I can think of at least six reasons why a young woman would want to integrate an otherwise all-male ground combat unit. And I am purposely emphasizing the word “integrate,” because if her aim were simply to be able to serve in combat units, advocates would have agitated for women being able to serve in their own all-female units long ago. The fact that there has been no such lobbying signals that women are after something beyond just getting to close with and destroy the enemy.
So, what might a young woman’s motivations be?
- To challenge and to test herself, and to join a unit that represents the best of the best
- To be a pioneer
- To fulfill a personal ambition (or to fulfill a parent’s ambition)
- To gain status
- To pierce the vaunted boys’ club (even though it will then cease being a boys’ club)
- To enhance her career
Anyone reading this list should be able to appreciate, and even admire most of these motivations. However, there is a catch to each of them. All six have to do with the individual. They center around self. It may be next to impossible for an ambitious, patriotic young woman to see how her presence might detract from cohesion among a group of similarly motivated young men. But, as my previous articles have argued, it will.
Now, let’s consider why politicians might support the idea of gender-norming ground combat units:
- This is the politically correct, most expedient stance to take
- Out of principle — for anyone opposed to any gender segregation, the military makes a great target
- Out of the conviction that the military should mirror society (although then we should have a military that is more than 50% female, shouldn’t we?)
- Out of a desire to see more women attain senior command positions
When it comes to politicians’ motivations, numbers one, two, and three reflect nothing more than an enabling ignorance. They ignore why we have a military in the first place. The imperative when thinking about the military should be: what enhances our national security? Too often, however, politicians’ chief concerns revolve around jobs for their district or state; what pleases their donors; and what their constituents harangue them about.
Add up politicians’ concerns and, unfortunately, they point to exactly why the combat exclusion ban will likely be lifted: too few members of Congress have to care about our national security. As it is, none are held to individual account when it comes to security failures, whether on our southern border or abroad in places like Iraq or Libya. Nor has the hollowing out of the force begun to bear truly bitter fruit. Essentially, members of Congress stand to lose nothing politically by going along with Secretary of Defense Panetta’s last minute directive.
As for the desire to see more women attain senior command positions (motivation number four), those who attain these jobs typically rise through the combat arms in ways currently closed to women. Thus, this objection to women’s exclusion actually may have merit. Bear with me. First, let’s remember: thus far, no one has made a cogent argument for how women represent value added to ground combat capabilities. Without a doubt, women are a critical asset when it comes to intelligence work, reconnaissance, and for certain types of behind-the-lines missions. But no one yet has been able to explain how an otherwise all-male unit would close with and destroy the enemy more effectively with female members present — unless you are willing to buy into the notion, as some proponents do, that women think sufficiently differently from men and that without them present combat units miss out on women’s unique problem-solving skills.
On the face of it this seems a dangerous kind of argument to make. It means men and women should not be considered sufficiently similar to be interchangeable, which is a prospect that has implications well beyond just ground combat units.
But say, for the sake of argument, that women are demonstrably better at certain kinds of work. For instance, women may excel at social relations or written and verbal communication and reading others, all of which are extremely important in cross-cultural settings and in military diplomacy.
Interestingly, there is academic evidence to suggest that gender-based differences exist beyond just the physical, even if the quip that “men are from Mars and women are from Venus” overstates it. Men will often take a more direct, confrontational approach in tense situations, thereby favoring force over finesse, whereas women will try to be more conciliatory. Consequently, I’ll often joke in classes full of special operators that if, as is forecasted, the future of special operations forces lies in the indirect approach, then its ranks should be full of women. Or, at least it should be led by women.
But maybe there really is something to this.
In fact, the question I want to pose here is: what does prevent a woman from becoming a future combatant commander other than the fact she has not passed through certain billets?
Or to come at this from a slightly different angle: Do you have to have been a grunt to be an effective strategic thinker? Do you have to have “been there, done that” to effectively oversee ground combat units at the general officer level? Maybe instead there are certain positions that would grant a woman a sufficient “feel for,” such that her subordinates would want to defer to her judgment regardless of her not having been an actual operator, or infantry soldier or Marine.
I raise these possibilities because addressing them might bleed a lot of the hot air out of the women-need-to-be-in-combat-units debate, and also because a lot of very bright women won’t want to try out for ground combat units. Yet they (like many men) might well have what it takes to devise war-winning strategies at senior levels.
