Hagel commands Female Rangers and SEALs by 2015

| June 17, 2013

The Associated Press reports that they have documents from the Pentagon which will be released tomorrow or thereabouts in regards to the services receiving orders from Secretary of Defense to move ahead with plans to allow women into most of the specialties from which they are currently excluded;

They call for requiring women and men to meet the same physical and mental standards to quality for certain infantry, armor, commando and other front-line positions across the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel reviewed the plans and has ordered the services to move ahead.

The move, expected to be announced Tuesday, follows revelations of a startling number of sexual assaults in the armed forces. Earlier this year, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said the sexual assaults might be linked to the longstanding ban on women serving in combat because the disparity between the roles of men and women creates separate classes of personnel – male “warriors” versus the rest of the force.

That’s what is Marty, your colonels and generals are sexually assaulting women because they can’t be Rangers. You’ve got your finger on the pulse of human nature, by golly gosh.

Under the schedules military leaders delivered to Hagel, the Army will develop standards by July 2015 to allow women to train and potentially serve as Rangers, and qualified women could begin training as Navy SEALS by March 2016 if senior leaders agree.

Yeah, like I’ve been predicting since this discussion began in earnest recently, they’re going to “develop standards” instead of maintaining the tried and true established standards which has proved successful in combat.

The proposals leave the door open for continued exclusion of women from some jobs, if research and testing find that women could not be successful in sufficient numbers, but the services would have to defend such decisions to top Pentagon leaders.

That will happen, I’m sure. What makes our special forces special is their adherence to a strict and steady training regimen. They aren’t born that way, they just train harder than most units. But, since the traditional forces can’t grasp that simple fact, they figure they can lower the standard of training and still produce the same product. But the political masters will be pleased, I suppose, well, until the body bags start coming home and it hits them in their political wallet.

Category: Military issues

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Dave Thul

If women in the Ranger and SEAL units aren’t held to the same physical standards as the men, then this will backfire. The minimum standard is the minimum for a reason.

Tool

God Almighty. Political Correctness is the bane of western society. Fucking liberals and their first-world problems…

PintoNag

NEVER let reality stand in the way of a really fine fantasy.

/sarc

AverageNCO

So let me get this logic straight. A former co-worker of mine was involved in the fiasco at the Air Force Basic Training school house at Lackland. He was a career medic. He worked alongside females his entire career. But the reason he disobeyed direct orders regarding his conduct as an MTI and NCO, was because women aren’t allowed to be PJ’s or Combat Controllers. Yep, it makes perfect sense to me.

Zero Ponsdorf

One simple thing makes being a geezer not so bad.

I’ll be dead soon.

Jack

Good then maybe I can go back and become a SEAL and pass the standards at 50 yrs of age when the new ones get developed

beretverde

Another distraction and waste of time. The silence of the general officers and admirals is deafening. Fuck them all. They need to be in congress ans NOT the Pentagon.

NR Pax

@3: They feel good about themselves. Isn’t that the most important thing?

David

like the dickheads who robbed Social Security, the clowns who are setting the country up for a fall will long since be retired and out of the voters’ reach when this comes home to roost.

Ex-PH2

I knew this was coming, didn’t I, Jonn?

MGySgtRet

So much for the service chiefs having a chance to collect data and attempt to do this in the least painful way possible. Yep, lets let Sgt. Hagel detonate this nuke on his own timetable. I am sure it will work out just fine.

LostOnThemInterwebs

They don’t care by the time the first body bag comes back home, they will be long gone happy and without a care … I hope they have the same standard if they lower it it will just create a double standard as even within teams they will gravitate into the people with the heavier standard then you get the “I’m being discriminated for being a woman” as the reply will be “No you are not in the team because you can’t grab the standard 180 lbs gear and ruck 15 miles in less than 4 hours” … God what a mess … what a mess…

Anonymous

It will be the end of SF

Susan

This is assinine. As I have said before, there is nothing intellectually a man can do that I cannot do. I could probably figure out nuclear physics with a good enough manual and enough time. Physically, however, that is not the case and was not even in my prime. I always thought that the reason women kept men around was to lift, tote, slog, and ruck. What these asshats fail to recognize is that the tough part of the job is not pulling the trigger, it is getting there and getting out.

Also, Jack, they are “developing standards” for women. The standards for men won’t change. The resentment level will increase but that is how you get more women in those roles. Further, at 50, you should be smart enough to know that Spec Ops are a young man’s game.

rb325th

This country is fucked

Ex-PH2

What Susan said, which is why SEALs tend to retire before they hit 40.

