Three women Marines asked to leave IOC
The Christian Science Monitor reports that the three women Marines (WM) were asked to leave the course a few weeks after the completed the grueling test to qualify for their attendance at the Infantry Officer Course.
They were physically disqualified from the training last week for falling behind in hikes while carrying loads of upwards of 100 pounds, says Maj. George Flynn, director of the Infantry Officers Course (IOC) at Quantico, Va.
[…]
When they begin the 13-week IOC, officers are told that if they “fall out” of more than one “tactical movement” during their time in training, they will be asked to leave the school.
“That has always been IOC policy,” Major Flynn says.“The key part is not just to conduct a movement. You need to lead that moment, and you can’t do that if you’re falling out.”
There were three men who didn’t make the standard either, but here come the social scientists;
The Marines haven’t always been clear about the parameters for the course, says Greg Jacob, policy director for the Service Women’s Action Network.
At the enlisted training school, Mr. Jacobs, who served as a Marine, recalls that students were told they could walk no faster than three miles an hour, and every hour they had to take a 10-minute break.
In the IOC, “it’s up to the person in front to set the speed of the hike,” he says. “There doesn’t seem to be a standard around these movements.”
As a result, he adds, “it seems like the goal posts just keep moving.”
That’s just specious. Those of us who have been through such training know that the instructors set the pace. But, yeah, no standards are going to eased for the WMs.
Category: Marine Corps
The goal posts are not being moved, You are falling behind! This training is designed to test your suitability to lead in combat. Each training objective is based on a hard learned lesson from actual combat operations. Better to fail on the test track than to fail when it counts. Falling out on training march is not fatal, falling out on a combat op can kill you and several others.
Your missing the point of this. Get with the program you misogynistic.
The bar is being lowered, no doubt about it. For the past year or so not a single one of the Female candidates lasted more that a few days. all but one being dropped during the one day screening.
Now all the sudden not one but THREE have passed the indoc and gotten a few weeks into training?
Someone at IOC got taken aside and TOLD to molly coddle these women through indoc.
Chances are even with the special treatment they were getting so beat up physically that they were falling way behind.
Not exactly. The only special treatment those ladies got was a two month workup for training brigade that specifically got them ready for IOC. Those ladies still had to meet the male standard of the CET.
Perhaps that is unfair, that male marines typically have train up in their spare time at basic school. Irregardless, the ladies passed the first day fair and square.
Unsurprisingly, the course seemed to have worn them down.
Its going to be interesting though what marines do now. Two of those marines were captains who were selected with first class PFT on the male scale.
With requirements that high the corps will quickly run out of female hopefuls on a consistent basis.
And “Irregardless” is not a word, so there!!!
🙂
I learned the “irregardless”?rule from watching Major Dad. The scene was between the Lt and the GySgt, female type one each. The Lt said something with “Irregardless” in it. The GySgt says “Irregardless isn’t a word. The regardless.” The Lt, with his college degree replies “Isn’t it the same thing as flammable and inflammable being the same thing?”. As far as I can recall, I only watched that episode one time, and 25 years later I still remember it.
Flindip Said, “With requirements that high the corps will quickly run out of female hopefuls on a consistent basis.”
That might just be the idea.
Look at Canada, there was much initial interest when women were permitted to go into the combat arms, but it quickly dropped off when the chance to be “the first” was no longer an option.
On a side note, I’m having an issue with reading up on other countries in how they integrate women in infantry.
It seems to me that there is some “smoke and mirrors” on the part of those countries. They seem to be a tad disingenuous on how their infantry is organized or what model they have.
They all seem to run off a mech infantry model. So, in practice, their infantry seemed to be glorified MP’s. I can see women working in a mech infantry capacity. Where are their examples of women in light infantry? Its seems to be very nebulous. Light infantry operations seems to be where much of these problems are going to occur.
Flindip said: It seems to me that there is some “smoke and mirrors” on the part of those countries. They seem to be a tad disingenuous on how their infantry is organized or what model they have.
You notice that the powers that be don’t bring up the Canadian example very often. They are the closest to us in organization (light, heavy, motorized),social/demographics make up, and deploy ability.
If anything, their experience shows the folly of integrating women into the infantry for the purposes of increasing promotion opportunity.