We should all think: Are there positions that would or could prepare a woman to be able to eventually compete for a shot at combatant command without her having to lead an infantry squad, platoon, or ODA first? Could a woman do other jobs and still be able to viably lead an SF battalion, say?
I don’t know the answers to these questions. I suspect they are rarely posed. Most important, of course, is to consider what combat soldiers think since they are the ones who will need to be well commanded — if, that is, we want our security well defended. So, what, in their view, would impel them to want to follow a commander who hasn’t climbed all the same rungs that men currently do?
In short, which rungs would combat soldiers say are imperative for their commanders to have to climb?
Pose these questions to enough men in uniform and it might turn out that there is a way (or there might be several ways) to finesse the issue of getting more women into senior military command positions without having to alter the make-up of ground combat units. Recently there have been any number of general officers in command positions who grew up in combat units, but who themselves never engaged in combat. This leads to an inverse kind of comparison, but again is it conceivable a woman would have what it takes, in men’s eyes, to command them without her having been a grunt right alongside them?
Why, meanwhile, is this important? Because, as everyone likes to point out, all-male units, just like individual women caught in combat situations, have performed well over the past decade. It defies common sense to now mix them and mess with that success in the face of mounting global security concerns.
But there are also other reasons why we should think hard about how the military might reframe this issue. First, a generational change is underway. Second, those currently serving at brigadier level and below have not only seen considerably more combat than their elders, but have also been on the receiving end of some pretty questionable strategy. A change in thinking is sorely needed. Consequently, it shouldn’t be the least bit surprising that “disruptive thinking” has become the cri de coeur of this next generation.
So, to members of that generation, or to anyone who wants to think both constructively and disruptively: aren’t there smarter ways to thread the needle on the women-in-combat-unit topic than have surfaced thus far?
Anna Simons is a Professor of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School. She is the author of Networks of Dissolution: Somalia Undone and The Company They Keep: Life Inside the U.S. Army Special Forces, and is most recently the co-author of The Sovereignty Solution: A Commonsense Approach to Global Security. The views expressed are the author’s and do not reflect those of the Department of Defense, the U.S. Navy, or the Naval Postgraduate School.
Photo credit: The U.S. Army
Tom 
Ellen Haring 
Rme71 
Kyle 
ADM64 
Jim 
Scott 
Lory Manning 
RS 
MarineInfantryOfficer 
Robert 
John R 
Gil 
Just a guy 
Daniel Valente 
Paper Lady 
As usual, Ms. Simons’ thoughts are eminently cogent and reasonable. One challenge I would pose. One concern tied to this line of thought: “Or to come at this from a slightly different angle: Do you have to have been a grunt to be an effective strategic thinker? … Yet they (like many men) might well have what it takes to devise war-winning strategies at senior levels.” Unfortunately, as has been identified both here in WOTR comments and elsewhere, tactical proficiency and strategic proficiency are two entirely different mindsets. A handful of folks might have both, but the early military promotion process tends to select for tactical proficiency, meaning that by the time personnel – male or female – reach field grade or general officer ranks, the likelihood that they’re competent in the formulation of strategy isn’t particularly high. (The war colleges also do, at best, an adequate job of teaching strategy.) This issue is obviously ancillary to that which Ms. Simons addresses in the article above, but it’s one that must be considered and addressed as a precursor to ensuring that women on a sort of alternate career track are sufficiently prepared for the duties required of them should they become operational or combatant commanders of combined arms units.
Imminently cogent and reasonable? Really? I wish this woman would talk to just one woman who wants to fight for her country. Then she might stop assigning a laundry list of self-serving reasons to women’s motivations for wanting to serve in fighting units. Furthermore, it is so disingenuous of her, an academic of sorts, to assume that because it hasn’t been done (here at least) there is evidence to support the notion that women will harm fighting units. What she needs to do is read some history and study the evidence that refutes her basic premise that women will harm fighting units. She should start with the little known, because it was poorly documented, history of women Soviet fighters in WWII. A million Soviet women fought in WWII and half of them fought in ground combat units. She should just read one tiny little piece of their history, that of the 46th Night Guards to get a small glimpse of the unselfish reasons that women fight for their countries and how their service contributes rather than diminishes the overall effort.
