Marine Corps study finds few women in combat in other nations’ militaries

Wonder what his position will be when his girls become eligible for the draft?...

Obama: U.S. Military Stronger Because All Combat Positions Are Open to Women
June 2, 2016 – In a commencement speech Thursday to graduates of the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., President Barack Obama said the U.S. military is stronger because women can now serve in all combat positions and because the U.S. is closing the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.

 

I suspect our next war will end this foolish practice.

 

Right after Obama made that statement, a F-16 fell out if the sky.

A couple hours later a F-18 fell out of the sky.

 

Women in front line combat is ridiculous.

No women and men are not the same.

 

Semper female...

First Female Marine Recruit Signs Infantry Contract
Jun 22, 2016 | The first woman to enlist in the Marine Corps with an infantry contract is headed to boot camp later this year.

See also:

New Standards Weeding Out Both Male and Female Marine Combat Hopefuls
Jun 21, 2016 | WASHINGTON — New physical standards established so women can compete for combat posts in the Marine Corps have weeded out many of the female hopefuls. But they're also disqualifying some men, according to data obtained by The Associated Press.

Related:

More Women Needed as UN Peacekeepers: Dunford
Jun 20, 2016 | Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford last weekend became the first Joint Chiefs chairman ever to address the United Nations, where he called for more women in U.N. peacekeeping missions.

 

+1

Great post.

 

My only issue can they do the job, some women will be able to be in combat MOS areas and others not, but the 14th Amendment requires equal opportunity to try.

 

Prob'ly cause dey scared the bejeebers outta dat lady hangin' from dat helicopter...

Air Force Confirms No Women Now in SpecOps Training
Dec 07, 2016 | The U.S. Air Force has confirmed no women are currently in training for any special operations positions.

 

It is the older officers who oppose women in essentially any role in the military, not the personnel actually doing the fighting and in combat zones.

It is an unequal playing field for women because of such officers, who undertake many different ways to fail women or try to force them to drop out or quit. Some we know extremely well, a female in the Air Force in an active combat role and going on combat missions explained the numerous times COs tried various ways to knock her out, a couple going as far as to openly state he has never had a woman under his command and never will. It became a contest those officers lost, ending up with the officers reassigned instead because those who actually care about mission outcomes above those COs wanted her (and needed her) more than needed those COs. She is the only female in her unit or at the base. Generally, when they need someone with her skills the actual officers calling the mission pick her - because she's the best.

However, offers to her to go into even more direct combat roles? She declines because she is aware that on the path will be officers determined to prevent any female ever passing, to the point of putting females into exceptionally dangerous situations to get them to either quit or stopped by being hurt/killed. She's already come across that situation once by a CO, though the CO lost that and he was reassigned as well.

It is well understood many men can not stand the concept that they are not fundamentally and always superior to women.

 

Most women in the military are pitiful.

 

They're usually alright in the kitchen though . . . . . . . so I've been told!!

 

Man IS fundamentally superior to woman.
Man has roughly 10% more muscle structure (Check the Olympic games results)
Man are emotionally less sensitive, this is good when things around start exploding. Nature has less need to attach us to our kids, it prefers us to combat other man, so that the best genes that survive, spread around most females.
Man is a better fighter (Natural selection is responsible for man occupying fighter position more often)
Man is more expendable in terms of repopulation.

We have managed to build a distance between a concept of “soldier” and a concept of “child”.
Majority of national moral systems or popular opinions does not accept children as soldiers anymore. It was not so 100 years ago.
There is simply no desperate need to bring female onto the battlefield. Let them stay out of our playground!

Woman is fundamentally superior to man in so many other aspects

 

We are talking the modern armed forces education matters and women tend to graduate High School more, tend to go on to school and earn more college degrees so if drafted its sensible they would do many of the support and technical duties over men who would be more likely to fill other roles such as infantry duty in combat. I don't see the issue in a rare total war scenario we will need all the fit and able minded people we can to serve and the vital support duties often are as important as the combat forces for every pilot it takes a team of mechanics and technical experts such as those who monitor the combat area with technology to relay to the pilot. Or are those roles not something women can do?

 

Our women are capable of everything! No doubt there .

The problem is when a Moskito missile hits the hangar deck, the kerosene spills and men start running around burning alive, we, want to have these capable specialists cooking dinner at home, not striving for last breath of oxygen.

