Infantry training for Bradford’s group required the women to to meet the same standards as any other Marine.
Including a 12 1/2 mile march in combat gear that lasted almost 5 hours, running at a 4 mph pace carrying 90-pounds of gear.
November 20, 2013
"The First Four Women To Complete Marine Infantry Training Took A Celebratory Selfie Together."
"Harlee 'Rambo' Bradford (in the middle) snapped this selfie after her and the three other women in the photo were the first of 15 to complete a Marine Corps pilot course."
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Good for them. I would've looked a lot sweatier.
@Sorun,
I would've looked a lot sweatier.
I, on the other hand, if I had gone through that regimen, would have looked much more relaxed, being laid out on a gurney with a tag on my toe, and all.
I'm guessing they can jump out of a landing craft and hit the beach as well as anybody. Good on em' I say.
"Including a 12 1/2 mile march in combat gear that lasted almost 5 hours, running at a 4 mph pace carrying 90-pounds of gear."
In 5 hours at 4mph they should have covered 20 miles even if they were carrying 900 pounds of gear.
On some of the veteran websites I frequent, there are pools to see which one will get pregnant first, and which has the shortest the time lag between reporting to her first unit of assignment and the pregnancy announcement.
"In 5 hours at 4mph they should have covered 20 miles even if they were carrying 900 pounds of gear."
-- I read that as an average pace, not a constant. So, sometimes they might go significantly slower. But, clarity would be helpful.
And to think her took that picture too. I see BuzzFeed has some hillbilly interns writing headlines.
Just great. Go Girls (and Marine Men too)!
Well, my hat's off to them.
I remain uncomfortable with our society assigning women as infantry, but I've long since decided that's my problem. I don't think I have the right to tell a fellow Soldier, or a highly motivated Marine, No, you shouldn't be allowed to choose that MOS, even if you're physically able, because I don't believe that's proper for women.
And women have found themselves as combatants, whether they were meant to be or not. The Jessica Lynch story may have been crap, but Sergeant Hester damn well earned her Silver Star.
What I still feel strongly about is not lowering standards. It is appalling to me that in the Army Physical Fitness Test, a failing score for a man could be a chart-topper for a woman. My mother, in her mid-sixties, asked me what would be passing scores for a (young) woman. When I answered, she exclaimed (shocked) "I could do that!"
Awesome. Great set of pictures.
In 5 hours at 4mph they should have covered 20 miles even if they were carrying 900 pounds of gear.
I assumed that the "march" and the "running" were two different tests. Does one ordinarily describe marching people as running?
Congratulations, ladies!
As long as appropriate standards of fitness and knowledge are defined, all who pass should be considered qualified. We need to guard against setting standards higher or lower than needed to identify suitable personnel.
4 mph pace is barely jogging, let alone running. but the writer has probably never done a ruck march. My guess is that in Marine Infantry School, that march is a timed event. so you would expect that they would run at the end. Not sure about the weight. I've done a lot of ruck marches in my day, generally we use a 48 pound pack now, once, and only once did I let my platoon pack my ruck for me, that march was excruciating. When it was done, I weighed it, and it was 64 pounds.
Infantry training for Bradford’s group required the women to to meet the same standards as any other Marine.
Oddly phrased! ... as any other Marine.?
So can they carry a 200lb injured Marine on their back?
That's awesome. Awesome that the Marines didn't dilute the standards and awesome that those 4 women met the standards.
Larsporsena - nah I don't think it will take that long. 29 palms or afghanistan, what's the difference? Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, infantry gotta try. Human nature and all that. That isn't an indictment of either the males or females, necessarily. But they are human, and what do you get when you put men and women aged 18-24 together, who are by nature alphas, who are all fit? I'll let you draw your own conclusions.
Very interesting development. It may be that women are humans too.
Semper Fi ladies.
I stand corrected it was the infantry training course not basic.
"I read that as an average pace, not a constant. So, sometimes they might go significantly slower. "
Anyone? Bueller?
Until they can carry 5 Marines on their back, they are not a real Marine.
If this is truly the enlisted Marine Infantry course, I understand that 99% of the men pass. They were hoping to run 300 women through by Jan 1. I don't understand the "first of 15 to complete" part.
The featured gal apparently did not complete it. She got a temp profile for a stress fracture (and those keep coming back) and failed to finish. Did the other 3? what about the rest of the 15? were they all in the same rotation and failed, or are they in a later class?
Good job for 3-4 of the women personally, not good news for the USMC force readiness. This is a distraction.
