Honestly didn't catch that, I was too busy being pissed about a chick wearing the blue cord. Really can't explain why, but it just makes me mad as hell.
Women in Combat Arms/ SOF Discussion
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Honestly didn't catch that, I was too busy being pissed about a chick wearing the blue cord. Really can't explain why, but it just makes me mad as hell.
TLDR20
Verified SOF
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Do you feel like it cheapens your experience that a woman can do it too? I am not attacking you at all, I am just curious. It bothers me too, and I don't really know why. I get a visceral reaction to it.
I honestly don't know, just really got mad as shit and started cussing like a sailor. My wife asked me what is up and I don't really have an answer.
I think it's just more the brotherhood of knowing we were different from the rest. I mean Infantry OSUT isn't hard, she has passed Ranger school, I have no reason to be upset, but I am, and honestly I don't know why.
ETA: I will say that I wish her well and all the success in the world. I hope she becomes the best damn Infantry officer in the Army.
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I think this is probably behind a lot of the emotion attached to the integration of women in combat arms/SOF. Alpha males have always taken great pride in their roles as warriors and protectors. They want that feeling of their woman, or any woman, needing them for certain things. It may sound sexist or chauvinistic, but I think it's a biological/primal/neurological inevitability that if women are all of a sudden given access to the same communities, whether standards are the same or not, it does cheapen the experience. The warrior culture is built on stronger, tougher, bigger, faster, etc. Historically, women are not viewed as any of these.
What bothers me about it is knowing specifically what was necessary to be an Infantryman, and a Ranger, while deployed.... and then turning around and having nearly 100% of interactions with females in a field environment be purely negative (bitching, flat out not doing their jobs, being unprepared to the point that they hazarded MY RANGERS I was supporting, etc etc) and with that realization of a Blue Cord meaning lots of woods time, being very concerned if the status quo females in the military now, decide to reclass.
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I feel your career has transcended Mr. West's on the military front.I never even made it that far.
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At the end of the day, while being achievements, they're just schools, it's not enduring the unrelenting arse chafe that is life in an Infantry Battalion.
As it is (in our neck of the woods) COs are already considered a bit of an outsider due to spending only a quarter to a third of their careers in a Battalion (in our Army they hand in their Regimental hat badge and adopt the Staff Corps hat badge on promotion to Colonel) and Capt Griest has missed out on the most difficult part of that experience already.
DocIllinois
Verified Military
I'd like to invite the SecDef to put on a basic Infantryman's load, plus a ruck weighed out with enough to live on, plus M4, plus distributed extra ammo for the SAW/240, and hump up and down Atterbury with my unit for two solid weeks this summer.
Not moving tactically, not reacting to the inevitable occasional arty sim or any of the rest of it, just humping.
I would be surprised if one doesn't come to understand what one's about to ask our women to do, and what kind of physical damage they'll be dealing with for the rest of their lives, in the service of a social experiment.
Not moving tactically, not reacting to the inevitable occasional arty sim or any of the rest of it, just humping.
I would be surprised if one doesn't come to understand what one's about to ask our women to do, and what kind of physical damage they'll be dealing with for the rest of their lives, in the service of a social experiment.
Brill
SOF Support
SECDEF is a political appointee, so that's really not his concern. EVERY US Army General on the JCS staff should have filed for retirement when Carter said "can I has a female 11A with a short tab?" THAT would have shown the entire US that the idea is indeed a bad one yet instead, the Generals have traded their careers and future jobs as executives of pick a defense contractor.
Been thinking about it for awhile now and I think the reason I am upset, is a feel like it's a cheating move. I was pretty proud at my turning blue ceremony, not because I had accomplished some huge achievement. But because I felt like I truly joined a brotherhood of true warriors, not guys who put on a uniform, but the guys who literally are the ones who fight. Now I've learned alot since that day over 14 year's ago. But it didn't come easy, had to humble myself, I had to fight a lot of uphill battle's, training on my own time, working a normal job, while trying to study FM's/TM's and master the part time job. I joined knowing I would be sent to war, chose a job that would put me face to face with the enemy, I trained my butt off, going to civi/LE schools on my own dime, and even did an interstate transfer to a unit that I knew nobody in, so I could deploy. I spent 9years on AD as a Guard guy. Couldn't get the cool school's, and really feel disgruntled about it.
But they are tossing schools to these ladies, giving them special train ups, and now allowing her to branch transfer to Infantry with a swipe of a pen and a captains course. And now she is sporting a blue cord on her right shoulder as a captain, an Infantry Captain.
It's really discouraging and aggravating to think back on all the hardships and suck I put myself through to wear that stupid blue cord with pride, and than watch the Army just give it to this women, because they needed a first woman grunt.
I'm sure many of you guys are laughing at this, or maybe don't understand it, but that stupid blue cord on my greens/blues meant alot to me, now it's been cheapened.
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You'll get no laughter from me.
