Today I read an article which stated that women might be allowed to attend the US Army’s Ranger school. This follows closely on the announcement that the Marine Corps will allow a few good women to attend the Infantry Officers Course.
Whether or not women should be allowed in direct combat has been a matter of discussion for quite some time. Women have, of course, taken part in combat actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of them have been seriously injured or killed. Quite a few have received extremely well-deserved awards for valor. Seriously, read this.
I’ve attended neither Ranger school nor the Infantry Officers Course; my hat is off to any person, man or woman, who successfully completes either one. I have, however, served in a small unit while deployed which had female Soldiers. Much like their male counterparts, there were good ones and bad ones. Although I was 19 and longed for the day when I would no longer be sleeping in close proximity to a bunch of dudes, I primarily evaluated the female Soldiers on whether or not they could do their jobs, not whether they would turn heads at the dining out when the unit redeployed, or any other factor.
All of the current signs point to an inevitable integration of females in infantry units, which, with the possible exception of special operations forces, would be the final step in the decades-long overall integration of women in the military. I thought I would voice my own opinions on the subject, which, as always, I try to keep to the practical as opposed to the emotional. The subject is, however, emotional, and I will address those common concerns first.
Emotional Arguments Against Women in Combat
Several arguments I have heard against allowing women in combat involve emotions – that women will be too emotional to participate in day-to-day combat operations, that men will grow emotionally attached to women in their units and become distraught at the sight of their serious injury or death (or vice versa), and so on.
I have never seen a seriously injured (in combat) female; I have not been present for the death (in combat) of a female. I have spoken with a fellow Corpsman who had become friendly with female Marines that were later killed in Fallujah. A very tough man, but he became very quiet when he mentioned the death of “the girls.” It was obvious that it had been troubling him, and would continue to do so for a long time.
I have also seen the reaction of Corpsmen and Marines immediately after the death of a comrade. These emotions vary from hard-faced stoicism to becoming completely distraught. The bonds that form between men in combat have been written about by others and should need no special description from me, but I cannot really imagine a greater level of emotional pain than that which I saw on the face of a line company Corpsman who had just had a Marine friend die while the Corpsman was desperately working to save him.
I was aware of relationships between men and…men while I was deployed, and they did not seem to cause any problems that could not be solved at the NCO or SNCO level. I am sure that the first (safety?) briefs on professionalism and avoiding personal relationships to an integrated infantry company will be extremely entertaining.
As to whether women are too emotional to participate in combat – I cannot provide any specific facts to counter this, but I just don’t think that a determined woman, dedicated to whatever mission was at hand, wouldn’t be able to put emotions aside and get the job done. I am also certain that there are women who couldn’t do so (as well as a number of men).
Mental Arguments Against Women in Combat
I have been told that women just cannot do the job, mentally – that they are not tough enough for it. This may not be a very different argument than the emotional one, but I thought I would address it anyway.
In my life I have been privileged to know a number of extremely tough women. I have no doubt that they would doggedly continue to fight until they could physically no longer do so, and then they would summon the strength to fight on anyway. If you have any doubts about this, read the article I linked above about the female Army sergeant who kept flying medevac missions after breaking her leg when she put her body between an injured Soldier and a tree. Naturally, she downplayed the injury.
There are also women who cannot handle the stress of such a situation. While treating an injured Marine in a non-combat situation, my only trained assistance was in the form of a female Corpsman who quite literally got up and quickly walked away from the casualty, saying something along the lines of, “I can’t handle this.” Needless to say, I was not impressed with her performance. However, I’ve known men who would have done pretty much the same thing she did. In fact, I’ve worked with men who failed in a similar fashion. The women are simply in more of a spotlight when they do so.
I have heard second and thirdhand stories of poor performance on the part of female engagement teams (FETs) in Afghanistan, and I am sure they would be mentioned by someone in some comment on this article, which is why I bring them up. However, I have not seen them firsthand and cannot say whether they are mostly true or mostly false. I do not wish for this discussion to devolve into an exchange of anecdotes, although I have brought forth many of my own so far.
