The Major is wrong in her conclusions. She forgets that she has not had to meet the same standards already and is in her current position due to special treatment of her gender. The Major is unfortunately typical of many in our country today, she does not look at this issue as one of combat effectiveness or national security, she looks at this from the view of "it's my right". Is it not my right to have the best people I can with me so I do not die due to your inability to function in a ground combat environment? Is it not my right to have my focus be on the mission and the group over the individuals want's?
I have been to Iraq 2x, Afghanistan 4x. I have yet to see these examples that the Major talks about, women are not in the field shooting and moving. The FET, CSTs and CAs are not value added. CSTs attend the same selection as the CA's and it is a joke. The training that all of the groups get is not value added. They do not have language and medical skills as a universal part of their training, if they did they would be useful for short periods at an isolated site. As it is, they do not have those as a standard qualification, so what do they bring? Oh, access to the female population? Women are not valued in Afghanistan, period. They do not have sway, influence or input of any kind. So, you are not providing intel. What is it you are providing? What do those groups bring to the table? Nothing. They are extra mouths to feed at a VSO, COP or FOB. They cannot keep up with the grunts or others and often cause social drama that distracts from the mission. They are not value added.
While I am thankful for the Major and all CAS support, flying in a plane is not equatable to ground combat. I would also like to know about air to air, manpads, SAM or AA that has been going on that also somehow proves that flying today is proves females are in constant combat in that field. I am appreciative of what the Major does but, in the air or on the sea we have not had a challenge in a long time.
Women do not belong in ground combat. Here is a link to The Washington Times article that deals with the new push for Infantry and SOF roles for females in the US. It has links and paragraphs from Medical Studies done in both the US and the UK, the UK decided not to put women into combat roles due to the long term study that is linked in the article. Below the link are past studies done by the military, shows continually that females have not been made to meet the same standard but that does not matter since they are in the military due to a stated "goal" of 15% set by the individual services. The article has the UK studies linked, hope you read them.
http://www.washingtontimes.com...
This is from when they first started sending women to the Academies:
From the report of the Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces (report date November 15, 1992, published in book form by Brassey's in 1993):
"The average female Army recruit is 4.8 inches shorter, 31.7 pounds lighter, has 37.4 fewer pounds of muscle, and 5.7 more pounds of fat than the average male recruit. She has only 55 percent of the upper-body strength and 72 percent of the lower-body strength…
An Army study of 124 men and 186 women done in 1988 found that women are more than twice as likely to suffer leg injuries and nearly five times as likely to suffer [stress] fractures as men."
Further:
"The Commission heard an abundance of expert testimony about the physical differences between men and women that can be summarized as follows:"Women's aerobic capacity is significantly lower, meaning they cannot carry as much as far as fast as men, and they are more susceptible to fatigue."In terms of physical capability, the upper five percent of women are at the level of the male median. The average 20-to-30 year-old woman has the same aerobic capacity as a 50 year-old man."
From the same report:
"Lt Col. William Gregor, United States Army, testified before the Commission regarding a survey he conducted at an Army ROTC Advanced Summer Camp on 623 women and 3540 men. …Evidence Gregor presented to the Commission includes:"
(a) Using the standard Army Physical Fitness Test, he found that the upper quintile of women at West point achieved scores on the test equivalent to the bottom quintile of men."
(c) Only 21 women out of the initial 623 (3.4%) achieved a score equal to the male mean score of 260."
(d) On the push-up test, only seven percent of women can meet a score of 60, while 78 percent of men exceed it."
(e) Adopting a male standard of fitness at West Point would mean 70 percent of the women he studied would be separated as failures at the end of their junior year, only three percent would be eligible for the Recondo badge, and not one would receive the Army Physical Fitness badge…."
From Canada's recent experience with gender integration into the combat arms:
"After extensive research, Canada has found little evidence to support the integration of women into ground units. Of 103 Canadian women who volunteered to joint infantry units, only one graduated the initial training course. The Canadian experience corroborates the testimony of LTC Gregor, who said the odds of selecting a woman matching the physical size and strength of the average male are more than 130-to-1."
Even in the Fleet Navy, the study of Damage Control gave the following results: (1990's, some of the testing is obsolete now, they used P250 Pumps in the initial test, P250s are no longer used. Stretcher carry's are something that will never go away though)
Test: Stretcher Carry, Level-% of Females (F) who failed initially (I) and who failed after 6 months post (P) weight training: I %63 P %38
% of Males (F) who failed initially (I) and who failed after 6 months post (P) weight training: I %0 P %0
Test: Stretcher Carry, up/down ladder-% of Females (F) who failed initially (I) and who failed after 6 months post (P) weight training: I %94 P %88
% of Males (M) who failed initially (I) and who failed after 6 months post (P) weight training:
I %0 P %0
There is loads of other stuff out there too, sad that none of the mainstream journalists or radical, agenda driven Women's Studies PhD's ever seem to find this stuff? The writers who push this idea that women should be in combat never seem to use them in their articles either. Weird huh?
