Note: I had to pare this down to 2500 words before I turned it in, so this the longer draft, and slightly longer than what I wound up settling on. There are many ways of looking at this, and issues which I didn’t bring up here; for example, the issue of what would happen to a unit in the line of fire- should a girl in that unit drop her gear, start to cry, pull a muscle, etc.
Contrary to popular belief, there is no policy today that allows women into combat. The 1994 Department of Defense Policy removing the ‘risk rule’ (which excluded women from directly exposing them to hostile fire or capture) did not do away with the 1992 Army policy of prohibiting women from combat units.
The rules about putting women in combat are clear: if the military is going to change the existing rules regarding women, they need to notify Congress within 30 days and notify the Secretary of Defense.
The Army has publicly admitted that they’re already assigning women to collocated FSC units, using the rationale that it is justified, and not really in violation of DoD regulations. FSCs are not really “collocated”, we are told, until the combat unit is already engaged or is about to be engaged in a direct combat mission. This is based on the fantasy that women could be pulled out and replaced before the battle starts.
The risk rule was removed recognizing that today’s battlefield and lines of fire, using Operation Desert Storm as the modern day model; are not as clearly dilineated as they were during previous wars.
This is a visual of previous battlefronts. Rear Operations would be the forward support companies (FSCs), which carry supplies to the combat companies, bring gasoline to the tanks, etc.. Source: General Accounting Office.
In this view of the modern day battlefield, the likelihood of all companies, whether supporting companies or combat units, could be surrounded by hostile forces, hence the reason women are excluded under the current rules.
Combat jobs are still not open to women, as indicated by this next chart.
Shown here are the positions that are still closed to women, according to a General Accounting Office report from 1998. Table: DOD Exclusions and Number of Closed or Restricted Positions to Women.
15% of all positions are closed to women because they (1) are in MOSs that engage in direct ground combat, 2) collocate and operate with direct ground combat units, 3) are located on ships where the cost of living arrangements is prohibitive 4) are in units that engage in spec ops missions and long-range reconnaissance. The positions shown in the table are those closed to women in each branch of service and shows the justification for those exclusions.
The statistics cited in this paper from the military on this issue are older because there are no current military studies, charts or statistics on this issue available from the military.
“It is a career-killer if you open your mouth about it,” said a man with a distinguished military career who refused to discuss the subject unless his name was withheld. “The party line is this is the way it’s going to be, and anyone who says otherwise has no place in the military.” (Nordheimer, 1991)
The Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) has not heard any testimony on women in combat since 1991. They did not hear testimony from the 1992 Presidential Commission the Assignment of Women in the Armed Services, which recommended retaining women’s combat exclusions.
The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) heard from former commissioner and DACOWITS member Elaine Donnelly for five minutes about the panel’s report in 1993. Hardly enough time to even broadbrush a discussion let alone delve into it. The subject appeared to be closed until May 19, 2005, when the HASC debated legislation regarding women in and near land combat. The last real committee hearing on the subject occurred in HASC in 1979, 28 years ago. (Donnelly)
Only a small percentage female privates and corporals surveyed by the Army Survey Office agreed that “women should be treated exactly like men and serve in the combat arms just like men.” After discovering that over 90% opposed women in combat, the Army Research Institute stopped asking women what they thought about women in combat in 2001.
A new Rand report was requested after a Congressional debate on the subject in 2005. That report was due in March of 2006. No such report has been produced, and as of this writing, it is long overdue.
But one of the questions I have about Rand generating a report on this issue is; certainly the army and other branches have their own statistics to share. What possibly could be gained through Rand’s production of a report? The answer lies in the 1997 report, and how it was scrubbed of politically incorrect views that were in the original.