Weeding out the emotionally and mentally weak is a job for instructors at various points in the training pipeline, as well as NCOs at the small unit level, who are already used to identifying those who need to pull duty instead of participating in dismounted combat patrols.
Physical Arguments Against Women in Combat
The crux of the issue for me is whether or not the job can be done. There are not many factors which have more of a bearing on completing a task in combat than whether the Soldier or Marine can physically pick up their armor and weapon and ammunition and gear and water and food and make it to where they need to go in a physical condition that allows them to fight for an undetermined period of time and then make it back to wherever they need to go.
In addition, carrying a wounded comrade to safety requires a lot of physical strength. Part of my Field Medical Service School training involved dragging and/or carrying a 180lb dummy through an obstacle course, which I quite enjoyed, and, I think, excelled at. I was disappointed to see that many of the females in my class chose to let their male teammates drag the dummy for the entire evolution – then again, my two male teammates were perfectly happy to let me drag the dummy for the entire thing, too.
To this end, the differing physical standards for men and women in the military would, quite simply, have to go. Physical standards for men shouldn’t be lessened – women should be held to the same standards that men are for their particular branch of service. In addition, it wouldn’t be fair to have different physical standards for “combat” women and “non-combat” women, for promotions are often determined by physical fitness test scores.
This would have a definite effect on the women who wanted to join the military, but not the infantry. I have certainly known women who were strong enough to wear body armor, sling a 240, and carry a ruck. They are few and far between. Those women who want to be in the infantry but could not currently meet the physical requirements would have to work hard to do so – and those women who just want to be in the military and actually want to be promoted would also need to work harder.
Practical Arguments Against Women in Combat
Some of the arguments against allowing women in combat center on the logistical requirements and additional costs that would be required in order to properly train women – for example, that separate schoolhouses would have to be built, and so on. My answer to this is simple – if men and women are to fight together, they need to train together.
I would go so far as to suggest that latrines should be integrated, if not in a garrison environment, then definitely in the field. Basic levels of privacy and respect should be maintained, but this is a responsibility for individuals.
The bottom line here is that integrating women into infantry units needs to be something that is done to enhance (or at least maintain) the fighting capabilities of the military – not weaken them.
Challenges Faced By The First Women in Infantry Units
The very first women to enter an infantry unit will have to prove themselves at a level which I would go so far as to say no group of military women has ever had to face. They will, no doubt, be carefully selected, and entirely capable of the tasks they will face. My main concern is whether or not the women to follow them will perform at the same level.
The first female carrier-based fighter pilot, LT Kara Hultgreen, was killed in a crash that was determined to be the result of pilot error. I do not have enough information to determine if she was pushed beyond her capabilities into a role which she was unable to fulfill, but I do not want any American servicemember to die as a result of a political desire to have complete equality in the uniformed services.
My Swedish mech infantry unit had women in it. Some were good, some were bad. Some were strong, some were weak. We had integrated sleeping arrangements but separate showers and toilets in barracks. Out in the field we slept, ate and shat at the same places (dick or no). One of my female squadmates is currently in Afghan and according to what I’ve heard she’s doing just fine. Overall I’d say that everyone has to chill the fuck out, make sure everyone passes the tests required and get on with their lives. There are more important issues at hand.
In the future, women are fully integrated and capable. See Starship Troopers. But on a serious note, I agree that there shouldn’t be varied training based on gender. The emotional issue doesn’t seem like an issue and can be addressed in initial training. Of course there’d have to be some serious extra training to men to act a little more gentlemanly where possible.
You must mean the movie. Because in the (much, MUCH better) novel, the MI was all men because of the insanely high physical requirements.
Yeah, the book was awesome. I do not think I would have made it through the physical training. In the book, women were mentioned as being physiologically better suited to be pilots.
A practical consideration for the book, but not mentioned in it, would be the physical differences in stature might have required a different suit. I can see the MI putting some strict rules in place for how tall, and wide the recruits needed to be just so they didn’t fall outside the range the suits could be adjusted to. Not to mention the plumbing…
I’m not a soldier, never have been, however I spent time in a fire department and what bothered me was a person that couldn’t do the job – notice I didn’t say man or woman, I said person. I think with what you wrote above, the key is can they physically do it with the same standards expected of a man. If they can, great. If they can’t, find another MOS.
