Anon

FROM THE ARTICLE IN QUESTION:

"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"

That one sentence right there tells us exactly what the FSC's intended role is.

Julie

ARMY BETRAYING ITS WOMEN…AND MEN
1/17/2005 12:37:00 PM

I recently heard from a female soldier who feels betrayed by the Army. Calm but justifiably angry, the soldier said she is being assigned to a forward support company that will “collocate” with the Army’s new, modular infantry/armor land combat battalions. This is a serious change in policy, unfair to male and female soldiers alike.

Under current regulations, women cannot be forced to serve in smaller direct ground combat units such as infantry or armor battalions, or in companies that collocate with them. If the Defense Department wants to change these rules, law requires that the Secretary must notify Congress no less than 30 legislative days in advance, when both Houses are in session. Despite the “collocation rule” and notification requirement, the Army is unilaterally assigning women to previously all-male forward support companies in its new “unit of action” land combat teams, key to “transformation” to a lighter, faster force.

In letters signed by underlings, the Army claims compliance because the units in question will belong to gender-mixed brigade support units operating elsewhere. This is only an administrative sleight of hand, which a May 10 Army briefing admitted could be seen as “subterfuge.” Pentagon planners rearranged blocks on organizational charts, but in actual practice the forward support companies in question will still be collocated with and organic to the Army’s new combined infantry/armor maneuver battalions all the time.

What’s worse, Army officials have tried to mislead Congress about their intent. During a November 3, 2004, briefing for congressional staffers, Pentagon officials denied any violation or change in rules exempting female soldiers from assignments in land combat-collocated units. A different briefing conducted inside the Pentagon on November 29 stated that the preferred “way ahead” really is to “rewrite/eliminate the Army collocation policy.”

When the Washington Times reported the duplicity on December 13, Army Staff Director Lt. Gen. James Campbell immediately issued a widely distributed memo warning about “information security” and the loss of “positive control of pre-decisional briefing materials, decision memorandums, and otherwise generally sensitive information.” President Bush and the Congress should ask, why is this matter so “sensitive?”

Some military decisions must remain confidential, but this is not one of them. The 3rd Infantry Division, based at Fort Stewart, GA, has been quietly training women for the new land combat forward support companies, while arrogantly claiming that the notification law does not apply. “Lessons learned” from the division’s impending redeployment to Iraq will be declared a “success,” but if (when) anything goes wrong, officials will blame the collocation rule that they intend to eliminate. Either scenario will betray the trust of soldiers and undermine the Army’s own best interests.

Some officials have claimed without support that female soldiers will have to make up for shortages in male combat soldiers for the Army’s new land combat teams. To the extent the problem exists, gender-based recruiting quotas are to blame.

Instead of dropping the gender quotas, the same officials pursue an illicit course of action that will erode the effectiveness of all land combat troops and eventually apply to Special Operations Forces and the Marine Corps. The Army has also defied logic in retaining co-ed basic training, acknowledged in 2002 to be “not efficient” in transforming civilians into disciplined soldiers. Revised “warrior training” programs sound impressive, but gender-normed standards emasculate the concept by assuring “success” for average female trainees. Soldiers know there is no gender-norming on the battlefield.

The nation is proud of our women in uniform, but that is no excuse for forcing unprepared female soldiers, many of them mothers, to face the physical demands of violent close combat and a higher risk of capture than exists today. In the Army’s own surveys over a decade, 85-90 percent of enlisted women said they oppose such policies. Their opinions matter no more than those of male soldiers, who will have to bear new “female force protection” burdens that could complicate dangerous missions.

Combat commanders will have to cope with significant personnel losses, distractions, and social turmoil that would be more intense in the heat of war. Predictable problems include far higher rates of medical leave and evacuations, primarily due to pregnancy, which Army officials refuse to reveal or discuss. Making the mix even more volatile will be sexual attractions, personal misconduct, and accusations of the same.

Forget feminist legends about Amazon warriors and push-button wars. The modern land combat soldier carries weapons and high-tech equipment weighing 50-100 pounds, with body armor alone weighing 25 pounds. Such burdens would be disproportionately heavy for average female soldiers who are certainly brave, but shorter and lighter, with smaller hearts, bones, 25-30 percent less aerobic capacity for endurance, and 40-50 percent less upper body strength.

