Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
As I predicted back when Obama first announced this, the military is watering down the standards so women can pass the test to serve in combat roles.
Can’t do 3 pull-ups? For crying out loud, I can probably do 3 pull-ups and I’m 35 years older and 150 pounds heavier than these women. Hope to God we never need them do to anything strenuous to defend the country.
It’s a pretty sad day for the Marines when boosting your own fat ass over an obsticle is deemed a “team lift.”
Joe Doakes
All that’s true. But it could be worse. If the military adopts Common Core, Marines will be trained to run toward what they can reasonably infer is the sound of gunfire. And Naval Aviators will merely have to show they reasonably tried to get the hook onto the third wire…
I have a nasty picture, somewhere, of a female Russian soldier who was raped and murdered by the Germans on a World War One battlefield. No I won’t link to it.
Nice that the U.S. government will now give women the opportunity to serve in combat!
I remember reading Shirer’s “Rise and fall of the Third Reich”, and it’s worth noting that both sides of the eastern front in WWII were known for a huge amount of brutality that way. I believe women were incorporated in the Soviet army mostly as “comfort women”; Solzhenitsyn wrote about the concept in “Cancer Ward”, if I remember correctly.
Interesting claim by one Marine that he can train women to do pull-ups–OK, fine, but there is still the question of whether 120 lb woman that can do 12 pull-ups is a match in a fight with a 180 lb male who can only do 10. This whole thing is reminding me of the controversy about firefighters; OK, can the firefighter get an average sized person out of a burning building? If not, why are they on the force? Same thing with the Marines.
The Soviets no doubt used women as “comfort” troops.
They were also snipers (including some notably successful ones), fighter pilots, and a whoooooole lot of truck drivers and train crews.
BB – good point. Some folks might be particularly “fit” with regard to pullups and other body-weight exercise but not large enough to do the firefighter’s job of actually carrying someone to safety ……. Wouldn’t want to have to explain that to a feminazi-type
In GI Jane, tough-chick Navy SEAL Demi Moore is unable to drag the wounded Master Chief off the beach by herself; instead, another team member must help her, putting three people at risk.
That’s not just Hollywood, that’s real-life consequence of lack of upper-body strength. Reducing the standards for combat troops reduces overall unit combat ability and increases risk of casualties, solely for reasons of partican political correctness. If that’s not an actual war crime, it ought to be.
from the 1976 movie “The Enforcer”…
Ms. Grey: ‘Women stay home’, is that what you’re saying?
Callahan: You think this is an encounter group? What will she do if someone points a gun and says, “Hit the deck”?!
Ms. Grey: You’re trying to fail this candidate, aren’t you?
Callahan: If she fails there, she gets her ass blown off!
Moore: It’s my ass!
Callahan: And my hard luck. Out there you’ll have a partner. You get blown away, he does too! That’s some price to pay for being stylish! …
http://www.filmsquish.com/guts/?q=node/2835
Nate, you got it–and combat is worse than firefighting, because that 200 lb. fellow soldier is wearing 50 lbs of body armor and carrying another 30-50 lbs of gear. Good luck getting him out of harm’s way when you’re 120 lbs and carrying 80 lbs of your own!
If we can’t have sanity reign here and say “no” to women in combat, the best we can do is (per Seflores’ comment) make sure they have to meet the same standards in training. A few hundred women maimed for life by infantry training is a heck of a lot better than thousands killed in combat.