The Center For Military Readiness: The report’s bibliography, which includes books and articles with loaded titles such as “Warrior Dreams: Violence and Manhood,” “Sexism and the War System, ” and “Woman, Race, and Class ” explains why the RAND report reads like a tax-funded feminist polemic. Far-left authors and liberal sociologists, such as Angela Davis, Susan Faludi, Catharine MacKinnon, Madeline Morris, Judith Steim, Mady Segal, and Patricia Schroeder are heavily represented. Authors and experts with differing views or actual military experience are conspicuously scarce. (Donnelly)
The military is hiding the truth on the women in combat issue and violating its own regulations. For example, there is a checkbox on some forms for support of equal opportunity policies. People who have expressed dissent have experienced demotion, dismissal, and promotion denial. (Garrison, 1995)
Current regulations require formal notification of a policy change regarding female soldiers with an analysis of the proposed revisions be submitted to Congress within 30 days along with notification to the Secretary of Defense. The Army has added wording to the collocation rule, which don’t exist, but succeeds in circumventing the rules. The claim that women are only excluded from a combat unit if the unit is ‘conducting’ or ‘undergoing’ combat operations is without justification. (Owens, 2005)
Yet, The Center for Military Readiness documents in this report the incidents where female soldiers have been assigned to Brigade support Battalions and then opconned to land maneuver battalions in First Cav at Ft. Hood, Texasl; trained women for FSCs collocating with Reconnaisance, Surveillance, Target Acquisition Squads at Ft. Riley, Kansas; trained women for forward support companies for collocating with the 2nd Brigade Team in the 101st Airborne at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky; and even a few were assigned to at least one Multiple Rocket Launch Systems unit in Baumholder, Germany in 2001. This was done completely through semantics and sleight of hand, circumventing current law which requires Congressional notification and notification to the Secretary of Defense. (CMR, 2006)
Source: APFT Update Briefing, November 1998. Ages 17 and 36 correspond with minimum and maximum ages allowed for initial enlistment.
This table shows the Army Physical fitness test from 1998. There are corresponding charts for the other service branches; navy, marine corps, etc. For all branches, a high degree of physical rigor and fitness is expected.
Major O’Donnell claims in a thesis paper that “Leaders who recognize the physical challenges in combat and take steps to specifically prepare their soldiers usually meet with success.” During the Normandy Invasion in 1943, he recalls, Lt. Col. Rudder integrated speed marches, hand-to-hand combat, obstacle courses, and climbing exercises to build up upper body strength in order to insure success on the mission. (O’Donnell, 1990) The rigors of combat are challenging, even when it is only a male force.
Several studies, according to Lt. Col. Gregor, have indicated that the Army Physical Fitness Test is the best predictor of physical performance. The results in the following tables are from ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) tests. He points out that the physical fitness level of these recruits is generally much better than that of regular enlisted; they’re older, have had prior military service, and 1-3 years of physical training before going to Advanced Camp. To graduate from basic training, a score of 50 is required on each event. For the gender-adjusted push up event, a man needs 32, and a woman 13. But there is no lightening of loads in a combat situation. The weight of ammo, rucksack, Kevlar, weapons, supplies, crates, communications gear, remains the same, regardless as to the strength of the soldier. Physical strength means your survival rate and that of the soldiers who depend on you will be good.
Physical differences between the genders are recognized by physical trainers, weight loss experts, in competitive weightlifting, sports like football, and should be taken into account when considering a serious issue such as putting women in a ground combat situation.
In 1997, Colonel Patrick Toffler, the Director of Institutional Research at West Point, testified about the Virginia Military Institute’s men-only admissions policy. He said under oath that there are special rules for women at West Point. Some physical activities for both sexes have been made easier or eliminated so that women would not suffer what Toffler gently termed “adverse impact.” (Knight, 1991)
Between men and women, they identified 120 physical differences and psychological differences. So, West Point (said Toffler) made physical training easier to accommodate women:
- Cadets don’t train in combat boots; they wear jogging shoes, because of women’s higher rate of injury.
- Women cadets take ‘comparable or ‘equivalent’ training when they can’t meet the standards of men.
- Women do ‘flex arm hangs’ instead of pull-ups.
- “Recondo” endurance week, when cadets marched with full backpacks and went through other physically strenuous activities, was eliminated.
- Upper body strength events on the obstacle course were eliminated.
- Running with heavy weapons was eliminated because it is ‘unrealistic and therefore inappropriate”, according to Toffler, to expect women to do it.
- Boxing was replaced with Judo.
- Women’s scores are adjusted to give them more weight when men and women are required to do the same exercises.
- West point male cadets are not increasing their cardiovascular efficiency because they are not as challenged now by the lowered standards that were altered to accommodate women.
- 50% of women score below the bottom 5% of the men in carrying and lifting.
- Women scored too low on peer ratings, so they were eliminated.
It isn’t only double standards and the overall effect of lowering physical requirements that is at issue.
In 1992 a presidential commission documented the problems related to women in service: high rates of attrition, greater medical care needs, higher rates of nonavailability, lower rates of deployability, lesser physical ability and the growing number of single parents and dual service marriages. Tailhook, The Aberdeen sex scandal, Abu Ghraib and other cases have highlighted the persistent and ineradicable problems of fraternization, sexual harassment and the breakdown of orderly discipline among the troops.