Virtual Insanity

It’s okay. By the time it’s an issue Dempsey will be running the VA.

Sparks

IMHO and I mean to offend no one on this blog.

“Earlier this year, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said the sexual assaults might be linked to the longstanding ban on women serving in combat because the disparity between the roles of men and women creates separate classes of personnel – male “warriors” versus the rest of the force.”

Damn it, that has to be the damn dumbest, most asinine bullshit I have heard from the DOD in forever. The truth will be that, “they develop standards”, which is the bullshit propaganda for lowering standards for females. The liberals are dancing in the halls right now. G.I. Jane was a movie, not reality. The SF are special because of their long held, highest standards applied to ALL those who attempt to belong.

Yea right, woman are assaulted because they aren’t in the Rangers, Green Berets, SEALS and PJ’s. Puleease, someone in DOD do a reality check. By the time they are done with this social experiment, which it really isn’t, it will be shoved through no matter what, BUDS will mean Big Ugly Dyke School, Ranger will be Rangerette, Green Berets will be Green Bras and PJ will be Pajama Jumpers My apologies to all you real SEALS, Rangers, Green Berets and PJ’s. I sympathize with what may be coming your way. I hope I offended no one here but this is a FUBAR.

smokeybear

They said part of the reason they are doing this is because of the “blurred front lines” of combat as seen over the past 12 years. That doesn’t make any sense to me. First, while there certainly were no front lines in Iraq or currently in Afghanistan, infantry units (plus the spec ops) were offensively engaged. We looked for fights. We were humping for hours and hours to find the enemy. Noncombat roles were defensively engaged. They were on convoys and took shots while travelling through. Obviously, there are exceptions but there is a world of difference between the two. Second, this government apparently thinks nothing about history in making any decisions. We see that with current training and weapons. How in the world do we know what sort of combat we will see in the next war? The front lines could very well be just as easily distinguishable as they were in WWI and WWII (WWI lines could literally be seen from the air they were so obvious).

LebbenB

TARFU.

Anonymous

Even if you are non-military, anyone who has read any account by a special operator – Lone Survivor, Service, American Sniper, etc. knows that most men can’t make it through training, let alone women. And I don’t think there are any women who could do what these guys do.

Heck, even after reading infantry accounts like Into the Fire and Living with Honor I know that women can’t do what they do, it’s not physically possible.

We have lost too many as it is, we don’t need more politically correct policies to get even more killed and maimed.

FatCircles0311

Well we can say goodbye to the last sector of government that was results based.

MCPO NYC USN (Ret.)

Jesus, sweet mother Mary, and holy St. Joseph please forgive me for what I am about to say:

Holy fu@kin’ Christ … Are you friggin’ kidding me?

I served in NSW for over ten years … Supporting men 10 times my capability and I have first hand knowledge this is a pipe dream.

I am no pussy and I can admit … I could not do what they do.

My prayer tonight:

“Dear baby Jesus, St. Patrick, and Bill O’Reilly,

Please let what I learned at TAH be only a story authored by those skilled knucklehead morons at DuffleBlog and if it is true bless the families of those good patriot women who are falsely encouraged to apply.”

Sparks

A constant news maker in major league sports is of a player assaulting, sometimes to death, a woman he may or may not know. Does that mean if we change the standards to allow woman to play in the NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB that sexual assault by players will stop? NO. Because sexual assault in all forms happens when ass holes do stupid, inappropriate and criminal things,(even General Officers). Of all the reasons Hagel could have pulled out of his ass regarding the sexual assault issue in the military, he picked the worst turd of them all and it came from between his ears. That’s what scares me. I can feel a new PPT presentation coming!

DaveO

Before 1966, Ranger School was a gentleman’s course for improving soldiers’ field skills. It turned into 6 weeks of hell in 1966.

Likewise, SEAL is creation of the latter half of the 20th Century. SEAL is a evolution of Underwater Demolition.

Rangers will go the way of Recondo, and the SEALs will be clubbed into going along with it. Some lieutenant somewhere will create a commando unit that becomes the Next Great Frontier in sexual and genderal equality.

UpNorth

What is Hagel really trying to say here, ” the Army will develop standards by July 2015 to allow women to train and potentially serve as Rangers, and qualified women could begin training as Navy SEALS by March 2016 if senior leaders agree.”? Is he saying that the female soldiers aren’t qualified and the Army has to cook up standards, or that the female sailors are already qualified?
And, can anyone foresee a “senior leader” not agreeing with Hagel and Baracka?

