This particular situation with the female Rangers is different. They "allegedly" went through the same program and physical requirements. "49 pushups, 59 situps, a 5-mile run in 40 minutes, six chin-ups, a swim test, a land navigation test, a 12-mile foot march in three hours, several obstacle courses, four days of military mountaineering, three parachute jumps, four air assaults on helicopters and 27 days of mock combat patrols."
No, we are not talking about just 2 women. This is the early result from Panetta's mandate from 2013. "The Pentagon is lifting its ban on women serving in combat, opening hundreds of thousands of front-line positions and potentially elite commando jobs after generations of limits on their service, defense officials said Wednesday. The changes, set to be announced Thursday by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, will not happen overnight. The services must now develop plans for allowing women to seek the combat positions, a senior military official said. Some jobs may open as soon as this year, while assessments for others, such as special operations forces, including Navy SEALS and the Army's Delta Force, may take longer. The services will have until January 2016 to make a case to that some positions should remain closed to women." So by next year, all elite SOFREP groups will be REQUIRED to make a case that women should not be allowed. This isn't about a few women wanting to or succeeding. It's about the Pentagon trying to foist a PC position onto our armed forces. What a waste of time and money IMO.
I'm not talking about ability or capability or rights guys. I'm asking whether this trend to having women ape men in combat, fighting and violence is ultimately reducing society to the lowest common denominator. Is that a good enough reason to encourage those few who might qualify. Do you want your women to fart and burp and act like you do or do you want a women who will encourage you to be a better person?
If women are in combat units they would naturally expect the same opportunities to be promoted as both their male comrades and other female service members in non dangerous jobs. I would feel far less trepidation following a tough, mean asshole SOB male sergeant into battle than I would any woman. It's winning the battle and staying alive that counts the most. Not equal opportunity and political correctness
I took that Into account being an equal standard was applied, but that does not apply towards the marine approach in the OP where a same physical standard does not apply. The Ranger example proves that my statement is correct. I am sure the marines know this and allowed the standard to prove a flawed concept. Rangers lead the way, again.
No they don't Not unless she has a bigger crank than you do. Not that hard to believe now that I think about it
I don't know if you were still in when they changed the PT Test scoring format. The pushups are still different, meaning the females don't have to do as many and can still do them from their knees, the sit ups however are even steven because they decided a sit up is a sit up so equal share there, I am not sure but I think they may not have made the run the same way but I think they closed the gap a little closer to even. In the end you are 100% correct in your premise.
I see your point and I agree, you mentioned something in an earlier post and I want to comment here even though it isn't in the quoted text but it deserves a response. You mentioned something about combat being "hardening" and it absolutely is. After a few tours I can tell you that I'm not the same, you never are, and I saw FAR less than many of our other brave men and women did. I guess the point I'm trying to make is yes, you start allowing women to get involved in these types of situations they most certainly won't be women anymore. That is not to say they can't (even though I strongly disagree with it) or that they would be affected differently than the men (even though life tells us that they would) they just would be a whole lot different. I'm not sure we really want to go there. I once worked for a female company commander, fiery little captain who was SO proud to be a commander in a combat engineer unit even if it was a Headquarters company. She was smart, she was capable and able and not far off from tactically sound. She had done her homework and had a good grip on a clue. Her problem was because she was a female she had this undeniable, unbeatable desire to do everything better than the boys. Being appointed as commander wasn't good enough, being spoken about and included in all the meetings as an equal wasn't good enough, being rated on the same scale just wasn't good enough. If the line companies went for a 3 mile run she had to go 4, if they started work at 6 she had to start at 5:30. Just piddly ass bullshit that really pissed everyone off. We were going over some reports one day and she asked me why everyone hated her. I said Maam, thats because you are bitch. Her eyes got the size of pie plates and I said look, you are a Cpt, a Company Commander, the 1st female company commander in a combat engineer unit, concentrate on being the best commander you can be and quit trying to compete with the other 3 Captains as if this is some kind of race to see who can win this or that. She came back with some shit about a glass ceiling and blah blah and I said well, you asked and I told you. Settle the phuck down and just be a damn Captain like the others are doing. Of course she was a woman so she didn't listen and we hated her until the day she left. Adios.
At least she wasn't in a position to get you killed. I would be a lot more comfortable going to war with Sgt Rock than Sgt. Rockette.
Had the shit gone down at that time she would have been but I was long gone before any of the present day drama got started. Here is a story about life under her command: Hang on I need a beer: So when I worked for her I was in charge of the battalions ammunition account. A real pain in the ass procedure to fill out the paper work then you have to go pick it up way the hell out in BFE, inventory it because its your ass if you sign for something that you don't have, deliver it, then come back and pick it up, oh and if there is any live ammo that wasn't used in training it becomes a bigger pain in the ass to deal with. Just a huge pain in the ass. Our company, the HHC was out in the field playing Army for about a week but the rest of the Battalion had range week which means me and my crew of 5 were putting in some very long hours hauling ammo around in one of these. and of course my HMMWV. She was insistent that we (my crew) go play Army with them even though it wasn't at all practical, there was NOTHING for us to do there as all of our work was delivering Ammo to the guys shooting on the lines but alas I let her have it her way. The sides on the truck above will fold down with the pull of pin and drop down to make it a flat bed. We were all sleeping in the bed on those fold out beach chairs when she started waking everyone up at 05:00. When she got to our truck we were ready, the sides came down and low and behold we had parked right next to a nice pond so she found us dressed like Hawkeye from mash and fishing poles in hand and lures in the water. She was angrier than I had ever seen her. Ran screaming for the First Sergeant to do something about this unruly Staff Sergeant that wouldn't play by the rules. Thats the type of shit I had to put up with.
