WOMEN in COMBAT ARMS

This was inevitable - the Department of the Army is seriously considering allowing women to attend Ranger School.





Anybody who has ever attended that hellhole will know this is beyond a bad idea, this is insane.

The hero named Grim over at BlackFive has a great analysis of this PC-gone crazy:

A better argument: women are structurally at least four times as likely to be seriously injured in this kind of intense physical training, and possibly -- if the British army's experience is telling -- as much as eight times as likely.
This leaves three options for implementation, all of them bad.

1) Hold the line. Qualified women attend at full speed. Through no fault of their own, but simply due to the physics of body construction, we lose some of the best female soldiers in the Army to career-ending injuries; and/or we lose years of their careers to recuperation. This attains the stated end -- women who survive and get the tab will be due much respect -- but at a very high cost to the force, and the country.

2) Make another line. Men continue to attend at full speed. A second track for women, with a lighter physical load, is developed. Women with Ranger tabs end up the butt of jokes instead of getting the intended respect, because everybody knows they got the tab for less effort. This fails to attain the stated purpose of the reform, as the Ranger tab won't get the women any respect. This also severely damages the Ranger ethos, by making some Rangers more equal than others. A two-track elite is not an elite; only the top of the two tracks is the elite.

3) Abandon the line. Move the physical standards back to levels women can complete without sustaining the kinds of disabling injuries associated with the current physical fitness standards. This fails to attain the stated end, and actually achieves what Killcullen is worried about: it destroys the ethos associated with the Rangers.





SNAFU!'s take on it HERE - a synopsis:

If women are allowed to serve in the Infantry...or go to Ranger School then you're going to have to lower the standards. There is no if's and's or but's about it.

If you don't lower the standards then you're going to lose some outstanding individuals that could have served admirably in another career field.

If you make it a two track system where standards for women are different from men then you have just solidified them as second class warriors.

Men had to do more and be better to get to the same place.





"War is simple, direct and ruthless," - General George S. Patton


There has been a creeping incrementalism going on for over a decade - the whole women in the Combat Arms thing. This is nothing more than an extention of the old Women's Lib movement from the 70's; i.e. Political Correctness taken to the extreme. It's telling that the impetus to include women in Ranger training and Combat Arms units is the same issue used to justify women in command slots in the Navy - to allow them to compete more equally for promotions against their male counterparts. Excuse me; isn't the purpose of the U.S. military - or any military organization - to defend the nation? This kind of civilian human resource thinking deters from the mission; to crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the cries and lamentations of their women?


Soldiering is hard, punishing work. Marching endless miles taxes the body; day into night, burdened by weapons and equipment up to 50% of your body weight; tired, hungry, thirsty, fed upon by insects and parasites. Infantry training leaves permanent injury. We are not talking about a sporting event, where training involves proper rest; Infantry and Special Forces operations push soldiers to the breaking limit through extreme infiltration techniques, lack of sleep, hunger, and then demand performance at complex, physically demanding, team-oriented tasks involving marching, digging, carrying and using heavy weapons, explosives and other dangerous equipment; ideally under cover of darkness and in the worst weather conditions.

The Combat Arms requires physical strength, strength of character, personal drive and motivation. A chain is as strong as it's weakest link and men are stronger than women by a significant margin.

There is another aspect; it is totally politically incorrect for me to point this out, but it is so. There is something of a male sanctuary to the Infantry squad or platoon, or Special Forces team. This is Male Territory; the girls are not invited. Women are creatures of emotion, they are catty and they "need to talk" - a common phrase amongst women. (The average woman uses 20,000 words a day, men only 7,000. I'd go out on a limb; most of the men I know and work with get away with less than that - a LOT less.) To insert women into the unique dynamic of the squad, platoon or team will be disastrous; nothing good will come of this.

To include women into Ranger training is beyond folly - it is The Emperor's New Clothes.

"That's my story and I'm sticking to it."


- STORMBRINGER SENDS