In this example, from the Congressional Commission on Military Training and Gender Issues, are statistics from the Army on attrition rates from 1999. Behav, is a failure to meet minimum behavioral standards, Med, is medical disqualifications like injury, and Other is for other separation discharges. The attrition rate numbers from the same report in the following chart also tell an interesting story.
Source: Congressional Commission Report, 1999
The DoD stubbornly repeats the position that integration of women has not affected combat readiness. The modern volunteer force, it says, is superior to any force of volunteers and women, are an ‘integral part’. “We can’t go to war without them,” say the admirals and generals, women are “here to stay”. They perform as well or better than men. Women are promoted more rapidly, and possess invaluable abilities that the services cannot do without.
But the services are struggling to maintain this position in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary.
The problem of depending on soldier-mothers with young children was highlighted during the Persian/Gulf War, and hasn’t gone away. The trials of the Citadel and Virginia Military Institute, the fatal crash and death of naval aviator Kara Hultgreen due to pilot error (and low test scores), the discharge of Kelly Flinn for adultery, are just a few examples of the problems that we’re facing with a sexually integrated force. (Mitchell, 1989) From Iraqi Freedom there is the capture of Lori Piestawa and her death in captivity and Jessica Lynch’s torture at the hands of Saddam’s fayadeen, when Lori was a cook and Jessica a supply clerk. These have brought a clear focus the dangerous effects of sex-based integration and affirmative action on standards, safety, training and discipline.
Nowhere in the military can women meet the same physical standards of men, and there are prohibitive costs associated with them.
None of these problems are temporary, because it’s been a full 21 years since women gained access to the service academies where they have shattered tradition, fractured morale, and confused the academies’ purpose; which is to train COMBAT officers. It’s been 19 years since the separate women’s corps were abolished and the services still have not proven that they know how to mix men and women together without suffering outbreaks of embarrassing behavior like what we saw at Abu Ghraib with pictures as proof that traveled the world.
Feminists view the military as a social construct of male chauvinism that needs to be destroyed:
Barbara Pope is the former Assistant Navy Secretary for Manpower and Reserve Affairs who said: “We are in the process of weeding out the white male as norm,” she said. “We’re about changing the culture.”
Madeleine Morris said “[T]here is much to be gained and little to be lost by changing this aspect of military culture from a masculinist vision of unalloyed aggressivity to an ungendered vision combining aggressivity with compassion.” (Dartmouth Review, 1997)
It has been suggested that a reason to place women in dangerous positions is for policymakers to avoid going to war. Maria Lepowsky, a professor of Women’s Studies, provided testimony before the Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces to support women in combat, saying “I think there might be increased concern about committing troops to combat…” (Horowitz, 1992)
But feminists’ view on war is widely acknowledged delivering the ‘pro women’ ‘anti-violence’ message, with complaints about rape, sexual abuse, and the white patriarchy. (Pandagon, 2007)
Vice President Cheney talked about the purpose of our military in the Presidential Commission Report reviewing women in the military:
“[I]t’s important for us to remember that what we are asked to do here in the Department of Defense is to defend the nation. The only reason we exist is to be prepared to fight and win wars. We’re not a social welfare agency. . . . This is a military organization. Decisions we make have to be taken based upon those kinds of considerations and only those kinds of considerations.” (Presidential Commission Report, 1999)
The choice is clear: equal opportunity or military performance. Obtaining information on the success of women’s integration into the armed services is difficult.
Unoficially, career advancement will suffer for men if they dispute that integration of women in the military causes no problems or affects military readiness.
“In recent years, the Defense Department has moved to squelch dissent on the issue and labored to ensure that only the approved view of women in the military is presented to the American people. In so doing, it has fostered cynicism and resentment among military men…. ” (Mitchell, 1989)
Captain Barbara Wilson has another approach: “There are political, patriarchal, religious, and misogynistically stupid reasons to preclude women but they all belong in The Museum of Natural Idiocy next to chastity belts, urban legends, homophobia, promise creepers, senile senators, proselytizing preachers, and military machismo.”
Men and women are not completely interchangeable, particularly when it comes to the physical and emotional requirements of war. Women experience post traumatic stress syndrome in a 2:1 ratio to men.
(Note: I’m trying to find the article from the Washington Post that commended the two women who were removed from duty for crying when they drove men to the battlefield during the Panama invasion and were assured by the military they had not committed a derelection of duty.)
