Posted on Apr 12, 2016
Accommodations That Must Be Made To Allow Women In Combat Arms And SOF Jobs
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Well the day has finally arrived: the military has been ordered by national command authority to allow women in all combat arms and special operations forces (SOF) jobs. Yaaaaaaay! Bravo!! Hooah! The glass ceiling is shattered!
Wait! Not so fast; there are a few accommodations that must be made in order to facilitate this transition.
However, the accommodations must be made by the women themselves! Yes, you heard right - the women will need to adapt as much, if not more, than the men to this new development.
I have worked in combat arms units, airborne units, and worked with conventional and SOF units. My remarks today are educated and based on experience.
Women will need to meet the same standard as men. Combat doesn’t accommodate to the lowest common denominator. There are two standards in combat: victory or death! A unit can only move as fast as the slowest individual, and so this is relative to the whole unit’s abilities. So where do we draw the line? Since male PT standards have been the standard for infantry, and since females are only just joining these particular units, it makes sense that we continue accepting the same degree of fitness by age group, regardless of gender.
And remember, the minimum standard is just that: minimum. Every elite school from Infantry to Rangers to Special Forces to Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL (BUDS) training preaches that if you shoot for the minimum, you have about a 85% chance of failing. In fact, the Navy has done extensive studies on their physical assessment test and has found that people who have run and swim times in the top 90% usually have no trouble passing the BUDS course. (Well, no trouble passing might be an oversimplification.)
If women want to perform in combat, they need to be held to the same standard as men are in order to maintain a strong force.
Women need to be able to meet the “unwritten” day to day standards of the unit. What does that mean? It means, for example, if you are in an airborne infantry unit and they do a twelve mile forced march with a 50 pound pack every Thursday, you need to be able to keep up without slowing the whole unit’s pace or using a lighter load. I once knew a 5 foot 3 inch British fellow who immigrated here, joined the Infantry, served in the Ranger Battalion and the 82nd Airborne and retired as a Command Sergeant Major. He was a beast who was able to carry the same loads as everyone else. Women will have to maintain these same standards, regardless of their body size or frame. Regardless of your gender, you need to be able to carry a soldier of your approximate weight in full kit for 100 yards. Now this is written nowhere in doctrine, but anyone who has served in a combat arms or elite unit know this is the case. Of course, no one expects the 5 foot 3 inch guy to carry the 6 foot 4 inch 220 pound man, but you need to be able to carry a soldier of your comparable weight. Will you ever need to? Probably not, but combat doesn’t have a minimum standard.
As a woman you MUST be able to be strong enough to physically handle the daily grind of the unit without any accommodation that wouldn’t be given a male.
Upper body strength. Everyone is required to do 5-7 pull-ups, dead hang pull ups with no kipping.
An infantry soldier who can’t do 50 or more perfect push-ups is fooling themselves. I can’t stress this enough: make peace with muscle mass and strength training. I think some women may be afraid of looking too bulky, but if you want to be combat arms you must make peace with that. Your motto needs to be “train like a man, look like a goddess.”
You must make body composition modifications for this career. I am 6 foot 2 inches and 240 pounds. When I played full-contact, semi-pro football, I tried to get as close to 250 pounds as I could. When I had myself recalled to active duty to deploy, my body weight was between 228-235 pounds at the heaviest. You will have to build more mass to be a grunt, Ranger, or SEAL...period. A man might be able to stay the same size and do the job effectively but I believe that a woman is simply not as strong naturally. To do the same job, women will need muscle.
You will need to adapt to the infantry culture! The infantry culture is not going to adapt to you. What that means is combat arms guys are going to talk about stuff that will make you uncomfortable. They will talk about their girlfriends and wives, and they’ll share personal details without thinking twice. As a man, I don’t even like to hear that junk, so I walk away. If you don’t like conversations like that, walk away. But you don’t get to call the equal opportunity (EO) NCO every time you hear conversations that offend you. I work in my civilian job with a guy who was Infantry in Iraq and Afghanistan, has 3 purple hearts and a bronze star for valor. He always says, “If you find me offensive, you shouldn’t have found me!” Now that might be a bit extreme, but like it or not, that’s the consensus in combat arms units. If you don’t like it, don’t listen.
