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I keep getting these surveys from the TRADOC Analysis Center wanting to know how I "feel" about Females joining combat arms positions, and jobs currently closed to them. Not so sure I believe the Army really cares how I "feel" about the topic and not sure it matters.
This has been an ongoing debate in a couple units I have been in and I'd like to hear something other than: "that's a ridiculous idea", "If they can hack it, let them" and "the sexual harassment/assault rate will go up". I'd like to hear from other branches and females as well.
So, tell me, what's your take on it?
Note: Image added by RP Staff
This has been an ongoing debate in a couple units I have been in and I'd like to hear something other than: "that's a ridiculous idea", "If they can hack it, let them" and "the sexual harassment/assault rate will go up". I'd like to hear from other branches and females as well.
So, tell me, what's your take on it?
Note: Image added by RP Staff
Combat Arms
Women in the Military
Posted 11 y ago
Responses: 86
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We can't ignore the physical differences. Biologically, men are just stronger than women. Do you trust a 100lb woman to pull a 200lb man in full gear off the battlefield? Let's set that aside-- say that she could. A man's instinct is to protect a woman. If she's next to him on the front line, do you think he's not going to end up taking unnecessary risks to protect her? You can say no, but its innate. Now forget about the battlefield for a moment. Let's pretent she's just as strong and capable and the instinct to protect doesn't exist. Think about everyday life in the barracks. Part of the infantry culture is not having to watch what we say-- cursing, vulgarity. It's kidney punches, gut checks, wall-to-wall counseling. As neathrathol as that all sounds, its the way infantrymen bond. Put a woman into the mix and you now have assault charges and are being accused of sexual harrassment. This has IG complaint written all over it. You can argue that in other MOSs and in the civilian world, men and women work alongside eachother just fine. I don't dispute that. But other MOSs and civilian jobs are NOT the infantry. Throw women into the mix and you change the entire dynamic of the infantry culture. I'm not saying women aren't good enough or aren't capable. I'm saying that all of this equality stuff is bull. When it comes down to it, in the very basic sense, men are better at some things, women are better at some things-- on every level (biologically, mentally, emotionally, etc). It doesn't mean one gender is better than the other. It means we're different- and we should stop trying to pretend we are the same.
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SGT Allison Churchill
So you're saying if you saw one of your male comrades-in-arms getting attacked, you wouldn't have his back because he's a man? What was the point of all that misbehavior in the barracks, then?
Your argument is B.S. Frankly there are just too many male soldiers whose maleness doesn't help make them any stronger. And not every female soldier is a delicate little oversensitive flower--and those who are probably won't be the ones trying to join the infantry.
Every person--not each gender, every individual person--has his or her own strenghts and weaknesses. It's a little short-sighted at this point in the game to think anything else.
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SFC Harry H.
SGT Allison Churchill - The only thing I didn't agree with in 1SG's statement was the natural instinct to protect just women. I think there is a natural instinct, but i'd venture to say it's a brother at arms to protect each other.
Only issue I have is, PT, if women are equal to men then we need to go ahead and just do away with the double standard PT test. I've said this before, if we continue to allow women in the Infantry, we are allowing our Infantry to become weaker and slower. Hear me out before killing me.
The biggest is and always will be, the PT test. New or old it will always be unfair. And if it's not the PT test it's self it will be the PT in general. An 18 year old male has to meet a minimum run time at 15:54, 18 yo female 18:54. A really knowledgeable and good male is booted for continuously failing his PT test at 15:55. Females are considered PT studs at 100% at 15:36. Barely the minimum requirement for males.
Infantry only moves as fast as it's slowest person. Also I feel in all fairness if women are going to continue to demand equality, then men should as well and demand women enter into selective services at age 18.
Only issue I have is, PT, if women are equal to men then we need to go ahead and just do away with the double standard PT test. I've said this before, if we continue to allow women in the Infantry, we are allowing our Infantry to become weaker and slower. Hear me out before killing me.
The biggest is and always will be, the PT test. New or old it will always be unfair. And if it's not the PT test it's self it will be the PT in general. An 18 year old male has to meet a minimum run time at 15:54, 18 yo female 18:54. A really knowledgeable and good male is booted for continuously failing his PT test at 15:55. Females are considered PT studs at 100% at 15:36. Barely the minimum requirement for males.
