Second female fails to finish Marine IOC
According to the Marine Corps Times, the second of the two females who began the first-ever attempt by women to complete the Marine’s Infantry Officer Course has dropped out for unspecific medical reasons of the 13-week course at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va. The first woman to drop fell out on a day last month that also claimed 30 males, according to the Times.
At Quantico, those overseeing the IOC experiment have said that it will involve up to 100 female officers and take at least a year to complete. The Marine official, speaking on condition of anonymity, reaffirmed the Corps’ intent to recruit female volunteers for subsequent iterations of the course.
“This was just the first shot,” the official said.
By the way, this is not my victory lap or my “I told you so”. It just happened. I hope that whatever has afflicted the young lieutenant is simple and she gets over it quickly. And I hope this doesn’t give the Marine Corps any ideas about changing the standard.
Category: Military issues
I haven’t really been following this, but where they volunteers or voluntold?
Something something sand in the vag….something something.
/ {:-D They had more balls than I did.
Dare we surmise that so far apparently the standards remain unchanged? If so, then good on the USMC.
Good luck to future attempts.
Effective immediately: Anyone walking in the vicinity of the the USMC IOC standards must wear a hard hat. It is clear that they are about to tumble rapidly!
Keep the standards up. Period. Would be interested if the Marine dropped for medical reasons shows back up at the course when her medical problem is taken care of. That would no only be what a Marine would do, but would show others that the IOC is something that is earned and honored.
Standards aren’t changing and this was only the first class with females. Read the article, there’s going to be more in the winter class, pending volunteers.
That’s just a shame. I was rooting for her, but I still think there should have been more women in that class.
I sure hope the Army is taking notes, especially with all the talk/action to allow females to attend Ranger School.
I’m personally on the fence about this. I witnessed the drama which came out of females role playing guerrillas (these were Army soldiers mind you) during Robin Sage. Blowjobs and sex at an OP is not setting these guys up for mission success (and let’s just face it, swamp ass and ball rot is bad enough, now picture a swamp vagina). Plus there is always the jealous guy that starts cock blocking and the guy who is trying to establish himself by being extra nice, behavior which impacts the mission. Like I said, drama.
On the flip side, I’ve seen many women who can hang with, if not surpass some guys. It’s just that whole standards thing.
No suprise here.
I feel the women who can make it will. Hope the Marine Core doesn’t change anything. Example of bad ass women can be seen in the IDF. No easy days there for them. It is about survival!
Look at the women in Spec ops there!
He has the actual keys to the training area and a real box of grid squares. He is the most Infantryman in the world.
Stay thirsty my friends
From the original article a few weeks ago, the whole point was to study the females and how they did. The only way to do this effectively in comparison to men is to do a full cohort of females and run them side-by-side along with the men to see if the failure rate is comparable. This school has such a high rate of failure to begin with, there’s no way to tell if the females fall in with the other males who failed or if they did not complete for solely XX chromosome related reasons. Otherwise, this is all just a dog & pony show.
Upper body strength is always an issue in these comparisons, while there are always a few females who can compete it is unrealistic to think a 130lb female carries the same load as a 200 lb male with the same level of effectiveness.
At 6’4″ and 225 when I served carrying the M60 all day was entertaining, at 5’5″ and 125/135 I can’t imagine a positive outcome.
LL is right, the best method is to make sure it’s done in a group setting to measure pass/fail on a scale similar to male trainees, otherwise you don’t know if you had two who would fail anyway or if more of a percentage would fail as the normal outcome.
Yah. Two is entirely too few to test with. It’s a start to the process.
At this point, we don’t know what the medical problem was. It could have been a pulled muscle, a strained back, a sprained ankle, or something similarly training related.
On the other hand it could be something else, like pregnancy or cancer or…well…anything.
Above all else, though, it’s imperative that the standards not change. Bullets don’t care about gender. Physics doesn’t care about gender. The training better not care about gender. Either they make it or they don’t.
Although I don’t have the cost figures available, I’d guess the USMC isn’t running through an entire large group at once because of two factors. The first is the economic cost (training isn’t free). The second is the impact on the existing training pipeline (running through an entire extra class “off cycle” would likely not be feasible with current training cadre and facilities).