Now does that mean we should tolerate blatant sexual harassment in infantry and SOF units? Absolutely not! Women should never be groped, touched, fondled or otherwise assaulted…ever! But that being said, there will inevitably be times of close contact. And some of the contact will not be affectionate. In fact, there will be many occasions where life in general will be far from affectionate. When I received my Senior Parachutist wings, I was subjected to another aspect of initiation - my blood wings. Each senior or master rated jumper walked up, pulled out the wings the guy before them pounded in, and proceeded to pound my wings back into my chest. I ended up with fourteen holes embedded in my chest.
What if a woman was given her blood wings? These are the situations I fear that the gender card may be played. What’s going to happen when a young woman gets to her infantry, airborne, or ranger assignment, draws the ire of her boss, and gets smoked until her butt sucks buttermilk? Is she going to scream hazing or harassment? That cannot be tolerated.
Don’t crap where you eat. What I mean by that is, don’t date or sleep with anyone in your unit, EVER! The guys in an infantry unit are not sleeping together, but if they are, it’s only in the field and only to maintain body heat. It may be hard to resist temptation in these situations, but it’s completely necessary. These men are supposed to be your brothers, and we don’t date our brothers. If you want respect, reverence, and brother/sisterhood, don’t date a guy in your combat arms or SOF unit. Once you do and word gets out, they will never see you the same way again. I was in units with female officers during my career. We respected and revered them. Then one got busy messing around with enlisted men in the battalion. Her credibility as a leader was lost. From that moment on, she was a hot chick to be pursued; nothing more.
Is all this fair? No, this is not fair, but the concept of women in combat arms is brand new and compromises will have to be made. Regrettably, most of the compromises will need to be made by females themselves. Will the males need to adapt? Yes, but females must remember that they are joining a time-honored institution. And just like when you are a guest in someone’s house, you don’t go in making demands. Eventually, after a few years, it will be YOUR house. But for now, you may need to conform.
--
Another Command Post from the opposite perspective: https://www.rallypoint.com/command-post/women-in-combat-women-of-power
Wait! Not so fast; there are a few accommodations that must be made in order to facilitate this transition.
However, the accommodations must be made by the women themselves! Yes, you heard right - the women will need to adapt as much, if not more, than the men to this new development.
I have worked in combat arms units, airborne units, and worked with conventional and SOF units. My remarks today are educated and based on experience.
Women will need to meet the same standard as men. Combat doesn’t accommodate to the lowest common denominator. There are two standards in combat: victory or death! A unit can only move as fast as the slowest individual, and so this is relative to the whole unit’s abilities. So where do we draw the line? Since male PT standards have been the standard for infantry, and since females are only just joining these particular units, it makes sense that we continue accepting the same degree of fitness by age group, regardless of gender.
And remember, the minimum standard is just that: minimum. Every elite school from Infantry to Rangers to Special Forces to Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL (BUDS) training preaches that if you shoot for the minimum, you have about a 85% chance of failing. In fact, the Navy has done extensive studies on their physical assessment test and has found that people who have run and swim times in the top 90% usually have no trouble passing the BUDS course. (Well, no trouble passing might be an oversimplification.)
If women want to perform in combat, they need to be held to the same standard as men are in order to maintain a strong force.
