Advocates; Pentagon not killing women fast enough

| January 31, 2014

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

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Hondo

I’m afraid you could be right, Jonn. If some of these “women’s advocates” have their way, the phrases “take one for the team” and “#1 with a bullet” may well end up with a very new meaning.

We never learn. Task Force Smith and the early days of Korea showed us precisely what happens when unprepared and insufficiently-trained troops end up in combat.

NR Pax

We will have gender equality at all costs. Sure, the cost is going to be paid by the people in the military instead of the political animals but that’s fine!

Old Trooper

“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.”

I don’t see it that way. They are doing the big push so that they will have integrated infantry AFTER the wars are done. That way, they can have female infantry without them having to have been on combat patrols. They know that the first time a woman can’t carry the load in combat would be detrimental to their cause, so they don’t really want that, but if that same woman can’t do it in training, they will scream that the standards need to be changed so that she can do it and nobody gets killed, because it was done in training, not combat. They aren’t worried about the next shooting war, because they will have long been forgotten as the a-holes that pushed for this and will blame the training and leadership for the many body bags, not that they pushed for lower standards.

B Woodman

“Someone who can meet those standards is not a part of the team.”
Is there a typo in there, or is my brain not fully functioning at oh-dark-too-damn-early, pre-caffine?
I’m thinking it should read,
“Someone who CAN’T meet those standards is not a part of the team.”
Or, as I surmise, is it just me?

Otherwise, an

palolojo

Old Trooper is right, they want the status but not the actual job. We’ve seen many times where they send people in theater for a short period of time so they can say they were there. The same thing will happen with women, especially the officers.

Hondo

B Woodman: I’m pretty sure from the context that’s a typo.

Stacy0311

http://www.blackfive.net/.a/6a00d8341bfadb53ef01a73d689f59970d-pi

from another blog.

Something tells me that Greg Jacobs was a pogue and never got to experience Bridgeport in all its glory.

Ruck up buttercup and try to hang

Ex-PH2

Can I apply to wombat infantry training school now?

Hondo

Ex-PH2: what, you looking for an Australian vacation or something? (smile)

Sparks

“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 …

What the hell is he saying???!!! It is a pretty simple test in my mind. Either you can pick up the round and breach ram it or you can’t. That is the one and only test that does matter to this equation. It is as simple as yes, I can or no, I can’t.

Sounds like “Greg Jacob, a former Marine and policy director of the Service Women’s Action Network” has turned in his balls to be kept in his wife’s/boyfriend’s purse until actually needed again. He is getting paid to promote the whole women in combat thingee. Tell me if I’m wrong here but has common sense in The Pentagon just gone the way of rabbit eared TV sets? Just when I think I have heard it all and can’t be surprised again…here come the likes of Greg Jacob.

Sparks

@8 Ex yes my dear you may now apply for Infantry, Ranger School, Green Berets and in a week or so, SEAL training and I will support you to the death. Why not? I mean why can’t I just go reenlist my old butt and request high speed, low drag operator training? This stuff just blows my hair back. Not like Don Shipley hair mind you but a nice head of it still anyway. 😀

Grimmy

Some of y’all who happen to be disciplined and consistent note takers/record keepers, should want to keep a list of all those who’ve advocated, pushed for and/or defended this bullshit.

Unnecessary blood will be shed because of this idiocy, and vengeance will be sought by many, once the bill has come up due.

Lets not forget that, according to the past on such destructionist inbred programs as this we’re now facing, it’ll be the actual destructionists who pushed for this crap that’ll be demanding “someone” pay up once it all falls apart.

So, start collecting target data now, because as sure as hell’s gonna be hot, the degenerates who create this mess will damn sure revise the entire history on how/why this mess got created.

Old Trooper

@12: That’s why I said that those that pushed for this will be blaming training/leadership when it fails, not their agenda items.

Grimmy

@13:

Names and quotes. Names and quotes.

I don’t have the stick to-itness to be of any value in this, but someone who has the traits and skills should step up on it.

The thumb-sucking, mouth-breeding, snot-gobbling destructionists playing this “game” (and that’s all it is to the intellectually inbred sacks of shit) are congenitally incapable of taking responsibility for their destructionisms and they will, without one single solitary doubt, play the revisionist game once their idiocy becomes to blatant and too bloody handed to ignore anymore.