I want to see the # of days on profile/light/modified duty days once the sample size gets bigger.
An 80 percent washout rate is not a good metric for an MOSQ course, or whatever they call them in the Marine Corps. I also want to see the injury reports.
It costs the Army $34,000 in lost training costs if a kid washes out of basic for a stress fracture if needed (disregarding medical care costs to TRICARE).
Plus, now that these Marines have finished infantry school, we have to send them to complete some other school now, so they can actually do a job for the Marine Corps… and whats that going to cost?
3 pull-ups for a 200 pound man and a 110 pound woman is not the same standard.
I can’t help but think of The Simpsons episode when Lisa attends a military academy….
[after Lisa's poor performance at the firing range]
Range master: Maybe you should just learn to use this.
[hands Lisa a whistle]
Range master: If there's a war, just blow on it, and I'll come help you.
PB Reader,
"We need to guard against setting standards higher or lower than needed to identify suitable personnel."
No way. "Higher than needed" is not a problem as long as you can fill all the slots. In fact, the ideal cutoff point is one that just barely allows all the positions to filled, as that results in getting the best people in, rather than just ensuring that acceptable ones are chosen. Remember, nobody has a specific right to serve in any particular military position.
Existing stress fracture rates for military recruits are 3-7 times higher for women than for men. THe severity for women is much higher, too, since a higher percentage of their fractures are pelvic and femoral rather than tibial.
That's WITHOUT sending them to infantry school.
Also, from a combat load perspective, 90 pounds of gear on a 120 pound woman is not sustainable. There've been lots of studies over the years, going back to Slam Marshall, on soldiers' loads. None of that has gone away.
This is stupid on every fucking level.
She "wasn't able to complete" her last Physical Fitness Test or Combat Fitness Test because of a stress fracture. (1) How does this fact fit in with "she completed the training"? (2) Will the stress fracture limit her future in combat? (3) Isn't the injury issue exactly what skeptics have been commenting on?
Jason said...
"Plus, now that these Marines have finished infantry school, we have to send them to complete some other school now, so they can actually do a job for the Marine Corps… and whats that going to cost?"
I'm not a Marine, and haven't heard back from my USMC buddies, but it looks to me that this is the MOSQ school, so they won't be trained for some other MOS. They will be assigned to an infantry squad. One thing to note, and another poster made mention of this, the Infantry School is not a washout school. That is 99% are expected to pass. I read yesterday that these 4 were in a group of 15 that attempted to pass the school. That is a failure rate of 74%. Either the Marine Corps needs to get better about evaluation before accession, or find another remedy, I am assuming that feminists (who don't understand training budgets) would have screamed SEXIST if any one of the 15 females would have been denied attendance. But the military is not an organization where you get to try things just because you think you might be good at it until you find one you are qualified for. It might be that way in the civilian world, but here.
No, they won't be assigned to fleet Marine infantry units.
I do see "commander's driver" written all over them, though.
Her should be proud and happy. I'm glad for she.
On some of the veteran websites I frequent, there are pools to see which one will get pregnant first, and which has the shortest the time lag between reporting to her first unit of assignment and the pregnancy announcement.
Presumably that means she is out if that happens?
It would be nice if the impregnator got the boot too, (Assuming it's a marine) since he will have had a hand in destroying equipment.
Marshal said...
She "wasn't able to complete" her last Physical Fitness Test or Combat Fitness Test because of a stress fracture. (1) How does this fact fit in with "she completed the training"?
yeah, I took issue with that too. Never been to a military course where you graduated without passing the PFT. If you didn't pass, you didn't graduate.
MadisonMan said...
On some of the veteran websites I frequent, there are pools to see which one will get pregnant first, and which has the shortest the time lag between reporting to her first unit of assignment and the pregnancy announcement.
Presumably that means she is out if that happens?
It would be nice if the impregnator got the boot too, (Assuming it's a marine) since he will have had a hand in destroying equipment.
Depends on circusmtances, and who is involved. There are regulations against fraternization, but they only apply if they are both military. And no, a pregnancy is not cause for removal from the Marine Corps, but it would be a detriment to the squad, because who wants to see a squadmate wearing a maternity uniform and sneakers answering the phone at the Company HQ, when you are coming in from a field problem?
Isn't it only a matter of time before the physical standards are called discriminatory because of their disparate impact on women?
Somebody said...
Isn't it only a matter of time before the physical standards are called discriminatory because of their disparate impact on women?
