There are rising tensions between the Marines and other military leaders about letting all women into combat roles right away.
The Marines want to slow the movement down, but they could soon be overruled by Pentagon brass.
According to the Associated Press, the Marine Corps is expected to ask that women not be allowed to compete for several front-line combat jobs, creating a showdown between the Corp and Navy Secretary Ray Mabus.
The tentative decision has ignited a debate over whether Mabus can veto any Marine Corps proposal to prohibit women from serving in certain infantry and reconnaissance positions. And it puts Gen. Joseph Dunford, the Marine Corps commandant who takes over soon as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at odds with the other three military services, who are expected to comply with political pressure and open all of their combat jobs to women.
No final decisions have been made or forwarded to Pentagon leaders, but officials say Defense Secretary Ash Carter is aware of the dispute and intends to review the Marine plan. The Marine Corps is part of the Navy, so Mabus is secretary of both services.
Mabus on Monday made his position clear.
“I’m not going to ask for an exemption for the Marines, and it’s not going to make them any less fighting effective,” he said, adding that the Navy SEALs also will not seek any waivers. “I think they will be a stronger force because a more diverse force is a stronger force. And it will not make them any less lethal.”
Mabus’ comments angered Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who has asked Carter in a letter to demand Mabus’ resignation because he “openly disrespected the Marine Corps as an institution, and he insulted the competency of Marines by disregarding their professional judgment, their combat experience and their quality of leadership.”
Hunter, who served as a Marine in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Mabus’ comments raise questions about whether he can be objective and continue to lead the Marine Corps. And he said Mabus should have no role in any decisions about women in the Marine Corps.
Informing Dunford’s decision is the Marine Corps’ yearlong study on gender integration. It concluded that, overall, male-only units performed better than gender-integrated units. It found that the male-only infantry units shot more accurately, could carry more weight and move more quickly through specific tactical movements. It also concluded that women had higher injury rates than men, including stress fractures that likely resulted from carrying heavy loads.
The report acknowledged that “female Marines have performed superbly in the combat environments of Iraq and Afghanistan and are fully part of the fabric of a combat-hardened Marine Corps after the longest period of continuous combat operations in the Corps’ history.”
It only makes sense…..If Obbey is for it, then the rest of the world should be against it.
It’s about time !!!
I was a “Rosie the Riveter” during WWII in the Boeing plant in Wichita, KS all of 1942.
I was a blister Inspector (gunners positions) and went to high school in the mornings and then to Boeing
afternoons till midnite. 12 -14 B-17’s had to be ready to fly every 24 hrs. I made sure there was no bad rivet
in any blister before that B-17 was pushed out on the runway waiting for the Wafs (Womens Air Force) to fly
them to Washington state so the armaments could be installed. (Machine guns and belts.) Then the girls flew
them to Upper Maine where the highschool boys could fly then to Greenland for the pilots & crews flying the missions
to France & Germany. In 1944 I worked for Cessna in Wichita, KS. I am proud to called a veteran and I am invited to
talk about my part for the war effort. I go to military bases, educational institutions, and other organizations and appreciate
the fact that they are reviving the history of WWII.
My brother was a Marine. One of the highschool boys killed on Iwo Jima.
I don’t support the training of women for some of these combat duties that are suicidal.
I know, now women are flying as commercial pilots, driving cross country busses, driving 18 wheeler trucks, and training as
Army snipers !!! (I hope they know what they are doing. ) Maybe I’ m too old but there are some limits to be considered.
I have some member of my family in every war since WW1. I’ve lost members of my family as well as relatives but I know wars
will go on. That’s life, I try to deal with it.
mm
Right and adding women to the front lines will only weaken us militarily, not that there are some few women who would do okay, the majority would not be as good as the men in these type of situations of direct combat. Women can serve their country well by staying where they will function best and that is usually not the front lines.
I must offer you my deepest appreciation for your service. You indeed deserve to be honored for what you did if not in combat but in the companies and plants that were allowing America to fight that war. Society has sure changed and much of it has not been for the better. We now have a president who is doing his utmost to destroy this country and turn it into a progressive he!! hole.
