Mabus doubles down on The Dumb
Chief Tango sends us a link to a Washington Post opinion piece written by Ray Mabus, the Navy Secretary, who attempts to explain why he threw under the bus the Marines who took part in the experiment to integrate Women Marines into combat arms jobs.
During the study, however, the Marine Corps did not rely on the data for, or evaluate the performance of, individual female Marines; instead, it used only averages. Averages have no relevance to the abilities and performance of individual Marines.
[…]
The use of averages to disqualify every woman from ground combat positions in the Marine Corps — even one who meets the standards — does not meet the clear goals set by Panetta and Dempsey.
Yeah, well, Panetta and Dempsey aren’t in charge anymore, don’t use them as a scapegoat for your own political decisions, Ray. What the Marines said was that the performance of women during the experiment doesn’t justify the expense of training women to do a job that they can’t do – sure there are women who can do the job, but considering the rate at which others fail and sustain injuries, why is Mabus, in these days of budget belt-tightening, so willing to throw away training dollars on a program that only has a political upside, one that doesn’t improve the force and it’s primary mission?
As the nature of warfare becomes more dynamic and unpredictable, we need to be the strongest force possible, and diversity is one of our greatest strengths. When we talk about diversity, we mean the full spectrum of demographics, but even more important, we mean diversity of thinking.
Diversity is political-speak for shoving a square peg into a round hole.
The few, the proud, the Marines have never been about being average; this issue is about setting high standards to keep Marines exceptional.
So, Mabus thinks that by lowering combat standards, it’s actually raising the standards. Orwellian is the only adjective I can think of while reading this entire piece.
Category: Marine Corps, Navy
I’d call him a tool, but a tool is useful.
Unlike Mabus.
How about “Untool”?
Ray “Untool” Maybus has an interesting ring to it.
Doubleplusuntool.
Orwellian, right?
More like toolbox.
I’m thinking busted tool…
As in busted Chinese metric crescent wrenches…
I’m thinking “anti-tool” is the more apropos for Ray-Ray the Dingleberry SJW POS.
IMHO … 🙂
As a young petty officer I asked a Chief why he referred to officers as zeros. He replied that officers were worthless and could not be assigned any value.
Mabus was an officer in the Navy and I guess he is still a zero as the Secretary of the Navy.
“As the nature of warfare becomes more dynamic and unpredictable, we need to be the strongest force possible, and diversity is one of our greatest strengths. When we talk about diversity, we mean the full spectrum of demographics, but even more important, we mean diversity of thinking.”
The absolute dumbest and most politically correct statement I have heard in a long time. Diversity…really? So why not include one arm soldiers with no prosthetic device? I am sure there are some who can do one arm push ups and chin ups. How about one eyed recruits? Peripheral vision is just something used “on average”. I am sure a case could be made for single eye sight with the AN/PVS-7.
Hell, let’s just toss in the towel and go full retard and take away all entrance standards, weight, tape, mental defects, you name it. After all it’s all in the holy name of diversity.
AND,,, while we are lowering the standards and attempting to let everyone and/or everything into the armed forces, we are simultaneously throwing out trained, tested and proven warriors that don’t want out.
It would almost be funny if not SO sad, ridiculous, idiotic and dangerous. You would think that since the conservatives are in control of both houses, some of the stupidity would sto, but the left has more going their way now than when they controlled congress.
Let’s hope we make it long enough for a new administration to take over and hopefully begin to fix the stupid that we are now plagued with.
“Diversity is political-speak for shoving a square peg into a round hole”. Thanks, Jonn, best definition yet.
Why didn’t Mabus just say, we’re going to have women Marines in the infantry, artillery and armor, because I said so. There’s no upside to it, other than campaign promises and some goofy idea that this will make things better.
Next up, women Marines holding the umbrella for POSoTUS if he wanders out into the Rose Garden in a drizzle.
Drank a lot of that there Kool-aid, didn’t he?
I see the answer, “Diversity is our strength”. Brought to you by Oxymoron. Or a moron who is on Oxy, huh?
Orwellian is right on.
I just love leftist platitudes, endlessly repeated.Good old Herr Dr. Goebbels. To paraphrase somebody, when I hear diversity, I look for my blunt instrument.Guns are bad, in case you’ve never heard that.
I am on Fentanyl, Soma,and Percocet and still find diversity stupid and not a strength.
Diversity is more important than having the right people in the right jobs. Don’t forget about the shooting at Fort Hood, were the government was more worried about the effect the shooting would have on diversity than the lives lost.
Maybe Ray thinks that “Diversity” is an old wooden ship? It would be cheaper to have in these budget-thin days.