That brings up the stnadards for women on the Physcial Fitness Test. And pointing out that there are different standards for Females and Males will get you an 8 hour block of instruction on EO and Diversity training. stop making waves.
Seems to me that as long as they can pass the exact same tests as the men, bring 'em on. It may be true that 99% of men can pass and only 15% of women, but that actually sounds like the right distribution to me -- only exceptionally strong and fit women will qualify for infantry.
Great for them. Being a veteran, I have always took the position that women belonged anywhere and everywhere in the military, if they could pass and be held to the same standards as their male counterparts.
[sidewalk collision]
00:13:13 - Oh, great. - Sorry.
00:13:15 Woman (99): That was my last mile. I have no idea how fast it was.
00:13:17 Max: You were moving. It's not easy to knock me down.
00:13:20 Max: I have a low center of gravity. Pretty solid.
00:13:22 Woman: I'm just gonna call that one a 4:50.
00:13:25 Max: Impressive. I once ran a 5:16.
00:13:29 Woman: Oh, really? That's, uh, slower.
00:13:32 Max: Not everything's a competition.
00:13:34 Woman: Well, if it were, I'd win.
00:13:36 Max: Ah. Are you flirting with me?
00:13:39 Woman: Not at all. Are you flirting with me?
00:13:41 Max: That depends. Is it working?
00:13:44 Woman; Not at all. [trots off]
00:13:46 Max: Well, nice meeting you! I admire your focus!
Get Smart (2008)
It's a movie with a core story more interesting than the James Bond situational humor.
Core screenshots.
The idea is that women can do everything men can but do it grimly, where the man is at home there.
The difference turns up eventually and 99 falls for Max.
> > "In 5 hours at 4mph they should have covered 20 miles even if they were carrying 900 pounds of gear."
>-- I read that as an average pace, not a constant.
Doesn't matter; if they average 4mph for 5 hours, they covered 20 miles. (The way you determine velocity is by dividing distance by time.)
John Constantius said.....
It may be true that 99% of men can pass and only 15% of women, but that actually sounds like the right distribution to me.
That may in fact be the right distribution, but given the reality of training budgets, the Q school is not the place to weed out the 85%. It's a waste of money. to have that kind of washout rate.
I don't knock their courage or determination, and I'm sure that there are lots of jobs they can do superlatively. That said, they're not combat troops.
The world is changing fast. Some predict more robots than human soldiers in the infantry in 30 years. Well before then, semi-autonomous "mules" that can carry the heavier support loads for "heroes with boots on the ground", plus evacuate the wounded, are projected to be in extensive service.
My concern with women in strenuous jobs has not been about some of them proving they could pass a school, or carry a 200 lb "hero" on their backs (given the guidance that it is better to stay low to the ground and drag dead or wounded back to safety that stand up with someone on your back and draw enemy attention and make for a big, slow moving juicy target. Women can do that.) My concern is the traditionally lower readiness for duty figures once the ladies actually pass the schools and whatever physical tests and weight guideline. How many in 100 are ACTUALLY out there day to day doing the job. From the AF to Navy to Army/Marine groups...the women are abysmally lower than men in readiness for duty.
The article says the women have the same standards as the men but it doesn't say if those standards were lowered (for everyone) in order to accommodate the women.
And even if the standard is a high standard (which it should be - we should be seeking excellent soldiers) and the women meet the same standard as the men, it says nothing about how their presence will actually affect the fighting ability of the unit in a combat situation. I can't see how it could be anything but worse.
I guess we'll find out the hard way in the next war.
RecChief,
The only thing that will be impregnating those ladies is an IVF needle. I don't think they are much enamored with the opposite sex.
MnMark said...
The article says the women have the same standards as the men but it doesn't say if those standards were lowered (for everyone) in order to accommodate the women.
We're talking different things, and if you haven't been in the military it isn't your fault. I will try to explain. Each school consists of different training specific to the different specialties that make up the military (truck driver school, artillery school, cook school, maintenance school, infantry school, and so on). Soldiers are trained on separate tasks and then tested. So far, all training and evaluations could be the same, that is, the standards for rifle qualification are the same for men and women. I am sure that the marine corps doesn't have a different standard for the ruck march portion, nor the combat lifesaver portion, nor the obstacle course portion. However, while all infantry school attendees have to pass a Physical Fitness Test, there are two standards, one male and one female. For 2014, the minimums are the same for males and females in pull ups and crunches, but women get 3 minutes more to run 3 miles. I don't know if the standards were adjusted downward (made easier) from the 2013 standards. There is a much wider disparity in the Army.
