Author Topic: Army study to determine how women will be deemed fit to join the front lines  (Read 10876 times)

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Translation:  Army to figure out how to lower strength and fitness standards so more females can work in combat arms jobs.

Army study to determine how women will be deemed fit to join the front lines
Published February 26, 2014
Associated Press

FORT STEWART, GA. –  Standing just over 5 feet, Army Spc. Karen Arvizu is barely a foot taller than the anti-tank missile she carries in both arms and loads into an armored vehicle. She stands on her tip-toes to wrestle open the 300-pound top hatch.

"I have to step on the seat to get the missile into the launcher," said Arvizu, a 24-year-old soldier from Los Angeles. "It's half my body weight."

Arvizu typically drives Humvees or transport trucks at Fort Stewart in Georgia, but for the past three weeks, she and 59 other women soldiers have been getting a taste of what it takes to serve in combat. By spending their days lifting 65-pound missiles and .50-caliber machine guns, all while wearing 70 pounds of body armor, they're helping make history as part of an Army study that will determine how all soldiers — including women, for the first time — will be deemed fit to join the front lines.

The Pentagon ordered last year that women must have the same opportunities to serve in combat jobs as men, with thousands of positions slated to open to both genders in 2016. And while an Army survey shows only a small fraction of women say they want to move into combat jobs, it also revealed soldiers from both genders are nervous about the change.

With roughly one in five Army positions considered combat-related, commanders are turning to science to find a unisex standard to judge which soldiers physically have the right stuff to fight wars.

Testing at Fort Stewart and other U.S. bases is breaking away from the Army's longtime standards for physical fitness — pushups, sit-ups and 2-mile runs — to focus instead on battlefield tasks, such as dragging a wounded comrade to safety or installing and removing the heavy barrel of the 25 mm gun mounted on Bradley vehicles.

David Brinkley, deputy chief of staff for operations at the Army's Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Eustis in Virginia, said some people think the Army is coming up with unrealistic requirements while others believe standards will be lower to let women fight on the front lines.

"We intend to do neither. That's why we based this on the actual thing you have to do," he said.

At Fort Stewart, a volunteer group of soldiers — 100 men and 60 women — are spending a month drilling on the most physically challenging tasks demanded of infantrymen, cavalry scouts, mortar launchers and tank crews. In March, scientists from the Army's Research Institute for Environmental Medicine will have the troops perform those tasks while wearing heart rate monitors, masks that monitor oxygen intake and other equipment to study the effects of their physical exertion.

One of the volunteers, Spc. Artrice Scott, said she has no intention of trading in her job as an Army cook to join an infantry platoon or an armor unit. But she sees the testing as a great opportunity to lead the way for women in the U.S. military.

"The heaviest thing we lift in the kitchen is boxes of frozen chicken, 45 pounds," said Scott, 29, of Mobile, Ala. "And you don't have to lift those over your head."

During a training session Tuesday, Scott shaved 45 seconds off her previous best time carrying two anti-tank missiles into a Bradley armored vehicle and loading them into the turret.

Army commanders say there are no doubts that women have the mental and technical abilities needed. Only their ability to perform the most arduous physical tasks has been questioned.

The survey released Tuesday found there were nagging stereotypes. Male soldiers fretted that their unit's readiness will be degraded because of what they term "women issues," such as pregnancy and menstrual cycles. Or they worried that women incapable of the physical demands would be brought in anyway.

However, the survey also showed that only about 8 percent of Army women said they wanted combat jobs. Brinkley said such limited interest also is in line with what other countries, such as Norway, have seen as they integrated women into combat roles.

Maj. Gen. Mike Murray, commanding general at Fort Stewart, watched Tuesday as coed groups of soldiers set up heavy 120 mm mortars on a practice field. An officer with 32 years of infantry experience, Murray said it's time to open combat jobs to women and "this is going to get studied to death" in order for the Army to prove to naysayers that women soldiers are physically capable. The volunteer group at Fort Stewart includes a mix of combat veterans and newcomers, but it didn't take long for the group to gel after some initial awkwardness.

"It was almost like a high school dance where you had the guys over here and the girls over there," Murray said. "A week later, it was amazing how fast teams form."

Giving soldiers a month to prepare meant women who have never been trained to scale a 6-foot wall or pull a casualty from a tank have had time to learn the proper techniques before they are tested for real next month.

Staff Sgt. Terry Kemp, a cavalry scout who's helping train the Fort Stewart volunteers, said female soldiers started to catch up with their male counterparts after two weeks of training. Missile toting drills that initially took the men seven minutes were taking women 12 minutes to complete, he said. But by week three, men and women had trimmed their times to about four minutes.