Names and quotes. Screen captures. The works. Otherwise, down the memory hole it’ll all go.

David

@ Grimmy: You mean like the list of politicians who supported raiding Social Security funds? Or who supported making the USPS bank pension benefits for future wprkers who haven’t even been born (thus forcing them into insolvency?) Americans and their politico-plutocracy NEVER blame those responsible, only those in the previous party in power.

Clone Wars Protestor aka HS Sophomore

@11-Why stop there? For reasons of child’s rights and because it’s really cool, I demand all secret squirrel traing be opened to teenagers! After all our varsity athletes have probably got a better chance of passing than most women…

SGT Ted

Sure, EVERYBODY knows that the reason Ranger School excludes women is because of sexism and not any sort of extreme physical standards that a lot of men can’t meet.

These clowns are actively trying to dismiss physical ability as a requirement to be successful in ground combat operations.

So, they HAVE to tell big lies about those physical requirements, in order to discredit the standards. After that, they can then change them so that “but, I’m a GIRRRRL!” whiners can have bigger career opportunities.

Who cares if some MAN gets killed? A woman’s potential future career is at stake! Can’t tell any woman “No” about anything; they are Gods Chosen Creatures who are not to be disobeyed.

These clowns have been smelling their own farts for far too long.

SGT Ted

The upside to changing the standards is that I will finally be physically ready for Ranger School by meeting the minimum male standard for my age. And I’m 51.

Green Thumb

The wants, expectations and desires of a few officers continually outweigh the needs of the many.

SGT Ted

“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…”

Look, dumbass, loading an artillery round into a gun isn’t a “proxy test”. It’s a part of the actual job of being an artillery crewman.

What kind of Marine was this guy? A submarine sandwich eater? A Merchant Marine? He doesn’t sound like any US Marine that made it through boot. Was he a male gigilo that dressed up as a Marine? I’m not seeing it…

The Lurker Formally Known as Curt

I didn’t try to get in to Ranger Training, or the Special Forces Q-Course, or any other Spec Ops- you know why? I knew early on I WASN’T “OPERATOR” MATERIAL!!! I went through Basic Airborne training, loved it- I was a truck mechanic, and thought putting my aptitude where it fit made sense. Nobody tried to get standards lowered so I could hang with the Bad Asses, and I was fine with that!
All I’m saying is WTF??? I wish the progs would leave it the fuck alone.

Sparks

@20 SGT Ted I agree. If they lower the standards that much I want a chance to take my 60 plus year old ass and try out. I may not be in the shape I was back in my day but if a woman can pass Ranger School with the new standards that would get her through with flying colors (for promotion purposes), so could I.

Sparks

By the way I was not an OPERATOR of any kind. Nothing special. But as @21 Curt put it so well, I knew I was not that kind of “High Speed” material. I left it to the guys who had the heart and body to do that stuff go for it. I thank them today for being the men they were and still are. Kudos to Rangers, Airborne, Special Forces and SEALs!

vietnam war protestor

In the unlikely event that american military will actually be defending america as the military is normally engaged enforcing the agenda of the oligarchys and the corporations then in that very unlikely event women have the right to give their life for the country they love unto death as much as men do!

Clone Wars Protestor aka HS Sophomore

@24-Hell, I’ll play this game. Specifically which wars in the last fifty years do you think we fought at the behest of corporations and were not justified as a result?

Clone Wars Protestor aka HS Sophomore

By the way, since there’s no aka USS Liberty attached to the user handle in the last comment, I suspect it’s a troll.

Sparks

@24 VWP ARE YOUR MEDS WORKING TODAY! Wow, I almost made sense out of that. Except for your usual references to the tired, old, worn out argument that all wars are because of the military-idustrial complex in America. We never fight a war because of real enemies do we? Numd nuts!

But keep up the meds and maybe, just maybe one day you will post a coherent and relative comment without the usual liberal, chain pulling references.

By the way, in the scenario you posed, are you ready to die for this country of ours? Do you own a weapon of any kind? Other than a butter knife, your pill cleaver and harsh language with which to fend off an enemy on our soil?

Sparks

@25 and @26 I think you are right HS. I may have gotten sucked in by a troll.

Old Trooper

@24: Well, as Patton would say; Your job is not to die for your country, but to get the other poor bastard to die for his”.

