From Tactical Life
U.S Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Victoria Rogers jumps over a canal on her way to a school in Garmsir district, Helmand province, Afghanistan, April 30, 2011. Rogers, with the 1st Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment Female Engagement Team, visited medical clinics and schools on a regular basis as part of the team’s efforts to interact with women in the community. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Colby Brown/Released)
Command Sergeant Major Jane Baldwin and Colonel Ellen Haring, both Army reservists, said policies barring them from assignments “solely on the basis of sex” violated their right to equal protection under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.
“This limitation on plaintiffs’ careers restricts their current and future earnings, their potential for promotion and advancement, and their future retirement benefits,” the women said in the suit filed in U.S. District Court.
U.S. Army 1st Sgt. Ed Hammond, center, reviews a prison assessment checklist with Spc. Nicole Meixner, right, at Joint Security Station Shield, Iraq, before going outside-the-wire to assess the conditions at a women?s prison in the Rusafa Prison Complex in Baghdad, Iraq, April 6, 2011. Hammond is a U.S. Forces – Iraq provost marshal office corrections assistance transition team first sergeant. Meixner assisted CATT on this mission because only women were allowed into the areas of the facility with female inmates. (U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Master Sgt. Larry Schneck/Released)
The Pentagon unveiled a new policy in February that opened up 14,000 more positions to women in the military. It still barred them from serving in infantry, armor and special-operations units whose main job is front-line combat. Women make up about 14.5 percent of active-duty military personnel. More than 800 women have been wounded and more than 130 killed in fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the lawsuit said.
Source: Ian Simpson for Reuters.
That first pic tells everything you need to know why women should not be in combat.
I see nothing wrong there…for those that might disagree, last time I checked, all branches of the military are still taking volunteers.
I know nothing about nothing, but let me just spitball a bit:
Part of what puts women at a disadvantage in combat roles is the amount of gear they’d have to carry, correct? And is it not generally believed that the US Military makes our soldiers carry too much stuff with them anyway? I almost wonder if this would get the military to take a hard look at how much gear our guys carry and see about finally streamlining.
But, given the powers of institutional inertia, they may just wind up making the guys carry more gear to offset the ladies.
Last time I checked, no one in the military has the right to the constitution. That’s what that Marine’s excuse was for posting crap on his Facebook page that got him canned for running his mouth about the President.
Jess, and volunteers are subject to the policies of the organization. If the person doesn’t agree with the policies then they shouldn’t have become a member of said organization. The military has to worry about combat effectiveness, not individual fairness.
“This limitation on plaintiffs’ careers restricts their current and future earnings, their potential for promotion and advancement, and their future retirement benefits,” the women said in the suit filed in U.S. District Court.
Give me a break. As if female Generals don’t exist without performing in combat roles?
Big breather. The ENTIRE purpose of an army is force projection. It is either to kill people and destroy things or to imply that we will kill people and destroy things. Otherwise our soldiers should be back home with their families. The exact instant that we start doing more we dilute and degrade the function of the military. As soon as anyone starts using the military to address civil grievances we start hurting our Armed Forces. Purple, Blue, White, Black, Gay, Straight, Bi, whatever. Shut the hell up and start shooting.
Big breather. The ENTIRE purpose of an army is force projection. It is either to kill people and destroy things or to imply that we will kill people and destroy things. Otherwise our soldiers should be back home with their families. The exact instant that we start doing more we dilute and degrade the function of the military. As soon as anyone starts using the military to address civil grievances we start hurting our Armed Forces. Purple, Blue, White, Black, Gay, Straight, Bi, whatever. Shut the hell up and start shooting. The fact is you’re looking at a suit filed by a Colonel and a Command Sergeant Major, neither of whom are at the point in their career where they would be seeing combat. So why sue if they would never see compensation? Its because they do not care about the US Armed Forces. All they care about is what they see as a slight to their equality as women. You can be damn sure that officer would never see my salute. Be happy doing the job that Uncle Sam assigned you. Those two women are a disgrace to the armed services and our country.
