SMA Chandler:”This is about one standard applied equally across the force.”
So it seems that SMA Chandler has been holding Town Hall style meetings over Military is wanting to have women in combat arms. I cannot see how he can make some of the statements that I have read given the statements made by Big Army. But I guess that he managed to overcome that hurdle.
“There’s a misconception that female Soldiers won’t have to meet the same standards as male Soldiers or that we’re going to lower standards. That’s just not the case,” Chandler said. “This is about one standard applied equally across the force.”
But the Army has yet to get a working standard uniform let alone rifle which we have been hearing about for years. But we are going to make a Physical fitness standard across the board. But then they drop this.
“Many of our standards are outdated and very old. What we’re doing now is looking at the physical requirements for any person, male or female, to serve in an MOS, and once the revised standard is implemented, that will be the standard for anyone to serve in that MOS.”
So let me get this straight, their physical requirements will vary from MOS to MOS? I understand that if you have additional training as being Airborne, Air Assault, Ranger, and SF that the PT testing while have higher requirements. But these are not MOSs, so at a glance it looked like the PT tests would become individualized to the MOS rather then the universal PT requirements we have today, baring age and gender. So with this in mind how is this moving toward a universal PT standard?
But if you have a problem with it, your just a trouble maker and need to get with the program.
“The first and largest obstacle the Army must overcome for integration is the culture,” Chandler said. “There is still a perception in some parts of the Army that female Soldiers won’t be able to do the same things as their male counterparts, or that we won’t be as successful if we have them in combat arms organizations. I think the people saying these things are a vocal minority.”
Feeling the love, Feeling the love.
Category: Big Army
So they’ll spend another 10 million on research to come up with a new PT program, but change it at the last minute because of “vocal” people saying it doesn’t make sense. Makes me want to retire so I can be a “contractor” working on that new PT program, make a few hundred thousand and walk away before its finished.
And even the Marines were smart enough in the 90s to get rid of Sit Ups, but the Army still does them, so what are they going to “research” this time around?
I see more of the “smart” vocal “minority” being told shut up and so they’ll leave for the civilian sector and make six figures doing the same work, but get listened to.
Message To Observers: BOHICA!!
The argument for different tests for different MOS was made back in the 90s. The idea endangered the USMA grads, so it was dropped.
Another senior member of the Army that has spent too much time removed from the “real” Army and has been surrounded by subordinates that nod and say yes anytime he has a brain fart. Christ! When will someone finally be heard saying the Emperor has no cloths?
Doesn’t a universal fitness standard imply a requirement for a universal body type, meaning height, weight, and muscle mass?
So glad I am retired. This crap would make me pull my hair out.
SMA Chandler is an idiot.
Coming from the same guy who spent 3 years and a few million hiring a small army of personal trainers and doctors to change the APFT only to keep throwing in his two cents and finally scuttle the whole effort. Also the same guy who declared anyone with soon to be illegal tattoos “dirtbags” and in need of discharge while forgetting he was working at the sergeant majors academy when the army lowered the standards to keep recruiting up.
He made a lot of people happy when he sidelined the beret, but he’s been making yes man decisions ever since.
The PT test is a double standard, period.
Make it on a 60 miler w/ the gear, the 240, the T@E gear, 400 7.62 rounds, a 249 drum, not to mention single 5.56, plates, water, chow and a mortar round.
100 degree weather. Plus a full ruck compliment. (pogey bait and dip included).
Yeah, right.
Like the culture each military branch fermented with decades of separate and unequal physical requirements to integrate females into the military to begin with……
Platoon PT is going to look like a mass causality drill with all of the fallouts that will become the new norm. The worst job in the military will be platoon sergeant soon.
@11.
And the cherry 2LT who has to stand before the desk…..
Another nail in the coffin of the (formerly) greatest, most unified against all comers, highest morale, military the world has/had ever seen. But no more.
Another reason to tell my g’son NOT to join when he comes of age.
I have a question for SMA Chandler: Sergeant Major is it hard to breathe with your head so far up you ass that you can see your spleen?
I’m so glad I am retiring in 5 …no 4 months
You guys can have this BS
Nothing against tankers but what does this pos know about having to drag a female up and down mountains along the afghani paki border because she couldn’t handle it?? All these brass have no idea what it means to be a infantryman or the level of masculinity required to be a good one. If you have never been in the infantry and served in combat as such than you got about as much knowledge on the issue as a paper bag full of hot air. Remarks complete.
I believe the physical standards he refers to are standards already applied to every MOS in the Army out of DA PAM 611-21:
LIGHT — Lift on an occasional basis a maximum of 20 pounds with frequent or constant lifting of 10 pounds.
MEDIUM — Lift on an occasional basis a maximum of 50 pounds with frequent or constant lifting of 25 pounds.
MODERATELY HEAVY — Lift on an occasional basis a maximum of 80 pounds with frequent or constant lifting of 40 pounds.
HEAVY — Lift on an occasional basis a maximum of 100 pounds with frequent or constant lifting of 50 pounds.
VERY HEAVY — Lift on an occasional basis over 100 pounds with frequent or constant lifting in excess of 50 pounds.
To illustrate: A 35S Signals Collector/Analyst, has duty requirements considered “Light”. A 42A Human Resources Specialist has Physical Requirements considered “Moderately Heavy”. An 11B Infantryman has “Very Heavy” requirements.
It sound like the SMA either wants to change the way the standards are constructed or reexamine every MOS to make sure they are classified properly.