Those who still insist women can't perform as well as men in combat "can beat their chests about it all day," said Kemp, a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan. "But eventually it's going to happen."

Exactly what sort of fitness tests or standards will come out of the Army's study remains to be seen. There are no current fitness requirements for serving in combat positions beyond the Army's standard physical fitness test for all soldiers — which includes pushups, situps and a 2-mile run and grades men and women on different scales.

Brinkley said the Army took a lesson from fire departments by not focusing on soldier's ability to perform pushups or pullups, which favor men because they test upper body strength. He said officials realize women do physical tasks differently, using more core strength and legs. By focusing on tasks rather than exercises, Army officials hope to eliminate gender bias from their study.

Taking a break from toting anti-tank missiles at Fort Stewart, Arvizu said she found the heavy lifting to be humbling. And though she felt encouraged by her male colleagues, she had no desire to give up driving a truck and join a combat unit.

"It's not that I came, I saw and conquered," she said. "But I came, I saw and I did my best."

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/02/26/army-study-giving-women-taste-combat-tasks/?intcmp=latestnews

JOHN MATRIX

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Who is behind this relentless push to put women in front line combat positions, and re-working special forces standards until they can get women to pass?? Who is pushing this so hard??? It flies in the face of nature as well as the course of human history...and therefore will weaken our frontline forces. All just for political correctness.

I just dont understand this shit.

headhuntersix

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You would be shocked how PC the military is..even the Marines. Its so bad.....
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Shockwave

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Who is behind this relentless push to put women in front line combat positions, and re-working special forces standards until they can get women to pass?? Who is pushing this so hard??? It flies in the face of nature as well as the course of human history...and therefore will weaken our frontline forces. All just for political correctness.

I just dont understand this shit.
its actually mostly womens rights groups that arent military related.... but they have to do it or the political pressure from the US politicians will threaten their funding because theyre 'sexist'. 99% of military females dont want to be in combat, and they understand they simply arent physically built for it.

Hell, just read the accounts of the women that have had to run around with grunts, they feel women have no place in an infantry unit.

this is a bunch of dumb bitches in the states screaming idealistic nonsense at the too of their lungs and not listening to the actual women who have any clue of what actually goes on. Thess bitches are in denial, they refuse to accept that dact that women are selfish physically differerent from men and simply arent capable of taming the same physical stresses.  Not even getting into the mental and emotional stresses, which I think woumd hit them particularly hard, considering their tendancy to put emotion in front of logic and seeing people shredded and torn asunder would probably be even harder in them than it is on men

headhuntersix

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Its always the agenda...and somewhere somebody makes a living pushing this shit. Try being a female tanker. I've kicked dudes off my track because they couldn't load rounds fast enough....turns out push-ups don't make u strong.
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Shockwave

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Its always the agenda...and somewhere somebody makes a living pushing this shit. Try being a female tanker. I've kicked dudes off my track because they couldn't load rounds fast enough....turns out push-ups don't make u strong.
haha. I remember the little 100 lb former track star dudes knocking out 50 pulluos thinking they were badasses, and then laughing as i had to hump him and his rifle up a hill while someone else humped his pack.... fucking little dudes. Got humble real quick when they couldnt keep uo with us bigger dudes doing shit that actually mattered.

headhuntersix

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We'd had a PT test at the squad leaders course and this little dude blew right by me as I huffed and puffed for my 20Min 3 miles..sounding like an asthmatic rhino. 5 days later we're doing a 15 miler...hot as balls...in sugar sand and this dude was dying. I had to carry his ruck for about 5 miles and his rifle for atleast 2. So ruck on the front...ruck on the back...cursing this assbag the whole way. Its hard as hell to go into another world while humping with a ruck in your face...I just kept mumbling about what a pussy he was. The hate got me through.
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RRKore

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Thess bitches are in denial, they refuse to accept that dact that women are selfish physically differerent from men and simply arent capable of taming the same physical stresses.  Not even getting into the mental and emotional stresses, which I think woumd hit them particularly hard, considering their tendancy to put emotion in front of logic and seeing people shredded and torn asunder would probably be even harder in them than it is on men

In general, I agree with you about the physical differences (though the percentage of women who can handle the physical part of most combat roles is probably close to the percentage who'd even want to do it).

