Thread: Interesting report on Females in combat

Originally Posted by Confed999

It takes an extraordinary person to go through hours of HTH combat.

Try being in hard labor for 16 hours with no sedatives (comparable to your guts being ripped out). It will definitely build up your tolerance for pain and endurance.

Originally Posted by Julie

Try being in hard labor for 16 hours with no sedatives (comparable to your guts being ripped out). It will definitely build up your tolerance for pain and endurance.

She could be one of the certain ones then, but it still won't solve the integration problems.

Originally Posted by Anoop C

I think this discussion is being conducted at cross-purposes.

As for women not being allowed in combat operations, isn't that true only for the Army? I remember reading about a female USN pilot (on the F/A-18) who flew missions over Afghanistan.

So the question becomes, is a woman capable of performing the role of an infantry soldier in the current battlefield? The answer seems to be - on an average no, but of course exceptions exist. That answer might change with the evolution of the battlefield, when physical strength and endurance becomes less important and technology does the 'heavy-lifting'. The question then becomes, should the Army provide for exceptions or for the norm? Isn't that cost-benefit analysis best left to the Army?

Good post...

Originally Posted by Julie

Oh, it has a heck of alot to do with me.

Fine, allow me to ante up then.

My army went through integration and whether you like it or not, it hurt and it hurt big time. We've lost veterans who refused to work with women. Pigs perhaps and maybe, it was damned time for them to go but you tell me who's more valuable RIGHT NOW! That vet knows the ins and outs of every corner or the new pretty girl on the block?

Just using my regiment as the example, I lost 20% of my Sgts simply because they've refused to work with women. Right here, right now. That 20% lost is intolerable. It effectively rendered my regt wartime incapable. Thank God, it was peacetime when we integrated.

Get it through your head. You two also have absolutely no idea the kind of roles the women are being asked to play in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Are they vital? Yes. Are they exposed to combat? Most certainly. Are they engaging in combat? Definetely. Are they carrying on a combat role? Not a chance in hell. They're exposed to combat because of their exposure, not because it's their primary job. They're not being asked to carry 75lbs, march 24 hours into a firefight, spend 10 hours there and then march back out, carrying their wounded.

Are there women in my army who could do such things? Yes, and they're part of the Canadian infantry and as of right now, they're needed but we paid the price doing it. You haven't. And we paid that price during peacetime. You're now wanting to pay that price during wartime.

Thus far, the women in Iraq are not in the combat arms units. They're getting along great with men because that's who they were working with during peacetime. Get into the combat arms units and you have a whole different story. How many men in the combat arms are willing to put up with women? I'll do one better, how many Sgts in the combat arms are willing to put up with women? The majority might but even a small minority, say a Company Sgt-Maj, you effectively reduced combat effectiveness for over 100 people. Is that the kind of price you want to pay during wartime? Because that's the price we paid during peacetime.

Also, it took strong leadership who refused to be blackmailed into pushing this thing through. I was one who pushed it through because it was Policy. A Captain has ZERO say in policy but I will tell you that without the support of my RSM, it would have been a disaster, reducing combat effectiveness for over 1000 people. I supported the policy and I lost Sgts, good Sgts, but I rather lose them than allow them to blackmail Canadian Forces policy. I enforced integration and I am perfectly aware the price the CF paid to push it through.

And that is the situation right now. You want to blackmail or at least shame US DoD policy into allowing women into the combat arms. Well, the leadership is refusing to budge on this and for good reason, now is not the time to rock the boat and it's a PC fight that frankly is nowhere to be fought in the middle of a war. Not when the gains are so minuscue. How many female soldiers right now are qualified for the combat arms? Again, using my army as the example - SIX PERCENT and these are soldiers.

I'm sorry that you feel you're being stepped upon. I'm sorry that you feel you've got the short end of the shaft. I'm sorry that you feel that you deserve better. I'm sorry that you feel you want a woman in that Flag Draped Coffin instead of a man but as of right now, I am not sorry that it is one Flag Draped Coffin instead of two.

Originally Posted by Julie

As far as ignorant goes, well, you can keep that word and put it where it means something.

On this issue, I was referring to the author of the article and I should have used the quote option better. I apologize if you took offence that was not meant for you.

However, you are really uninformed when it comes to the issue of the combat arms, the combat service, and the combat support.

Originally Posted by OoE

You want to blackmail or at least shame US DoD policy into allowing women into the combat arms. Well, the leadership is refusing to budge on this and for good reason, now is not the time to rock the boat and it's a PC fight that frankly is nowhere to be fought in the middle of a war.

Jessica Lynch signed up thinking she was going to Hawaii. If the MEN would keep there mouth shut about not having enough help on the ground, the DoD wouldn't be sending women over there. That is the point. So, the DoD are sending women...evidently it's all they have left to send. So tell the men to deal with it...they have to fight the war with what they've got, not what they want to have. I think Rumsfeld told them that if I'm not mistaken.