The numbers of women who want to do it tend to be much less over time than anticipated, and they are physically performing on the lower end of the bell curve when compared to their male counterparts (thus putting them at lower rates of advancement).
I agree with you that the examples female infantry pushers want to bring up are countries like Israel which has a single female dominant infantry battalion, which generally operates from fixed sites and doesn’t deploy. Not very similar to our operational experience.
Canada from my understanding has no light infantry battalions either. Even Princess Patricia Light infantry battalion is only light infantry in name. They run under a mech infantry model as well.
I would guess the only designated light infantry units for them would be special ops.
The 3rd battalion in each of their in each of their active duty regiments are light and include the airborne, air assault and mountain companies.
Like us the battalions are separate operating entities that report to different brigades across the country.
flindip: seems to me that getting a specific prep course based solely on gender that isn’t available to all applicants qualifies as getting significant special treatment in and of itself. I’d guess some of the males who got dropped would think so, anyway.
I don’t disagree. But, I think its better than lowering standards across the board. Its also potential ammo for the service report next summer. If women are getting special prep and still failing: that kind of flies in the face of what Sage Santiago wrote about(paraphrasing)”women need to be prepped better.”
Look, at the end of the day, I’m not completely against women in combat arms. I just think we need realistic/pragmatic expectations for this whole thing. Human beings are sexually dimorphic and we aren’t going to change that.
There you go again, flindip – trying to confuse our
socialistprogressive experts by bringing up obvious but inconvenient facts. Quit being a naysayer and get with the program!(I hope the sarcasm in that last statement was blindingly obvious.)
How is 2 months of paid gym workouts before the test not special treatment?
Why is a guy speaking for the Service Women’s Action Network? I wonder how his mangina felt after his course.
As soon as I read he was “policy director for the Service Women’s Action Network”, I thought, yea, here we go! Standards are standards. They have been the same standards for the OIC, for a long time now Mr. Jacob and hopefully you and other like minded folks, won’t force them to be lowered. How in the heck did you surmise that, “it seems like the goal posts just keep moving.” You must have pulled that conclusion out some liberal, politically correct, apologist for all things even apparently and remotely unfair to females, ass. Yours or someone else in your organization. Get a clue Greg Jacob. Male or female, we need WARRIORS and warriors need WARRIOR LEADERS. Period. If they can’t make the grade, male or female, they’re in the wrong job! No preferences and no slack for either sex.
FWIW, Greg Jacobs was a mustang officer and a hell of a platoon commander. I might not agree with his current platform, but he was one of the officers I respected and trusted most while part of 3rd Marines.
ags…No disrespect to Greg Jacobs for his military service. I thank him for his service to our country. In fact I am glad you wrote to offer your experience of him as a platoon commander. It is his position and politics now which give me pause. The fact he was such a good platoon leader is what confuses me about his stance on this issue. He more than most, should understand and demand the need of top flight, top trained Marine Officer leaders in the field and nothing less.
And the feminization of the military continues…damn the results and standards…
Someone explain this part to me:
At the enlisted training school, Mr. Jacobs, who served as a Marine, recalls that students were told they could walk no faster than three miles an hour, and every hour they had to take a 10-minute break.
Excuse me, no FASTER than 3MPH? I can’t walk that slowly, even with a load, unless I’m scouting for dragons and flutterbyes in the bush.
If you’re not allowed to walk faster than that with a 100-lb load, how would anyone fall out or fail? I thought the whole idea of the hike with a loaded pack was to build strength and endurance and push to get to a destination as quickly as possible
I’m just trying to understand this concept of intentionally reducing speed.
I think even Jonn’s wheelie can move faster than that, with or without a loaded pack.
Go put on a 100 pound pack along with body armor, helmet, weapon, and water, then go walk 12 miles in undulating terrain in less than 4 hours. You may be surprised to find 3 mph is actually not as easy as it sounds. Also, Mr. Jacobs is referring to the School of Infantry where the enlisted Marines are trained to be infantrymen. It’s not the same as the Infantry Officer’s Course (IOC), which is what this article discussing. As Major Flynn states, the point of an Officer is not just to complete the movement, it’s to lead it. “Just making it”, doesn’t cut it for Officers.
