AP Poll: Special Operations troops don’t think women can do the job
Chief Tango and Andy11M send links to the Associated Press article about a poll that was supposedly taken among special operations soldiers in regards to their expectations of the performance of women if they are allowed into the elite corps. The poll reflects many of the opinions here over the past few years since the Department of Defense made the decision to allow women into the special forces community;
Studies that surveyed personnel found “major misconceptions” within special operations about whether women should be brought into the male-only jobs. They also revealed concerns that department leaders would “capitulate to political pressure, allowing erosion of training standards,” according to one document.
Some of those concerns were not limited to men, researchers found, but also were found among women in special operations jobs.
[…]
The main survey went to about 18,000 people who are in positions closed to women, and the response was about 50 percent.
Yeah, “major misconceptions” like the DoD going out of it’s way to plan changes to training standards in order to accommodate women. No one has explained to me how allowing women into the class of occupations of fighting our nation’s wars will improve the force. Changing time-tested standards just for a social experiment doesn’t sound like the Department of Defense has the country’s best interests in their hearts.
The AP article careens off into the social impacts of integrating women into the war-fighting force;
One survey, by RAND Corp., reflected doubts that women could meet the overall job demands, found concerns that sexual harassment or assault could increase, and cited worries about “unequal treatment” of special operations candidates and personnel. Some worried that if women were let in to some jobs, they might be treated more harshly.
Well, we’ve all seen that documentary “GI Jane”, right? We know how women will be discriminated against by the ape-like men. But, truthfully, that’s not one of my concerns. We have mothers, sisters and daughters – we know how to treat women. The few times that I’ve had dealings with special forces soldiers, they seem to respect the soldier for what he or she accomplishes, not what they are. They have a lot of confidence in the selection process to weed out non-performers. I’m sure that lowering the standards will erode that confidence.
I’m more concerned that lowering training standards will fill body bags. The Department of Defense should show a bit of concern in that regard, too, and tell their political masters that should concern them as well. Instead of pinning the results of this poll on inherent biases, they should rebuild the soldiers’ confidence in the selection system.
Category: Military issues
Also not news, the sun will rise in the east this morning and if you plan to take shower, prepare to get wet.
mistythemedic…Thank you. You made me laugh this morning and I needed that! have a great day.
Another way to say it:
“No shit, Sherlock!”
Keep up the outstanding work, Jonn Lilyea.
By the way, I just read another part of the TAH site, and I realized that I’m an FNG! This is the closest I’ll ever come to actually being part of a military unit. It feels good, believe it or not. I probably need to be publicly ridiculed by some salty vets, although I must warn you, I worship the ground the military walks on, this has gained me more than one friend in life, and these heroes may step to my defense if you hate my comments. May. Okay, maybe they won’t.
Anyway, one question: Am I actually THE Good Idea Fairy you refer to so often? The reason I ask is I am full of GREAT ideas. Here is my latest: Women can be special operators but the first specialty they will have as SEALs, Green Berets, etc. is sniping. In addition, they must prove their value as spotters before they can actually shoot.
I know you are probably going to want to pay me for these ideas, but that’s okay. I love this site. My conscience won’t let me take your money.
Joe G.
Certified FNG
Great Idea Fairy
Joe,
Good idea, buuuuut. . . .actually not.
And this is coming from one who is NOT a Ranger, Special Forces, UDT, SEAL, etc, etc.
The military skills are NOT single tasks. FOr example, a sniper IS NOT just a sniper. On any given day, he may be cranking a wrench on a truck, driving that same truck with troops/supplies, rucking from point A to point B, filling out paperwork for himself and/or his troops.
The same concept goes doubly so for the elite forces. They are NOT single taskers. SO your idea of assigning women to start out as FOs (Forward Observers) or spotters, then as snipers, is a non-starter.
At some point, in the “fog of war”, the women will get caught up in a FUBAR situation for which they will NOT be trained, for which they do NOT have the strength (social science to the contrary), and excess unnecessary body bags will be filled.
Soooo. . . in short. . . .not-so-much.