... Yeah, see, this is why I didn't go into a field that needed math.
all i know is, if i was still in the infantry, when the balloon goes up, and the OIC says ruck up, will the person to the left and right of me be there, or will I have to watch both our sectors? That is really the question I have, anything else beyond that is a distraction.
RecChief, I suspect few women in practice will actually go for infantry, so I'm not terribly fussed about the money spent on the overall numerically small number of washouts.
Is it really the training budget money you're concerned about?
Ah, cross-posted. I see that you're not really concerned about training budgets. Fair enough.
Having managed a training budget, yes.
The long standing problem of weight being lugged and obstinate Army bureacracies rejecting material changes needs to be kept at. It is a huge problem. In Iraq, in Ramadi, my nephew was in 24 lbs of body armor with a 85 lb "load"....and he and his buds were incredibly restricted in movement. They faced "hit and run" Iraqi jihadis with 20 lbs of extra weight they were lugging. Weapon and ammo, canteen, a walki-talkie, some field dressings and a Koran.
They had a few seconds to shoot back, then the enemy hotfooted it and they were unable to engage and pursue, mired down by weightload and free movement restricted by the body armor them in use.
Plus the Army was all hot on "Land Warrior" coming adding another 18.8 lbs, and another 20 lbs of stuff vendors in the Beltway convinced the Army was great, even vital stuff, to add to the kit.
It was insane. Physical limits vs. 140 lbs of shit lugged. To do that, the Army would have to bring back all the weight-lifting mesomorphs it booted on "unacceptably fat" grounds.
Spec Ops gave the bureaucracy their 1st reality check and said their safety and fighting capacity was degraded above 60 lbs load - and being the glamour heroes of the Bush days, got what they wanted. They knocked off 28 lbs -lighter boots, less cumbersome and bulky body armor, replacing the standard since the 1940s right angle flashlight that weighed over 3 lbs with a 7 oz LED flashlight.
The Army combat command finally got some leeway to point to Spec Ops and then also start letting soldiers select lighter gear and buy direct from stores and outlets vs. the material spec and procurement bureacracies dictating what the kit was.
Another PR con job. The bosses say get it done, it gets done. Somehow.
That selfie taker ain't getting pregnant by anything other than a turkey baster.
Anyone saying "you go, girl," and saying stupid shit like, "If they can meet the standards, then they should be able to be in the infantry if they want to," without specifically addressing the physiological issues and cost issues I'm pointing out has his head shoved up his fourth point of contact.
You cannot wave a magic wand and make these things go away.
You can try, but you'll get a lot of people hurt in the process. One in four, actually - and that's just from the group of women marines who passed.
John Canstantius said...
RecChief, I suspect few women in practice will actually go for infantry, so I'm not terribly fussed about the money spent on the overall numerically small number of washouts.
Is it really the training budget money you're concerned about?
Yes, a 75% washout rate is an area for serious concern, especially in a school that traditionally had a washout rate of less than 1%. Regardless of my personal feelings on the matter, the wasted training dollars mean less dollars for other training. As I said earlier, enrollment in a Q school is not a place to decide if a person thinks they can hack it, that evaluation should have been done in Basic Training.
Dollars to dog turds there is fraud lurking somewhere behind this story.
William said...
I don't knock their courage or determination, and I'm sure that there are lots of jobs they can do superlatively. That said, they're not combat troops.
terminology. "Combat Arms" are troops whose job it is to close with and defeat the enemy. troops in "combat" are those unfortunate to get shot at...
First disclosure. I married a woman with combat boots. She retired (NG) as a JAG Colonel. I served in a combat arm (Armor) in and combat (Vietnam).
Women can serve successfully in combat roles, but not in "combat Arms" (Inf, Armor, Field Arty).
They make great Helo pilots. The most aggressive make good MPs (see SGT Hester), but the huge difference is that the infantry walks to work carrying 100 lb loads and stays out for 2 weeks. Female MP's ride out for 8 hours, carrying 30 lb loads. (basically what I carried in Nam stripped down.)
The quote from RoTK is fitting, though female=Hobbit switch needs to be made:
Eomer: You should not encourage him.
Eowyn: You should not doubt him.
Eomer: I do not doubt his heart, only the reach of his arm.