The war machine hunger for assets, men, resources, talented brains is naturally limitless. But it needs to have a limit, somewhere. If suddenly the war machine lacks some specialists, it means that the war machine has to change, not the people it was made to protect.
In case of a total war, it is absolutely irrelevant how many man and woman are serving in the army. In case of a limited war, there is no need for a woman burning in the hangar, there is a perfect substitute that was designed by nature especially for that role - man.
Take into account, in modern world we do not lose much lives in combat or accidents. Modern medicine is quite capable to deny death. Nothing special happens to a military man when he receives a 5.56mm in his head. Chances that the bullet hits the brain are slim, it is a small target . Yeah, we will have to wear a baseball cap to cover the hole, but generally we are fine.
Contrary is the woman, their child creating mechanism is much more complex than our reproductive system and is way more fragile. Cold – trouble. Fumes – trouble. Modern military medicine – trouble. Radioactivity – trouble. Physical stress – trouble. Pressure change – trouble. Blast wave – trouble. Concussion – trouble. E.t.c. no end.
Now why exactly we are even discussing this? We do not want their fancy diamonds, or fur coats, whatever. Why do they want our attack helicopters???

 

People are generic and excel at nothing in life often resort to claiming their race, gender, religion or ethnicity makes the person superior to others. By your message, your last resort of a claim to significance is your gender.

Actually, in the instances of women contrasted to men in direct battle in Russia, women proved to be braver, more committed and more deathly than men. Literally, the men would flee overwhelming Germany superiority, while the Russian female troops would not flee and would inflict massive casualties on superior German forces and superior equipment.

Psychological profiling revealed that when facing vastly superior odds, if flee is an option as casualties mount tend to take an every-man-for-himself fleeing mode, while women tend to take a maternal stance seeing their fellow troops as family members for which they desire to destroy those who were harming their family seeking furious revenge.

Women have a higher tolerance to pain, a trait evolved from childbirth. Women's bodies use food and water more efficiently, evolved from pregnancy as men tended to take care of themselves first if there is a shortage. Women also are smaller targets, which matters in an era where battles are not fought with axes and swords, and their smaller size requires less space, a reason there is increasing push to bring women into pilot roles. Women also have a higher level of patience, why they excel as snipers.

The primary criticism of women in the Russian military was that they are difficult to control in battle situations because they become so fixated on killing the enemy it is difficult to deter them. However, men do make better pack mules and filling strong-back, weak mind roles.

 

Hitler, having served in WW I from 1914 - 1918, thought it was absolutely ridiculous and degrading for women to put them into the army:

[video=youtube;ZoPyi7yGjSo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoPyi7yGjSo[/video]

 

Just FYI, the Army is actively searching thru all branches of the military for women to put into training as combat helicopter pilots - but with little success finding any women willing to do so due to extreme anti-women sentiments that women in the military well understand.

A woman we know VERY well in the Air Force was invited to pursue AF Special Ops training due to her having blown away all basic training standards, even for men, from day 1 and a pre-enlistment history backing it up. However, she was well aware of how deep the commitment of many male COs to never pass any woman is so declined. So impressive a record since, more recently she was offered by the Army significant increase in rank if she would transfer to the Army for direct combat role training and status, but she also declined this for the same reason.

At the top there is a push to gender integrate the military. However, between the top and the bottom are so many obstacles by men determined to fail any and all women that it isn't a real prospect. She now is in a role no other woman had ever held, the only female in the unit as well, and commonly comes across COs determined to try to blow her out of his unit. So far, if the CO pushes it too far, who gets blown out is the CO. COs are a dime-a-dozen. But without her missions don't happen. When in an active combat theater in the ME she saved many a male's ass.

The US military is not female friendly.

 

Whatever makes you feel better

Crap, lie, bs…

Agree an all aspects. Pain tolerance, food, water, oxygen efficiency, patience. Woman are generally preferable at satellite motherboard assembly where you need to do tedious, precise, boring work under pressure. But all these qualities are irrelevant on the battlefield.

Pain tolerance of man is sufficient. Without food or air woman can last longer, true, but not fight longer. Woman do not excel as snipers, this is one of many roles which a woman can handle well on the battlefield, but man does it better, check the kill score of female and male snipers.
Regarding body dimensions - this is sick. If you continue your thought, you will want to place 12 year olds in tanks, heck, this will increase armor density by 5-15%...

Precisely. The daily war job that is hundred times more important than precise shooting. And we play chess better

Once again, we do not want woman in the army not because they are inferior to man. They are not, they can be as fast, as clever, as whatever. We do not want them because this is inefficient. They have to pay much more than man and sacrifice much more than a man.
Well that does makes them inferior on the battlefield . Although superior in many other aspects. This makes us inferior

This is a stupid discussion whatsoever

 

In fact what I posted of the history of women in combat in Russia is accurate.