Politically correct group-thinkers and Clinton-promoted generals in the Pentagon apparently have forgotten certain realities affirmed by overwhelming evidence: In direct ground combat, women do not have an “equal opportunity” to survive, or to help fellow soldiers survive. No one’s injured son should have to die on the streets of a future Fallujah because the only soldier near enough to carry him to safety was a 5’2” 110 pound female.

The concerned soldier who contacted me recognized that the Army is about to conduct an unannounced, extremely dangerous live-fire social experiment under wartime conditions. With deployments imminent, what can be done?

President George W. Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld must intervene to enforce the notification law, and encourage the recruitment of young men. In long-overdue congressional hearings, members should require Pentagon officials to document alleged shortages of males, and explain why female soldiers should have to pay the price for the Army’s bureaucratic errors. Congressmen worried about sexual abuse of military women should be consistent in expressing concern about the higher risk of combat violence at enemy hands.

Today’s changing battlefield makes it even more important to maintain personnel policies that recognize combat realities that have not changed. The collocation rule should be strengthened, not weakened, and applied consistently in all units that collocate with direct ground combat forces. At times we have no choice but to send young men into land combat, but we do have a choice when it comes to sending our women there.

Elaine Donnelly is President of the Center for Military Readiness, an independent public policy organization that specializes in military personnel issues.
http://cmrlink.org/WomenInCombat.asp?docID=243
_________________________________________

The above is an understatement to the role women are enduring in Iraq. "Male soldiers, who will have to bear new “female force protection” burdens that could complicate dangerous missions.

There was a tape recording played some months back by a woman who had called her mother and told her mother to call who she had to "raise mortal hell." Why? Because these woman were being sent on missions without force protection. Did Jessica Lynch's truck make a "wrong turn?" Or did they have a force protection group assigned to them at all? Is that why she was awarded "unearned" medals....because of the bureaucratic error she was placed in? Most probably.

The male soldier put Rumsfeld on the spot on National television. Rumsfeld went back to Washington, re-worded the rule book, then sent those guys a bunch of women, and said, deal with it. Now the age enlistment has been raised to 39, and the guys over there will get some grandpas to boot.

"Some military decisions must remain confidential." LOL...You have no idea.

The only compliment I can give to Rumsfeld as to sending women to Iraq and placing them on the ground in direct forward combat.....is that he chose the women from Ft. Stewart.

Anon

FROM JULIES ARTICLE: "Instead of dropping the gender quotas, the same officials pursue an illicit course of action that will erode the effectiveness of all land combat troops and eventually apply to Special Operations Forces and the Marine Corps. The Army has also defied logic in retaining co-ed basic training, acknowledged in 2002 to be “not efficient” in transforming civilians into disciplined soldiers. Revised “warrior training” programs sound impressive, but gender-normed standards emasculate the concept by assuring “success” for average female trainees. Soldiers know there is no gender-norming on the battlefield."

RIGHT ON sayeth me.

That woman just said about everything i've been arguing all along.

Imagine that.

That's a great article. Bonehead should definitely read it, as should anyone that thinks this all about chauvinism.

The FACTS, are the FACTS.

Julie

I'm not the bonehead here Sniper. The Pentagon is. Like OoE said, they have an agenda to push....they push it with words. I'm not disagreeing with what you are saying as to women in combat. It is the Pentagon sending women with one intention on paper, then placing them in entirely another after arriving to Iraq. Don't criticize the women for that, they are just doing as they are told to do.

Officer of Engineers

The article does not answer my question. Who's having the problem with your relative or with the women in general. The people outside her unit or the people inside her unit, ie, the people who has nothing to do with her job or the people she's working with?

As a battalion level CO, this is hogwash and merely men griping since the person involved, be that person a woman or a man, is qualified to do the job she or he is assigned to. No more and no less protection would be given to that person. If that person is not qualified to do the job, be that person a man or woman, then that person will be removed from my TOE.

Currently, NO WOMAN is qualified to do combat arms and thus, within the combat arms, this is not an issue.

Within the Forward Support Companies, if this is an issue and nothing you've posted thus far tells me it is a problem within the FSCs, then the Company Command Post must and probably do enforce action, most likely to tell the men to live with it and get on with their jobs.

But again, NOTHING you've posted tells me anything of this sort.