Women make for very, very fierce warriors. But that's not the issue. Long term in the field, how will they hold up? What percentage of them will have menstrual cramps and have to go on sick call for a few days each month. And...didn't the Israelis try women integrated in to combat units in the 70's...and moral tanked in a unit whenever a woman got wounded. Not very PC to say, but it's hard wired in men to protect women first. That does not bode well for fire-team work...
LCB
short version is that this is a case of Force effectiveness versus personal rights
my response. There are not enough qualified, interested women to make a difference. Overall force effectiveness drop.
shorter version, this is driven externally leftist social engineers and internally by female Academy Grad careerist officers
are the women going to take a shower with the men?i was a paratrooper in viet nam and I don't think any woman could do what we did.
I assumed that the "march" and the "running" were two different tests. Does one ordinarily describe marching people as running?
4mph is not running. It's a fast walk or a slow jog.
Clearly, the training we have been doing for our enlisted infantrymen has not been difficult enough. If any woman can do it, then our infantrymen have been coddled.
I joined the Marines to defend women, not let them fight next to me.
The elephant in the room, as always, is selective service. Make women sign up right now. There's no reason they should have ever been excluded. Even without women in combat arms units, there are TONS of jobs that could free up a man to be in one.
It simply doesn't make any sense that women want equal treatment in everything else, but not in this one thing that every single American man must do or become a defacto criminal.
If being able to pass the test for infantry isn't good enough to prove you can be in the infantry, it sounds like it's not a very good test. Is that basically where you guys are landing? Does the test need to be made tougher until women can no longer pass?
I'll note that the instinctive reaction here is very common. In the world of rock climbing, it used to be that a route's grade (rating of difficulty) was basically automatically lowered if a woman managed to climb the route. Then Lynn Hill became the first person of either gender to successfully free climb the Nose of El Capitan in Yosemite and people decided that, hey, some women actually are good climbers. In some cases as good as or better than all but the most capable men.
RecChief, given the small number of women who will apply, I suspect the school's overall washout rate will not change significantly from 1%. Basically 99% of thousands of men will pass, and 15-20% of a few dozen women. End result: 98.8% pass rate instead of 99.0% pass rate. Not quite seeing where the money concerns are coming from. Might as well start excluding certain male Marines from testing because they look "too dorky" to pass, so best not to let them try. Limited training budget and all that.
It simply doesn't make any sense that women want equal treatment in everything else, but not in this one thing that every single American man must do or become a defacto criminal.
There you go again using that outmoded patriarchal logic.
bruce said...
are the women going to take a shower with the men?i was a paratrooper in viet nam and I don't think any woman could do what we did.
3PM in Monsoon season... Some guy yells, Showers!! and we all run outside naked with our bars of soap to stand in the rain?
John Constantius said...
If being able to pass the test for infantry isn't good enough to prove you can be in the infantry, it sounds like it's not a very good test. Is that basically where you guys are landing? Does the test need to be made tougher until women can no longer pass?
To put that in perspective. The army mens PT test has a set of standards. passing them at the minimum level is clearly not enough to be a good infantryman. The infantry ought to max the test, yet at all age bands, the minimum mens score is just about the same as a max womens score. That shows how normalized the scores are.
I submit that if the best women rank with the worst men, it's not helping force effectiveness, but driving it downward....
Agreed. In an active duty infantry unit, you're pretty much expected to be scoring in the neighborhood of 85-90 points or better on each event. The max women's score isn't even close.
They will serve as an inspiration to every angry, ugly lesbian in the land.
And, given the political climate, they will be affirmative-actioned into command roles in short order too if I don't miss my guess.
Where's Inga these days, I wonder?
This post prompted me to search wikipedia for information that might better inform my vague impression that, in the Israeli Defense Forces, exceptional women such as those profiled here are a bit more of a rule. According to wikipedia, the Caracal Battalion, a unit of the IDF, is 70% female. The general wikipedia article concerning women in the IDF is pretty interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_Israel_Defense_Forces
Glen Filthie said...
They will serve as an inspiration to every angry, ugly lesbian in the land.
WTF? And you are not the only one in this thread to comment negatively on their looks. Yours is just more crude.
Those are four pretty young women. They are not knockouts or glamorous. They have not been taught how to style themselves and I don't think they are wearing makeup. The one holding the camera has short hair. She's a Marine, for God's sake. They all have short hair, or nearly all. But they are pretty. They have pleasing smiles. They aren't sitting in a bar in NY puckering lips like a beached fish. They look normal and natural and healthy.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
However this turns out, I sure hope our military doesn't lose the effectiveness it has today. If it weren't for American military might, Iraq and Afghanistan might not be the vibrant democracies they are today, and Saigon might be known as Ho Chi Minh City.