Women need to be able to meet the “unwritten” day to day standards of the unit. What does that mean? It means, for example, if you are in an airborne infantry unit and they do a twelve mile forced march with a 50 pound pack every Thursday, you need to be able to keep up without slowing the whole unit’s pace or using a lighter load. I once knew a 5 foot 3 inch British fellow who immigrated here, joined the Infantry, served in the Ranger Battalion and the 82nd Airborne and retired as a Command Sergeant Major. He was a beast who was able to carry the same loads as everyone else. Women will have to maintain these same standards, regardless of their body size or frame. Regardless of your gender, you need to be able to carry a soldier of your approximate weight in full kit for 100 yards. Now this is written nowhere in doctrine, but anyone who has served in a combat arms or elite unit know this is the case. Of course, no one expects the 5 foot 3 inch guy to carry the 6 foot 4 inch 220 pound man, but you need to be able to carry a soldier of your comparable weight. Will you ever need to? Probably not, but combat doesn’t have a minimum standard.
As a woman you MUST be able to be strong enough to physically handle the daily grind of the unit without any accommodation that wouldn’t be given a male.
Upper body strength. Everyone is required to do 5-7 pull-ups, dead hang pull ups with no kipping.
An infantry soldier who can’t do 50 or more perfect push-ups is fooling themselves. I can’t stress this enough: make peace with muscle mass and strength training. I think some women may be afraid of looking too bulky, but if you want to be combat arms you must make peace with that. Your motto needs to be “train like a man, look like a goddess.”
You must make body composition modifications for this career. I am 6 foot 2 inches and 240 pounds. When I played full-contact, semi-pro football, I tried to get as close to 250 pounds as I could. When I had myself recalled to active duty to deploy, my body weight was between 228-235 pounds at the heaviest. You will have to build more mass to be a grunt, Ranger, or SEAL...period. A man might be able to stay the same size and do the job effectively but I believe that a woman is simply not as strong naturally. To do the same job, women will need muscle.
You will need to adapt to the infantry culture! The infantry culture is not going to adapt to you. What that means is combat arms guys are going to talk about stuff that will make you uncomfortable. They will talk about their girlfriends and wives, and they’ll share personal details without thinking twice. As a man, I don’t even like to hear that junk, so I walk away. If you don’t like conversations like that, walk away. But you don’t get to call the equal opportunity (EO) NCO every time you hear conversations that offend you. I work in my civilian job with a guy who was Infantry in Iraq and Afghanistan, has 3 purple hearts and a bronze star for valor. He always says, “If you find me offensive, you shouldn’t have found me!” Now that might be a bit extreme, but like it or not, that’s the consensus in combat arms units. If you don’t like it, don’t listen.
Now does that mean we should tolerate blatant sexual harassment in infantry and SOF units? Absolutely not! Women should never be groped, touched, fondled or otherwise assaulted…ever! But that being said, there will inevitably be times of close contact. And some of the contact will not be affectionate. In fact, there will be many occasions where life in general will be far from affectionate. When I received my Senior Parachutist wings, I was subjected to another aspect of initiation - my blood wings. Each senior or master rated jumper walked up, pulled out the wings the guy before them pounded in, and proceeded to pound my wings back into my chest. I ended up with fourteen holes embedded in my chest.
What if a woman was given her blood wings? These are the situations I fear that the gender card may be played. What’s going to happen when a young woman gets to her infantry, airborne, or ranger assignment, draws the ire of her boss, and gets smoked until her butt sucks buttermilk? Is she going to scream hazing or harassment? That cannot be tolerated.
Don’t crap where you eat. What I mean by that is, don’t date or sleep with anyone in your unit, EVER! The guys in an infantry unit are not sleeping together, but if they are, it’s only in the field and only to maintain body heat. It may be hard to resist temptation in these situations, but it’s completely necessary. These men are supposed to be your brothers, and we don’t date our brothers. If you want respect, reverence, and brother/sisterhood, don’t date a guy in your combat arms or SOF unit. Once you do and word gets out, they will never see you the same way again. I was in units with female officers during my career. We respected and revered them. Then one got busy messing around with enlisted men in the battalion. Her credibility as a leader was lost. From that moment on, she was a hot chick to be pursued; nothing more.
