Advocates; Pentagon not killing women fast enough

Well, that’s how I read this article from Stars & Stripes which reports on a hearing where advocates of women in combat complain that the military isn’t integrating women fast enough to suit them.

The Marines’ plan calls for testing women to see if they can deadlift 135 pounds, bench 115 pounds, carry 95 pounds for 50 meters while wearing full combat gear, load a 120mm tank round and scale a 7-foot wall. But these skills might not be needed, Jacob said.

“It’s not looking at the jobs,” [Greg Jacob, a former Marine and policy director of the Service Women’s Action Network] said at a Wednesday briefing on Capitol Hill. “If you want a job in the artillery, you have to pick up the artillery shell and shove it into the breach of the gun. Is this proxy test going to evaluate that? We don’t know … It’s a plan but you’re not really sure what it’s explaining or what it’s doing.”

Jacob is a idiot. It’s pretty clear to me that’s the standard based on an artilleryman’s ability to function as a member of the gun crew – that includes loading really big and really heavy artillery rounds into the thingie that launches them. Someone who can can’t meet those standards is not a part of the team. Seems simple.

However, Ranger School still remains closed to women even though the program is not solely for infantry soldiers, Haring said.

“Soldiers from all branches attend Ranger School,” according to Army Reserve Col. Ellen Haring of the Combat Integration Initiative with Women in International Security, who spoke on the panel Wednesday. “Continuing to exclude women from accessing this elite leadership school makes it appear that the Army is not confident in women’s leadership or combat service potential.”

Yeah, Ranger School is an intensive leadership institution with countless class room hours spent deep in discussion. Oh, wait, no it’s not. It’s a intensely physical program that has a physical test with standards that many women can’t meet. Many men can’t meet the standards, either, that’s why it has a high washout rate. It has nothing to do with “leadership potential”. It has to do with women in the program meeting the same standards as the men who graduate.

SO, it’s just like I said it was going to be from the beginning of this whole discussion; if the military can’t meet the expectations of the “women’s advocates” by just shoving women through the pipeline, the advocates are going to demand that the Pentagon lower the standards which have kept soldiers alive for decades. I don’t see these advocates lining up to get into the schools so they can show us how it’s done.

It’s like they’re in a hurry because the wars are winding down, and they need a woman with a CIB before we leave Afghanistan. They want to start filling body bags with their ill-considered political agenda.

Category: Military issues