OWB

Can only take issue with one statement in your post, Jonn. You said, “They aren’t born that way, they just train harder than most units.” No, they are not born all trained up in special operations, but they were born with the ability to learn and execute the mission, both mentally and physically. Missing either part of that and no amount of training will make any of us able to do what they do in spite of a will to it.

What makes this so utterly pitiful is that women will inevitably be forced (or at least coerced) into this lunacy to their own detriment.

Who is it that supposedly has a war on women? Oh, yeah – the folks who are not trying to force women to do anything that they do not want to do and are likely unable to do.

ANCCPT

It’s ok guys (and gals). This’ll change. Next force on force, ugly asskicking war we get into there will be a a unit made up of 70% plus women, maybe MP’s, EOD, Mechanized Infantry or Cav scouts or something. There will be orders to secure a hilltop, or a valley or a river crossing. They will come under heavy fire, they will fight valiantly (They are American women, after all. We don’t doubt their courage, skills or moxy, just their physicality to do the job), but they will be overrun. Their comrades in the TOC miles away have no reinforcements, no air, no rangers to send. They can only listen to the increasingly desperate coms over the radio. After brutal, close quarters combat, with the unit decimated, the officers and NCO’s dead, the last few stubborn women will be captured. The units on their flanks make risky, near suicidal counterattacks to reinforce/relive them, to no avail. The unit is gone. FOX will be blaring 24/7 about ‘these brave young women’. CNN will be displaying the faces and the ranks of the women captured over and over, while the enemy plays the tape recorded screams of them being raped over and over again to demoralize out front line troops. The male soldiers will take drastic risks to ensure that their female soldiers are safe. The liberals back home will take the military to task with ‘HOW COULD YOU LET THIS HAPPEN!!!!’ Then they’ll change the policy, right? Oh wait…their leaders failed them. Lets fire the generals in change. They didn’t embrace enough diversity, that’s why they died. No wait, they didn’t have proper female command representation, that’s why they died. No, wait, we didn’t have enough education for the rest of the force, that’s why they died….Never for a moment will it be ‘We failed them. We took war, a shitty, horrible thing that men to to protect their women, families and their beloved homes, and we changed the standards in the name of ‘fairness’ and the men on the other side took ruthless advantage of their weakness, and now they… Read more »

Al T.

DavidO (#10), you sure that wasn’t 1956? IIRC, Tony Herbert was one of the drivers to toughen the school. IMHO, going “Commando” (:)) probably won’t work….

MeatSpin

BS by the way John Lilyea does not have a CIB I just got his FIOA and I see no CIB. What a fucking poser.

Ex-PH2

Well, meatspin you shithead, maybe if you learned how to spell people’s names, you’d get the right information.

But that would be too much trouble, wouldn’t it, sport?

Yeah, it would be.

Hondo

There is a reason why the mythical Amazons were exactly that: mythical. On average, males are simply bigger, faster, and stronger than virtually all females; males are also more aggressive. Combat requires exactly that – size, strength, speed, and aggression.

Further: there is a very good reason the washout rate for the SPECOPS community is so freaking high. Most men cannot meet SF/Recon/SEAL/PJ standards – and men average somewhere around 2 standard deviations higher, on average, in physical strength and endurance than do women. That means the average man performs at roughly the top 2% of the female scale.

The average male soldier ain’t gonna hack in in the SPECOPS community.

I was privileged to be assigned to Army SF years ago – in a support role. I supported them well. But even in my early/mid 20s, at my physical peak, I very seriously doubt I’d have been able to do what the operators were doing. And I’d never have been as good as most of them. I simply didn’t have the required physical ability. My abilities and skills weren’t a match.

This is a monumentally stupid idea, Mr. Secretary. Just monumentally stupid.

Women can indeed do the vast majority of jobs in the military. But there are a few career fields where women simply cannot physically cut it given the known, combat-proven standards for those career fields.

Combat arms and SPECOPS are among those few.

USMCE8Ret

Martin Dempsey is part of the apparatchik, so we all knew this was coming. Chuck Hagel has no reference to draw from, whether it be from his own experience or relying on anyone in the Pentagon. No one will stand up and call this whole social experiment what it is. There was a day, some time ago, when someone did speak out on this very thing – and quite eloquently I might add, but sadly, General Barrow is no longer with us:

LostOnThemInterwebs

OK @#$%^&* this … hey hey Can I call an IP check in register #30?? I believe Psul si in the house!!!!