There were men in her unit as well. Let's not talk about PFC Lynch because her unit was a walking cluster****. What PFC Lynch experienced CANNOT be attributed to gender but the lack of proper training and operational standards within her unit. That is to say, it's her commander's fault, be that commander a man or woman.

You're getting things mixed up. The soldier was complaining about the lack of armoured plating on trucks.

I don't see it that way (it was their turn) and my wife (from Texas, naturalized Canadian) would disagree with you.

Again, is this a problem with the people working with women or those who are not working with them?

__________________
Chimo

Officer of Engineers

OF COURSE THEY ARE! THEY'RE SOLDIERS! The reality on the ground is that there are (and for the longest time) co-ed combat support and combat service units. The reality on the ground is also that there are no women in the combat arms. They are two distinct roles. One of which women have been serving with pride and good order.

The problem arises when one side or the other is suggesting that the women are now capable of doing combat arms of which only a tiny minority is actually capable of.

Anon

JULIE SAID:

"I'm not the bonehead here Sniper."

LOL, no, Bonehead is the bonehead here.

"The Pentagon is."

AGREED.

"Don't criticize the women for that, they are just doing as they are told to do."

I've attacked the policies that put women(and by extension their entire unit) into combat unprepared....i've never criticized the woman themselves.

I have criticized young peoples ability to keep their pants on...but that's male and woman alike. And i've criticized those that make false allegations to get their way, both male and female alike.

I've never said that women are not to be admired for their desire to serve. They are.

The problem is God made us sufficiently different that females are at a significant inherent disadvantadge when facing men from a variety of standpoints, and he made also young people horney little devils who don't co-habitate very well.

LOL.

Julie

Bingo.....now, we're getting somewhere. Not that I'm agreeing to that, but to push an agenda....yeah, that minority figure can easily be over-blown. Do you think it might piss the male soldiers off when these more than a tiny minority get to Iraq. Yes it does. Why? Read Sniper's posts where he is arguing with himself.

Officer of Engineers

I would be extremely disappointed if you do.

And BINGO! Here lies the problem. Do we pissed of the majority of the men who are now doing the actual fighting and dying to satisfy a few women?

I've explain it once and I will explain it again. Integration into the combat arms can work, even if the result is a tiny minority which it is in my army but it hurts. This is best done in peacetime where you can afford to lose wartime capabilities (because it's peacetime). You cannot afford to do so in wartime.

Julie

But....it is being done is my point. And if the men over there doesn't stop whining, the Pentagon will begin shipping the grannies to them. That would be me.

In the meantime, the women are doing the best they can do, stuck between a rock and a hard place. The rock being the Pentagon, and the hard place being the male soldiers.

Officer of Engineers

But it's NOT being done, that's my point. The units with women that are being sent are integrated during peacetime and will stay that way during wartime. The combat arms units with men only were that way in peacetime and is staying that way in wartime.

I am really not seeing what you're seeing. Qualified soldiers (be that soldier man or woman) are being sent to do the jobs to the best of their abilities. No soldier is being asked to do the job outside of their abilities. The women being sent are asked to do their jobs to the best of their abilities but those jobs has not and will not include the combat arms.

The only issue that we have is the combat arms, nothing else.

American women have served in combat with distinction and honour. Just look at the nurses in Vietnam.

Don't volunteer, Julie, you want to go, the army will find a spot for you. Believe me.

I'm trying to understand the hard place. You have not answer my question. Are the men giving the women the hard time the men who are working with them or the ones looking in on the outside?

Anon

"Read Sniper's posts where he is arguing with himself."

LOL, do i do that often?

You've just GOT to post an example of what yer talking about miss.

Anon

"The rock being the Pentagon, and the hard place being the male soldiers."

Miss, i would state that the hard place is the MISSION.

Julie

I seen interviews of male soldiers saying "we need more troops on the ground." The women being placed in positions they should not be IS going on. The male soldiers aren't happy about it, nor are the women, which is the whole point of me posting those articles written by a WOMAN.

This isn't about "satisfying the women." This is about women being put in positions they should not be in because of the excuses given by the men on the inside as to why they aren't getting the job done. Do the male soldiers like the Pentagon's solution to their excuses, NO. The women are not aware of what the true circumstances of their positions are until they enter Iraq.

The Pentagon is pushing this agenda with the women, not the women. It is to appease the men and their problems, not the women's liberation agenda.

Anon

What men does this policy appease exactly?