Pretty sure i gave up most of my rights when i signed the dotted line. I would agree that females should contine to service in the military, but combat arms roles should be left off the table. I was a combat MP in Iraq with female partners, and i had some good ones and some shit ones. Some carried everything they had to and some tried to play the female are weak card. the drama that happens in a co-ed unit sucks and you cant get rid of it…
Feres Doctrine.
i would like to sue also, due to me competing for jobs against those that are required to do less but told that they did more (ie the apft where mens failing standards are where female max performance standards are) how about a women sue to demand that they be tested the same as men before they demand to be treated the same, yet to ever see one do that
I once participated in a MACOM SNCO of the year competition. The APFT portion of the competition utilized the extended scoring scale. I scored well into the extended scale on every event. During the run, I lapped the female competitor and she still beat my score. How’s that for fair?
I say open every door to the females and keep the same standards. Either the standards are important, or they’re not.
The average woman would not have the upper-body strength to drag a casualty off of a fire-swept, or any, field, or to pack an 80-pound backpack, throw a grenade beyond its blast range, fly an aircraft that has lost its hydraulics, or to lug around a high-pressure fire hose on a Navy ship. Just imagine, as Col. David Hackworth put it, if the reconnaissance plane that the Red Chinese pilot severely damaged and forced to land had been piloted by female rather than male pilots. It would never have made it. As it was, it was tough enough with two linebacker-like males piloting the lurching plane, let alone anyone weaker.
Moreover, women are more easily injured than are men. For example, women who participate in sports such as basketball, volleyball and soccer, where their knees must suffer repeated impacts and pivoting, are 8 times more likely to rupture a knee-ligament than are men. The researchers attributed this much higher incidence of injury to the fact that women have weaker muscle structure (even after training) in this critical area. In combat, this area is equally stressed by the jumping, running, and other physical activities that combat requires of soldiers. No army can afford to have soldiers who are injured at eight times the normal rate.
Uninformed feminist proponents of women in the military invariably point to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as a model example of women in uniform who are equal to men. Alas, however, such is not the case at all. If anything, Israeli women are less equal than American women when it comes to the armed forces. Israeli women train separately from men with women drill instructors and, once they graduate from training camp, they serve in a separate division called CHEN, far from the front lines.
For instance, if a 33-year-old male were to do 43 push-ups, 55 sit-ups, and run two miles in 15:18 for his Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT), he would earn a score of 224 points (out of a total of 300). This would be considered average at best. Yet if a 33-year-old female did the exact same, she would score a 272 and be considered in vastly better shape than the male.
We can further contrast this discrepancy of standards by comparing how a 21-year-old male and a 21-year-old female would score using the same outcome (43 push-ups, 55 sit-ups, and a 15:18 2-mile run). The 21-year-old male would receive a score of 192 (and would just barely pass his APFT) while the 21-year-old female would receive a score of 263 and might be highly commended.
I’m a little late to the game but I want to add my $.02 anyway. I have no problems with women in combat arms in principal, however, I do feel that they should be held to the same standards as men. So if a woman wants to be a grunt they should be able to run, hump, and everything else as well as their male counterparts. As long as that’s done then I’d see no problems with women in combat arms, it’s not like a lot of women in the military want to go into combat arms anyway and the physical requirements and demands would keep even fewer from making it and I’m sure the the few that do would eventually win over the respect of their male platoon mates.
One thing that I feel should be mentioned to everybody arguing about social experiments in the military, I hate to break it to you but that’s always been the case with the US military. There was a time when blacks were segregated in the military, serving in all black units with white officers and in many cases were limited in what jobs they could do. In the Navy they were limited to cooks and stewards, while in the Army they were largely used for manual labor. Then when the military desegregated there was a huge outcry about social experiments and how blacks wouldn’t be able to perform any sort of non-menial duties or how they would disrupt things within a unit; well look at them now and how all of those arguments of the past proved to be patently untrue. I’m sure we’ll one day look back the same way towards gays serving openly and women in combat arms, we’ll just look back and laugh and shake our heads at how wrong we were.
Canada has had females serving in the combat arms for a long with no problems whatsoever. They train, work, ruck, shoot, and
We even have them in our Special Forces, where they are expected to achieve the same standards as men in order to join, and do.
This really isn’t that big of a deal. Get over it America.
Everyone reading this comment and story should read THIS:
http://www.army.forces.gc.ca/caj/documents/vol_13/iss_2/CAJ_vol13.2_10_e.pdf
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Alex you’r talking about Canada, the difference between males and females there is not that big, with the males being more on the feminine side…. kakakak!