Col Haring,
Were not the Soviets in WWII threatened with national elimination? Likewise so were the Israelis when they had women serving in ground combat units, before they removed them. There seems to be a thread there of national survival. Additionally, if my read of history is correct, the Soviets had all women units and were not integrated except for some snipers. They also used those units for novel missions. Somehow I don’t think our nation is threated quite that much. I thought we were allowing women to fight for our country or are you saying that driving down the roads of Afghanistan or Iraq or walking the streets of Baghdad, Mosul, Tikrit or Ramadi is not combat? It certainly can be even if you are only off the FOB for a short time. As for diminishing the contribution of women in our armed forces, you might have inadvertently done that in your comments. Surely you did not mean that. The real issue here is whether or not enough women will “want” to serve in ground combat units. Other nations’ experiences indicate they will not. Why would we think our nation would be any different? I guess there are those who would want, for the need of a few, to completely integrate our forces. But in the long run is there any proof, anecdotal or analytical, that our unit’s combat readiness or military efficiency will be improved?
“Furthermore, it is so disingenuous of her, an academic of sorts, to assume that because it hasn’t been done (here at least) there is evidence to support the notion that women will harm fighting units.”
I recommend that you read Ms. Simons’ prior WOTR offering, in which she discusses this issue (or, rather, the fact that no agency has been willing to do any actual quantitative analysis due to the politicization of the issue). I’m also in concurrence with Rme71 that your comparison of the present-day American force to various historical case studies, notably that of Soviet women fighting in the “Great Patriotic War”, is questionable.
Why mess with a good thing? I see that you’re an officer from other responses, from the enlisted view (because that’s what really matters, if you want it for career advancement only then you’re doing our nation a disservice) have you ever witnessed a group of grunts talking or doing something and then a female Soldier enters the picture whether it be for 2 minutes or 2 hours it totally changes the dynamic of the group. Plus these guys are 18-21 usually and are raging hormones so without taking that into account you’re going to have more SHARP issues than you know what to do with. Sure it’s been tried in the Soviet Union and Isreal but were they Americans? No we are incomparable to any other country period. So ma’am your argument is apples and oranges. As for female officers or officers in general once you’re through with being a platoon leader your time in the field is effectively over, that time is spent being taught by the NCO’s of the platoon (or it should be) careerism has no place in effective ground combat. The enemy doesn’t care if you aspire to be the Chief of Staff they will kill you just like everyone else. Finally to be a leader that has earned the respect of their Soldiers you have to be the best at everything not just book smarts physically great, run the fastest and farthest, hump the most weight in your ruck, and be calm, cool, and ready to kill the enemy when you get into a fire fight carrying 100 extra pounds on your body. There may be 2 women in the military that could maintain that for a 12-18 month deployment. If a leader can’t do it then they lose the respect of their Soldiers and women prove that they simply can’t hack it and you set yourselves back even further.
Colonel Haring,
Your data on the Soviet WWII women combat experience is incorrect. The Israeli historian Martin van Creveld examined the data and found only a small percentage of the Soviet military consisted of women, and in fact not a much different percentage than that of the Allied and German armies. Soviet female casualty rates were far higher than those of the men. There is to-date no comprehensive data on the combat performance of the three women air units (regiments) – two of which were ultimately coed – comparing them to the all male units in terms of sorties, loss rates, damage inflicted on the enemy and the like. There have been several books on the subject, including some in which the women were interviewed and gave their own stories. Many joined up for patriotic reasons in the midst of a life and death struggle. Some had second thoughts about the wisdom of the choice after the war (because some suffered immense physical difficulties, even becoming unable to have children, as a result of their service), some concluded women simply weren’t built for war the same way that men were; and others agreed with your position. All were proud of their service. In partisan units, women served extensively, and also took heavy casualties compared to the men. And, many women also served as so-called field wives to Soviet officers. Most, however, served in administrative, medical and legal roles, freeing men to fight.
In our own country, we never had to fully mobilize our entire male population to fight the war. So, the comparison is irrelevant. Once upon a time, children were sent to war. In the Navy, during the age of sail, midshipmen started at 12 and so-called power monkeys even younger. The latter brought cartridges to the ship’s guns, their small size allowing them to scurry up and down the canvas-lined passages between the decks and ship’s magazine. During action, these passages were dark, and wet with blood, feces, urine and vomit. Today, this would, presumably be considered child abuse. However, using the same logic that you seem to accept, it having been proven that children can serve in battle, why shouldn’t we let them do so today?