BW-excellent point. I was in an MI Co with the 7th SF – not even an A team and not Q-qualified and still never ran across a single female who could keep up with what we did on a daily basis- 10 miles runs, pull-ups, field work, sleeping in the rain and that is just normal peacetime training. Being a soldier is a full-time occupation with no limits on what will be asked of you or more importantly, what you will need to do to survive and keep your buddies safe, not to mention to accomplish the mission.
Joe, there are a lot jobs that women can do in the military. Most of them in fact. As John said the problem comes when the liberal politicians try to use the U.S. military as their personal test bed for social engineering projects. The jobs in the military and the training for them have been tested and honed through the years. What hey are doing is going to get a lot of Soldiers killed, both male and female, just so they can say ” see how fair we made it”. They are trying to fix something that ain’t broken. Another small item to remember is what will our enemies will do to captured female Soldiers. You can bet that they surly will have no respect for them. It might be a little different if these women went into the training for these units and met the standards in order to be inducted or included, but when the know it alls decide that they are going to lower the standards for the women just so that they can get in, well, that is setting them and the men they are going to work with up for failure. When you fail in war, you die.
Joe:
Some questions to ask yourself, and maybe answer here for us, for perspective.
1. Is the purpose of the military –
A. a federal social welfare program?
B. to fight and destroy our nation’s enemy?
2. Eroding the combat capability of our military serves –
A. the desires of our enemy.
B. the whims and wants of those who adhere to our enemy.
C. the thumb-suckers, degenerates, mouth-breeders, snot-gobblers and other forms of intellectually inbred sacks of idiotic dumbass.
D. all the above.
Like I told Jonn when I sent him the story, my favorite line from the article is this-
“Dan Bland, force management director for U.S. Special Operations Command, told the AP that the survey results have “already driven us to do some different things in terms of educating the force.”
Educating the force? In other words, STFU, the Generals want their next appointment/promotion and the only way they will get it is by dancing for the politicians who are pushing this. I read somewhere once that the only nations in modern warfare that have chosen to put women on the front lines did so because they had no choice, not because they wanted to.
Word.
And in other news, no surprise here.
I love how the Army/DoD wastes money on surveys that appear to be common sense.
“Common Sense” Green Thumb? Remember,just like wives,and experience, that is not an issued item in any branch of the military.
Another DOD/Army survey?
they’ll just do what they always do: ignore it when it doesn’t fit their predetermined outcome.
That’s what jumped off the page for me too. The Diversity Nazi’s have spoken and you will comply or else…
..you will comply or else…
Reeducation camp.
And in further news 18,000 EO complaint’s are being filed this week.
Girls beware…that damn 4 duece baseplate was a mother humper on the twenty miler.
What does the damn 4 deuce base plate weigh?
A thousand million hundred pounds after the first 300-400 meters.
Depends on which model of the 4.2″ mortar you’re talking about, Ex-PH2.
The M2 base plate weighed 175lbs. The newer M30 base plate weighs 193lbs.
Even the 81mm mortar base plate is pretty damn heavy to hump around. The base plate for the M1 81mm mortar weighed almost 45lbs. The newer 81mm mortar, the M252, has a base plate weighs “only” 29 lbs.
The base plate is only about 1/3 the weight of the total mortar system. The tube and the mount/sight each typically weigh in the same ballpark, give or take, as does the base plate.
That’s in addition to all the other crap the guy has to carry as part of his individual equipment, of course.
some of the toughest guys I met had been 11Chucks in light units. Wouldn’t want their job ever.
Indeed. The “mortar maggots” in the 101st had it tough.
I had heard of more than one Screaming Eagle that burned in when trying to fast rope with a base plate.
Almost forgot, had a few guys who were 82nd tell me about guys with the base plate slung between their legs getting blown back into the aircraft because they couldn’t launch themselves out far enough to avoid the jet wash pushing them back into the aircraft, or they got bounced off the side of the aircraft on exit.
…getting blown back into the aircraft because they couldn’t launch themselves out far enough to avoid the jet wash pushing them back into the aircraft….
Hmmmm …. can they get credit for two jumps if the second one is successful???
/sardonic smile
I have lots of respect for the bubble chasers.
I think we’ve hashed this out over and over again here, until it’s gone nearly flat.
Unless something changes, DoD will ignore the results of any polls that return common sense instead of toeing the line. This is now how you effect change.