Is all this fair? No, this is not fair, but the concept of women in combat arms is brand new and compromises will have to be made. Regrettably, most of the compromises will need to be made by females themselves. Will the males need to adapt? Yes, but females must remember that they are joining a time-honored institution. And just like when you are a guest in someone’s house, you don’t go in making demands. Eventually, after a few years, it will be YOUR house. But for now, you may need to conform.
--
Another Command Post from the opposite perspective: https://www.rallypoint.com/command-post/women-in-combat-women-of-power
Women in the Military
Combat Arms
Special Operations
Gender
Command Post
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 27
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Excellent post! As a female who has spent time attached the Infantry and who conducted several missions with the SOF community I agree that we will need to adapt as well. Upon train up for my deployment I realized that being a female in this environment would require me to work harder than my peers. Walking into a room full of an Infantry Company's platoon and squad level leadership to introduce my collection team, I heard murmurs of what they were going to do with a female soldier. How would they be able to integrate her? etc. It took one conversation about what special qualities I possessed that the male soldiers could not in the environment that we were headed to, and a crude joke about my penis being on back order if they still weren't satisfied. That joke made it's way around the command and eventually got back to me by my BN CSM who asked if I received the packaged yet. He was an engineer and understood that I did what it took to build rapport with the infantry leadership and never questioned my tactic.
We deployed to Afghanistan and I made myself a vow to be stronger/faster than at least half of the guys there and never to be a hindrance on mission. The times I needed help would be because of my height, not my gender; consequently, the leadership sought me out each time they went on a foot patrol and the SOF team nearby would come "borrow" me for a few days from the infantry unit. They recognized what a female could bring to the table.
We deployed to Afghanistan and I made myself a vow to be stronger/faster than at least half of the guys there and never to be a hindrance on mission. The times I needed help would be because of my height, not my gender; consequently, the leadership sought me out each time they went on a foot patrol and the SOF team nearby would come "borrow" me for a few days from the infantry unit. They recognized what a female could bring to the table.
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SSG Bethany Viglietta
SFC (Join to see) - You are right! It was a defining moment for me. Definitely set the mood for working with them.
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The standards will be lowered. You might as well accept it now. There is really almost no other way to get women into and operating in a Range Bn, an Airborne infantry Unit, A Marine Rifle Platoon, A SEAL Team etc. That is the leftists and politically correct busy bodies goal. Their goal is not equality, it is preference, plain and simple.
Everyone demanding the same standards be upheld is doing so after watching standards being lowered decade after decade after decade. The destruction of the combat efficiency and effectiveness of the armed forces will then be complete.
As much as I agree with your post, the battle has been lost. The standards will be lowered and the military will be forced to accept it like many other policy decision of late that are not focused on the combat efficiency or effectiveness of combat units.
The Marine Corps published a recent and detailed study that demonstrated the issues clearly and it was summarily ignored. The political leaders have no interest in anything but a contrived equality.
Everyone demanding the same standards be upheld is doing so after watching standards being lowered decade after decade after decade. The destruction of the combat efficiency and effectiveness of the armed forces will then be complete.
As much as I agree with your post, the battle has been lost. The standards will be lowered and the military will be forced to accept it like many other policy decision of late that are not focused on the combat efficiency or effectiveness of combat units.
The Marine Corps published a recent and detailed study that demonstrated the issues clearly and it was summarily ignored. The political leaders have no interest in anything but a contrived equality.
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SGT Brandy Currie
It's a damn shame. Women were not made to perform like men. We are physically different and I cannot understand why so many insist on making this point. The reality of the matter is that while I was a combat medic in Afghanistan I did great things. All 5ft3 inches of me. BUT. No way in hell could I be of any relevant help to say my husband, an 11B in Sadr City, Iraq under fire. He is 6"3 and in order to be an equal battle buddy to him I would have to be a man. That is fact. We would both be killed. Standards have been lowered to let these women in the infantry and when the bullets are flying..when shit gets real...I fear for those men whose battle does not even have the same PT standards let alone the same ability and endurance that men naturally have due to well...nature. That is not a slam on women. I am pro woman. Pro soldier. But I'm not a friggin idiot and I would never get on a soap box to make a point about womens rights to make a point. We are valuable in the Armed Forces...just not in the infantry.