And in any case, that isn’t necessary. What you need is a large enough sample from which to get valid estimates of population statistics. Whether that’s gotten all at once or over time doesn’t much matter. Basic human physiology changes on a time scale of centuries – not years.
This article says the USMC plans to get a female sample size of 92 “over the coming iterations”. That seems like both a reasonable method and sample size to me.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/09/us/grueling-course-for-marine-officers-will-open-its-doors-to-women.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
“This was just the first shot,” the official said.
I’m going to go ahead and call it now.
The “second shot” will involve lowering of the standards to get the desired outcome.
Its already been done for females in general in the Marine Corps, why should we expect this to be any different.
I don’t know what you all think is done in the IDF (ref. Maytag’s comment # 10); but women do not serve in combat infantry roles in any of the major infantry units. The Caracal battalion is exceptional, and does NOT have the same standards as Golani, Paras, etc. In fact, the IDF Medical Corps published a study jointly done with the US that showed that women who do try to perform to the same standards and tasks are at higher risk for injury. There are women in combat roles, like pilots, who don’t have to perform with the same brute strength and stamina; but not in the infantry.
As an aside, IOC is run directly after The Basic School. You have already been running around Quantico doing stupid human tricks for 6 months before you ever walk in the door to IOC. Hope the standards do not change.
“The first woman to drop fell out on a day last month that also claimed 30 males”
I agree with the majority here, no lowering of the standard, it would seem there are plenty of men that needed weeding out as well.
Infantrywoman. Infantryperson.Infantrybeing. Hmmm.
Infantry
Marine.
Here’s actually why I think this is somewhat not that big a deal. 1) even if all MOS’s AFSC’s, etc were all open to females tomorrow, there isn’t going to be a line around the block of female volunteers BEGGING to get in the infantry, or special forces, or what have you. The demographics ain’t gonna be there. So, I’m willing to bet we’d still be talking about a vanishingly small population when this is all said and done.
2) Yeah, the political make it or break point is going to be PT standards. Everyone gets that. The ones who _can_ pull it off, with no shifting standard or significant amounts of medical costs, give ’em the dang badge.
3) Alternatively, maybe a phased approach is better. The USAF and USMC have had female combat pilots for years now. Army attack aviation, to my knowledge, still doesn’t. Line FA units, to my knowledge, I think are just adding females. Armor still doesn’t. Why not let the army try full integrating those branches first, and, save infantry for last – if there are going to be problems, it’s going to be in the infantry.
4) My wife is ADA. From serving with those guys, after 12 years in the USAF, gender integration problems seem the worst in OFFICE settings, more so even than deployed or tactical units. Staffs, garrison, etc – any place where the classic cubicle farm and “watercooler” rules are in place, and female ratio gets above 50% – watch out.
possibly the most condescending thing i’ve ever heard (and i’ve heard a lot). A male MECEP Sgt to a female officer candidate who couldn’t keep up on the runs. “Ma’am, they don’t fire slower bullets at the women.” The attitude pretty much illustrates the culutral barrier that women will have to overcome to be taken seriously in the Gun Club. Can it happen? Absolutely. Will it happen? It remains to be seen. I’m pulling for the women, so long as the standards don’t change a single iota.
Just watched the Olympics this past summer in London. I did not see one event that was gender neutral. Why was that?
@11
Chem-light batteries will always illuminate the path to success….
Like a Krill Lamp?
http://www.kriana.com/aa-krill-lights
In my opinion just keep going like they are. A few volunteers per IOC class. Even then it’s not going to be perfect because unlike males who can get blindly assigned to Infantry the Women will be 100% volunteer. They will be the biggest bad ass Women Officer we have. By attaching them to the all male platoons it ensures they won’t get special treatment as a group. Let them sink or swim by the present standards. I have a FB friend who is a retired JAG Light Colonel whose daughter is a 2nd Lt. I guess they are bantering about her going to IOC. She is a cross fit stud and wrecked the pt course at OCS. I would think she would make it if anyone could. That being said, doing that type of selection would be limiting the choices of super fit women Lts. Why force an olympic athlete caliber Lt into the infantry if she wanted to be JAG or PAO or Comm?