Originally Posted by Julie

Jessica Lynch signed up thinking she was going to Hawaii. If the MEN would keep there mouth shut about not having enough help on the ground, the DoD wouldn't be sending women over there. That is the point. So, the DoD are sending women...evidently it's all they have left to send.

No, that's the point you're missing. The DoD is NOT sending women over there because there are no men left. They're sending the women over because they happenned to be part of the Combat Service units that are called up. Women are ALLOWED in the Combat Service units. They are NOT ALLOWED in the Combat Arms units. Those Cbt Svc echelons are flushed out with women because that's what they were in peacetime. The DoD is not in the habbit of dismissing entire units from duty just because they have women in them.

Originally Posted by Julie

So tell the men to deal with it...they have to fight the war with what they've got, not what they want to have. I think Rumsfeld told them that if I'm not mistaken.

We do and we tell the women the same. You're not in the Combat Arms. Live with it.

Originally Posted by Officer of Engineers

No, that's the point you're missing. The DoD is NOT sending women over there because there are no men left. They're sending the women over because they happenned to be part of the Combat Service units that are called up. Women are ALLOWED in the Combat Service units. They are NOT ALLOWED in the Combat Arms units. Those Cbt Svc echelons are flushed out with women because that's what they were in peacetime. The DoD is not in the habbit of dismissing entire units from duty just because they have women in them.

Then I guess updated DoD Congressional reports are not credible, and I shouldn't believe everything in them I read.

Originally Posted by Julie

Then I guess updated DoD Congressional reports are not credible, and I shouldn't believe everything in them I read.

Originally Posted by Julie

The Army's Third Infantry Division has added scores of female soldiers to newly created ''forward support companies" that provide maintenance, food service, and other support services to...

Still, it's combat support.

I'd have to see the actual reports to know if the reporter reported them correctly.

Ok,

Let me try once more.

The DoD is now scrambling to send every qualified clerk, cook, driver, mechanic, heavy lifter, Military Police over to Iraq. These are soldiers who can carried a rifle (or at least should, Jessica Lynch is a poor example and not a unique one of units who couldn't) and are qualified to engage the enemy in combat. Some of these qualified people are women who has seen and will continue to see combat as part of their tour.

There are no qualified infanteer, tank driver, actual combat arms personnel who are also women because by law, women are forbidden from these branches.

The missions assigned to these two different branches are different and while the combat service people (cooks, drivers, MPs, lifters, etc) will most likely see combat, it would not be on the same scale nor intent of the combat arms people.

I will give up after this one if you still don't see the difference and accept the fact that to you a soldier is a soldier is a soldier is a soldier. To us, there is a vast world of difference, and one apparently, you cannot understand.

I very much see the difference -- and I don't know why you keep harping on that. My question and/or point is, it is wrong, and why? You keep saying it is because women is pushing it....that is definitely not so.

http://cmrlink.org/WomenInCombat.asp?docID=245

ARMY CHANGES DOD RULES ON WOMEN IN LAND COMBAT
3/14/2005 12:02:00 PM

CMR Exposes Improper Assignments—Asks DoD Inspector General to Intervene

After months of pressure on the Department of the Army, which caused the service to adjust but not end single-minded efforts to force female soldiers into land-combat collocated units, the Center for Military Readiness filed a formal Request for Corrective Action with the Department of Defense (DoD) Inspector General on March 9.

This astonishing scenario was first set forth by the Secretary of the Army and the Vice Chief Staff, Gen. Richard Cody, during a meeting with Elaine Donnelly and her associate Dr. Charmaine Yoest on February 16. During that meeting the two women pointed out that such a directive would be virtually impossible to write, and even more difficult to enforce. Donnelly asked for copies of the documents that were apparently influencing the Secretary’s thinking, but did not receive a copy of the Women in the Army Point Paper from that office until two days later.

You can read the rest of the article if you like...it's up to you. The two women in that meeting opposed what was going on in the re-wording to put these women in these positions. In any event, Rumsfeld is not doing anything to bring this back in line with the law as to women.

So what did they do, filled the next round of 3rd infantry from Ft. Stewart, Georgia, full of Georgia women that are practically born with a gun in their hand, and shipped them to Iraq.

Keep reciting the rule book to me over and over.....but that aint what's going on....get it?

Originally Posted by Julie

I very much see the difference

No, you don't. 3ID is a division with combat support and combat service elements. Being assigned to a combat division, hell even a combat company team, does not mean you have a combat MOS.