Infantry only moves as fast as it's slowest person. Also I feel in all fairness if women are going to continue to demand equality, then men should as well and demand women enter into selective services at age 18.
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2LT (Join to see)
The changes required to integrate women in the infantry are not worth the cost/issues due to the amount of women that currently qualify, and those low numbers will not improve a given unit's tactical capabilities. Is not infantrymen's fault that there aren't enough women qualifying infantry without lowering the standards. Now, an all female combat force could be created using the current female PT standard and more women will be able to qualify infantry.
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7 Myths About Women in Combat<div><br></div><div><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><strong>Myth #1</strong> – <em>“It’s about women in combat.”</em></p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">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.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><strong>Myth #2</strong> – <em>“Combat has changed” (often accompanied by “There are no front lines anymore”).</em></p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">This convenient misconception requires several counters. First, any serious study of military history will reveal numerous historical examples about how successive generations (over millennia) believed that warfare had changed forever, only to find that technology may change platforms, but not its harsh essence. To hope that conflicts over the last 20 years are models of a new, antiseptic form of warfare is delusional.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">The second point is that the enemy gets a vote – time, place, and style. For example, war on the Korean Peninsula would be a brutal, costly, no-holds-barred nightmare of mayhem in close combat with casualties in a week that could surpass the annual total of recent conflict.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">The final point on this myth reinforces the Korea example and it bears examination — Fallujah, <a href="http://topics.time.com/iraq/" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Iraq</a> in 2004, where warfare was reduced to a horrific, costly, and exhausting scrap in a destroyed city between two foes that fought to the death.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">The standard for ground combat unit composition should be whether social experimentation would have amplified our opportunity for success in that crucible, or diminished it. We gamble with our future security when we set standards for warfare based on the best case, instead of the harshest one.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><strong>Myth #3</strong> –<em> “If they pass the physical standards, why not?”</em></p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Physical standards are important, but not nearly all of the story. Napoleon – “The moral (spirit) is to the physical as three is to one.”</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Unit cohesion is the essence of combat power, and while it may be convenient to dismiss human nature for political expediency, the facts are that sexual dynamics will exist and can affect morale. That may be manageable in other environments, but not in close combat.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Any study of sexual harassment statistics in this age cohort – in the military, academia, or the civilian workplace — are evidence enough that despite best efforts to by sincere leaders to control the issue, human instincts remain strong. Perceptions of favoritism or harassment will be corrosive, and cohesion will be the victim.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><strong>Myth #4</strong> – <em>“Standards won’t be lowered.”</em></p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">This is the cruelest myth of all. The statements of the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are telling.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">They essentially declare “guilty until proven innocent” on anyone attempting to maintain the standards which produced the finest fighting force in the world. There are already accommodations (note that unit cohesion won’t be a metric), there will be many more, and we will pay a bloody price for it someday.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Pity the truthful leader who attempts to hold to standards based on realistic combat factors, and tells truth to power. Most won’t, and the others won’t survive.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><strong>Myth #5</strong> – <em>“Opening the infantry will provide a better pathway to senior rank for the talented women.”</em></p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Not so. What will happen is that we will take very talented females with unlimited potential and change their peer norm when we inject them into the infantry.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Those who might meet the infantry physical standard will find that their peers are expected, as leaders, to far exceed it (and most of their subordinates will, as well).</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">So instead of advancing to a level appropriate to their potential, they may well be left out.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><strong>Myth #6</strong> – <em>“It’s a civil rights issue, much like the integration of the armed forces and allowing gays to serve openly.”</em></p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Those who parrot this either hope to scare honest and frank discussion, or confuse national security with utopian ideas.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">In the process, they demean initiatives that were to provide equally skilled individuals the opportunity to contribute equally. In each of the other issues, lowered standards were not the consequence.