I don't agree about women being weaker mentally, though.  There are lots of women who do fine in civilian hospital ER's, aren't there?  Don't they deal with some pretty horrible shit there?  (I, for one, would not be able to hack that kind of shit without some fundamental and unwanted change to my personality taking place, I'll tell you that.)  Another thing that women deal with that seems to contradict your suggestion that they'd suffer more than men under stressful circumstances is the whole childbirth thing.  (Thank god I'm a man, btw.)

Shockwave

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In general, I agree with you about the physical differences (though the percentage of women who can handle the physical part of most combat roles is probably close to the percentage who'd even want to do it).

I don't agree about women being weaker mentally, though.  There are lots of women who do fine in civilian hospital ER's, aren't there?  Don't they deal with some pretty horrible shit there?  (I, for one, would not be able to hack that kind of shit without some fundamental and unwanted change to my personality taking place, I'll tell you that.)  Another thing that women deal with that seems to contradict your suggestion that they'd suffer more than men under stressful circumstances is the whole childbirth thing.  (Thank god I'm a man, btw.)
I never said weaker, mentally... at all. Different. People today think different = weaker. Women think much more with emotion, when a dude is getting his limbs torn off, is she going to make the hard decision to let him die if it's going to kill her and 3 others to save him? Moreover, it's been proven that men will throw themselves into the line of fire to save a woman where they would have made the hard decision if it was a man.

And childbirth.. have you ever been present during childbirth? They have no choice. And trust me, they scream, act like children, my wife in particular ran around the room screaming, crying, and throwing herself on the floor. She didn't have an option.

benchmstr

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it sickens me..they dont want equal rights..they want special treatment..

if they can pass the exact same requirement as a man(they cant) then let them in..but they should be aware of what happen if they are captured..snipers will no longer be the prized capture for our enemies...and the SERE training for females should reflect that!

this isnt a job as a lawyer or doctor...this is where the the metal meets the meat..they better be really sure they want this or they are gonna get a lot of people killed..

bench

Shockwave

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it sickens me..they dont want equal rights..they want special treatment..

if they can pass the exact same requirement as a man(they cant) then let them in..but they should be aware of what happen if they are captured..snipers will no longer be the prized capture for our enemies...and the SERE training for females should reflect that!

this isnt a job as a lawyer or doctor...this is where the the metal meets the meat..they better be really sure they want this or they are gonna get a lot of people killed..

bench
Womens rights activists have zero idea what the rest of the world is like... they don't understand that war isn't like writing their term papers on male oppression... they need to go to Saudi Arabia for a week before they start spouting off.

They have ZERO idea how savage the world is.

benchmstr

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Womens rights activists have zero idea what the rest of the world is like... they don't understand that war isn't like writing their term papers on male oppression... they need to go to Saudi Arabia for a week before they start spouting off.

They have ZERO idea how savage the world is.
let them figure it out...and watch good men die having to save/rescue them

bench

RRKore

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I never said weaker, mentally... at all. Different. People today think different = weaker. Women think much more with emotion, when a dude is getting his limbs torn off, is she going to make the hard decision to let him die if it's going to kill her and 3 others to save him? Moreover, it's been proven that men will throw themselves into the line of fire to save a woman where they would have made the hard decision if it was a man.

And childbirth.. have you ever been present during childbirth? They have no choice. And trust me, they scream, act like children, my wife in particular ran around the room screaming, crying, and throwing herself on the floor. She didn't have an option.

So because you think women think "differently" they'd be mentally less well able to do the job?  A woman couldn't be cold-blooded enough, is that what you're really saying?  That sounds like poppycock.  If you have a of link to some sort of science-based research that supports these claims, I'd like to see it.

It's possible that women in general are more likely to make decisions based on emotions but you're saying all women regardless of training can be expected to do that?  Hell no. 

Your statement about men not being able to do their job properly around women smacks of the same argument once used to justify not having blacks serve in the same units as whites.  Does anyone still believe that one?  You're selling male soldiers short here, imo.  When the shit hits the fan, don't soldiers just want to be sure the next soldier (man/woman/homo) can do the job? That'd be my concern.

And women don't have a choice as to whether to give birth or not?  Since when?  After all, you don't think what causes childbirth is some mystery to them, do you?  So to not give women credit for being committed and tough enough to give birth, especially when it's not their first child (so they're under no illusions about what's in store for them) seems ignorant, especially since women have been having kids since long before procedures like c-sections or epidurals were around to make the experience less painful. 

Maybe you've never personally known any tough, intelligent, and competent women but you're selling them short, for sure.

