Women in Combat? Give justification WITH regulatory reference.

2015-09-15T18:50:55-04:00

FM 3-21.8, 1-1 states: "The Infantry's primary role is close combat, which may occur in any type of mission, in any theater, or environment. Characterized by extreme violence and physiological shock, close combat is callous and unforgiving. Its dimensions are measured in minutes and meters, and its consequences are final. Close combat stresses every aspect of the physical, mental, and spiritual features of the human dimension. To this end, Infantrymen are specially selected, trained, and led."

The Marine Corps recently did a study with proof that women, on average, are more prone to injury, and less accurate with infantry weapons. This type of study is one of many with an actual reasoning behind "no women in combat".

Whether you are for it or against it, give us a reason, but back it up. When it involves the military, it involves Regulations!

Response by SSG Private RallyPoint Member made Sep 15 at 2015 6:59 PM

2015-09-15T18:59:37-04:00

Here's what's currently on the "books" for the Army, AR 600-13, Assignment of Female Personnel.

"1–12. Overall policy for the female soldier
a . The Army's assignment policy for female Soldiers allows
women to serve in any officer or enlisted specialty or position
except in those specialties, positions, or units (battalion size or
smaller) which are assigned a routine mission to engage in direct
combat, or which collocate routinely with units assigned a direct
combat mission."

This hasn't accurately reflected the actual role of women in combat environments since the first MPs were sent to patrol Iraq in mid-2003.

Edit: To further expand on that, last I heard this regulation was being revised. It has sorely needed updates, and the Army is up in the air, regulation-wise, until the new policy is published. However, it has seemed to have been "in the works" for about four years now. I'm not sure if the snag was with statistics, or somewhere at the Pentagon, or what.

Response by Sgt Aaron Kennedy, MS made Sep 15 at 2015 7:19 PM

2015-09-15T19:19:07-04:00

The complete study of the USMC Integration Test has not been released as yet. We have seen a summary, but quoting 2 pages out of the document is "cherry picking" data to say the least. The full document may or may not have additional data which supports or contradicts it.

Additionally there may be additional factors which HQMC is considering in light of the integration testing such as additional TTP (Tactics, Techniques, & Procedures) which were not included in the summary.

But the question as stated is irrelevant. Women already exist in Combat. Combat is something that happens whether you want it or not.

The question I assume you mean to ask is Women in Combat Arms, and to what extent.

As for the USMC, since we field several MOS down to the MEU level, and all Marines go through Combat Training with ITB, MCT, or TBS, we already have the ability to field when down to the smallest MAGTF, and to the smallest GCE (Ground Combat Element) of the MAGTF.

We're able to do it now. We just don't "billet" females to the MEU level, as a matter of current policy. But almost all MOS, excluding CA are already open. Even if we didn't open those, we could still have women in the GCE within a year (Admin, Intel, Logistics, Corpsman, etc)

Response by Sgt Tom Cunnally made Sep 15 at 2015 7:34 PM

2015-09-15T19:34:02-04:00

I am just not sure...I know this may seem to be cop out but I just don't think women will pass the Qual Tests to be in Force Recon. I could be wrong because two women did pass the Ranger Qual Tests But Force Recon and Rangers have different Qual Tests and standards.

Response by LTC Bink Romanick made Sep 15 at 2015 9:32 PM

2015-09-15T21:32:30-04:00

SSG Private RallyPoint Member FMs aren't regulations.

Response by SFC Maury Gonzalez made Sep 16 at 2015 12:37 PM

2015-09-16T12:37:31-04:00

There's a lot of women haters here on rally point, but did it ever occur to you the a10 pilot that provided CAS to your unit or the Apache pilot that saved you from that ambush and the flight medic that performed CPR or stopped you arterial bleeding on you sexist butt were all Women

Response by 1LT Aaron Barr made Feb 26 at 2016 9:50 AM

2016-02-26T09:50:22-05:00

The circumstances of close combat described in that regulation serves to demonstrate why the military tends to be conservative; the stakes involved are life and death, both for the individual Soldiers involved and, potentially, the nation itself. Entire peoples have been annihilated by wars in the past and I see no reason to believe that this could not or will not happen again. As such, regulations tend to be based upon experience and best practices. I hope you'll indulge me but I'm going to go outside the regs themselves and refer to objective reality that I'd like to believe informs them.

Men and women are different and these differences informed gender roles including combat. Broadly speaking, men are taller, heavier and a higher proportion of their body mass is muscle which leads men, in general, to be stronger than women, even when a man and woman of the same weight are compared. As such, women are less physically capable of performing the tasks of combat. For example, I was branch detailed through Field Artillery and I question the ability of women to physically be able to load a 155mm howitzer, especially over time as in a FPF situation. Even better, would anybody here, man or woman, that was under attack and had to call in an FPF get a warm & fuzzy if you knew that the entire gun crew of the battery assigned to you were women?

More importantly, from a group survival perspective, men are FAR, FAR more expendable than women in general and young men especially when compared to young women be that group a family, town, clan/tribe, nation or our entire species. Again, biology is behind this; under 'ideal' conditions, a man could easily father more children in a month than a woman could bear in her entire life. As a group, our survival is more impaired by the loss of 1 woman than 100 men, at least in terms of continuing our group's existence into the future by having children.

Whether its instinctual or realized, even at the subconscious level, men know this. During WWII, the Soviets used co-ed units and these suffered appalling casualties. Some of this was from the women not being up to the task but a lot more of it derived from the men taking too many risks to try and protect the women. So much so was this the case that Stalin discontinued the practice citing unacceptable casualty rates. I'm going to repeat that as it bears repeating; women in combat roles led to such high casualties that they were unacceptable to Josef Stalin.

Nor do I believe that the 'if you can do the job you should be allowed regardless of gender' argument will stand up for very long. I give it less than a year before the social engineers are concluding that there's just not enough women in combat roles to suit them. Then you'll see the standards watered down, either directly via gender-specific requirements or just lowered across the board. This cannot help but decrease combat effectiveness, increase casualties and hurt us badly in the long run.

I don't think that it takes a very high level of intelligence or investment in time and thought to see what I've discussed above. Sadly, we live in a culture that conflates equality of rights and before the law to mean equality of outcome and sameness of circumstance peddled by most of the influential in the media, politics and academia. This is simply not true and it will result in a lot of wasted money at best, a lot of flag-draped caskets of KIAs that need not have been at worst. We're going to be spilling a lot of blood on the altar of political correctness, diversity uber alles and stupidity before this is through and it's pathetic.

Response by MSG Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 27 at 2016 9:12 PM

2016-08-27T21:12:52-04:00

comedy lecture on woman in combat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9zp6kyIcWo

CAN'T CUT THE MUSTARD - Redonkulas.com

There's talk of lowering the physical standards in order for women to enter frontline combat, so Popp takes a look at the tests from the Center for Military ...