Not offered in support of SMA’s ditherings. 😉
But back in the day there used to be Staff and Specialist APFT, Minimum APFT, Advanced APFT, Airborne Qual APFT, etc. I thought the five event APFT did a much better job measuring fitness than PU, SU and a two mile run. For a blast from the past, check out the PT card on page 213 (large PDF file).
http://www.benning.army.mil/Library/content/Virtual/ArmyPubs/FM%2021-20_1973%20Physical%20Readiness%20Training.pdf
Feeling kinda old now.
One standard, based on MOS.
There is no description of the facepalm this just generated.
McKinney was saying the same sort of “we’re all soldiers” nonsense back in 1996, and then look at the “love” he was showing female subordinates.
I don’t mind by-MOS standards so long as 11B is tougher than 19anything. Every time I hear a cav scout say they’re “basically infantry,” an adorable kitten is eaten by a conjoined pygmy twin.
He says they are not talking about lowering standards, but “revising” them…. That my friends is called semantics, he is not deviating from Big Army, they are all talking about lowering the standards because they know there is no way in holy hell that they can get enough females to pass what is now and has been for years accepted higher standards both physically and mentally for our Special Operations Forces. The standards have to be lowered.. I mean “revised” to gender neutral so more females and lower achieving males as well can qualify.
@19, A ginger loses it’s soul….oh wait…I mean a puppy loses it’s soul every time a non-Infantryman says they are “just like the Infantry”.
I am so glad that I am done with my Platoon Sergeant time. I now hope that I never get a diamond.
What culture is he talking about here? The one that actually borne the cost of battle for the past 12 years, and not just sat in a TOC somewhere never venturing out of POG land? Maybe it’s the culture that does not subscribe to the new army doctrine that we are all unique and special snowflakes? Maybe it’s the culture that values results over words and hollow promises? This SMA is infuriating. What arrogance to bash the culture of combat arms. There is a word for someone who denigrates someone else’s culture. That word is bigot. We all know what the SMA’s words truly mean despite the fact that he thinks us morons. The people that should be the most upset about this whole thing are the females in the army. Do they really want to be forced into a combat arms job where they are held to a lower standard for the sake of some PC unity the civilian leadership is jamming down everyone’s throat? When the PT test standards get lowered, or wait excuse me ….gender normed, what will these females be thought of? Does brass really think females who can’t perform at the level of the males in combat arms will be respected? Give me a break. If anyone has created a separate culture within the army it is the tail and not the tooth. Infantrymen can go their whole careers without ever having worked with a female soldier yet they are the ones who are being sold down the river in this sexual assault brouhaha?!?!?! None of this washes and it is sickening that there are midlevel officers who have grown up in the last 12 years who aren’t telling higher leadership that they are full of it.
So Dempsey’s announcement reveals an agenda, and the agenda hides a quota system. If there aren’t enough volunteers to fill the quota, what other means of doing so is there than the ‘you 10 just volunteered’ method?
I guess I’m confused now. Are they saying that women will be assigned to these combat MOS’s, not volunteer?
PN, they aren’t saying that yet, but if there aren’t enough volunteeers, how else will this agenda be met?
I don’t like any of this. It should be a gradual transition, not a ‘you will do this’ approach.
SMA Chandler, needs to be an advocate for the soldier. He needs to tell Dempsey, Ordierno et al a$$hats no, it ain’t gonna work. Instead, he is just another politically appointed clown.
@26 What, you don’t think offering $20K bonuses to females who wanna become Infantrymen, because the talking heads in congress arent getting the number of volunteers they want, will go over well with the rest of the MOS? What could possibly go wrong?
@smoke-check, powerful indictment and one of the most succinct comments I’ve read on this subject. Pitiful the Army, or for that matter all the services, don’t have someone at the top that would dare speak truth to power such as that.
Is combat arms going to require a 14.6% female population to match the current military ratio or 50.8% female population to match the country’s demographics in order to make this ‘fair’?
I’m sure the social experimenters don’t care that in order to reach their ‘fair’ numbers, they will have to force women into those positions so that one or two have a ‘freedom of choice.’
Chandler is just a sad little company man parroting the company line as he lines up a lucrative post-retirement gig.
This is what happens when you have a Leg, Non Infantry/Spec Ops type making rules up for the Combat Arms and Special Forces. Of course he thinks he could have done it, but I am sure he had better things to do… that is why he is so sure lowering standards so that woman can do it is a good idea.
so I remember years ago someone told me that the Army sets aside X number of seats in each MOS school for females. So if you are a guy and the only seats left in a MOS school for the fiscal year are the set asides, no school slot for you, pick another job. Kinda like how in PLDC/WLC they have enough seats set aside to make sure there is a min of 1 female per squad, the OML be damned. I also see them giving females an easy out from a combat arms OSUT contract, kinda like ringing the bell, so they can go off to another MOS AIT if they decide they can’t hack it. Never mind that the 2 or 3 guys in my 11series OSUT that couldn’t hack it got booted instead of another MOS.
@27, yea, I can see some female jumping on a 11X contract because of a fat female only bonus (hah! double entendre.)then crying she can’t hack it and she’s only there for the money.
with regards to the light/mod/hvy categories, how does that play out for medics? the requirements for a line medic, physically speaking, are vastly more demanding than the medic who sits on his ass in a csh or fixed facility..?
A Leg and a Tab Less Cunt running the show…what in the hell do you expect?
This guy is ATE UP!
@33, The Army assumes that a medic has an equal opportunity to serve in both positions, so it rates the higher. The actual rating for 68W is Moderately Heavy. I assume that’s also why a 42A is the same; it assumes service in an S1 of an ABN INF BN as well as a PSB in garrison.