Green Thumb

Glad I am out.

USMCE8Ret

Who is Meat Gazer” in #30. If it’s Psul Wikre – I though his last comments were something amounting to “rich” people had better things to do than follow the rantings of a bunch of inbred low life red necks like those of us here on TAH – or words to that effect.

If it its Psul, don’t you have packing to do for your European Vacation?

Green Thumb

@32.

Good point.

And what happens when the SA’s increase?(which they will)

This is just silly.

Lower the standard = more body bags.

Both ways.

Gender is irrelevant at this point.

Green Thumb

Social scientist and chickenshit academia seem to equate the military w/ the Peace Corp.

Yeah.

They are trying to make them the same.

Mission and and rational structure, anyway.

Hondo

For the record: the IP for “Meatspin” tonight resolves to a RoadRunner business IP in Arlington, TX. The same dipstick has commented previously on other articles from at least one other IP in the DFW metro area.

I’m pretty sure it’s not “Psul the Unemployed”.

Green Thumb

@39.

If I was Paul, I would be suing Phil.

Just OTF…

Green Thumb

Speaking of which, where is Phil of the Ballsack?

Hondo

Green Thumb: Phildo is in the Titusville, FL, vicinity – Merritt Island, if I recall correctly. So I don’t think this was him, either.

USMCE8Ret

Hondo – What trolls can you identify from TX? I don’t recall anyone having a beef with Jonn from that area.

I call for pile on to “meathead”

Green Thumb

Yeah.

It was not him.

You can always tell its him by the language, grammar and writing style.

He moves around regionally. However, he avoids calls.

Clown.

Think he will try to lay this on Paul?

Will the real PR COL W., please step up?

A former retired AF 0-6 POS this guy is.

Fucking weak.

COL W…. you would not have lasted 5 minutes in a IN Battalion or Brigade.

Clown.

DirtDart

you mean old DJ Poser Phill. The numbnutz who conned his way back into the army and got tossed out of ft. hood?

Hondo

USMCE8Ret: there have been one or two trolls I’ve noticed that crop up sporadically from the DFW metro area. This latest jackass might be one of them, or he/she might be someone new. Dunno.

This latest jerk does seem to like attempting to sneak links to one particular gay porn site into his comments, though. I’d bet you can even guess which site that might be.

Perhaps he thinks others share his obvious interest in such deviant dreck. To each his own, I guess.

As for a possible ID – really don’t know and won’t hazard a guess. Jonn will have to answer that question if he so chooses.

Green Thumb

@45.

I remember that guy, Habberman…or something like that.

A “Gold Standard” among posers.

Jim Legans Jr

I got my own start in the military in Army Infantry for four years then went to Marine Infantry for ten years. After an eight year break I got into the National Guard in a logistics unit, and for the first time I served with women. I thought they were good and competent soldiers for the most part. They needed help loading and unloading our trucks with things like water cans, ammo crates, tents and all the other impedimenta that makes an Army move. They weren’t tall enough to be much help to put up an Air Assault tent or strong enough to use a sledge hammer to nail it down, but they were game to try.

The biggest problem I saw in my unit was the things that happened when we weren’t doing our jobs. After counting how many light bulbs, circuit cards and gallons of grease we had on hand, it was time to hit the chow hall and the showers. Boys and girls, in close proximity to each other, act like boys and girls and it causes a butt load of problems. Those problems are not conducive to the good order and discipline of any military unit and I no longer believe women have any place in any Army, anywhere or anytime. (Respect to Ex-PH2, OWB, my wife and youngest daughter and all other women who have served.)

The military isn’t all the time, 24/7/365 jumping out of airplanes, diving, running down beaches, humping over hill and dale with a fuckton of gear, shooting, blowing stuff up and all that other fun shit we got paid to do. You still have to live, breath, eat, sleep, shit, puke, get sick, go on liberty, go on leave, meet each other’s families with those assholes who are your brothers for life and women do not fit that lifestyle.

NHSparky

@30–STFU, Dewald.

Hagel will be all hot-cock for this until TIME magazine shows a picture on the cover of a dead naked female soldier being dragged through the streets of some Third World shithole.

Ah, but by then the only hue and cry will be that of the families of the dearly departed, because those who put them in those bags will be sitting around with their thumbs up their asses.

Joe Williams

I lived for 40 years in Arlington and have many friends still there. If you get a name or address on this POS,PM me.