As an enlisted US Army grunt that has had to endure the imposition of having idiotic non-combat unit leadership (both male and female) attempt to ridiculously dictate what an infantry unit’s activities are supposed to be in a war, the notion that under qualified personnel should be provided a special pathway to combat command smacks of merit-less affirmative action (particularly of the gender quota variety).
This social experimentation that has been pressed upon the DOD (yet again) will prove costly and deadly. But hey some feminists, LGBT activists, atheists, nihilists, liberal politicians and our enemies will feel good about it. That’s what truly matters right? Touchy feel good malarkey and starry eyed talk of hapless change.
Interesting that no one mentions the Selective Service System. All 18-year old males are required to sign up or risk being unable to apply for certain jobs. Why don’t these women pioneers argue for inclusion in the SSS?
Nothing should be more frightening to the country than the thought that we might draft women and put them into the ground combat forces……….against their will. It is going to be tough enough with women volunteers, but to force women in the ground combat units would be almost criminal. As for the draft of women, go for it. All is fair but with some stipulation and logic, which is most absent from the argument on women in ground combat units.
Scott,
Many of us do argue that women should register for the draft. If this country was in a conflict that required a draft, there is no doubt that we’d be drafting women physicians for instance. Traditionally, draftees have been sent to the infantry, but that could be changed for draftees of both sexes. Since standards now have to be put in place for ground combat occupations, it’s certainly possible that future draftees of either sex will–deliberately or not–fail to meet them and so have to be used in a non-infantry unit.
Your comment that “Since standards now have to be put in place for ground combat occupations” is, oh so, appropriate. That should have been done decades ago and we may not be having this debate. Now we have the Dempsey Rule that will take effect of all standards and that will be a true travesty. Military units are governed by standards. Higher standards produce good units. Lower standards bad units. Better to have a high unobtainable standard to shoot at then an easy standard obtained by all. That is how you define mediocrity.
Scott,
Agreed. Every American should share the same responsibilities if she or he is to share the same privileges of citizenship.
No doubt women should register for the draft. We need to know the pool Yes, keeping in mind that the infantry is the vocation of least choice it would be anticipated that a fair draft 95$ of men could make the standard in the infantry and 5% of women. So it is s crapshoot. Just putting any woman in those arms trained to conduct ground combat is not purdent at all.
Oh dear, let’s start by outing the unspoken assumption that underlies Professor Simons’s article, namely that women are in no way physically, mentally and emotionally capable of serving in the infantry or other ground combat forces and therefore, any woman who thinks she ought to serve in such forces must be a selfish, unpatriotic, overly-ambitious individualist who’s being cheered on by pandering, self-serving politicos.
Hers is not a new argument—it’s been hauled out more times than I can count over the past 70 or so years. It was a lead argument in the effort to keep women from the service academies, in the fight to keep them off Navy ships and out of combat aircraft and it was regularly used to keep various non-combat career fields and units in all the services closed to women in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Why, a variation on it was even used to keep men out of the military nursing corps. Most people forget that these were all female until the 50’s (Army/Air Force) and 60’s (Navy) because it was believed that men were constitutionally incapable of providing skilled nursing care.
History shows that whenever “the integration doomed-to-shred national security” actually occurred, that women (or men) were quite capable of serving fully and honorably in the newly opened field with national security non-the-worse for the integration—and usually better. As a long-serving Navy veteran who was the first woman to serve in all sorts of jobs that others had fought to exclude me from, I dispute Professor Simons’s contention that those of us who believe women ought to serve in ground combat occupations and units are selfish, ambitious and unpatriotic, rather we are avid advocates for national security who are tired of nonsensical arguments.
Ms. Manning,
It is an argument that your side never addresses because the facts contradict you. No woman in the entire armed forces, over the last forty years (and that includes you) have ever been held to ALL of the same standards as the men, or that the men historically met. So long at that fact remains, so do the questions. Women like you never, ever, address that point because it is far easier to believe it is all reactionary sexism than any inherent shortcoming of yours and your sisters, based in an unalterable biological reality that explains why the forces should have been kept single sex.