Here's the entire article so there can be no confusion

ARMY CHANGES DOD RULES ON WOMEN IN LAND COMBAT
3/14/2005 12:02:00 PM

CMR Exposes Improper Assignments—Asks DoD Inspector General to Intervene

After months of pressure on the Department of the Army, which caused the service to adjust but not end single-minded efforts to force female soldiers into land-combat collocated units, the Center for Military Readiness filed a formal Request for Corrective Action with the Department of Defense (DoD) Inspector General on March 9.

The request for intervention focuses on a “Women in the Army Point Paper,” produced by the office of Secretary of the Army Francis J. Harvey on January 24. Officials claim that the document is “pre-decisional,” but it is being implemented anyway. The Army also claims that what is now being called a “concept” is in compliance with current Defense Department (DoD) rules. The four-page point paper, however, arbitrarily changes the “gender codes” of 24 of 225 positions in a formerly all-male forward support company assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division, based at Fort Stewart, GA and recently deployed to Iraq.

The FSC in question is one of several designed to collocate with the Army’s new combined infantry/armor maneuver battalions, which are part of modular “unit of action” brigade combat teams. CMR has learned that leaders of several other combat-collocated support units are revising and “validating” similar unauthorized changes, even though the Pentagon official who sent the Women in the Army Point Paper did not produce copies of orders mandating such changes.

The Women in the Army Point Paper also drops several land combat units from the list of those coded to be all-male, including multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) and reconnaissance, surveillance target acquisition (RSTA) squadrons in the Army’s Stryker Brigade Combat Teams (SBCTs) These conspicuous omissions could be a sign of even more radical changes that will eventually affect all land combat units, including all Special Operations Forces units and the Marine Corps.

Evasion, Equivocation, and Battlefield Evacuations

The supposedly “unofficial” Women in the Army Point Paper includes a subtle but momentous change in the wording of current Defense Department regulations, which the Army does not have the power to make. Current rules prohibit the assignment of female soldiers from assignment to “battalion size or small units which are assigned a primary mission to engage in direct ground combat or which collocate routinely with units assigned a direct ground combat mission.” (AR 600-13, as affirmed by DoD, 1994, emphasis added).

The new wording would only exempt female soldiers from such assignments when the land combat battalions are “conducting an assigned direct ground combat mission.” (emphasis added) Under this new “concept,” female soldiers in forward support companies won't be collocated, even though they will be in the FSCs, because they really won’t be there when the battle begins.

This astonishing scenario was first set forth by the Secretary of the Army and the Vice Chief Staff, Gen. Richard Cody, during a meeting with Elaine Donnelly and her associate Dr. Charmaine Yoest on February 16. During that meeting the two women pointed out that such a directive would be virtually impossible to write, and even more difficult to enforce. Donnelly asked for copies of the documents that were apparently influencing the Secretary’s thinking, but did not receive a copy of the Women in the Army Point Paper from that office until two days later.

The altered language of the collocation rule apparently underlies the unrealistic notion that only male soldiers will go forward when a unit is “conducting” a battle, while female soldiers will be evacuated and sent elsewhere just prior to hostilities. That would leave as many as 24 positions vacant when the combined infantry/armor battalion is most in need of formerly all-male soldiers in its collocated forward support company.

Donnelly told Secretary Harvey and General Cody that orders to evacuate female soldiers on the eve of a battle would be unfair to male and female soldiers alike. It would mean that battalion commanders would have to choose between the combat mission and a new Army mandate that sacrifices the advantages of modularity in order to achieve social/political objectives that should not be given priority.

Evacuating 24 fully loaded female soldiers would require two Blackhawk helicopters, six Huey helicopters, one Chinook helicopter, two 5-ton trucks, or 12 fully-crewed up-armored humvees—assets that cannot be spared on the eve of battle. The ensuing turmoil in the ranks would render the collocation rule virtually meaningless. That would suit Army planners who said in a November 29 briefing that they wanted to eliminate the rule, despite prior assurances to Congress that they had no intention of doing so.

Doublethink Definition

Secretary Harvey’s office insists that the new language is “unofficial,” but the same wording was used in a February 24 letter addressed to a concerned CMR supporter whose letter to Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was referred to the Army for a reply. That letter contradicted itself by simultaneously suggesting that women would not be routinely collocated with units “conducting” an assigned ground combat mission, but in the event of hostilities they will “remain” with their units. (letter signed by Col. Kenneth E. Musser, Chief, Individual Readiness Policy Division, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff G-1)

Donnelly noted that the latter statement is more credible than the first, but it cannot be made in the same letter claiming that the Army is “vigilant” in staying within current “guidelines” governing the “assignment, placement, and employment” of female soldiers. DoD regulations are not just “guidelines,” and there is a law requiring prior notice to Congress before those rules are changed.