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LT Ed Skiba
My wife is a former WAVE and is thoroughly disgusted by the feminist agenda to infiltrate every aspect of male dominated activity. On the other hand, we are both thoroughly supportive of any female who is willing to do whatever it takes and qualify for the position with no accommodations because of her gender.
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No offense to our current infantry units, but I'd expect if we were to go test any of the unwritten physical standards you describe in your post, that we'd find a large minority or even a majority of currently serving infantrymen couldn't pass what you claim are unwritten standards. 5-7 perfect dead-hang pull-ups? Sorry, there's just no way this is a task many infantrymen can perform. 50 perfect push-ups---really? Again, there's just no way this is something a majority of infantrymen currently serving can do. Many people share your perspective that the infantry is full of hard-chargers who are super fit. There are folks like this in the infantry---but they are the exception, not the rule. I did notice you didn't identify any unwritten run standards---is cardio not important for the infantry?
I agree that we need to establish meaningful, measurable physical standards for each MOS. I disagree about your suggestion that these standards be normed for age but not gender---I don't think they should be normed at all---one standard! Realize, though, that this means that the fat, out-of-shape E-7s, E-8s, and E-9s and O-4s, O-5s, and O-6s will have to meet these standards, too (and I think many who find themselves calling for tough MOS standards might reconsider if they, too, had to meet said standards). I hope the Army identifies MOS standards, requires Soldiers to meet these standards to join an MOS, and certifies annually that all in an MOS can continue to meet said standard.
I agree that we need to establish meaningful, measurable physical standards for each MOS. I disagree about your suggestion that these standards be normed for age but not gender---I don't think they should be normed at all---one standard! Realize, though, that this means that the fat, out-of-shape E-7s, E-8s, and E-9s and O-4s, O-5s, and O-6s will have to meet these standards, too (and I think many who find themselves calling for tough MOS standards might reconsider if they, too, had to meet said standards). I hope the Army identifies MOS standards, requires Soldiers to meet these standards to join an MOS, and certifies annually that all in an MOS can continue to meet said standard.
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SPC Kenneth Koerperich
In my day, our unit Trained only on SF/RIP standards. Those where the Units standards. If accepted to the schools/courses, they wanted people not to fail. So all training was set @ the highest standard to make entry to them easy, as you have/had been doing it all along. So, if a female can keep up w/ the standards, let them try, but I just don't see it going far. Already, the RIP standard was lower, to allow 3 females their tabs. In my day you only got 1 try @ it. Wash out you went home & came back/got put on the "List". Those women turned right around, no waiting list, multiple times, to complete the course. So standards have already been lowered IMO, and that's going to get somebody killed.
Quit trying to be PC. High standards for all, or show them the DOOR & don't let it hit your ass on the way out!
Quit trying to be PC. High standards for all, or show them the DOOR & don't let it hit your ass on the way out!
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MAJ (Join to see)
SPC Kenneth Koerperich - you must be really old, because people have been recycling Ranger School for decades.
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SPC Kenneth Koerperich
46, when I was in, the list was so long you waited up to 1 yr after being accepted to go RIP. That's why we only had 1 out of 340 ever go. We/Unit was always deployed. Had no time for schools. And then, it was wash out/sent home & re apply & wait again. But also, there was a lot more INF Unit than there are now. 7th is at least 1/2 the size it used to be. 9th Regt was disbanded again for the umpteenth time. But when they need them, guess who they will call. MANCHU!
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MAJ (Join to see)
SPC Kenneth Koerperich - right, so when you were in the Army, Ranger School had a recycle program.
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