You do things so that they work, not so that they result in constant failure. The object is to win wars, not offer faster promotions.
What else is there to say?
True. This policy has no room for common sense, it just needs to be made to work.
“One survey, by RAND Corp., reflected doubts that women could meet the overall job demands, found concerns that sexual harassment or assault could increase, and cited worries about “unequal treatment” of special operations candidates and personnel. Some worried that if women were let in to some jobs, they might be treated more harshly.”
Okay, Rand just delineated several reasons why, we do not need to take women into combat and especially Special Operations Units. They gave a list of existing and potential problems, already known in non-combat units of every branch. So my question is, if this is what the brain trust sees as an outcome, nothing but more problems, why then take it on? They offered NO valid reasons, qualities or upsides that putting women in these roles will bring to the table. Only downsides. So again, why on earth do they want to mess up success. Success learned over centuries of training and fighting wars. We have MORE than enough body bags come home from every campaign as it is. Why do ANYTHING, ANYTHING at all, that could possibly increase that number?
You really want an answer to that?
The answer is, that from a certain point of view, the “status of women” in the military qualifies as a Larger Issue, that outweighs the consequences to any single individual.
To frame it differently, they care as much for the lives of the young women involved and the members of the units they are in, as they cared for those 200+ dead Mexicans that resulted from Operation Fast & Furious.
Beware of people who think in terms of Larger Issues. They don’t mind if their policy fantasy kills you.
Another two cents here.
There is a reason that in the bulk of partnerships of all species, the male is larger or more intensely colored than the female. The larger or more dominantly colored male is more likely to be able to protect offspring and find food than the female. That’s backed up by many millions of years of gene pooling.
Discarding wealthy, withered old men who are half the size of the much younger women they decide to marry, how many marriages can you think of in which the wife is the larger of the pair?
If the women in SpecOps programs don’t have the physical size, strength, and bone density it takes to go through that, the program is a failure.
That young lady I ran into on Friday night was about as big as a minute, and she’s going to ABF “A” School at Pensacola. As someone has already pointed out, it isn’t like filling your tank at the gas station. Frankly, when she said that, I was surprised because she WAS so tiny, but she may have physical strength that does not show at first glance.
I’m no bigger than a minute, and I’m fairly strong. But somebody at the health club where I worked out saw me lifting a 50-lb weight off of a barbell lodged on an incline bench (from above my head) and made the executive decision to get rid of the 50-lb plates.
Valerie- there is not doubt that there are some females who can enter, complete and even excel in special ops. I have about 16 years experience working with female veterans and in that time, I would say that greater than 90% of them have been sexaully assaulted during their time in the military and virtually 100% of them sexually harassed. Regular units don’t hold a candle to the kind of discrimination that is handed out on a daily basis in a spec op unit and the casualty and capture rate is much higher as well. Plus you have to think about what will happen to the rest of the unit. How about privacy when you are sharing a pup tent or shelter half with a 22 yo male? There are an infinite number of bad things that will happen to the female the unit and the mission and only one possibly good thing. Except the good thing will be by far outweighed by the physical and damage done to the female spec ops service member, if not actual death which is not an unlikely prospect even in peacetime.
How may of those “sexual assaults” have you reported, Eric?
