Army's Readiness and Morale Destroyed

Yes, agreed. It's a shame because there are some amazingly challenging and interesting jobs out there that women can do well. A friend of mine has a daughter in the AF. She's in Intelligence. She briefs. She's been all over the world; she's contributed to fighting our wars, she's risen in rank and responsibility ... I could go on.

This idea that women need "equal opportunity" by putting them into infantry units is a waste, as you said. And the other opportunities women have in the military are almost endless.

 

This is one field where women seem to be good at, intelligence analyst. Call it "female intuition" or just seeing things that men don't. It's like looking at satellite imaging or aerial reconnaissance photos and six male analyst will overlook or don't see what a female analyst sees.

 

That might be your experience, but I don't think it's representative of intelligence analysts.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/11/us/intelligence-agencies-women/

 

On average, women have 60% of the strength of a man.

I don't see anything wrong with different physical fitness standards for females, to establish a minimum level of fitness regardless of one's military occupation. Some jobs, certainly the infantry, require above and beyond the minimums. For those jobs wherein heavy lifting is a requisite part of performing, differing physical fitness standards becomes more problematic.

My point is, I'm not a proponent of maintaining a minimum standard of physical fitness equivalent for all regardless of gender or age...as examples.

Going beyond the minimums, perhaps an equivalent standard of fitness for all, is more appropriate if the job itself demands it.

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Above the baseline, set up minimum physical fitness levels appropriate for the specific job with no variables, applicable to everyone in that particular military occupation. Some occupations, for example administration, wouldn't need to go above the baseline minimum in terms of fitness levels in order to do their jobs...while in other occupations it is essential that everyone is capable of performing all aspects of the job. No weak links in the chain. You don't pass muster, you wash-out and do a job you can actually do.

Fixed standards - applicable to specific requirements of MOS = (example)11Bravo, everyone must meet a certain level of fitness required to perform the job, no exceptions for gender and other variables.

Variable standards = Baseline minimum level of physical fitness standard, regardless of specific occupation, standards dependent on gender and age.

 

Boot camp has always been more about mental conditioning then anything else I believe. As long as a person has the drive and ability to follow orders, they can pass boot camp.

But then you have a very different issue, and that is the demands of the unit itself.

Let me give a case in point. In a Marine Corps Infantry Battalion, everybody is a "Rifleman". They all go on the humps, from the 0100 series admin clerk and the 0300 series Infantryman to the 3300 series cooks. The "Benchmark" for a Marine Infantry Battalion is the MCCRES. This is a Battalion level event, everybody participates, and the Battalion passes or fails together as a unit.

So even that will not really be good enough for anything lower then a Division level. I know that in the Marine Corps, the Division level does indeed have females in it, but that level of command is assumed to be placed behind the front lines in safe positions during combat operations. Regiments and Battalions however are assumed to be on the front lines, and are segregated as such.

So at least in the Marine Corps, your "MOS Specific requirements" would quickly become a failure, depending on what kind of unit they are assigned to.

 

You're behind the times.

Gender neutral fitness standards applicable to specific jobs are already being implemented by the Marine Corps.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/sto...ew-gender-neutral-standards-29-jobs/73173524/

 

That is what PULHES is for. But everybody should know that does not tell the whole story.

 

It's being implemented, so as a non-Marine, I'm assuming that means it's a relatively new policy. I was not aware that entire battalions are tested from top to bottom, but from I what I understand these gender neutral standards are over and above a minimum level of fitness as a Marine regardless of your job. To pass the school, you need to show you're physically capable of doing the job you're training to do.

I don't think it's necessary for someone in administration to be able to lift a Tow bar, as an example. The requirement for that would be for someone who may encounter it in the course of performing their job.

Understanding the Marines stress that EVERYONE is a rifleman first, but I don't think fitness requirements over and above those standards would be a failure. Again though, I'll defer to your expertise regarding the Marine Corps, I'm not speaking from experience there.

Ideally, it would be nice if every single Marine was interchangeable. That someone in a non-combat occupation, but attached to a battalion could fill in and be physically fit enough to do what say, a tanker does. I don't think that is a realistic policy even taking into account the Marines are a smaller branch.

 

The PULHES is just a new spin on an old system. I know I was evaluated under a similar system in 1991 when they started processing my MEDBOARD. In the new system, I was diagnosed as an L-4 prior to getting my knees evaluated and waived (I am now an L-2).

