3 women dropped from Marines' infantry officer course

[Saltyag2010]

When your ego is bigger than your abilities you get your ass kicked.
Stay in your lane.

I'm glad to see that they're trying. The stress fracture foot marine has to be bad news.

 

[jrbfishn]

That is just part of life. You have to admire someone that at least tries knowing what's coming.


Sent by a idjit coffeeholic

 

[Ole Cowboy]

Thank you for your service and for keeping us free.

There is no way I could make that hike even when I was in top shape at the age of 20. Then add the 120lb gear load ...... I'd fall down in a few yards lol.

Thank you for the support...

I don't mind different standards for some jobs. Take being a truck driver. Men, women can do it as well, BUT when it comes time to change the tire on a 2 1/2 or 5 ton truck unless her name is Forklift she can't pick up that tire...albeit I knew a gal who could pick up a transmission without using her arms...but most cannot.

However when you cross the FEBA and you walk into the valley of the shadow of death then its a whole 'nother ball game. Think some little gal can pick up some 6'2" loaded down soldier that has taken a hit and is down, can she get it into cover out on the killing fields or is she going to lean over and whisper in his ear, sorry soldier I cannot push, pull or drag your shot up ass to safety, see you are camp if you make it!!!

How about having your azz pinned down and a chopper dumps out ammo cans of desperately needed bullets...HEY LINDA run over, get those and pass them around the platoon along witht he belts of 7.62, the claymores and the cases of grenades, CLUCKING NOW, guys are running out of ammo, we will get over run if they don't resupply...Ohhhh its so heavy, I need some help.

We have been out on patrol for better part of the week and hot on the trail of some bad actors...Heather tells the platoon daddy, she has cramps, its her time of the month and has to go back, NOW...

 

[F350-6]

The Kurds seem to have a pretty good group of female fighters in combat, so it's not like it can't be done. I also don't have a problem with the women trying to make it through in the USMC.

The thing about the training tough regimen is somewhat misleading though. Yes they have to do it, but no it's not any harder than what is done every year afterward while in the fleet while attached to an infantry unit. Think it's tough when you're young and in the best shape of your life? Wait till you add on a few years.

When I was active, our training rotation included 6 months of training that ended in a MCCRES (final test that started with a 25 mile, full combat hike and got worse from there). If your unit passes all the training exercises and makes it through the MCCRES with the required percentage of whole bodies, you got your little SOF designation and went on your 6 month deployment. (only to repeat the process when you returned).

These officers aren't being asked to do anything that they won't have to do in their normal job, so loosening any requirements is something I don't see happening.

(Unless they've already changed all of the above and it's already become easier).

Also, we used to take a 10 min break every hour so the actual pace was closer to 5 mph. I walk slow now because I can.

 

[Ole Cowboy]

Pressure Grows for Marines to Lower Standards for Women

27 Female Marines Have Attempted the Infantry Officers Training Course. None Have Passed.
BY: Aaron MacLean
October 28, 2014 8:32 am

When it was reported at the beginning of October that three female Marine officers had passed the Combat Endurance Test (CET), the initial entry screener for the Corp’s challenging Infantry Officer Course, the news was widely reported. You can read about it here, here, here, here, here, and here.
The story was indeed news. Up to that point, of the 24 women who had attempted the CET, only one had passed, and she had reportedly later been dropped from the overall course due to an injury. Struggling to get enough female officers into the course to produce a statistically significant result for its study of introducing women into combat roles, the Corps had directed that more seasoned female officers could attempt the course. Now three had made it over the first hurdle.

When all three were cut from the course last week for not meeting physical standards in subsequent training events, the news was not as widely reported. I have only found it here in the Christian Science Monitor, which, to its credit, has closely covered this issue from start:

When they begin the 13-week IOC, officers are told that if they “fall out” of more than one “tactical movement” during their time in training, they will be asked to leave the school.
“That has always been IOC policy,” Major Flynn says.“The key part is not just to conduct a movement. You need to lead that moment, and you can’t do that if you’re falling out.”
The standard pace for “tactical movements” – otherwise known as hikes – at the IOC is about three miles per hour, he says.
During the first march in which the three female – as well as three male – officers were issued a warning, the Marines were given about two hours and 40 minutes to move 7-1/2 miles. At the time, they were assigned to carry roughly 104 pounds each.
If at any point one of the students falls 75 or 100 meters behind the unit, an instructor “will start walking with that Marine,” Flynn says. “We start sticking on them.”
The instructors ask: “Hey, where’s your unit right now? OK, you need to get up with them, because you’re not leading anyone from back here.”
From that point, the officers have about five minutes to start catching up. If they don’t, they are put in a truck.
Officers at the IOC say it’s a safety issue. If the unit gets strung out too far, it’s dangerous not to know where troops are.
The Marines are then told that if they fall behind to a similar degree again, they are out of the course.
“The class adviser pulls them aside and says, ‘That’s your one. You don’t get any more. Understand?’ ” Flynn says. “They’ve been counseled that they have failed a hike, and we don’t tolerate more than one failure of a tactical movement.”
That’s what happened last week, this time during a nine-mile march. The students had three hours to complete it, carrying 124-pound packs.
When three men and three women fell behind for a second time, Flynn had to break the news that they were out.