Greater than 90 percent of female vets have been sexually assaulted in the military and 100 percent sexually harassed?????? I wonder just what their definition of both is! I’ve served with male techs, broadcasters, writers, intel guys, and infantry guys in my time in the military. I was the NCOIC of the public affairs office at the 29th ID when I was in the guard. I deployed with, trained, and conducted patrols with infantry guys on my last deployment – from several countries, as a matter of fact (and some of those nations’ armed forces are known misogynistic assholes – yes, I’m looking at you, Turkey!) – and yet, I’ve never been harassed, much less sexually assaulted. I’m hardly ugly, and I’m VERY obviously female. And yet, I haven’t had that experience. Now… having actually been sexually assaulted in college – not just ostensibly, but in reality kidnapped and sexually assaulted by a mentally sick ex – I certainly know what sexual assault is and how to recognize it. So I say this as someone who’s been there and done that. Could it be that these women are reporting good-natured ribbing, or the guys’ attempts at inclusion and making them feel like part of the team as “sexual harassment?” Could it be that a locker room-like smack on the ass has been transposed into sexual harassment or downright rape? Sorry, but I don’t buy it. My own experiences certainly don’t bear that out. And I’ve been a witness in an article 32 hearing for a male buddy accused of rape by a sniveling PFC who was angry that after an initial hook-up, he decided to stop and leave. She waited three weeks, tried to grab his attention during get togethers and flirted with him, and when he told her it was a bad idea, and that he wasn’t interested, she reported the “rape” to the company commander, wasted tons of time and resources in the subsequent investigation and Article 32 hearing, only to have her allegations disproven. So, as a woman, I tell you right now I have very serious… Read more »
Nicki- unfortunately your description and analysis is spot on – things my wife endured (and took part in) like the locker-room style ribbing, even someone saying “Okay, boys and girls, it’s time to get back to work” which used to be blown off (or even accepted as part of building camaraderie) are construed as sexual harassment or even sexual assault by the waterheads.
None of this is about mission effectiveness. We know it. They know it. And they know that we know it. They just don’t care because their agenda is all that matters. When they can’t con us into doing what they want they use force.
Meanwhile, common sense also dictates that surveys are only as good as the questions asked. So why did they ask for opinions that they obviously didn’t really want? Maybe just so that they could use the line, “major misconceptions” to describe the opinions of those whose opinions they asked. It’s all too silly.
You pay me to do a job, any job, and later ask my expert opinion about something related to that job – then allow persons with little to no knowledge of that job to opine about my expertness? Yeah, right.
Title of this article should be:
AP Poll: Special Operations troops have much more common sense than many in the Pentagon and Congress.
“Changing time-tested standards just for a social experiment doesn’t sound like the Department of Defense has the country’s best interests in their hearts.” Apparently, they don’t. The Regime has dictated that there will be females in all combat roles and, especially special ops. The biggest casualties in this may be the GO’s who hurt themselves leaping to obey that which Øbama has dictated. How many ways can a GO twist himself into knots to obey before he hurts himself?
Please correct me if I am wrong but didn’t LBJ try governing by popular opinion? IIRC that didn’t work out too well then, and it sure as hell doesn’t work out now.
Why don’t they do the easies thing like kill the special lower physical requirements for females to serve and see how that goes first?
Rhetorical question. We know why they don’t and why this continued charade is so silly.
Why don’t they add a requirement to register with Selective Service for women?
Since I’ll be off to Souf Cackalackey for the next week, I feel safe in saying that this matter of women in Special forces made me think of special sauces, which made me think of hot sauce, which made me think of chicken sammiches. So there you have my take on this recurring issue: sammiches.
I could care less if women are let into the SF Community. My main concern is that good soldiers and Marines are going to die because training standards will be lowered to get them there at all costs.
Care about lives? Only in terms of political fallout.
With the current love of all things soldier everybody wants a piece of the action…we love soldiers dearly which is a good thing compared to the past but it brings along with it an unintended consequence. Anything that is laudable to the public is corruptible.
I don’t recall anyone looking to press these issues during the 70s when being a soldier was the same as being a social pariah…nobody was too worried about making sure women had the same chance as men to be shunned and ignored during the 70s in the combat arms.
Some of these people pressing these issue do indeed want to see more dead soldiers.
Their reasons are simple, they don’t believe that America has the right to use the most highly trained, strongest troops available in spec ops to kill the enemy early and often. They prefer talking to fighting and believe that their enemies are reasonable people who just need to hear the magical words of negotiation to avoid bloodshed.
As if those who would burn a prisoner in a cage or saw a head off on video or sell women as chattel can be reasoned with through verbal negotiations.
These modern day appeasers care nothing for the military or the lives of those serving in the military. But they will press this issue until they get their wish all under the guise of fairness.
Even though nothing has ever been truly fair or equal since the first mammal crawled out of the primordial slime and decided it was time to figure out how to get by on land.
The only realistic way to settle this is to form a special unit, train it with the proposed standards, and send them out on live missions to see how they do.
The social experimenters and standards adjusters should be the first candidates.
Can you say “KGB battalion?” I knew that you could.