The fitness standards are merely one part of it. The changes to other standards to accommodate women are another. Could you pick up and carry an unconscious, average size man fire-man style up a ship’s ladder? Were the Navy’s requirements for stretcher carry changed from 2-man to 4-person because not enough women could manage? The bottom line is that the standards were changed, the training methods were changed, a minimum critical mass of women were admitted, all critics within the military were driven out or into silence, and work-around procedures were devised. That’s without all the fraternization, sexual harassment and pregnancy issues which have plagued the forces from the 1970s onward.
To this date, no one has demonstrated the central claim you and your sisters made back in the 1970s. Namely, that it is possible to train a sufficient number of women to exactly all of the same standards as the men, using exactly the same training methods, without any special treatment or adjustment; and that fraternization, pregnancy and the like could be controlled though training, discipline and leadership. It hasn’t even been close. The fact that women can do SOME of the same things as men, especially in terms of purely technical knowledge and giving orders doesn’t change this at all. There has not been one single benefit to our national security nor one single metric by which it can be shown the forces are more effective, better disciplined, more focused, more deployable, more resilient and more tough than they were before.
Finally, with respect to motives, everyone has them. It is just as plausible to see you and your sisters as angry, self-hating, envious, man-hating women with huge chips on your shoulders and unresolved daddy issues, desperately eager to stick it to the men who said you weren’t as good as they, as it is for you to paint anyone who disagrees with the current policy as reactionary, Neanderthal sexist, women-hating, insecure men. Motives, though, don’t alter facts.
Well said, Sir. I was going to say something similar, but you did it better. Thank you. This is a fight worthy or fighting, even though our current leadership will make this happen and then conveniently dump it on whoever succeeds them to deal with.
How has woman improved the military and in what world are woman on average as strong as men on average? Say all you want the fact is woman can compete with men all fields just men cannot compete with woman in all fields I believe in equal rights but the fact still remains woman can not compete with man on a physical level.
Professor Simons,
You appear to continuously propose divisions where there are none. Men and women want a shot at combat arms for the same reasons. No infantryman I know fell into their position because of the “needs of the Army (or Corps)”.. at least not since the AVF took effect. He fought to hold that specialty for the following reasons:
1. Serve his country [you forgot this one for the ladies. Slightly insulting, but we will move on]
2. To challenge and to test himself.
3. To join a unit that represents the best of the best
4. To fulfill a personal ambition (or to fulfill a parent’s ambition)
5. To gain status [spend five minutes at a bar and bring up “POGs” with an infantryman]
6. To be part of an exalted, exclusive “club” [see #5]
7. To enhance a career [but probably neither sex want combat arms for this reason because everyone just wants to kick down doors- or support those who do- when they first enter the service.. regardless of specialty]
It seems a trend that you seek divisions amongst the sexes where there are none. I will not argue men and women are different in many ways, but your suggestions are far fetched.
I appreciate your experience as an academic and a researcher, but if you ever served next to your brothers when your life- and theirs- truly depend on how competent you- and they- are, you would realize that what saves lives and wins battles is competence and skill.
It does not matter who a warrior goes home to at night, what color (s)he was born, or if that warrior owns a y chromosome. If that individual is competent and capable, then there really are no further merits they should be judged by to be part of a team and protect us at the pointiest tip of the sphere- period.
Its ‘spear’, not ‘sphere’. I only point that out because that is what is being lost with perceptions like yours. Simons is right in her stating that the reasons for females to want to break the proposed “ceiling” are what she listed. I know because I have been privy to comments made by volunteers at the Infantry Officer Course’s attempt to test female volunteers at the Combat Endurance Course. To go along with that, your comments that it doesn’t matter who a warrior goes home with or what chromosome they have (sic) is absolutely wrong. It matters a great deal. Just as any intimate detail that a member of an infantry team, squad, platoon or company matters. You cannot divorce yourself of involvement in an infantry unit on any scale. There is not a measure of “too far” with a conversation. There is not a “politically correct time-out” that occurs. Everything is on the table at all times–and it only gets worse/better in combat. I say better because as a commander, that is what you want. You want cohesiveness. You want a sense of family. You want your men thinking of each other FIRST. Now, inject a female into that. I don’t care if she is the most physically capable, most intelligent, or whatever. That bond is now broken. If they like her, someone out of the group will like her more. Result, friction and broken cohesiveness. If they look at her like a sister, they will be focused on her and not the bond and the mission. Result, friction and broken cohesiveness. If she cant keep up and carry her own weight, they will have to go at her pace. Result, not combat effective.