Shockwave

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So because you think women think "differently" they'd be mentally less well able to do the job?  A woman couldn't be cold-blooded enough, is that what you're really saying?  That sounds like poppycock.  If you have a of link to some sort of science-based research that supports these claims, I'd like to see it.

It's possible that women in general are more likely to make decisions based on emotions but you're saying all women regardless of training can be expected to do that?  Hell no.  

Your statement about men not being able to do their job properly around women smacks of the same argument once used to justify not having blacks serve in the same units as whites.  Does anyone still believe that one?  You're selling male soldiers short here, imo.  When the shit hits the fan, don't soldiers just want to be sure the next soldier (man/woman/homo) can do the job? That'd be my concern.

And women don't have a choice as to whether to give birth or not?  Since when?  After all, you don't think what causes childbirth is some mystery to them, do you?  So to not give women credit for being committed and tough enough to give birth, especially when it's not their first child (so they're under no illusions about what's in store for them) seems ignorant, especially since women have been having kids since long before procedures like c-sections or epidurals were around to make the experience less painful.  

Maybe you've never personally known any tough, intelligent, and competent women but you're selling them short, for sure.
not at all, ive known a lot of tough military women, who actually ran better pfts thab I did.

and not one of them felt they could/should be in combat roles, amd those are the reasons they gave me. Dead serious.

and fyi, I wasnt saying that NO women could do it...  im saying I dont believe most women would not be able to do it. The males throwing themselvss into harms say for women more than men was actually a scientific study, btwn

headhuntersix

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I'll say it..by and large...no they can't. They aren't physically built to withstand the pounding during ruck matches. Women in basic training suffer a lot of pelvic injuries from the kinds of things they will be required to do on almost a weekly basis in Infantry units. Mentally...you will be lucky to fill out a squad of mentally tough females all in the same unit or in numbers to make the libs happy about diversity. This is doomed. This is not blacks or gays or all that bullshit...this is genetics. Do not post some crossfit superwomen as an example....they aren't joining the military in record numbers.
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RRKore

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Do not post some crossfit superwomen as an example....they aren't joining the military in record numbers.

To me, this is your most compelling argument.

Basically, you are saying that any woman competent and tough enough to fulfill a combat role in today's army is nowhere near dumb enough to volunteer to do it. 

I'll buy that. ;D

JOHN MATRIX

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it sickens me..they dont want equal rights..they want special treatment..

if they can pass the exact same requirement as a man(they cant) then let them in..but they should be aware of what happen if they are captured..snipers will no longer be the prized capture for our enemies...and the SERE training for females should reflect that!

this isnt a job as a lawyer or doctor...this is where the the metal meets the meat..they better be really sure they want this or they are gonna get a lot of people killed..

bench

Exactly. Military is as serious as it gets...PC bullshit has absolutely no place there.

These hardcore feminist activist types are a danger to society

headhuntersix

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The pool is already small....and what you're going to get thousands of them to join...ok how about 250 superwomen to join across all of SOCOM...so some to the Rangers, some to the SEALs...that's just the ones you can enlist for. Then they all have to get through bootcamp/basic training...A school/infantry school..minibuds/Rip & Rope (Ranger Indoc/pre ranger) and then Buds and Ranger school. You would have to have a big pool just to then weed out ones who can't do it mentally , ones who get injured, ones who are incompetent, ones who change their minds, once who have a family crisis that prevents completion, ones who get peer eval'ed out.  Take for instance RIP and ROPE....the are prer qual courses for Ranger school and induction into the Ranger Regiment. During my RIP..about 15 dudes..we lost 2 to PT tests and 2 to inuries. 1 other guy decided he's rather booze instead of getingt up and walking for miles for no real reason. That's 5....in an armor school class of 100 with 15 Ranger wannabe's. During ROPE...my buddy had 2 guys get killed on a helo insertion. A couple of more broke their backs and he blew out an ankle. This is all before you get to go do 9 weeks of no food..no cold weather gear...no sleep.
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RRKore

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The pool is already small....and what you're going to get thousands of them to join...ok how about 250 superwomen to join across all of SOCOM...so some to the Rangers, some to the SEALs...that's just the ones you can enlist for. Then they all have to get through bootcamp/basic training...A school/infantry school..minibuds/Rip & Rope (Ranger Indoc/pre ranger) and then Buds and Ranger school. You would have to have a big pool just to then weed out ones who can't do it mentally , ones who get injured, ones who are incompetent, ones who change their minds, once who have a family crisis that prevents completion, ones who get peer eval'ed out.  Take for instance RIP and ROPE....the are prer qual courses for Ranger school and induction into the Ranger Regiment. During my RIP..about 15 dudes..we lost 2 to PT tests and 2 to inuries. 1 other guy decided he's rather booze instead of getingt up and walking for miles for no real reason. That's 5....in an armor school class of 100 with 15 Ranger wannabe's. During ROPE...my buddy had 2 guys get killed on a helo insertion. A couple of more broke their backs and he blew out an ankle. This is all before you get to go do 9 weeks of no food..no cold weather gear...no sleep.