I am privileged to know several Rangers, and from their first hand accounts there is no way that women will have a better than 1-5% graduation rate if they did not lower the standards of the school. extremely physically fit men drop out, Navy Seals drop out, men who have been through RIP drop out, SF soldiers drop out. I know that I would have little chance passing the course. Lowering standards endangers our troops, I am an advocate of privatizing all non combat rolls, increasing the standards and training of all combat rolls, and investing in even better equipment for every soldier. This idea of fairness for promotion reasons is sad, the military’s only concern should be the safety and security of the United States, feelings don’t matter.
@BCB Mesa – I don’t think he’s advocating for reducing the physical requirements.
“Physical standards for men shouldn’t be lessened – women should be held to the same standards that men are for their particular branch of service.”
I agree with Vuurwapen here. I never understood why female marines would have to do a flexed arm hangs while I did pull-ups. There is nothing physically stopping a woman from developing the strength to do pull-ups. I also say eliminate the double standard and train together.
+1. Anybody who can’t even lift their own body weight at least once has no place in the Corps, let alone the infantry.
If its too hard, they will drop out, just like so many men. There may be a few super-women, let them be all they can be. I am concerned about the military sexual assault statistics including those that go unreported. However, any woman who gets through Ranger training probably won’t be a target.
The above readers pretty much state the same I will say.
A flat and equal physical, mental, and training qualifications to get the job done. At most, provide a light shower curtain type fabric for the unisex latrines and showers for privacy.
One other requirement I’d instate, which might draw controversy, is a strict regulation against personal relationships, punishable by UCMJ art. 15 as a warning and an art. 16 if behavior is continued. I’ve seen the interpersonal conflicts and negative effect on moral when two Soldiers thought what they had was a sweet secret. Its always a secret to nobody but the couple.
The Ranger Creed states “I accept the fact that as a Ranger my country expects me to move further, faster and fight harder than any other soldier.” Obviously the female candidates should be held to the exact same physical standard. Greulling to say the least. The danger, is this. If a large number of women fail in the first classes, the political pressure to make sure more pass would be huge. At first a non-official double standard would manifest itself by pressuring instructors to pass marginal female candidates. Ultimately the standards would inevitably drop for EVERYONE, and the Ranger of tomorrow might no longer be able to move further, faster, and fight harder than any other soldier. That, by definition, is a degradation of combat capability.
All the emotional and relationship stuff can probably be fixed via training and leadership, but the physical part can’t be. Ammunition doesn’t weight less because you are a girl. A 170 pound guy carrying what is reported to be the average rifleman’s fighting load in Afghanistan is carrying 36% of their body weight. The same 63 pound fighting load on a 120 pound woman means she is carrying about 53% of her body weight. Which means her fighting load is about equal to the approach load of the men. This is bound to make her slower and less nimble when people are shooting at her.
The reported 96 pound average approach is 80% of a 120 pound woman’s body weight. No matter how motivated and determined she might be, she’ll be slower, get tired faster and get injured more often than someone in the same condition who is carrying only 55% of their body weight.
Your argument seems to be “the average fit woman is 120 pounds, so all fit women are 120 pounds.” Clearly, you’ve never seen a tall, fit woman before. They do happen. And they do weigh in excess of 120 pounds.
I think one thing you left out was the fact that male soldiers will respond emotionally in a different way to “girls” getting wounded or killed than they would to men. Specifically, if a female is wounded, are soldiers going to take greater risks to recover her? Are they going to put the mission (or themselves) in danger in order to prevent harm to the female(s)?
As men, we’re conditioned (if we had decent upbringings) to protect our women. This is something that can be a detriment to fighting.
There’s a rather interesting book written about this very subject. It’s social commentary disguised as military science fiction.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Amazon-Legion-Tom-Kratman/dp/1451638132/ref=pd_sim_b_3
I haven’t been in any unit where there were woman, but I have been deployed where there are women. I know this is going to cause issues, but it is a reality. When women are put in close proximity to alpha male infantry or SOF units for extended periods of time there are going to be issues. Men and women develop personal relationships that cause issues almost always. There is the way it should be and the way it is.
