of the comment. I personally don't think there will be many women who can or will want to do this for the physically demanding roles. But I suspect there will be some. And in less physically demanding roles, which I assume are growing in number due to the growing role of technology, etc, even more might be competitive.

And to answer your question, 1 of the 3 definitely would not. The other two probably would in the right situation. They're both still in school (one in high school). One of them, almost certainly would.

Lastly, as I said in my first comment, I think that both in and out of the military, women are being pushed to the front to make wars easier to sell. I don't think it's all about equality at all.

No matter how much respect I show, both in the comments here and in other places where I quote or commend/recommend the place, you seem to purposely interpret what I say in the most negative or way. I don't understand why.

[Re]

The Marine Corp did a 36 million dollar study of women in combat. Here are the results.
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story/military/2015/09/10/mixed-gender-teams-come-up-short-marines-infantry-experiment/71979146/
Sec of Navy said it was biased. Why,well he didn't get the results he wanted,so the test is biased,obviously.

[Will Reks]

I think you're going to find muted reaction to this from the major Republican candidates. There's just not much to be gained from making it an issue.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/johnstanton/marco-rubio-backs-women-in-combat-decision#.ynQbQDD1X

http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/18/politics/republican-candidates-women-combat-roles/

http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/Donald-Trump-Women-in-Combat/2015/08/21/id/671325/

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/262104-kasich-women-in-combat-makes-a-lot-of-sense

The links provide an idea of where the elite consensus is on the issue. Jeb thinks that graduating Ranger School means women are combat ready.

[Patrick Bahzad]

What a load of BS ! Do you get paid to write that stuff up ? If I had time and did bother, I would take your arguments apart, bit by bit.

You have no clue and shouldn't comment on this.

[MojaveWolf]

sorry, ,in a hurry hit send on last before finished. jUst wanted to finish with "if you think my initial 'no' was all that need be said, I'll shut up now. Just wanted to offer a different perspective from most of what I'd seen here.

[Patrick Bahzad]

WTF ?! If that is the way the political discussion is heading in the US, then good bye and good luck !
As TTG said, the final test will not be skewed by any PC narrative ... And the result won't be pretty I'm afraid.

[walrus]

Mojavewolf. Rubbish! And what happens when the female enlisted girl waggles her tits at the Sergeant? ANd vice versa?

[Patrick Bahzad]

TTG,

I think this experiment will have devastating consequences.
It is a political decision, as you mentioned, and the least people in charge could have done is have a look at the way other armed forces handle the issue ... Look at the Izzies and their Caracal gender=neutral infantry Battalion ... It is the laughing stock of the IDF and any guy with real potential as an infantry man specifically asks not to be posted to that unit. That says it all

[Re]

In the late 60s. My mother and her neighborhood friends would have coffee a couple times a week. One day I asked what they talked about. Seems the tv was showing footage of the Vietnam War. So most of the men were having nightmares. Seems she and Marge were sharing because my father, a Korean War,1st division marine and her husband a army infantry Battle of the Buldge vet were having what might be called screaming nightmares.
What kind of man would knowingly put their daughter in that kind of situation.

[Patrick Bahzad]

Glupi,

Are you on some kind of drugs or you having a laugh ? First of all, Marathon was Athens, the Spartans were not 'bisexual' and the Amazons well WTF ? as for 'understand and accept', I don't know what that is about ... Stay real, you're dangerously close to point of no return !

[Patrick Bahzad]

There is no 'integration' in Europe.

[Patrick Bahzad]

When was the last time Canada entered into armed conflict on its own ? Thought so ...

[Patrick Bahzad]

consider yourself lucky then to have only one neighoring country, which is the US ...

[Patrick Bahzad]

JM Gavin,

"The social, political, and professional conditions the US military now operates in are unparalleled in our history." Is that so ?

One thing you're forgetting, is that the military is not a self serving purpose and is only and truly tested if and when it is sent into battle.

you may think the US have exited 'history', now all you got to do is to convince potential future adversaries to do the same ...

[jonst]

complete nonsense. But this kind of nonsense governs these days.

[Chris Chuba]

The Red Army also had a desperate need to mobilize a huge portion of their population to overcome early wartime losses. In 1941, they suffered 6M killed or captured. The USSR's population compared to Germany's was something of the order of 170M to 70M so to recover from these losses they had to do a better job of mobilization.

In our situation, where we have a professional, all volunteer army that has a smaller (and declining) sized force but with more technical weapons we should be MORE selective in our recruitment for positions that require physical stamina, not less. Of course we should have positions in the army open to women but requiring that the most elite, physically demanding positions must be included in that cannot be justified by the Red Army experience. I would leave this decision up to the military professionals, not politicians.