​

This story highlights what IOC graduates already knew: that despite the hype surrounding the initial Combat Endurance Test in the press, that event is by no means the most difficult evolution at the three-month course. It may not even crack the top three. Passing it is a meaningful accomplishment, but only insofar as it certifies that the officer has demonstrated sufficient mental and physical toughness to attempt the rest of the course.

Perhaps there is less enthusiasm in covering this most recent turn of events because, unlike the three officers passing the CET, their subsequent departure from the course is part of a repeating and, as yet, unbroken pattern: By my count, 27 female officers have attempted the course, and zero have made it to graduation—with 23 not making it past the CET on the first day. (Roughly a quarter of male lieutenants also do not graduate.)
The law of averages being what it is, if the Marine Corps continues on this course long enough, a female officer will eventually graduate from the course. This Marine will have every right to be extremely proud of herself and of her accomplishment.

But advocates outside the Marine Corps are getting impatient, and pressure is beginning to grow on the Marines to lower their standards.
The change in tone is well summarized in the headline the editors at the Christian Science Monitorchose to give their story: “Three pioneering women in Marine infantry course are asked to leave. Why?” The first half of the story is a by-the-book recounting of the news, after which advocates of getting women into the infantry by any means necessary are given a substantial amount of space to air some good, old-fashioned special pleading:

Retired Army Col. Ellen Haring, an advocate for women in combat, says that although the entire formation was supposed to complete the hike in three hours, it took most of the group closer to four hours.

“Despite the fact that none of them could keep the pace that was set that day, they were considered failures. But the whole unit failed to meet those parameters, not just those six people,” she says. “Who maintains the rate of the march?”

The Marines haven’t always been clear about the parameters for the course, says Greg Jacob, policy director for the Service Women’s Action Network.

At the enlisted training school, Mr. Jacobs, who served as a Marine, recalls that students were told they could walk no faster than three miles an hour, and every hour they had to take a 10-minute break.

In the IOC, “it’s up to the person in front to set the speed of the hike,” he says. “There doesn’t seem to be a standard around these movements.”
As a result, he adds, “it seems like the goal posts just keep moving.”

Colonel Haring argues that this is particularly tough for the women who are endeavoring to become infantry officers. “I’m sure all of these women did this course because they thought they could complete it,” she says.


Pressure Grows for Marines to Lower Standards for Women | Washington Free Beacon


​

 

[CrazedJava]

nd pressure is beginning to grow on the Marines to lower their standards.

These idiots do not seem to understand what the mission of our military is.

BTW, I'll eat a little crow about the Army lowering their standards after reading about the Korean women earning their EIB without having the bar lowered. Good for them.

 

[Ole Cowboy]

These idiots do not seem to understand what the mission of our military is.

BTW, I'll eat a little crow about the Army lowering their standards after reading about the Korean women earning their EIB without having the bar lowered. Good for them.
[/FONT][/FONT][/COLOR]

Remember the EIB is a station based test. We did them in our Bn containment area. You do have to study for it, but we did not have a lot of folks that failed except some duds.

 

[Odiferous]

And even though these Korean females -earned- their EIBs...the most physical portion is (correct me if I'm mistaken) a 12-mile ruck march with a "full load" of at least 35 pounds in under three hours (Army standard road march). Plenty of American females can meet that standard. The rest of the test is knowledge-based.

The EIB is currently open only to 11-(Infantry) and 18-(Special Forces) series MOSs. Thus, American female Soldiers cannot compete.

 

[Younggun]

Hell, I had to do that to graduate basic and I was 63B.

Course, I went to basic at Benning so maybe they just pushed us a little harder. Got to AIT at Jackson and everyone that had gone to basic there (male and female) were squishy as hell and the guys that came with me from Benning, as well as a group from Knox, thought it was a joke.

We would taint the DS when getting smoked or doing PT just to make the squishies suffer. We were just warming up.