Name any country that had women in combat roles in the regular military that has lost a war that is not ancient history when battles were fought face to face with axes and swords. It is interesting that the opposition to training women in any combat role was so deep that across history countries and city-states would rather face defeat and being totally slaughtered instead. Better death, slavery and obliteration than allow women to be trained for fighting skills.

There are situational unique abilities women offer such as infiltration and winning support of local population - and that has been noted in the US military in the ME. However, the opposition by older ranking men is extreme.

For example, a woman we know was asked to enter a program to be a rescuer of downed pilots - a role no woman has ever held. She is not only extremely athletic and proven academically brilliant, but also had a personal history of activities for which she already had much knowledge and experience that was highly notable - long distance swimming in harsh Gulf waters, highly knowledgeable in many food and water survival needs, etc. They also saw her as situational more desirable for being a female in some situations as in many countries and regions a woman could enter a civilian population behind enemy lines as women are not seen as potential combatants, where a young adult man would be inherently suspect.

However, exploring the program it was clear to her that even if she exceeded the performance of any male she would be blown out by men who simply will not pass any woman.

In the military there have been COs that outright tell her they have never had a woman under his command and never will - likely hoping she would file a formal complaint, which would likely cause her to be reassigned elsewhere and maybe believing he will only be mildly reprimanded. She does not file any complaint. However on a couple of occasions actions by COs to knock her out backfired on the CO - when it related to actual combat missions (which she is involved in).

There is a powerful collection of reasons for men in the military to oppose women including economic reasons. Women in the same roles reduced the chance of rank and pay improvement by 50% by adding more competition. However, it is more a male-ego thing and it goes beyond abilities, skills or other combat or military related factors.

A real problem with militaries is their officers tend to be older and always look backwards in time. For example, this is why Germany so easily overran France in WWII, though France had a larger military. The French generals were ancient WWI generals. In my opinion, the US military is too fixated on "the generic soldier" by which all are trained and measured by the same standard, when modern warfare is extremely diverse.

There are end runs to bypass such rules and standards for particularly desirable recruits and personnel, even special review, training and medical personnel who will cook the books if need be. For example, the woman I just referred to had a past injury that technically made her ineligible for military service although was no handicap and is 1 inch too short for the role she was wanted for. To address this a special doctor was assigned to do her enlistment medical examination. The doctor spoke with her for a couple minutes and then said the examination was concluded. When she asked the doctor "I thought you were going to do the medical exam?" the doctor winked and said "you passed" (no examination done). Military records also show she is 1 inch taller. The operations command realized it would be nuts to block her for irrelevant "generic" reasons.

The USA military is one of the few ways that social attitudes towards women are the same as the attitude of radical Muslims towards women. Bill Gates stated in his opinion the #1 reason most ME countries are so economically stunted and backwards is their exclusion of women from the workforce, cutting their talents and resources in half compared to the West. The same arguments against women in the military tend to be the same reasons given why women should not be in the work force.

 

The Israeli experience In Israel, the persistent myth that Israeli women participate in combat is false. Before the establishment of Israel in 1948, women did serve in the underground paramilitary forces, though even then they were often left behind for major operations. A few women also fought before the 1948 war, when isolated settlements came under attack. With independence and the creation of a regular army, however, women were immediately and permanently excluded from all combat roles. Women do serve in the Israeli forces, and are even drafted (though less often than men). Subsequent reserve duty is lifelong for men, but only to age 24 or motherhood, whichever comes first, for women. Over half of female draftees serve in secretarial and clerical jobs. A women’s corps (its initials spell “charm”) administers the policies concerning Israeli women soldiers, including training them, overseeing their work in various units, and operating some of its own units. A 1980 women’s corps brochure states: “Today’s Israeli female soldiers are trim girls, clothed in uniforms which bring out their youthful” These women serve as “sister-figure” or “mother-figure” in a unit. Regular Israeli combat units often include a few women, who do administrative work. These assignments are “highly sought after” by women. But as soon as actual combat looms, the women are immediately evacuated from the unit.69

In the late 1970s, after the shock of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and under great manpower pressures, the IDF opened up new nontraditional specialties to women, including instructing men on the use of arms. The 1980 brochure states that women serving as platoon sergeants in all-male basic training “have succeeded outstandingly.” The brochure continues: “New recruits do not dare complain of muscle aches and pains or drop out of a long-distance run when it is being led by a female sergeant.” Women’s success as arms instructors shows that some women can wield weapons effectively – for example, driving tanks, firing guns, and deploying armed groups tactically.

