medicineman said:
I had a chat with a friend of mine that was augmentee staff to Wainwright who noted that there were noticeable changes to the standards, as men and women alike were making it through that really shouldn't have. Then my mother the Women's Historian started in about defining roles and such and how they should change the role to meet the people fulfilling that role...that stopped when I told her in the end that you still will have to toss that ruck on your back and haul it over hill and dale when your APC breaks. I guess my point is this - regardless of gender, if you can do the job, you should be able to, but if you can't, then you shouldn't. If the capabilities are well defined as far as what's expected, it's a no brainer - you either meet those standards or you don't, regardless of your primary/secondary sex characteristics.
I generally agree with your observations and points but simply want to add a caution at this time about changing standards.
I was recently researching the issue of the amount of kit a soldier in Afghanistan is required to carry and came across a PowerPoint presentation from the 2nd Bn 504 Para Inf Regt that stated in part the following: A. FM 21-18 stated that the fighting load of a conditioned soldier should not exceed 48 lbs and that for the approach march should not exceed 72 lbs. B. In fact the average paratrooper weighed 185 lbs and his average 72 hr kit weighed 104 lbs or 55% of his own weight. Not stated was that this percentage varied when the soldier was not "average" weight. For example a 150 lb soldier would be carrying 66% of his own weight.
This raises numerous questions not the least of which is what actually is the standard: FM weights? % of body weight? recent weights from Afghanistan?. Are we breaking our standards and overloading our troops and thus risking their health? Or have the standards changed forever?
As far as equality is concerned remember two things:
First, the FM standard here is based on what an individual can safely carry while the 504th's actual loads are based on perceived needs for operations. Which is the proper one when it comes to assessing the fitness of any individual (male or female) to be eligible to be a member of an organization?
Second, be wary of artificial standards set by an organization which the leaders have deemed to be
bona fide operational requirements. In years past as women where entering both police and fire department ranks there were an ungodly amount of unrealistic standards set which were designed primarily to keep women candidates out of the force. Needless to say these standards were set and administered by men in the organization who were adamant that there was no role for women in these trades. It took numerous human rights based hearings to break down these mostly artificial and systemically discriminatory barriers.
Back in my day one carried 64 pattern webbing and an FNC1 and the expected mode of fighting was that one travelled everywhere in an APC and then went out to fight with a very light fighting load that was less than 30 lbs. (yes we also had marching loads etc and humping packs was not unknown) A fair cross section of women could have managed that. My point here is not to start a debate on loads but merely to point out that standards and requirements vary.
In some ways I take your mom's point of view. Sometimes we have to make a difficult choice. Is human equality more important than occupational standards (whether artificial or
bona fide)? Sometimes the need to provide all of our citizens equally opportunities may justify the extra efforts and even possible negative outcomes. In the end that is a political question answered with input from all the relevant stakeholders.
The Marines are not the best example when it comes to equality. In 1941 as expansion of the Marines was being discussed, including the use of Negroes, the then commandant of the Marines was adamant that African Americans had no right to serve in the Marines and that "If it were a question of having a Marine Corps of 5,000 whites or 250,000 Negroes, I would rather have the whites.". It took an executive order by the President to end racial discrimination and even then, the Marines did not desegregate and black Marines served in all-black units and sub-units until after Korea when desegregation slowly moved to completeness by 1960. I would take anything coming from the Marines on female integration in the combat arms with a large barrel of salt.
Regardless of the equality issue I think it is high time we took a serious look at what we need to do to lighten the load of our combat troops before we cripple an entire generation. Considering how questionable the US VA and our own veterans' systems are at working for our modern veterans, I don't doubt that there will be an upcoming crisis for those with back and other joint degenerative issues.
:cheers:
