Women in the Infantry?

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. 

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>&nbsp;–&nbsp;<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>&nbsp;–&nbsp;<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,&nbsp;<a href="http://topics.time.com/iraq/" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Iraq</a>&nbsp;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>&nbsp;–<em>&nbsp;“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>&nbsp;–&nbsp;<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>&nbsp;–&nbsp;<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>&nbsp;–&nbsp;<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>&nbsp;–&nbsp;<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&nbsp;<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:&nbsp;<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>&nbsp;<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>

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. 

I support it SPC. If she can pass all the same requirements, good for her. I feel the same about the schools also.

This is a great article on the issue by a female marine officer.&nbsp;<div>http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/article/get-over-it-we-are-not-all-created-equal<br></div><div class="pta-link-card"><div class="pta-link-card-picture"><img src="http://www.mca-marines.org/files/Gazette_Web_Header_Centennial-120.png"></div><div class="pta-link-card-content"><div class="pta-link-card-title"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/article/get-over-it-we-are-not-all-created-equal">Get Over It! We Are Not All Created Equal | Marine Corps Gazette</a></div><div class="pta-link-card-description">The Marine Corps Association is the professional association for ALL Marines. The MCA publishes Leatherneck Magazine and the Marine Corps Gazette for the professional development and connectivity to ...</div></div><div style="clear:both"></div><div class="pta-box-hide"><i class="icon-remove"></i></div></div>

I wish I could comment on this topic and not sound like an ass. Having been in Both Artillery and Infantry units, (ALL MALE) while in combat zones in Iraq, and then having deployed in a mixed sex unit, I prefer the all male unit. There were so many fewer problems and issues. So much less worry about hurting feelings or offending anyone. No worries about being a dirty stinking rotting pig because we didn't have enough water to drink much less wash clothing or our bodies for 46 days.
Then again, I worked with women that could or would put the average guy to shame, both physically and mentally.
There are positives and negatives to both sides of this argument. I liked being in the all male unit, there were fewer problems overall.
I guess, keep it to one standard and if one qualifies, they should serve in it, but also give the command the ability to move a Soldier out if they start to cause a problem or destroy camaraderie. Be it male or female or one that became another. We need to keep the trust in each other and comradeship a priority, forcing things to work and having a crappy unit will just get everyone killed and I would hate to see that happen just because someone thought it best to force mix oil and water together.
Am I a jerk? Yes I am, but I am a jerk to everyone equally....

Are we talking just "Special Volunteers" such as only the studs of the female species? Or are we talking total equal oportunity, females get thrown into the (flame) Infantry like their male counterparts so that the recruiter makes his/her quota? Are we ready to be equal across the board? Or are we talking another test of only volunteers? Do women realy want this? I can think back to my younger years and bet that just about every Infantry soldier (not NCO/Officer/Leader) I served with would have rather had a different job in the Army, especially a job that did not require footmarching every where we went. The true question is, would this make our Infantry Squads/Platoons better. Would it make us more effective? Would it be a force multiplier? If the answer is not yes, then we have our answer. Fact is, our leaders need to realize real quick, that the Combat Arms Branches are to combat the enemy, ONLY. We are not in a support role. The mission is to meet with and eliminate the threat. The mission is not to be the poitical and gender testing ground for the U.S.A. If your blood is boiling at my comments, refer to first sentence. What is our true goal? To open all branches to both genders or have the most lethal military force?

SFC Josh Watson As a grunt, in my wildest dreams I never considered females as able to be grunts because that was the way it always was. My blinders were "pre-installed" because it has been that way for centuries. Then again, in the past blacks are inferior to whites. Gays are morally corrupt. Women can't (weren't allowed) fly fighter aircraft and attack helicopters. We can go on and on. In the past, the Secretary of War was given report after report from Generals echelons above reality of why some people are inferior to others. I hope that these modern surveys are elicited to get feedback from all across the board. Please fill them out any time you get one and answer from your heart. You might have that bit of input and wisdom that was a critical piece in a complex puzzle. Out Front! Mark

I have no problem with women in the Infantry, as long as the Infantry doesn't adopt a second set of standards for performance. Case in point, in PLDC, I had a woman (MP) in my platoon (PLDC (WLC) wasn't MOS specific in those days). She could navigate, march, and shoot with the best of them. I'd fight beside her any day. Truth be told, we're still friends today, 20+ years later.

From a basal-level.....yes they can and have been for some time. They've stood side by side our male Soldiers for decades and performed as well (sometimes better, sometimes worse) as their male counterparts. My fear in the current trend is that we're going to feel a ripple in the water when they finally open the MOSs. Combat units are fraternities, let's face it. All male units act VERY differently than units with both sexes.

I worry not about the physiological probabilities that women can serve because we all know they can. Rather, I worry about the environment of the Soldiers and the espirit de corps and how it will be impacted (at least initially) when the ladies come. The boys' club dynamic will have to change at least initially until the "butt-sniffing" stages are through and the women prove they are truly part of the team.

Historically, strength has little to do with whether a Soldier belongs in a unit. Rather, its how they fit in and more important, how they interact with their peers to form the whole of a good team. I've deployed with women many times in my career and quite frankly ran in to very FEW that cared about squatting next to me to pee while I stood to do the same.

So long as leadership - Here is the biggest trouble-spot not mentioned - don't over-react to females in their unit, thereby making them feel uncomfortable while intending to do the exact opposite. As long as there is very little by way of briefings and every attempt is made NOT to treat them differently, the all male units will be fine given time.

I concur that they will never dominate the combat arms jobs. Women don't get their jollies off ripping the wings off flies and causing others physical harm (generally) but are very capable of doing so. Ergo, they will never dominate these types of units.

I just hope our highers up are doing this for the right reason and not to cater to a simple minority in hopes to gain a few people's laudatory praise.