I think woman should have to meet the same standard, I just think it would be difficult to put them into the same units as men when they have to be in environments like Ranger School. Again, we can all say how we would like it to be, but if the solution tries to ignore human nature or history than it is just going to mess everything up. It is impossible for things to remain the same and introduce women into a place where there are often zero places to go to the bathroom, you have to carry heavy gear without sleep or food, you have often change in front of each other (everyone sees each other naked at some point)…..just don’t see how it would work. And yes, I have been through Army Ranger School (as a Marine, Sept-Nov 1998).
Best option in my opinion would be to start off with a separate women only infantry unit and move from there. At a min, it should be separate training, same standards, then possibly the same units…..just really doubt it would work.
I agree with what you have said and appreciate your input…I think that it will be interesting to see what happens and I really hope that it doesn’t have a negative effect on our ability to do what needs to be done…
Thought provoking article Andrew. Another ‘argument’ you neglected (or maybe considered and didn’t include) is the Moral/Philosophical opposition to Women in combat. I don’t think women SHOULD fight, regardless of whether they CAN. It’s not a PC position to hold and may not be popular, but bears consideration. Women intentionally, systematically placed in combat has been rare in the history of civilization. I believe that is no accident- nor is it a mistake.
I think it might be because the idea that women and men are equal in dignity and rights has also been rare in the history of civilization. For almost all of human history, women were considered inferior beings in every regard, no matter what evidence to the contrary.
I served in the early 1980s in the US Army, MOS 19D. This was a time when women were just getting into regular army units in numbers. They were in support only. My experience was not good with the women in those units. They were very poor in terms of performane and especially attitude toward the men who were in combat units, they resented us because we acheived rank so much faster. That was always the way and it still is, combat MOS means you get rank faster, period.
They did not respect men with combat MOSs, they felt because they may have outranked you they were more qualified and the truth is they were not, they were just REMFs with no understanding of what it is to be a soldier. They wore the same uniform but there job was the same as a civilan and had no idea what to do under fire, think Pvt. Lynch here. You show people with rank typical military respect but it goes both ways.
So many of them at this time spent their whole tour with profiles and never took a PT test. They were always on profile because of their period or some other female issues. Some even spent most of their time in service pregnant and never did a thing, uncle Sam paid for their everything, they never even worked. Meanwhile we averaged 14 hour work days in the Gap in Germany. Very rarely even had a day off or were out of uniform and I mean BDUs.
I hope things have changed. But from what I hear it’s still pretty bad even now concerning the performance of women in the military. The majority of women cannot handle military life, it is not an easy life to live. I remember the poor attitudes toward us in the hospitals and everywhere else we went by female soldiers. To this day I never understood why. They looked down on us, unless we had rank they treated us poorly. It was no fun being a PFC or Pvt and having to deal with some E-4 or spec 5 BITCH behind a desk giving you a tough time for some unknown reason, I guess they did because they could. You wanted to take them out back and slap the shit out of them but had to take it and they knew it. It almost NEVER would happen with a man under the same situations.
BUT………..there are Women that can do the job, even combat. If they are able to do their job, if they are able to carry 100 pounds 20 miles or whatever they do now than by all means they are equal and should be allowed to be in combat. Bottom line is anybody who can do the job should be allowed to do it, whether you are a women, or gay or a green freakin’ Alien!!! That goes for every part of our society, we are all equal and should be given an equal chance.
Anything I have been involved with in the Government, woman strike fear into every man out there regardless of rank. They know if you treat them like a man, all the have to do is complain and everyone involved is done. I have no issue with treating women like women and giving them everything that goes along with that, but don’t tell me you want to be treated like a man and then be upset when you are….most of us are knuckle dragging animals, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Just a fun tidbit, we had women that we so fucking fat with those big child baring hips that they couldn’t fit down the scuttles to get into the mags… I mean come on! Even fat men could fit down the scuttles to get down the ladders. Plus, the pretty ones weren’t allowed in my division because they would then be left alone in the mags with men and they were afraid they spend all that alone time…. yeah you can finish that thought. And yes, their concerns were valid.