Some more information:
1.) Title IX has increased female participation in athletics, that is fantastic. It has not increased you capabilities physically to be equal of that with a man. You skeletal systems, size, muscle density are still not equal to that of the average man. You use the Olympics as an example, so I will add an anecdotal Olympic example. Females on the Olympic Wrestling Team, who are world champions, national champions and even Olympic Champions in their early 20's, could not even win a State High School Championship against boys. This is a combat sport, where you have females who are world class among other women but who when faced directly with men are average at best.
2.) You have not made an argument that including women in combat units would increase our combat effectiveness. How do women increase our combat effectiveness?
Some Myths: Taken from Co-Ed Combat by Kingsley Browne
1.) Myth: The sexes do not differ that much in physical strength-
Women have only about one half to two thirds the upper body strength of men and in many studies the effect size separating males and females is on the order of 2 to 3. The probability that a randomly selected man will have greater upper body strength than a randomly selected female is well over 95%. You have about a 5% overlap with regards to strength, if there were no overlap it would be 100% for random selection. The strength issue is mostly due to the amount of muscle tissue, a difference attributable primarily to sex hormones. Testosterone increases muscle mass and is also associated with a reduction in body fat, especially subcutaneous fat and deep intramuscular stores of fat, of which men have less than women. As many male beer drinkers have learned to their sorrow, however, testosterone does not decrease abdominal fat. Rather, it is estrogen that inhibits deposition of fat in the abdomen, although it increases it in the breast, thighs and buttocks. Thus, the greater musculature of men and the higher proportion of body fat in women are both traceable to sex hormones.
Taken from Co-Ed Combat by Kingsley Browne
2.) Myth: Muscular Strength is the only relevant Physical Sex Difference-
In dismissing objections to placing women in combat, many integrationists reject the importance of muscular strength and then assume that they have dealt with the issue of physical differences. The sexes differ not only in strength, however but in a host of other attributes, such as speed, aerobic and anaerobic capacity, endurance, throwing speed and accuracy, height, weight, bone mass and amount of 02 carrying hemoglobin in their blood. These differences in physical capacity should be of major concern to advocates of sexual integration.
Men run substantially faster than women at all distances from the 100mt through the ultra long distance races, with mens' world record speeds at the various distances ranging from 7-12 percent faster than womens' for commonly run distances. These difference may not sound great but when the fastest man crosses the finish line in the marathon the fastest man is usually more than two miles ahead of the fastest woman. A lot of this is attributable to the larger hearts, larger amount of muscle tissue in the legs, greater aerobic capacity higher hemoglobin counts and greater blood volume.
Taken from Co-Ed Combat by Kingsley Brown
3.) Myth: Sex Differences in Physical Performance can be overcome through training-
A common explanation for sex differences in physical performance is that the boys engage in more vigorous athletic activities than girls. Therefore the argument often goes that performance can be equalized through training. Although it is true that boys tend to be more physically active than girls, training will not eliminate the difference; indeed, it may actually increase it.
Both sexes benefit from strength training, of course, and sometimes women gain more from training than men. A study of Army strength before and after Army basic training for example found that women's upper body strength as a percentage of men's increased from 57% to 60%, leading the researchers to conclude that "basic training brought the strength of the females to that of males" Although it is true that the average difference between the strength the sexes decreased slightly with training the overlap between the sexes also decreased. Training not only increases the strength of both groups, it also decreases the variability within the groups. Thus, despite the increase female strength, that likelihood that a randomly selected man from this group would be stronger than a randomly selected woman went up to 98.5%.
Answer these questions Major:
How does this make us more combat effective?
What promise do you have that the standards will not be dropped when in our entire history we have never made females meet the same standards?
How will you deal with the high rate of losses of females from a unit due to orthopedic injuries caused by the skeletal system that females have that is not designed to be load bearing? (see Q angle)
How will you deal with the high rate of losses of females from a unit due to pregnancy?
How is this cost effective?
What is more important to you, career opportunities or the mission?
Still looking for the Female that can knock out a strict 20 pulls ups. I know they exist Ive just never seen one. If we made even basic physical standards the same for females 70 percent of them would be gone tomorrow, not even talking combat, just physical tests on standard with the males. Increased leg injuries are on the way as well