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The branch transfer issue isn't that uncommon. It's very, very common for officers to branch into a combat support or combat service support branch and branch detail into a combat arms branch. This is due to the fact that CA branches need lots of LTs, and the CS/CSS branches need lots of CPTs. The change most often happens at the Captains Career Course level; you do a transition course (maybe), put on your new branch insignia, do the CCC, then you're back in the force as whatever your new branch is.
It is less common for people to branch transfer into a CA branch like Infantry, but it's not unheard of. It's going to be frequent for females for the next couple of years, which is logical (if irksome) because the branch was previously closed to them.
It is less common for people to branch transfer into a CA branch like Infantry, but it's not unheard of. It's going to be frequent for females for the next couple of years, which is logical (if irksome) because the branch was previously closed to them.
DocIllinois
Verified Military
Alrighty then, I'll take the results of the extraordinarily expensive and inevitably failed social experiment.
Delayed result but still effective, and perhaps even the oblivious and uninformed political appointees will take notice.
ThunderHorse
Verified Military
Every Branch that donates Lieutenants to Combat Arms has a transition course, they're not necessarily rough as one of my friend's has a week left of MIOTC...but I'm quite sure that there is no IN/AR/FA Officer transition course. But there's a whole lot of stuff she's missed, and yes a month long Infantry Officer's Course for Dumbies may not do it, but that's what needs to happen for her and any male that would like to do so.
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This was a lesson that I took to selection from the 82nd.
Life in a combat arms unit is hard, and you aren't allowed to quit. You can't tell your squad leader or platoon sergeant that you quit in the field, there is nowhere to go. When you do a 6 mile out-and-back run, you still have to make it back to the unit area- there's no truck to pick you up.
So, when I got to selection and saw dudes quitting, I couldn't fathom it, it was such an alien concept.
The real test for these women is going to occcur when they are leading troops in their actual units, whether it's in the field or in combat. Outside of schools and JRTC/NTC/JMRC, there is no instructor or OC to correct you or make you aware of your mistakes- you eat them, and everyone truly pays for them through mileage, loss of sleep, or possibly loss of life.
For the sake of their soldiers, I hope they do well.
Check out the curriculum for Infantry Officer Basic Leadership Course (IBOLC, formerly known as IOBC). While it takes experience and effort to make a superior infantry officer, it's simply not that hard to train someone to be a competent infantry officer, and competency is what most TRADOC schools are looking for in new officers.
All pre-commissioning sources focus on infantry tactics as a vehicle for evaluating leadership ability and potential. Some do this more than others, some do it better than others, but if IOBC educates one to a bachelor's degree in "infantry," then many of the major ROTC programs, and certainly West Point, probably get their officers-to-be up to the associate's level prior to commissioning.
While it is usually true that someone who has been practicing a trade longer will be markedly better at it than a neophyte, the fact is that branch transfers happen regularly in the Army, and I can't think of any studies that show officers who have branch detailed or branch transferred perform less competently than officers who were purely of that branch. That definitely doesn't hold in my own experience.
Finally, much of BOLC is spent preparing infantry officers for the rigors of Ranger School. Presumably, someone who has already tabbed out of that school has sufficiently demonstrated the physical, mental, and tactical skills required for it.
All pre-commissioning sources focus on infantry tactics as a vehicle for evaluating leadership ability and potential. Some do this more than others, some do it better than others, but if IOBC educates one to a bachelor's degree in "infantry," then many of the major ROTC programs, and certainly West Point, probably get their officers-to-be up to the associate's level prior to commissioning.
While it is usually true that someone who has been practicing a trade longer will be markedly better at it than a neophyte, the fact is that branch transfers happen regularly in the Army, and I can't think of any studies that show officers who have branch detailed or branch transferred perform less competently than officers who were purely of that branch. That definitely doesn't hold in my own experience.
Finally, much of BOLC is spent preparing infantry officers for the rigors of Ranger School. Presumably, someone who has already tabbed out of that school has sufficiently demonstrated the physical, mental, and tactical skills required for it.
DocIllinois
Verified Military
I have every confidence that there are female officers who will perform competently in the Infantry branch.
Prep schools aren't equivalent to line unit leadership; I have always contended that IBOLC and Ranger school should be combined into one school for Infantry officers, though.
Female 11Bs, who will be spending many, many more years on the physical side of the job, are who I'm most concerned about.
Paying special attention to Section 10:
The Modern Warrior's Combat Load
Prep schools aren't equivalent to line unit leadership; I have always contended that IBOLC and Ranger school should be combined into one school for Infantry officers, though.
Female 11Bs, who will be spending many, many more years on the physical side of the job, are who I'm most concerned about.
Paying special attention to Section 10:
The Modern Warrior's Combat Load
Devildoc
Verified Military
For me, yeah, a little. Part of it is that there are so few bastions of pure, unadulterated manhood left. Part of it goes way deeper. While I think 95% (maybe more) of jobs/tasks don't require a man or woman specifically, there are some that just one gender or the other can do, should do or is called to do. Women moving into combat MOSs is just one more reason the male part of our species is being made obsolete in society.*
*I am sensitive to this because of relationships in my own family that are attempting to underscore the fact that men just aren't needed.
DocIllinois
Verified Military
:-"
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