No other country depends on women as heavily as we do, at 15%. Israel and Canada have 11%, the UK has 6%. After that, no other country has a military comprised of more than 3.5% female. Germany, Spain and Italy, among others, have virtually no women in military service, and Russia’s 4 million-man military has .7%. (Mitchell, 1998)
Training in direct ground combat units has already been made less demanding for men, since female trainees suffer stress fractures and other injuries at far greater rates. Ultimately, lives will be needlessly lost when soldiers, unable to cope with the physical and emotional demands of direct ground combat, are ordered into those units and to serve in those capacities, anyway.
We as a nation need to have a calm, rational look at the reasoning behind ‘women in combat’ without the subterfuge, and require accountability from those in office, removing the fear of reprisals for military representatives who talk honestly.
The military should be adhering to the rules on collocating forward support companies, leaving the designation (P1) all male for those who support combat units. A shell game with paperwork is simply not enough to answer to the American people why young single mothers, married women and the men who stand and work beside them appear to be completely set up for slaughter for the sake of political correctness and ‘equal opportunity’. This appears to be purely for the career advancement of a handful of women who do not have family obligations or care about the family obligations of others, or military effectiveness and strength. Until women’s biology changes, women do not belong in combat.
References
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Congressional Commission on Military Training and Gender Related Issues: Final Report Findings and Recommendations, 1999, Volumes 1-4
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Cao, terrific report and you were right, even as a speed reader it took me awhile to read it. I’m doubly impressed with your list of references. Great post and thanks for the good read. It looks like you’ve nailed the assignment.
Thanks, GM, but we’ll see…
As an academic work it is clearly well structured and makes a valid argument.
my question is why attack this issue when the Army is already struggling to meet manpower requirements and deployments are AGAIN being extended?
Why thank you.
As far as I know, in spite of the attacks on recruiters, Universities outlawing recruiters from coming on campus, and the controversy the war has become, there are still those who are signing up for 2nd 3rd and 4th tours, and people who are willing to stay to train the new units coming in. My son has been over there 3 times and he’s contemplating a 4th.
I’m concerned about his life being endangered, or possibly taken, because of these disastrous policies, too.
Frankly, I think the argument that we’re low on manpower as the only justification for putting women in combat is rather weak when considering all of the other components of the situation, compounded with the fact that it makes our fighting forces weaker and more unable to do the jobs they were sent to do because of sexual harrassment in retaliation for these ridiculous double standards, fraternization, adultery, 12,000 single mothers who have given custody of their children to their x’s to deploy, etc.
Fairly recently there was a case of a woman whose child was in a dangerous situation; I think it was in New Hampshire. She ended up getting an honorable discharge in order to take care of business at home, but we shouldn’t be placing families in these predicaments on purpose, either. There are other cases of this which I’m going to document and put up at some point.
And think about the dual service families where both parents are deployed; that’s another nightmare.
The military shouldn’t be bowing down to equal opportunity, because in the process, it’s destroying itself. God forbid we should end up facing a country like China in a war with our military in a shambles like this.
I notice the image at the top of your blog is of a woman wearing a military uniform, holding a bible and with a wedding ring. I am assuming that you feel women should be permitted in the military? Just not in combat? And is this realistic now we seem to fight insurgencies more often than not?
It is a man soldier holding the bible, not a woman, and yes, he has a wedding band on, which is a symbol of heterosexual monogamy, which is what we Christians believe in.
Women should be allowed in the military in the same capacities that foreign governments have them in; not in combat. Actually, if I had a perfect world, there would be a separate women’s corps, or just the ability to volunteer as a civilian.
I believe our government should follow the rules and stop sneaking women into men-only combat positions and collocated units, as I described in the piece; just as our current laws prescribe.
As far as the rhetorical argument that says that no woman should be in the military because of terrorists, you could extend that thinking to- no woman should be there in a humanitarian cause (like the courageous Margaret Hassan, married to an Iraqi for 25 years and killed by terrorists), and Cindy Sheehan shouldn’t have travelled to Iraq to protest. It’s a rather weak point.
People get killed by cars; women shouldn’t be allowed outside, or allowed to drive.
Silly.
Cao, first off, I think we need a civilian volunteer corps, to help in some capacity, even if it means doing jobs like transporting goods at bases here at home and other non-combat roles.
Women in the military? Absolutely. In combat? No, I don’t think so. We need the most physically efficient, and women aren’t AS efficient as men. I know it sucks, but that’s the honest assessment.