I can go on. The Col Harings, Lt Santangelos and other woman advocates of the world and their willing supporters (from the infantry community) either look at this as a social issue or a woman’s rights issue. Both are so far out of reality that one wonders…what is in it for them? Which takes us back to Prof Simons comments at the beginning of the article.
I will end with this: WHEN we are tested next, and we will be, our nation will have made itself weaker by making policy based on feelings of equality where no equality but strength and the will to do unrelenting violence on others will matter.
Tangent!!
The idea that the military’s senior-most leaders don’t need to have ‘been there, done that’ is a pretty compelling idea. I was recently talking to a friend about high-ranking logisticians and we were wondering whether or not a non combat-arms officer had been Chairman of the JCS, Chief of Staff of XX service, etc (I haven’t researched the answer, so I’m genuinely ignorant about the answer, although my guess is no). IF we recognize that difference between tactical and strategic thinking enough to say that because women haven’t been directly in combat billets, they aren’t necessarily disqualified from key leadership positions seems to equally imply that we should see a logistician, as battle-hardened as some 11A, 19As etc, climb the ranks high enough to be a Chief of Staff or comparable position.
I have 21 yrs of service (Infantry/Special Operations) and hat we have here is an example of Politicians telling the military that “I don’t care if the square peg doesn’t fit in the round hole, MAKE IT FIT”. Regardless the results of the Army assessments of trying to open Special Forces units to women, women will still be put into units anyways just to satisfy the crowd. When you have a product that is produced a certain way and decades with proven results, you don’t degrade the process to appease a certain coinsurer and still believe you can still maintain the high standards of your product.
God I cant wait till I retire.
To refute Ms. Manning’s commentary:
Women serve in the military, and women have been admitted at West Point since 1976. The physical fitness standards have been a double standard. Women take different physical fitness tests, APFTs, IOCTs, and classes. Female leaders such as COL Haring do not, to the best of my knowledge, abolishing the (lower) APFT standards and going to a single standard. It is easy to advocate the ability of someone else to become a ranger qualified infantry leader when you have no scratch in the game. If the female leadership would advocate waiving double standards in PT for all, that would be impressive. The silence is deafening.
The Soviet Union was a totalitarian state under attack by another totalitarian state, and the War in the East killed well over 10 million Soviets. For every Soviet Female that served in combat 20 males were killed. COmpared to the fighting in the East, the situation today is apples and oranges.
The William Gregor ROTC study–(I recommend you google it) demonstrated the top 2% of female ROTC cadets met the ‘average’ male score. Consider we have an infantry community of under 50,000, and that those individuals are generally above average in physical fitness, and it is highly unlikely we could build a force of more than 1% female where we would not be forcing in women unqualified to replace the males we are now not assigning. For a female community of approx 100,000 soldiers, we now have 16 qualified soldiers in Ranger school. The effect on combat readiness, assuming standards arent dropped, will be a drop in the bucket.
Thank you to the author for an interesting series of articles.
Please don’t advocate a gender neutral PT test! If there ever is one either there will be a tremendous number of high male scores or a tremendous number of failing female scores. What do you think? As a result the males will not improve and will not get more physically fit. You see this same phenomena in Army gender integrated training. Let’s address the issue of training at West Point, post 76. Only those who attended WP prior to 76 and subsequently went back as instructors, post 76, will understand how the integration of females has changed WP. It is not the same experience. Gone is the really tough, demanding physical training in the summer that built high confidence in cadets. Once when we were advocating bringing back some of the prior tasks and standards, our boss informed us “we would do nothing to embarrass the girls.” So we did nothing. It is unfair to those who have attended since that they are not receiving the same hard training as did their predecessors. It is also unfair to the Army and the country. But then again, life is not fair.
Integrating women into combat roles, just like making them Rangers, is nothing more than a liberal social science experiment using the cheapest and readily available petri dish…the US military. Senior DoD leaders know where their bread is buttered, they support these misguided experiments because to oppose them means they will no longer be senior DoD leaders. Integrating women adds no enhancement to closing with and destroying the enemy whatsoever. Integration brings plenty of detractions-and to name a single one brands the author a misogynist. I’ve led soldiers in combat and retired after 28 years…this is a mistake that will make liberals feel good, but the pricetag is lives and risk to mission.