The normal (if there is anything like that) speed for a shorter road march is about 4 mph but I suspect this dimwit is thinking of a MCCRESS hump which is (or at least was) about 25 miles with all of your gear including assigned weapons, radios etc (sucks to be a machine gunner) and you had 8 hours to do them as a unit.
When I was in 2/8 as a newly minted 1stLt back in the 80s if any officer dropped out of the weekly hump they were sent elsewhere and if you missed the hump for just about any reason outside of a family emergency or were at some other training you didn’t get weekend liberty.Our BC at the time was a LtCol by the name of Sheldon Bathurst who had received a battlefield commission in Viet Nam and he was one of the toughest Marines I ever knew. We all highly respected him and were mostly in fear of him and I can’t imagine men like him would cut anyone any slack.
Its a hard life but you do get used to it once your conditioned. I am all for giving someone a chance but they ought to know that its not all the glory some people think. I suspect that sooner rather than later a female will pass but then what? I dont think I would want to be the only female in a Marine Infantry Battalion where even the officers live like sardines on Med or Westpac floats.
Mustang is right, 3MPH is a good pace for marching under a moderate load on a good day and flat terrain- add hills, bad weather, and a heavier load and you slow down even more. We haven’t even talked about the possibility of bad guys.
The point is that you are trying to get to an objective and preserve the combat power of your force- you have to weigh getting there fast against being able to fight when you get there.
Jacobs’ point is that the standard seems to change- if it is 3MPH, then that is what they should be graded against.
Maj Flynn’s point is that Infantry Officers have to make those decisions, so the standard does actually change depending on the situation.
Remember that no one leaves the wire with less than about 85 pounds on their body- that’s just armor, helmet, weapon, and ammo. Add a ‘light’ sustainment load (extra basic load, an MRE, water, extra socks), and you are at about 104. God help you if you are an FO, RTO, mortarman (everyone carries at least one mortar round, by the way), or 240/249 gunner.
Pace translates into energy burned over time. The faster you move and the heavier the load, the more energy you burn. And, by the way, 8 miles is just the morning movement. You will do it again this afternoon, and maybe again tonight. Tomorrow’s forecast calls for more walking…
Thanks, guys. That’s what I wanted to know.
I’d be guessing here, but there have to be a few men in this course who haven’t dragged a 100 pounds on their backs until they got there. That would require some conditioning, but if they are including women in this, they should be getting the same conditioning ahead of the start of it. Frankly, it is much easier to carry a heavy load on your back than it is to drag it along on the ground.
However, since we don’t have the details, I’m just guessing.
Here’s the link:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2014/1024/Three-pioneering-women-in-Marine-infantry-course-are-asked-to-leave.-Why
Thanks for the link.
Interesting the note that the formation did not appear to meet the march objective in terms of time/distance.
So, I can see where someone could argue about a shifting standard.
“Greg Jacob, policy director for the Service Women’s Action Network.”
Jesus Christ. What the fuck is this. Greg Jacob, choke yourself.
Well I just watched Demi Moore make it through SEAL training in a movie. If she can do it why can’t those other women?
Because she was boinking her private trainer, who was a retired SEAL, and other women aren’t.
Why is the idiot, Greg Jacobs, trying to compare the Enlisted course requirements to the Officer course requirements? The point is that Officers are to have higher standards, you can’t lead from behind nor can you lead from the side, you lead from the front!
Cruachan!
WM’s falling out of humps?
I’m shocked.
I typically stay away from this hornets nest but what the hell, I’m living on the edge anyway.
What is considered passing at day one exercise one is not passing at day two exercise so on. The standards do change, not because the class had females in it but because it is a class it is intended to improve the participants.
This is a class for officers, the officers participating are not only expected to complete the exercise but to excel and lead in the exercise.
WE are talking about US Marines here, not a den of cub scouts on a picnic.
I am all for women in the service, those women that do choose to join (Remember they are all volunteers) should have to meet the same physical demands of the men that they are to work with or is this case lead.
Haji is not not go shoot slower or be less aggressive just because the target is female.
If you “fall out” on more than one “tactical movement” you are asked to leave.
ASKED TO LEAVE?