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><strong>Myth #7</strong> – <em>“It’s just fair.”</em></p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Allow me two points.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">First, this is ground warfare we’re discussing, so realism is important.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">“Fair” is not part of the direct ground combat lexicon.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Direct ground combat, such as experienced in the frozen tundra of Korea, the rubble of Stalingrad, or the endless 30-day jungle patrols against a grim foe in Viet Nam, is the harshest meritocracy — with the greatest consequences — there is.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">And psychology in warfare is germane – the force that is respected (and, yes, feared) has a distinct advantage.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Will women in our infantry enhance a psychological advantage, or hinder it?</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Second, if it’s about fairness, why do women get a choice of whether to serve in the infantry (when men do not), and why aren’t they required to register for the draft (as men are)?</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">It may be that we live in a society in which honest discussion of this issue, relying on facts instead of volume, is not possible. If so, our national security will fall victim to hope instead of reality. And myths be damned.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><em>Gregory S. Newbold served 32 years as a Marine infantryman, commanding units from platoon to the 1st Marine Division. His final assignment before retiring in 2002 was as director of operations for the <a href="http://topics.time.com/pentagon/" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Pentagon</a>’s Joint Staff.</em></p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br><br>Read more: <a href="http://nation.time.com/2013/03/14/seven-myths-about-women-in-combat/#ixzz2m3spc7Jr" style="color: rgb(0, 51, 153);">Seven Myths About “Women in Combat” | TIME.com</a> <a href="http://nation.time.com/2013/03/14/seven-myths-about-women-in-combat/#ixzz2m3spc7Jr" style="color: rgb(0, 51, 153);">http://nation.time.com/2013/03/14/seven-myths-about-women-in-combat/#ixzz2m3spc7Jr</a></span><br></div><div class="pta-link-card"><div class="pta-link-card-picture"><img src="http://timemilitary.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/120111-m-kw153-212.jpg?w=600"></div><div class="pta-link-card-content"><div class="pta-link-card-title"><a target="_blank" href="http://nation.time.com/2013/03/14/seven-myths-about-women-in-combat/">Seven Myths About “Women in Combat” | TIME.com</a></div><div class="pta-link-card-description">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...</div></div><div style="clear:both"></div><div class="pta-box-hide"><i class="icon-remove"></i></div></div>
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SSG (Join to see)
Damn SSG Burns, before I got to the end of the article I thought you had written all of this I was about to be really impressed!
In all seriousness though, that is the most well articulated list of statements that I have seen in regards to this debate. Good find.
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SSG Robert Burns
Here's an interesting article on it that I read today. http://www.oafnation.com/the-op/2014/3/17/women-in-the-infantry-a-common-sense-analysis<div class="pta-link-card"><div class="pta-link-card-picture"><img src="http://static.squarespace.com/static/53016c21e4b0484cf754d052/53055fdfe4b007358122e058/53276d15e4b0598c77647fba/ [login to see] 81/female%20marines.jpg?format=500w"></div><div class="pta-link-card-content"><div class="pta-link-card-title"><a href="http://www.oafnation.com/the-op/2014/3/17/women-in-the-infantry-a-common-sense-analysis" target="_blank">Women in the Infantry: A common sense analysis</a></div><div class="pta-link-card-description">...if women really are fit for combat, shouldn’t I be able to make a unit
composed of 100% women and have the potential for combat effectiveness? If
I’m trying to find a golden ratio of women in ...</div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="pta-box-hide"><i class="icon-remove"></i></div></div>
composed of 100% women and have the potential for combat effectiveness? If
I’m trying to find a golden ratio of women in ...</div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div class="pta-box-hide"><i class="icon-remove"></i></div></div>
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SPC (Join to see)
Minor, irrelevant point:
"frozen tundra of Korea" He hasn't been there. Yes, it gets cold, but it's no tundra.
"frozen tundra of Korea" He hasn't been there. Yes, it gets cold, but it's no tundra.
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As a career infantryman I absolutely say yes! Odd right? Over the course of the last decade how we as infantrymen fight has drastically changed to fit the missions in both Iraq and Afghanistan and will continue to focus on environments where we are engaging pockets of enemy resistance instead of an Army like the Iron Curtain. If a woman feels she is better fitted to volunteer to serve in the infantry then let her. I know, the physiological argument of them being weaker but are our infantryman anymore fit then the average woman. I know many men that struggle with fireman carrying their battle buddy and have met women that can carry more weight in their rucks for longer distances. I am not saying they need to have Airborne Ranger contracts, I am just saying that yes they could serve in any regular infantry unit just as easily as any of the new Privates we are getting today. I think if the Army wants to really asses if this is an option they need to set up a COED infantry company and test the theory out to its fullest before saying yes women can serve in infantry or combat arms units.
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