Prof. Anna Simons has described people that I certainly recognize, including the politicians. Most military women sign up for patriotic reasons, but aggressive civilian and military advocates for women in combat usually express motives centering on careers, self-interest, and political or ideological agendas. Many who constantly complain that we have not seen a female Joint Chiefs Chairman show little concern about the majority of women who serve in enlisted ranks. In a recent official survey of Army women, 92.5% that they wanted nothing to do with direct ground combat assignments.
According to AP, about 9,000 Special Operations Forces Command (SOCOM) personnel said in a recent RAND survey that they do not believe women can meet the physical and mental demands of their commando jobs. They also expressed concern that department leaders would “capitulate to political pressure, allowing erosion of training standards.”
Activists who consider the exceptionally tough Marine Infantry Officer Course to be nothing more than an “initiation rite,” (Ellen Haring, WOTR 29 May, 2014), increase concerns raised by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in January 2013. At a Pentagon briefing General Martin Dempsey called for a “critical mass” or “significant cohort” of women in the combat arms. General Dempsey also said that if a particular standard is so high that women can’t make it, questions will be asked: “Does it really have to be that high?”
Over time (not long) Pentagon officials will pursue implement the “Dempsey Rule,” meaning, “If it’s too hard for women, it’s probably too hard.” Under pressures to achieve Pentagon-endorsed “gender diversity metrics” (another name for quotas), the toughest training requirements will be re-defined, gender-normed, or dropped without notice. This process will leave “validated” standards that are “gender-neutral” but lower than before.
Policy changes affecting all military women − and eventually civilian women of Selective Service registration age − should be rooted in reality, science, and experience, not theories and unsupported assumptions. Abundant evidence already exists that women should be allowed to serve their country in uniform without being forced to act like men in the combat arms, subject to disproportionate injuries that a number of major fact-based studies in the United States and Britain have predicted. For more information, visit the website of the Center for Military Readiness, http://www.cmrlink.org.
Yep, you are correct. The real problem is that our military on engages in successes and is quite unwilling to admit when a mistake occurs. So if women are allowed into ground combat forces it will be successful and never be turned around. We just don’t admit we have failed. The good news is there will not many many of them and most of them are likely to be officers………..another problem.
To all the senior officer females who insist on pushing their feminist agenda and all the junior officers shoving their entitlement agenda down the throats of every infantryman and specops man, PLEASE STOP. Here is the imagery painted through your comments: a resentful, angry female standing with one hand on your hips and the other hand pointing a finger at all the misogynistic men in uniform, squawking about how great it will be when women are integrated into combat units (shudder). I am a female career soldier and I am sad for you–no, actually, I want to scream when I read the responses of why we should be a part of a club we have no business in….and then I feel sad for you. We DO NOT bring added value–we are a distraction at best and a hinderance with deadly consequences at worst. Has your career lacked something that a combat arms unit position would have filled? I would hope that you see our contribution to the military can be accomplished honorably in other areas. Is there something you feel you have to do to prove ykur worth in the military circles? LET IT GO. Beyond the defiant/entitled/whiney comments, let’s get down to the practical reasons for why WE should not be integrated in combat units: physically women cannot do the job men do in combat; physically, a woman’s body will have more injuries doing the same job; mentally/emotionally, women would not cut it (I speak with many years of experience seeing the emotional shortfalls of women); finally, there is that all-too-often-awept-under-the-rug issue of fraternization, sexual harassment and sexual assault. Do not bury your head in the sand–it happens far more than the official statistics report and you know it).
I am certain all the squawking females here comprise the 8% of women who wanted to be a part of combat units (yes, we all filled out that survey)–but what happened to the other 92%, of which I am proud to be a part of? Is the majority voice not heard?! No. We will sit around and hold hands and sing happy songs because that is what our leadership has DICTATED. This is a perfect storm for disaster; integration to combat units is not the same as USMA integration, though as pointed out the academy is not the same post76. Keep your estrogen in check, hold your head up, shoulders back, and stand proud for the service you provide to this country instead of this incessant drivel of breaking down barriers and equality. PS: guess what? We are NOT equal.
Thank you for a cogent and rational response to the madness of all proponets of this issue. This is not an equality issue. Ultimately, this is about survival.