In subsequent correspondence with Pentagon officials, Donnelly noted that contradictions in the February 24 letter, which is the latest in a series of constantly changing statements to Congress, the media, and the general public, fits the definition of George Orwell’s doublethink: “Thought marked by the acceptance of gross contradictions and falsehoods, especially when used as a technique for self-indoctrination.” (American Heritage College Dictionary, Third Edition)

Intervention Required

The Center for Military Readiness first became aware of persistent efforts to force female soldiers into land combat-collocated units early last year. An unclassified document titled “Combat Exclusion Quick Look Options,” dated May 10, 2004, set forth several alternatives for assigning women to units that are coded all-male. One of the options proposed the assignment of female soldiers to a larger gender-integrated unit on paper, but collocation with an all-male infantry/armor maneuver battalion in reality. The 3rd Infantry has implemented a variation of that plan, which the Army admitted could be seen as “subterfuge” to avoid the required notice to Congress.

On June 25 CMR petitioned the Inspectors General of the Departments of Defense and Army for immediate intervention to restore the Army to compliance with law and policy. Nothing substantive was done, but the Army kept coming up with new explanations for actions that officials claim have not changed the rules, and therefore do not have to be reported to Congress 30 legislative days in advance, as required by law. That law also requires a detailed analysis of the effect of proposed changes on women’s exemption from Selective Service obligations. The Army has provided no such analysis.

At the time that CMR filed its first Request for Correction Action, Pentagon officials were still denying that female soldiers were being assigned to forward support companies (FSCs), which are organic to and collocated with combined infantry/armor maneuver battalions.

The new Women in the Army Point Paper, however, reveals that 24 positions were slated for the assignment of female soldiers, apparently without the approval of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld or the required prior notice to Congress. Female soldiers have already been deployed to Iraq in formerly all-male forward support companies, which are designed to collocate with combined infantry/armor “unit of action” brigade combat teams. (Boston Globe, Jan. 26)

CMR has visited the Pentagon to discuss this issue with high-level officials who have the authority—and the responsibility—to bring the Army back into line with law and policy. Despite repeated requests for intervention, however, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has not intervened.

CMR has also attempted to bring the matter to the attention of General Richard Myers (USAF) and General Peter Pace (USMC), Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, since precedents set by the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division are sure to affect all of the services. The staff of both officials nevertheless deferred the matter to Army and DoD officials who have been part of the problem, not the solution.

This would include Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, Dr. David Chu and his Principal Deputy Charles Abell, former Army Acting Secretary Les Brownlee, former Assistant Army Secretary for Manpower & Personnel Reginald Brown, and pre-Bush Administration civilian staffer Bradford Loo.

High-level failures of leadership on this issue are disappointing, since precedents set by the 3rd Infantry’s recent deployment are likely to be applied to all the services for consistency’s sake, and the credibility of Army officials on the issue has been repeatedly undermined by conflicting statements to Congress and the media regarding the wording and meaning of the collocation rule.

Some Army officials have claimed that women are needed for the new modular combat teams because there are not enough male soldiers for the forward support companies. CMR sources in the field dispute this, and the Army has not produced actual numbers to support their assertion. To the extent that shortages do exist, they are the result of gender-based recruiting quotas that should have been eliminated long ago, especially when the Army realized that it would need more land combat soldiers to fight the war on terrorism after the 9/11 attack on America.

Nor have Army officials made a convincing case for policies that would undermine the advantages of modularity in land combat units. Instead, uniformed and civilian officials have claimed that the changes are needed in order to “grow” the careers of female officers.

CMR supports women in the military, but maintains that this rationale is not valid. Female soldiers have historically been promoted at rates equal to or faster than men for several decades. Even if career advancement were a problem, the overwhelming majority of female soldiers, who are in the enlisted ranks and are known to oppose involuntary land combat assignments, should not have pay the price for bureaucratic errors and career advancement for a few female officers aspiring to flag rank.

The changes revealed in the point paper exceed the authority of the Department of the Army, and stand in violation of current Defense Department policy, a law requiring prior congressional notification, and the wishes of the Commander in Chief. The ultimate responsibility for bringing the Army back into line is invested in Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and President George W. Bush, who said in an interview that his position was “No women in [land] combat.” (Washington Times, Jan. 11)

In the document linked below, CMR has asked that the Army return to a policy of clarity, consistency, and compliance with law, policy, and the wishes of the Commander in Chief.

Where in there are specifically women doing combat arms?

Originally Posted by Anoop C

So the question becomes, is a woman capable of performing the role of an infantry soldier in the current battlefield? The answer seems to be - on an average no, but of course exceptions exist.That answer might change with the evolution of the battlefield, when physical strength and endurance becomes less important and technology does the 'heavy-lifting'.

Anoop,
Do you mean to say that technology will change the way battles were fought in say Kargil? The lifting of heavy weapons will be done by robots on those craggy mountain tops?
...the only way technology has changed an infanteer's wars are by giving him and his enemy more lethal and accurate firepower. The loads carried by him have increased and not decreased over the years.