This was just a weapons division building bombs for planes and they sucked! They couldn’t lift the weight of the bombs, the fins, the cans of ammo/fuses/pyro, they couldn’t pull the skids. They didn’t want to drive the fork lifts… I mean come on! I’d roll bombs by myself, I had to run fins when we built because I had the strength and endurance to do it. What did the girls do, ran the fucking hoist…. god forbid the hoist goes down then they are absolutely worthless.
We had women show up to the ship and be pregnant within a few months and on shore duty. Word on the ship was we had some fat bitch that didn’t know she was pregnant until she was in her last trimester. We had to stop flight ops and get within helo range to get her off the ship…
The women that can handle military service are FAR and FEW between. Standards should be maintained and probably increased for all.
I don’t see a problem with allowing women into the military if the standards of performance are maintained. We could take a few pages from Israel’s book about integrating women into the military; they don’t seem to have a problem with it. However, Israel’s smaller population essentially requires that they include women in the military or risk having an army too small to ensure security. Their motivation is national security, whereas ours is political. If integrating women into combat roles in the US military in any way lowers the performance of their unit, I think the whole thing should be considered a mistake.
My only concern is the mental response of the men. IIRC there was a study done by the Israeli Military in which men were shown to behave recklessly and disobey orders when they saw their fellow female soldier injured.
IMO a breakdown in the chain of command isn’t a good thing… the military might have to do more research into how a female soldier affects the men rather than how she does her job. Training weeds out the incompetent.
With regard to integrated barracks, heck just integrated units; these are young, very physical people. What happens when the male gunner is hooking up with the female rifleman… after the grenadier was her regular guy? It’s not a knock on anybody, it’s pure biology IMO.
One teensy change I want to see (in addition to what you’ve said) if we were to gender integrate the military. Eliminate the no penalty medical discharge for getting pregnant. It’s the ONLY self inflicted medical condition that gets you out with an honorable discharge.
While this won’t cool the boy’s ardor, it will have a chilling effect on the girls, who are the gatekeepers of if sex is happening.
I definitely agree with that…Pregnancy is unfortunately used by SOME women in the military to avoid deployments and so on.
Get preggy while in service, immediate discharge. Let them come back in after they had the baby at reduced rank. Or something like that, the reduced rank thing will make them think twice, so to speak. If you want to become a mommy don’t even think you can be some type of combat mommy and get over on the system. Too many people getting over on the system in this country.
I have a BIG beef with the whole Pregnancy issue. The military spends a LOT of money just to train one soldier. The more specialized, the more the training cost. I come from a tactical military intelligence background and I’ve seen too many female soldiers lay waste to the near the near $150,000 it costs for security clearance investigations, language school, and intelligence school.
Pregnancy has no place in a combat unit. Menstrual related issues have no place in a combat unit. PMS has no place in a combat unit. These all lead to problems of morale and camaraderie that is essential for unit cohesion.
Make birth control pills mandatory for females wanting to be in Infantry or SF, in addition to my aforementioned restrictions of sexual relationships, punishable under UCMJ.
Chandler is a POS.
Panetta tore DoD as director OMB in 93-94.
This is all politics and scheduled around the election.
F them and the horse they rode in on.
Hey, I’ve been a reader of your blog for a little while, and really like your approach on a lot of subjects. I figured I’d give my 2 cents on the subject.
A little bit of background. I’m a Marine grunt, my fiance is Marine Motor-Transport (we started dating in high-school before joining the Marine Corps over 4 years ago). Both being reservists, our rotations happened to mesh up and we both wound up in Afghanistan the same time, and while she was doing 48 hour to two week convoys, I was rotating between the same base she operated out of and a smaller patrol base.