Pretty tough to argue against an opinion that’s so biased and devoid of logic and reason.
What a political hack fuck. I would argue diversity is our greatest weakness. We are at war with a fucking death cult. The more we concentrate on dumb stuff our enemies grow stronger and we are concentrating on the number one mission. The number one mission is how are we going to bring as many of our enemies blood pressure to zero in the fastest and most efficient way. We’re taking our eye off the ball. But what does he care. It’s all about politics.
The decision has been made at the highest levels. Resistance is futile and can do damage to your career.
This fucking guy.
And, sadly, I’ll be really surprised if any of this crap gets rolled back should we ever get a sane administration.
Mabus, what a steaming PC pile of Phil Monkress and Giduck!
Yeah.
Mabus is one of the weakest Secretaries of all time.
No backbone or character.
Clown.
People, people, keep it positive. My contribution, At least he’s not a fucking queer like our Secretary.
At least yours has a pretty solid background at Defense. “Short Bus” Maybus? Not so much.
Mabus, you’re a moron. Gender diversity does not make the Marines better at the primary job – killing people and breaking things. Your own study proved that. Accept the facts and deal with it. Adding female Marines to your units to deal with women in the population makes a positive contribution to mission execution. Everyone agrees with that. Do that. You don’t have to go full retard and put them in assault units where they will degrade mission performance and get injured at a higher rate. But I’m just citizen dickweed, I couldn’t possible know anything.
Well, you know who has whom by the short hairs.
What were you expecting? Lollipops all around, and ‘attaboy’?
Geez, he’s a whiny bitch!
He needs a swift kick in the place where his nuts used to be.
I’ve always believed there are two distinct tyeps of military leaders. Peace time and war time. The first are politicians first and looking out only for themselves. When the shit hits the fan, they loose battles and get a lot of good people killed. Eventually, they get canned and the latter rise to the top. Then we start winning. When the dust finally settles, they get forced out because they are not politically acceptable and we go back to the former. Wash, rinse, repeat. The only exception in recent history may have been Eisenhower.
I was saying the same damn thing earlier this week! But hell, wtf do we know?
Kipling’s “thin red line” makes a similar point.
My own thought is that the U.S. has always been politically averse to having a large standing military. There’s always been an ebb and flow. What seems to have worked best in the past is that during times of little conflict, things get dialed back in such a way that a core cadre is able to maintain institutional wisdom. The goal being to make it possible for things to spool up quickly should a need arise.
One of the problems with social engineering is that it tends to toss institutional wisdom in the interest of political correctness. The net effect is that certain elements of institutional wisdom, which exist for practical reasons, get eliminated and you wind up having to reinvent the wheel.
Nevermind the fact Obama is gutting the shit out of the military, let’s just take those precious few training dollars and piss them away on people whose chances of passing are just slightly below hitting the Powerball tonight.
Standards exist for a reason, Mabus. Either you meet them or you don’t.
Ray Mabus derp de derp. Derp de derpity derpy derp. Until one day, the derpa derpa derpaderp. Derp de derp, da teedily dumb. From the creators of Der, and Tum Ta Tittaly Tum Ta Too, Ray Mabus is Da Derp Dee Derp Da Teetley Derpee Derpee Dumb. Rated PG-13.
As I’ve said about this political hack on several sites, my hope is that if one Marine or Sailor dies in the course of their duties due to his liberal social engineering, I hope Karma doubles down on family members that he loves.
Mabus, do us a favor, wouldya? Go juggle some M67s.
Warriors don’t turn their backs on their troops because they lead from the front.
Political hack dick.
When someone roles out the “diversity” card…
run..run long..run silent, run deep..just run
What surprises me is that everyone is surprised. Of course Mabus is doing what the SecDef and President want, he works for them. If he doesn’t, he will get fired, and the next guy will do it or he’ll get fired, and so on.
When Panetta rescinded the DGAR, it opened everything to women. Period. There has been no policy preventing women from serving in the combat arms since 2013, and there is no federal law either.
Panetta gave everyone a three year period to implement or ask for an exception, and no one will ask for an exception because it has to be based on individual abilities IAW the 2014/15 NDAA.
There have been two SecDefs since Panetta, and neither took action to reinstate the policy. Here’s why: DoD was being sued over the policy, and they were going to lose.
With the policy gone and no one willing to write a new one, the only way to stop this is for Congress to act- and some members may try.
That said, all Mabus is saying is that anyone that meets the standard can serve in the infantry. he is not talking about lowering the standard.