Clone Wars Protestor aka HS Sophomore

@28-There’s only one way to be sure.

I call on the Gods of this Cyberspacial Universe, Hondo, COB6, Jonn Lilyea, TSO, NHSparky, and Ex-PH2 (all the major gods, i.e. all the ones with admin privileges) to REVEAL THE TRUTH! BY YOUR MIGHTY POWER, WE CALL ON YOU TO MAKE THE LOSER AT 24’s IP ADDRESS KNOWN (insert sounds of human sacrifice here) 🙂

Clone Wars Protestor aka HS Sophomore

@32-So-does that mean it’s really the retardicus Magnus, or an acolyte?

Clone Wars Protestor aka HS Sophomore

Sorry, @31

Grimmy

@32, Clone Wars:

Psst! You’re talking to yourself, again. People are starting to look at you all funny like.

David

sucked in? Sparks, the only – and I mean ONLY – worthwhile thing about vwp’s existence is that he inspires some of the most creative responses from the other posters… otherwise his pitifully miserable and mundane drug-addled existence isn’t worth the matches needed to light a genital crab’s fart.

David

VICTORIA???? Damn, I sold a perfectly good VW bus to someone from Victoria once…. wonder if I could get it back now…

Brian

“Continuing to exclude women from accessing this elite leadership school makes it appear that the Army is not confident in women’s leadership”

People need to stop referring to ranger school as “an elite leadership school”. I just finished Ranger school last friday. Even the instructors hate how people say it’s a leadership school. The truth is that Ranger school teaches you to push through the suck and drive on to complete the mission. It does not teach you leadership. The Ranger tab is simply a sign that you can be pushed to your absolute limits and still accomplish the mission and take care of your men. None of these advocates seem to understand that.

FatCircles0311

lol @ there being groups that advocate for such bullshit.

Somebody do a FOIA for that “Marine” I want to laugh.

UpNorth

I think that #24 proves that vwp borrows mommy’s computer. She saw he’d clicked on TAH and decided to post under sonny’s s/n. It’s still one run-on sentence that would drive an English teacher to drink, but it still can’t spell.

Hondo

HS Sophomore: yeah, it appears to really be the vwp we all “know and love”. He dropped the “Liberty” part of his screen name about 10 days or so ago.

Besides, who could possibly fake that barely-intelligible strain of gibberish? IMO, it’s almost as unique as a fingerprint. (smile)

David

makes you wonder what sort of stain conceived him….

I’m still laughing at the convoluted logic of Paul Jacob – he questions whether a physical test that both men and women have to pass equally is gender-neutral. They must use the word neutral differently there….

Clone Wars Protestor aka HS Sophomore

@40-Thanks Hondo. And VWP-GFY.

vietnam war protestor a.k.a. u.s.s. liberty

Thanks everyone I didn’t notice aka u.s.s. liberty was missing! Bet I get it for that one! By the the way do you know why you don’t have to ask anybody if they are from texas. Because they will tell you!

Ex-PH2

Oh, yeah? Shut up, slut!

I’m from Texas. I was born there.

You’re just a wannabe.

Now go pound sand.

SGT Ted

Don’t worry Sparks, just consider it a Fam. Fire exercise.

Dennis

I wouldn’t want to be in Texas if I spelled it texas.

SGT Ted

@41

It’s all bullshit and spin for the rubes, for political purposes.

They rely on the general publics ignorance of the Military to say things that are obvious lies to those that have served with their eyes open.

There is no logic. There is only a political agenda with a goal to put physically unfit women into positions where they don’t belong, and then crow about what they’ve done as a victory for Women’s Rights and Equality.

Scarlett

I personally know one Ranger, and I have never met a woman that could physically pull off the things he does/has done. I am all for bra burning, but at some point common sense has to come into play. Not that my opinion matters. I just don’t want my loved ones in danger because someone, anyone, who isn’t capable of doing the job physically OR mentally got passed through on lower standards.

VWP, go fall back into your K-hole.

Hondo

Damn, Ex-PH2 – why did you go and do that? You know that now our “good friend” vwp will be up all night searching for a hammer so that he can take your advice and go pound some sand!

Lord knows he already desperately needs a good night’s sleep. He’s already mostly incoherent.

NHSparky

vwpussy…when the revolution comes, where ya gonna run?