What if she says no!
No leading from behind as a Marine Corps officer
I wonder how much of a distraction this equality experiment is causing for the other officer’s in the class. I went through IOC in 1993 and it wasn’t a big class. We certainly would’ve known if there were issues going on with other students.
“They were physically disqualified from the training last week for falling behind in hikes while carrying loads of upwards of 100 pounds,”
There’s the money quote, right there.
Look, I know that there are several on this board that argue that they have seen women perform just like the men in combat, however, their job was as a dismounted grunt humping the hills and valleys on a daily basis. Physiology plays a huge role in this conversation no matter what the supporters wish to believe and I will argue that point with anyone. The standards weren’t decided upon based on sociology and political interests. They were developed through the centuries based on the war fighting requirements. The war fighting dynamic may change in the future, but it will be changed, not to accommodate the sensibilities of a few politicians and activists, to what is required on the battlefield. It seems that the changes made since WWII and Korea are to increase the loads and requirements of the grunt, not to go less.
With that in mind, the physiological differences between men and women become vastly apparent when the requirements are the same. It has nothing to do with your PT scores and everything to do with actual grunt requirements. There are a lot of men that can’t cut it for physical reasons, even though they maxed out their PT test; so why should we be placing females in a situation that is stacked against their physical abilities just so we can pat ourselves on the back that we have integrated the combat arms? Plus, the stress and strain to the body of being a grunt for most of your career messes up plenty of men; do we want to add a disproportionate number of women to the long term health issues suffered by grunts (knees, feet, back, shoulders, etc.)? Women are not built for it, period.
* Should be “wasn’t” in the first sentence of the first paragraph.
Six failed, three women, three men. Equality achieved. Next?
Seems to me this is exactly what everyone was hoping for. The 3 Marines didn’t meet the set requirements and were removed from the course.
As for the quote from the Director of blah blah blah, he can go piss in a pot for all I care, but the goal posts have always been the same and will continue to be so.
If you pass the test, you pass the test. Who cares what gender you are.
And so if a hundred or a thousand fail without one passing, then what?
Will the standards be lowered so that one might finally pass or will the powers that be decide that it is not worth the expense and effort to try and continue? Which do you think is more likely? Having seen the distortions of reality that the political class is capable of in order to try and satisfy some aggrieved constituency I know what I think is likely.
I think it is more likely that sooner or later a WM will pass the test. The same test that her fellow male Marines take.
Ok-let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that that will eventually happen.
How many would have to fail first before you, or those who advocate for this, would admit that it is a bad idea? Fifty, seventy-five?
If you’re getting a 5% success rate for females here as opposed to an 80% success rate for males, doesn’t that suggest that continuing with this experiment-this unicorn hunt-is not a good use of defense dollars?
I think what is most likely to happen is that after the first few female marines pass the school we will see their numbers normalize with that of the male students. This is most likely to happen because the allure of being the first will have worn off, and only those truly driven and those that know they have the abilities to pass will apply.
I think what is most likely to happen is that after the first few female marines pass the school we will see their numbers normalize with that of the male students.
I see, because apparently human physiology is not a thing. Answer the question: if the rates don’t “normalize”, if females pass at a rate much lower than their male counterparts, then what? They will you know, females possess only about 2/3rds of the upper body muscle mass of males and significantly lower cardiovascular capacity. Last time you posted here I put up a link to an Army study that show that females suffer musculoskeletal injuries at a much higher rate than males and you never responded. The science is what it is and it’s inconvenient for the advocates of this nonsense. But that science can only be ignored by those who are politically motivated to do so. In the actual world it has consequences.
Yer wasting your breath arguing, 68W58. The “esteemed” doctor here never gives a straight answer when an honest answer would be contrary to his illogical arguments. He also ignores facts when they don’t support his point of view, and appears to have trouble with logical reasoning.
Other than that, I’m sure his arguments are “eminently worthwhile”.
The question for me, is what happens to the three male Marines that failed? Are they re-classed to another MOS, do they get another shot at the school, or are they eliminated from the service?
All of the WMs who have attempted the course have done so with no potential negative career implication if they fail. I’d be interested in seeing what the volunteer number look like if there is a negative cost, for participating and failing?