And I have discussed the MCCRES a great many times in here over the years. The entire Battalion is evaluated. Everybody participates in every phase, no matter what their MOS is.

Oh, and PULHES for Infantry is 111221.

It has nothing to do with being "interchangeable". Remember, a Marine Infantry Battalion is "Light Infantry". That means everybody travels together on foot from location to location. The cooks and clerks along with the Corpsmen, vehicle mechanics, armorers, and Infantry. They do not just have the grunts hike to the new location, and have the rest come in via truck. There are very few vehicles in a Marine Infantry Battalion, most Army Company-Battery sized units have more vehicles then an entire Marine Battalion has.

And a great deal of the vehicles in the Marine Corps are Regiment-Division level assets. Things like 6 ton trucks and the like do not belong to Battalions, they are signed out as needed then returned when finished. The entire structure is based on this small organic organization, with few to no "attachments".

The most I ever had attached to my unit when I was a grunt was some ANGLICO for fire control.

 

PULHES relates to being medically qualified.

Being medically rated a 1 in the area of physical capacity and , a medical rating of 1 in the area of upper extremities does not mean they can hook up a tow bar to an M1 tank (as an example).

In order to graduate one of these specialty schools, they are required to perform actual job functions. PULHES is medical fitness, not necessarily physical fitness.

 

Pretty much the same thing many racists said about having blacks in their units - that blacks were weak, timid, not smart enough to follow orders, etc. Soon enough, all that nonsense was done away with.

 

Women, generally speaking, are weaker than men. Why pretend otherwise. I'm not talking about emotionally or culturally, I'm talking about physicality. They are more prone to stress fractures on long ruck marches, as an example.

There is no reason, physically, that a woman can't fly a combat fighter jet assuming she's tall enough and of normal strength. There is a reason, physically, that a woman can't be an infantryman.

Are there exceptions?

Of course.

Realistically we're talking about fewer than 50 women who might go into direct ground combat specialities and actually qualify. They would need to meet the following critera:

1. want the job
2. can do the job equivalent to their male peers

It's not too much to ask to require a female to have equivalent standards to males if the job requires it.

Ultimately the military is not a charity, it all revolves around the needs of the service. .

 

Perhaps, interchangeable is not the right word. Maybe flexible is the better term. Semper Gumby.

The US Army is much more prone to institutionalized thinking if for no other reason than their sheer bulk, althought it is shrinking, so the bigger the institution the more specialization is required. .

Smaller means flexibility is a necessity.

 

The best way to consider this to me is a trained infantry soldier woman better than a fit civilian man in war, I still favor the woman.

And if we ever enter a total war our technology for mixed infantry units will get a lot better fast, technology always gets better in a full scale war. And tactics matter right now couldn't they air drop added food and water its rare our nation doesn't maintain air superiority and a drone could do this.

As for body armor can't they research lighter armor that would be effective?

 

How many fit civilian men are there today ? 3/4 of young adults are rejected for military service today because we have become a nation of Pillsbury Doughboys.

The question that should be asked, can our military still fight if they lose that technology ?

Yesterday those ten sailors who were captured by the Iranians were in San Diego to be debriefed so they say. There's something more going on, you don't pull ten sailors out of theatre just because they were detained for a few hours by the Revolutionary Guard. The two Navy boats lost all electronics from GPS, radio communications and even cell phone service. They lost all of that modern technology and what happened ? They got captured.

What happened to the USS Donald Cook that Russia had defeated the Navy's Aegis system or entire regions of Syria and Iraq can be blinded where radar is useless and even satellites in space are blinded isn't a "Coast to Coast" program. Why do you think the Navy sent out an ADMIN to all navy ship captains to dig out the old sextant and brush up on celestial navigation. Then a few weeks later the U.S. Naval Academy announced that celestial navigation courses will again be taught at the Academy.

Any technology that uses any form of electrical power or a computer chip can be defeated. It's called Electronic Warfare.

Yes. But it's not going to happen as long as Obama is POTUS. Obama is more concerned with the social engineering of the military and green fuels for the military that cost $150 per gallon. Talk to anyone at Cal-Tech, JPL, NASA and even DARPA they haven't been happy campers with Obama going back to 2009.