Glen--actually I went through the thread and you were the only person to comment on their looks. I apologize to all the other commenters. But not to you.
When I went through it was a 20 mile march. Along the way I got a stress fracture in my foot, and barefoot, I couldn't put any weight on it. But my boot functioned almost like a cast, and I was able to walk and run while shod. So I didn't tell anyone about it and went through the last four weeks of Marine Corps boot camp with a broken foot. That's the closest I've ever come to being tough.
1. SOI is is the Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) school for Marines who will become 03s (Infantry), not Boot Camp.
2. Like all MOS schools, they produce Marines trained in the basics of their MOS within a training environment, not actual combat operations. The immediate question is whether women can, at a high enough rate to make it worthwhile to implement, pass a test or graduate from the basic Infantry training courses at the current standards.
3. These women, like the women officers trying to complete IOC, are being used as test subjects to determine an answer to the question. They will not receive an 03 MOS, but will instead go to whatever MOS they were assigned.
4. The more important question is how will they perform over a sustained period of time in combat. Here is one female officer's opinion based on her own experience:
"I can say with 100 percent assurance that despite my accomplishments, there is no way I could endure the physical demands of the infantrymen whom I worked beside as their combat load and constant deployment cycle would leave me facing medical separation long before the option of retirement. I understand that everyone is affected differently; however, I am confident that should the Marine Corps attempt to fully integrate women into the infantry, we as an institution are going to experience a colossal increase in crippling and career-ending medical conditions for females". - http://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/article/get-over-it-we-are-not-all-created-equal
5. The question was asked about how long till they get pregnant. The answer for these particular women is, "never in the Infantry." However, here's a hint about the long-term potential answer taken from the article above:
"At the end of the 7-month deployment, and the construction of 18 PBs later, I had lost 17 pounds and was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome (which personally resulted in infertility, but is not a genetic trend in my family), which was brought on by the chemical and physical changes endured during deployment."
6. The long-term question is, if the success rate is too low at current standards, will the standards be revised? I'd like to think that the Marine Corps, where every Marine is a rifleman first, would resist that pressure, but who knows. Unlike most social experiments, the enemy isn't on-board with the plan, and combat can lead to some forever outcomes.
In my opinion, the issue of women in combat arms is not being driven by an overwhelming urge by a large segment of the female population to serve in combat. It is being driven by a small group of female officers who worry that they'll never make General without some hard-core bullet time.
Three hours is the cutoff for a 12-miler. I can't see the last half mile (leave it to the jarheads to want to be just a little different) taking two hours. 12 in 5 is hilarious.
For comparison, when I got my EIB badge, I did the 12 in two hours and seventeen minutes, and I came in second. The soles of my feet came off, but I did it.
Oh and Gil, teh question is not will they get pregnant on deployment, but will they get knocked up just before deployment, to get out of it. I've told this story many times, but in one unit, our mechanics were slightly better than half female. When we got orders to head sandlot, surprise and shocker, you never saw so many pregnancies in a short amount of time. Only one of them deployed, and the mechanics were at less than half strength. Now imagine that happening to a line company. Fun.
A different photo perspective of the group
http://marines.dodlive.mil/2013/11/21/first-female-marines-graduate-infantry-training/
Tarrou said...
The question is not will they get pregnant on deployment, but will they get knocked up just before deployment, to get out of it. I've told this story many times, but in one unit, our mechanics were slightly better than half female.
Would it be legal to make Norplant a condition for eligibility for certain deployable positions?
It was a 12 miles in 3 hours standard when I went through ft Benning in 1992, as well. The ruck wasn't 90 pounds though, and I doubt it was here, too.
The interesting thing is that many see them as being able to meet the Infantry Course guidelines as definitive of being able to function in infantry units. As a former army light infantry sergeant, I can tell you that completing infantry is easy compared to the demands once you get to your unit. Much, much easier. At your unit, packs are heavy and all your units assigned TOE equipment goes with you. My rucksacks in infantry at Ft. Benning were paltry compared to my ruck at my unit, plus I carried more ammo, food for days in the field and components for crew-served weapons. This is barely the beginning.
@The Opinionator said...
and batteries and batteries
and of course there is that old truth:
"There is no such thing as too much ammo.
Only too much ammo to carry :) "
This is true. There was much MUCH more gear to carry at the unit than at the school!
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