Forgive my ignorance (I was a 98G Russian with a strategic assignment - a real job, haha -  during my tour so I know very little about the tactical folks), but weren't we talking about (women in) combat roles in general? 

Do all soldiers in combat roles have to do go through all the training you've described?  I don't see what the big deal is.  Just make the women who want to do that crap have to pass the same tests as the men and let the test results dictate who does what job.  If some USA-equivalent to Brazil's she-beast Cyborg comes along and shows she can do the job, fuck it, let her do it, I say. 

(If you know of some study that shows that the average combat soldier will risk his life unnecessarily for a chick like Cyborg, then I'd say that dude has been in the field too long. lol)

headhuntersix

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A woman who enlists for a combat arms job will have to go to Infantry school or the basic armor course. If she goes to Bragg or Campbell she'll go to airborne and air assault...which women do all the time. An armor course won't be as demanding at first...but life in a tank is hard and everything is heavy...everything. A chick who goes Army Infantry will go to Benning and through basic and infantry school. I don't know what Army infantry school is like as I did my Infantry school in the Marines..it sucked. Ranger School was worse but the issue is not the superchick...its having enough women to fill an Infantry platoon so there's not two robochicks per company or 5 in an Infantry battalion. That pool is far to small to make the program work.
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Shockwave

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Forgive my ignorance (I was a 98G Russian with a strategic assignment - a real job, haha -  during my tour so I know very little about the tactical folks), but weren't we talking about (women in) combat roles in general? 

Do all soldiers in combat roles have to do go through all the training you've described?  I don't see what the big deal is.  Just make the women who want to do that crap have to pass the same tests as the men and let the test results dictate who does what job.  If some USA-equivalent to Brazil's she-beast Cyborg comes along and shows she can do the job, fuck it, let her do it, I say. 

(If you know of some study that shows that the average combat soldier will risk his life unnecessarily for a chick like Cyborg, then I'd say that dude has been in the field too long. lol)
thats the issue - they'll change the standards because 99% of women cant pass them.  I have zero problem with a psycho cyborg type chick - but even then their bodies break down much faster than men do, its genetics.

and the issue is that the women's rights grouos wont be happy until a large percentage of women are passing, which means changing the standards, because theyre 'unfair'

Shockwave

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A woman who enlists for a combat arms job will have to go to Infantry school or the basic armor course. If she goes to Bragg or Campbell she'll go to airborne and air assault...which women do all the time. An armor course won't be as demanding at first...but life in a tank is hard and everything is heavy...everything. A chick who goes Army Infantry will go to Benning and through basic and infantry school. I don't know what Army infantry school is like as I did my Infantry school in the Marines..it sucked. Ranger School was worse but the issue is not the superchick...its having enough women to fill an Infantry platoon so there's not two robochicks per company or 5 in an Infantry battalion. That pool is far to small to make the program work.

SOI east or west? I was at SOI west, it sucked but it was fun. Range runs sucked.

RRKore

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thats the issue - they'll change the standards because 99% of women cant pass them.  I have zero problem with a psycho cyborg type chick - but even then their bodies break down much faster than men do, its genetics.

and the issue is that the women's rights grouos wont be happy until a large percentage of women are passing, which means changing the standards, because theyre 'unfair'

Ah, well then I agree with you guys then  -- I don't agree with changing the standards unless they're super irrelevant as in "combat soldier must have testes" (which would not disqualify Cyborg, apparently).

headhuntersix

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SOI east or west? I was at SOI west, it sucked but it was fun. Range runs sucked.

You can have your fucking mountains...I suffered in the swamps ;D. I would have preferred the mountains.
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JOHN MATRIX

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thats the issue - they'll change the standards because 99% of women cant pass them.  I have zero problem with a psycho cyborg type chick - but even then their bodies break down much faster than men do, its genetics.

and the issue is that the women's rights grouos wont be happy until a large percentage of women are passing, which means changing the standards, because theyre 'unfair'

Exactly