If McCain would have won in 2008, those lighter body armor would have already have been fielded with our soldiers and Marines.

I had to sign a a letter of confidentiality and nondisclosure agreement so that's all I can say. But the liberals in Sacramento also makes things very difficult in the R&D stages. California has so many stupid gun laws.

 

Air Force is changing, their BMT now trains with M16s, but in my era and I'm the same age as Mushroom, it's very possible to have gone through an entire military career only shooting a pistol. I was handed an M16 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (just in case sort of scenario) and in all honesty handing me that rifle probably put more lives in jeopardy than the actual perceived threat. I knew bullets came out of the pointy end, that was the extent of my rifle knowledge.

Someone in the Corps will read that and view it with contempt. How can anyone call themselves a warrior having never handled a rifle. Well...true, I was not a "warrior" in that sense of the word, but I had a specific purpose and skill set that served the larger need of the tip of the spear. There was no point in generalizing a combat support airman with the equivalent tip of the spear skill set. It is changing however as your basic airman is taught small arms familiarization including rifles. Personally I was only given pistol training and had to qualify.

 

I am not talking about going on patrol here.

The Army is almost universally transported from location to location by some kind of vehicle. Helicopter, trucks, armored vehicles, some kind of transportation. As a unit they are almost never expected to have to move as a unit via foot from one location to another as a Company or Battalion. They leave the runway or however they arrive in country and are transported to where their base camp will be set up at.

The Marine Corps however is designed to be dropped off on a beach by landing craft, then have to hoof it inland to where their base camp will be set up, 5-20+ miles. In a march like this the Headquarters Company (H&S for "Headquarters and Service") is typically placed 3rd in line, with 2 Infantry Companies in the front, 1 Infantry Company in the rear, and the Weapons Company scattered throughout the Battalion. In the event the unit is taken under attack they form the defensive perimiter for the Battalion Aid Station, while the Infantry companies take the battle to the enemy.

Once they arrive at where they will set up their base camp, the H&S individuals almost never leave the wire. About the only exceptions are the Corpsmen, Commo guys, and Motor T section. The rest of the non-infantry types remain in the base camp.

So they do not generally go out on patrols, but they do need to get to their base camp just like all the Infantry guys in their unit.

I pretty much ignored that statement, because it makes absolutely no sense. We do not send civilians out to fight a war.

And no, they generally do not air drop in water and food. Transport by truck is the main way, secondary is delivery by helicopter.

Delivery by air drop is not something that is used except in the most dire of circumstances. Our lessons from WWII and afterwards (especially the French Indo China - Dien Bien Phu) shows that is not a reliable way to deliver critically needed supplies to troops in a combat zone.

I certainly do not hold that kind of person in contempt. After all, all of the Corpsmen I served with also did not handle rifles. And I had nothing but admiration for them.

A lot of jobs in the military do not require the handling of weapons. Like most in the Navy, who fight from a ship and have no way to fight back individually.

 

“Desert to the Sea” was a 150-mile, 5th Marine Regimental forced march from 29 Palms California
to Camp Pendleton. I have heard guys in the 5th still count this march in the legends of the 5th
Marines! The hike started after a 12-day desert warfare training exercise in the Mojave.
Regimental Commander Colonel Tolson A. Smoak led the march, which began March 25 and
concluded March 30, 1960. Colonel Smoak stated. “A regiments capability to deploy its’
manpower by foot over a long distance and remain in top physical condition, enables them to
emerge the victor in combat. It is one of the prime necessities of an infantry regiment.” With full
equipment, this was not an easy march. One of the things that kept us all going was our much
older rugged commander in the lead! He had fought his way across the Pacific and was a Major
by the time he participated in the landing and battle of Iwo Jima. Enough said!
http://www.bobrohrer.com/pdf_files/pendleton_captions.pdf

 

So you'd trust her to cover your six in combat...

...but you don't trust her not to drop a dime on you. Which suggests the presence of an enemy neither of you ever thought to draw a bead on.

 

To be fair in the infantry the kind of sexual harassment power points we are shown are pretty much surmised as "if you see a woman you are committing sexual harassment". It's absolutely ridiculous. Maybe things have changed, but I was in from 02-06, and things take a long time to change. Personally, I could give a (*)(*)(*)(*) who is next to me so long as they can do their job, and are on my side obviously.