“Male-only units shot more accurately”
I can understand that males would have greater raw strength that most females (but they should have found which females–and males–couldn’t hack it before deployment), do better on some tactical maneuvers (though not knowing exactly motions were required, I would expect results to be variable), and there might possibly be some sex-linked reason that women are more prone to stress fractures, but HOW ON EARTH can one make a sex argument about shooting accuracy (unless the guns are so heavy that women are tiring before finishing the session, but that should be a red flag for the men, too, because if the women are fatiguing enough in a session to affect their aim, then I’ll wager men can’t stay accurate through a decent firefight)?
In fact, it would not be fitting to God’s perfection to create only one being. For no created being, however excellent it may be imagined, can alone adequately reflect the infinite perfections of God. Thus, creatures are necessarily multiple, and not just multiple, but ALSO necessarily unequal. This is the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas, “Furthermore, a plurality of goods IS BETTER than a single finite good, since they contain the latter and more besides. But all goodness possessed by creatures is finite, falling short of the infinite goodness of God. Hence, the universe of creatures is more perfect if there are many grades of things than if there were but one. Now, it befits the supreme good to make what is best. It was therefore fitting that God should make many grades of creatures.
Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira is the author of the above.
If women can pass the same test as men; then they should have their own “Unit” , and NOT be mixed in with the men.
I don’t think women should be in combat situations. Let’s face it we teach our male children to be protectors of women. This prevails most of the time in our civilization. (Of course there are a few exceptions to this rule, we know that.) Anyway with the way American males are raised more would be killed by trying to protect women in combat situations. I say this, “Let’s us women give all of the support we can by being in the background.
The arguments of men vs women in the military are the wrong focus, especially pertaining to military readiness.
Face it: we are different, as men and women. Rather than splitting hairs and the populace, why not appreciate each other’s strengths and protect each other’s weaknesses? When it comes to qualifications, women will not qual on the SEALs’ BUDS grinder. Read the histories and biographies–the men, who have gone through that choke, it’s so intense. The only way females in the US Army Ranger and USMC IOC (Infantry Officer Course) could possibly get through the training was because the standards were lowered. Lowering the training standards and discipline throughout the military will not create cohesion or a strong, military force; rather, it breaks it down. One of the main reasons our country’s military has been so effective and strong in the past is due to its rigorous training, staunch discipline, and high standards. Lower those (amongst other things, currently happening in the force by weak-minded politicians and some weak-spined military leaders), and you can forget quality in the service or a military force, ready for combat–conventional or otherwise.
Realizing Sec. Mabus served in the USN, on a cruiser, my question is, why are he and others, who never have had ANY direct ground combat experience, making decisions, affecting troops in direct ground combat? For Sec. Mabus to willfully neglect, reject, and override the facts of the Corps’ findings from its testings of women in direct ground combat units, proves he does not have the troops’ interests and our country’s safety in his sights. He’s pushing a faux agenda that violates military readiness and puts our nation’s security at stake.
Direct ground combat (relegated to SOC-MOSs, Rates, & Specialties) and simply “being deployed to the combat zone” are not synonymous. Female units, such as USMC FETs (Female Engagement Teams) and the US Army’s Lioness program are female SUPPORT units. They do not interface as the first contacts with the enemy combatants. Historically, the repercussions from enemy combatants against women in combat zones (not in direct ground combat units), have proven hellacious and intensely violent–simply because they are fighting women. The enemies use violent sexual assault as a major weapon against women and against our forces. (SERE school training requires SOC troops to undergo hearing a woman’s being raped and tortured, so as to strengthen our troops resolve to not fold and give the enemy information.) For all those, hades-bent on women’s rights, I’d like to ask, where are they on behalf of women, placed in situations proven highly conducive for the aforementioned sexual assaults? Where are they AFTER the assaults, for the victims–if the victims survive it?
Keep the standards high for excellence; protect women from being sexual assault bait; and prevent distractions and cohesion-upheavals amongst units. (In a unit’s mix, throw a female in there, and the relationship-factors change everything and can really mess up cohesion and focus, especially in the DGC units.) –That’s just the shortlist for effective, military readiness. Our country cannot compromise our military’s readiness, cohesion, and efficacy with the changes Mabus and others like him are proposing.
Women have no place in combat. Period
The Marine Corps is NOT part of the Navy! The Navy and Marine Corps are separate branches of the military who are both part of the Department of the Navy. While Marines love their navy Corpsmen, and actually see them as Marines, the Navy acts as the Marines big taxi cab, just brings them to the battle, and sometimes gets their resupplies to the beach. That said there is not much difference between Naval and Marine air power, they are both superb.