My fiance is honestly a great Marine, and did her job better than many men in her field. She also served with other great women. My point here, is individual women can certainly do their jobs. That being said, hearing from her throughout the process (from boot camp back in 2008, through MOS school, and through a mobilization and deployment) it makes little sense to me whine the military would include women in certain occupation fields where they aren’t necessary. My assessment of the situation is that women should be limited ONLY to jobs such as FET, where there presence is necessary. Having 2-3 women on a supply convoy of 50+ men not including the LNs makes ZERO logistical sense. It’s not worth the extra effort of housing them separately, having to deal with harassment (which was a serious problem), as well as the occasional chick who goes around causing problems (her company had a few of those).
Women can handle themselves in combat. The bigger picture of including women at low percents relative to males when not mission critical, is stupid politics that results in problems and headaches for the military. I am all for having female infantry squads within a company when needed for a FET, or having women embedded in smaller SOF units, again, women play a necessary role when dealing with any sort of combat policing. Having women attend IOC to help run these FETs makes sense. That said, including women in low numbers as motor transport, or among other largely male dominated MOS’s, while these women may be individually great at their jobs, socially and logistically causes more problems than it solves.
The one thing I will say is if women are going to take on these roles, they better be physically up to par. My fiance knows MANY women who were in awful shape who she deployed with, she herself came back with a severe back injury from months spent in the turret, and she’s a great athlete, who has always maxed out the PFT. If we start allowing women into infantry units, especially line companies, the numbers who can keep up with the guys without getting injured are going to be pretty low. The biggest guys leave the infantry with their joints shredded, and the biggest women will be about as big as the smallest guys.
To summarize my points
1. Women individually could be fit for duty as infantry
2. It makes more sense to having women in mission critical infantry roles than as ones and twos amongst largely male units of any MOS
3. If we hold women to the same standard as men for these jobs as we should, even fewer women than those who currently serve would be truly qualified
Mike
Thank you for the well-reasoned input.
Well put, the only reason to have them in those roles is politics, it will not make the units more effective. I have yet to see any argument that explains how these units will be more capable if there were females in them.
The military should be exempt from playing this game, there is too much at risk to have to keep people happy that are not even a part of it. People that have not served, should not attempt to tell those that have how things need to run. Opinions are fine, but present them knowing that you don’t have all the info. Just be thankful that some people are willing to live this life so you can live yours the way you like.
None of the 8 women in my fiances company got pregnant. At the same time, we had guys do all sorts of stupid crap either intentionally or not which resulted in them not deploying. One doesn’t need pregnancy to get out of a deployment.
Mike
This is worth a look……. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fy–whDNNKk
Bottom line, it doesn’t matter if there are a few women that can do something, it doesn’t mean they should, and it doesn’t meant that men will act the same way around women as they do in an all men unit. I would give a bunch of silly examples of things that some people can do, but are not allowed because rules and policies are made around the norm, not the exception.
Decades ago, as an Infantry trainee on pass, I watched GI Jane at the Ft. Benning (Home of the Infantry) theater, and there were cheers when she delivered her penultimate line. I think women in the Infantry is a lot closer than many realize.
That said, the standards must not change for women. I honestly don’t know if the few percentage of women making it through the physical, mental, and emotional stress of Grunt Life are going to be worth the changes necessary to handle their specific needs, or if there will need to be any real changes.
But thanks for tackling this reasonably and objectively. A very real debate over this must happen, and the hysteria (a word carefully chosen) on both sides is not contributing to that debate.
I can tell, I’ve lived in places and conditions in Afghanistan that are no place for women. Living like rats on the Pak border with no showers, and pissing in troughs out in the open. This particular COP, didn’t have the room for separate bathroom facilities, and IF you bathed it was in front of everyone awake and from a bottle of water. That was, of course, we had been well enough supplied to use the water for anything other than drinking. Pissing in font of everyone, cleaning in front of everyone…….do the people making these decisions know how Infantrymen talk to one another? I mean seriously, a woman suddenly dropped into a cohesive and seasoned Infantry company is an EO complaint waiting to happen. You would have to start fresh, from scratch, and completely change the normal dynamic of an Infantry unit. You take an Infantryman out of his environment, he’s the most professional soldier you could hope to meet. You put him behind closed doors with his brothers, and the conversation topics get real rough real quick. This whole thing needs to be left alone.