The reasons given for the exclusion of women from combat in Israel revolve around their effects on male soldiers rather than their own combat abilities. For example, men in mixed units supposedly showed excessive concern for the well-being of the women at the expense of the mission. The actual evidence of such effects is very sketchy, however.

http://www.warandgender.com/chap2pap.htm

 

Nothing but Soviet propaganda. In the West, just more culture=marxism.

If Soviet women were so good in combat or serving with men why was one of Stalin's first orders in August of 1945 was to get women out of the Soviet military ASAP !

Why didn't we see women serving in Soviet combat units during the Cold War and where were they during the Soviet-Afghan war ?

Why don't we see women serving combat roles in todays Russian army ?

Same source as above.

 

It is a contradiction to claim it is "Soviet propaganda" while pointing out Stalin discontinued women in combat roles. This issue has nothing to do with women proving a handicap to the Soviet military. Rather, it was social engineering and social values standards - and the fact that men were in charge. The only incidents I ever found giving reason to challenge women in combat was occasions when female units refused to retreat against superior forces and fought on after male units has left/fled. Of the few actual battles in which women played a prominent role, the saying "hell hath no fury like a woman" seemed accurate. Once a female unit went into the killing mode it was difficult to turn it off.

It is a myth that a bullet fired by a man is less deadly than a bullet fired by a woman. The only apparent distinction is that, on average, men are larger targets.

Where you and I disagree foremost (though many reasons) is you believe that all military personnel must be clones of each other of the exactly identical skills, abilities and duties - all based upon muscularity and weight lifting. In my opinion that ceased to be accurate with the invention of the bow and arrow and is wrongheaded thinking in this modern extremely technological age. The bulk of the military will never be in combat or near a combat zone, though that does not mean they are not doing their part to kill the enemy or provide defense. A geek genius paralyzed from the waist down with only 1 arm is likely more valuable than 1 Marine rifleman - even if that geek is female - for how war is fought now. That geek, 100 or 10,000 miles away, might save that Marine's ass with a drone strike or analysis of the battle situation.

By your standards, ALL officers regardless of age should have to meet the same physical requirements of new enlistees - correct? No exceptions - that's your rule. If a Marine general can not meet the same physical standards that are annually tested as a 20 year old Marine and if a Navy Admiral can't lift and drag a ship fire hose fast and far enough per minimal new recruit standards then they are booted out as disqualified - even possibly with a less-than-honorable discharge and lose of retirement and all other benefits as is now often done to younger personnel who fail PT tests - by your definitions of absolute standards with no exceptions tolerated.

Yet that is NOT how any branch of the military functions, is it? If not, so much for the absolutes of physical abilities.

Try proposing no reduction in minimal physical requirements for age in all branches of the military and see how far that goes. But you know that would be what is called a lead balloon, don't you?

 

Women virtually serve in combat now a typical Army vehicle driver often drives in combat zones in convoys and takes the same risks just they are not expected to engage the enemy under normal conditions. A friend in the British Army is a communications engineer now when she is in a combat zone she can be expected to go out to fix technology now being a senior NCO she is not as likely to now but her women subordinates can go out under her orders the only difference a squad of men is protecting these people so she can focus on the work to be done. Medical people if a woman might also go out if needed. And women are artillerists in the British Army.

In our army a copter pilot can be either gender, fighter pilots either gender, drone operators either gender and many other jobs can be done which are important.

Now in a normal war I think we need to trust the system if a woman Marine can pass Rifleman training like a man then fine she should fight like a man, if not they should do something else, or do you not trust the instructors and experts in the field to make sure each soldier is able to do their duty in combat?

I want to point out if the Selective Service is activated for the draft the private parts won't matter we will be in a total war scenario or a scenario with a lot of bodies needed in the armed forces.

 

Have any good sea stories ?

 

Nope. Not any of anyone I know. I assume you mean combat or naval stories. I go blue water often - very often. Walked thru a WWII submarine and the old USS Yorktown and on-board museum a few weeks ago. The complexity and machining of WWII subs is astonishing. Have toured many old warships of various vintages now and then.

Was reading about and watching videos of warships of WWII a couple days ago and concluded of fast surface gun ships of the Fletcher class destroyer made more sense and had far more usages (and success) than battleships or heavy cruisers. For the price and crew of one battleship we could have 6 Fletcher class destroyers. Very multiple purpose ships.