By the way, we do actually have one armed and legged Soldiers serving in the infantry. At one point we had a Captain that was completely blind.
By the way, while Obama does want to cut the military, Congress writes the laws that fund it- any cuts were approved by them- Dems, Republicans, and even the Tea Party were part of it.
And when was the last budget passed?
I read the Mabel piece and it is politically correct pap. This was not an interview he gave. This was a prepared piece, involving drafts, edits, and Lord knows how many reviewers before the final, approved product was sent to the WaPo. He (or somebody) writes,
“Second, this question is about standards, not gender; gender alone is not a justification for prohibiting a Marine from serving in a position for which she is qualified.” I’m sorry but I guess I missed that conclusion in the study. It concluded that a woman who met the standards is to be excluded nonetheless? Yeah, I missed that. As for standards and averages, think about that for a second. If the average number of pushups that can be done by a male Marine recruit is, oh, 40, and the average number that can be done by a female Marine recruit is 20, even if Mable would have us take those two numbers (40 and 20) and set a standard of 30, it won’t work. Why? Because the new standard will be lower for the average male to meet and higher for the average female to meet. So, what to do? Well, first you attack the law of averages and then you reject setting standards based on those averages. Then you use the vapid term “diversity” to justify whatever the hell you want to accomplish. If Mabel had been honest, he (or somebody) would have written that what he wants is ‘to make gender alone a justification for female Marines to serve in a position for which they are not qualified.’
That is not at all what Mabus is saying. He is telling the Marines that they should maintain their standards. Everyone who meets the entry standards should be able to enlist, everyone who meets the graduation standards should earn the MOS, and everyone must maintain that standard to stay in and get Promoted.
To use your example, assume the average male Marine does 10-15 pull-ups and the average female Marine only does 3, but the minimum for a 1st Class PRT is 5 (assuming you get 100 points on the other events). Anyone who wants to be in the Infantry would have to do 5- meaning that the average man will get in but the average woman will not. The average male score is not the standard- by definition there are males that are below average.
“The average male score is not the standard- by definition there are males that are below average.”
No kidding. I was using an example of averages, not actual standard criteria. If Mabel wants to maintain standards (he claims he does) but objects to averages (he clearly does) then there is an inherent problem. How does one develop standards that will be exclusionary if there is no baseline–that is, performance averages?
You keep saying ‘new standard’, but then you relate it to average performance.
Standards have nothing to do with averages, especially if we are talking about a specific job criterion like we are here.
I haven’t once referred to a new anything, let alone a new standard. Maybe I don’t know enough about this but I am guessing that standards are developed based upon minimal performance expectations which are arrived at through averages. Let’s say that a given generic exercise or task is done by 20 men and their scores range from 0 to 10. The group’s average score may be 5.5 and, depending upon the standard to be developed, one MOS may require a score of 7. 5 or better, another 5.0 or better, and so on. Does that make sense? (Anyone who wants is free to reply.)
Understandable, but that’s not how performance standards are set. A really good example is the standard donning the pro mask Andy MOPP gear. It is based on how long you have to get your gear on before you are a casualty.
Marksmanship and gunnery are other great examples that are based on job criterion, not a norm. The Army doesnt look at average scores, it looks at the criterion for doing the job: lifting a round, component of equipment, etc.
The APFT is norm (average) referenced test, and it is a problem because the events don’t measure real job tasks. Ask yourself this: would you rather have short stocky gunner that can load the main gun all day but only scores a 200 APFT or a gunner that scores 300 but reaches muscle failure after one engagement?
Here, I rewrote Mabel’s piece to capyure its essence.
In order to qualify for [Enter MOS here] a candidate shall meet at least one of the following standards:
1) Be female;
2) Be transgender; or
3) Meet the physical standards for the position sought.
So, People (of all publications) has written this-http://www.people.com/article/female-ranger-school-graduation-planned-advance
I’m glad to see it, but I don’t think it will change anything. The narrative must be maintained and the narrative insists that “grrl power” must be acknowledged (or, preferably, celebrated).
BTW, since Mabus is telling us that the “standards will not be lowered”, I wonder if he will insist that females in the combat arms will have to take the PT test on the male scale. I rather doubt it.
Or that they need to register for Selective Service.
And I cannot wait until the Army gets the first openely gay Secretary.
Then we will have the first openly gay Ranger student.
I am so glad I am out. The Army is going to shit. And it appears that they are starting to play with Soldier’s lives by lying, dropping standards and engaging in other PC bullshit.
The 2016 NDAA was already approved, and with the resignation of the current speaker it looks like the appropriations acts will pass this week.