 

[Ole Cowboy]

Basic training: Back in the mid 80's the Army wanted someone to do a study and compare Marine Basic vs Army Basic and women training of both. It was a 6 week study. I was chosen. They gave me the current POI for USMC Basic and sent me to some post were they had men and women training in basic. They would NOT send me to the Marine location where they had basic going on, said I had the POI and that was enough.

I briefed at the GO level. Briefing was halted about half way thru as worthless, poor job, one GO wrote a comment to be added to my OER about my poor performance on this assignment. I still had the rest of the week to finish and turn in the written report, I was told to leave by the next day as the assignment was over, no written report needed.

I interviewed men/women in basic at 2 weeks, 4 weeks, and 6 weeks of training. I compared the POI's of both and in an in-depth analysis ( I have a consulting and analytical background from my college days).

Can ANYONE guess what my final recommendations were?

Recommend US Army adopt USMC training in these following areas: x, x, x, (been too long to remember them, but most of the USMC POI) for BOTH MEN and WOMEN. They are far superior to our standards and would result in better performing soldier in and out of Basic and higher retention of FEMALE soldiers!

YEP the Army Top brass did NOT want to hear that!!!

 

[Younggun]

I was just discussing the same thing with a guy I work with (army in the 80s, Artillery).

We both agreed that the army would be much better off if it adopted, at the very least, the marines style of everyone going through the full course of infantry training first, then on to specific MOS training.


We also agreed that the army is moving in the opposite direction and the being PC is bad for a war fighting organization.

Then we reminisced and missed the good old days of wearing green.

 

[Ole Cowboy]

Funny that you posted that, as I am going back and forth with ( e mail) in between postings on here right now. With one of the architects of Army training. I saw him fight battles after battles and be overridden by GO after GO. I was an architect of Army training. I was the ICP (Information Class Proponent for Army Training and Automation). ( The ICP is the DCSOPS a 3 bullet slot, but then almost always assigns the duties) You would think that between the two of us we could have effected changes, but the problem is at the GO level. We had a saying: "the GOBI's will get you every time' (General Officer Bright Idea's).

Yes I along with him made changes in the Army, but the changes such as adaptation of most of the USMC POI for entry soldiers (men and women) got me all but drop kicked out of the room. I would have lost my job over that had it not been for one of the GO's who agreed with me, he called me and my boss and gave me praises for the great job I did, but added it was not what the Army as an institution wanted to hear.

As I sat in the PM/ICP position for almost 9 years I can say I did the very best job I could within the constraints placed upon me and had I not be so well connected at HQDADCSOPS (which was who I worked for but assigned to TRADOC HQ Ft Monroe) I would have been canned. But I had the ability to get MONEY, BIG MONEY in tight budget times, I increased the budget in quantum leaps every year...money and connections to the Pentagon carry a LOT of weight at the top levels of the military.

Wish I could have done more...

 

[peeps]

Basic training: Back in the mid 80's the Army wanted someone to do a study and compare Marine Basic vs Army Basic and women training of both. It was a 6 week study. I was chosen. They gave me the current POI for USMC Basic and sent me to some post were they had men and women training in basic. They would NOT send me to the Marine location where they had basic going on, said I had the POI and that was enough.

I briefed at the GO level. Briefing was halted about half way thru as worthless, poor job, one GO wrote a comment to be added to my OER about my poor performance on this assignment. I still had the rest of the week to finish and turn in the written report, I was told to leave by the next day as the assignment was over, no written report needed.

I interviewed men/women in basic at 2 weeks, 4 weeks, and 6 weeks of training. I compared the POI's of both and in an in-depth analysis ( I have a consulting and analytical background from my college days).

Can ANYONE guess what my final recommendations were?

Recommend US Army adopt USMC training in these following areas: x, x, x, (been too long to remember them, but most of the USMC POI) for BOTH MEN and WOMEN. They are far superior to our standards and would result in better performing soldier in and out of Basic and higher retention of FEMALE soldiers!

YEP the Army Top brass did NOT want to hear that!!!

Man, what a-holes...political tools I guess. I mean it's just common sense - people want to be a part of a well trained, tight-knit group (and that goes for anything not just military). But of course retention will be better when you have that. No one wants to die because their buddy couldn't hack it..dumb generals. Thanks for fighting the good fight Ole Cowboy

 

[F350-6]

...... (Roughly a quarter of male lieutenants also do not graduate.)

Yes, but we all know the officers get off easy. When I went to enlisted boot camp, my platoon started out with 113 individuals (all male). Thirteen weeks later we graduated 62. Can't say why those numbers have stuck with me for all these decades, but that's what they were.

And that was just basic training. We hadn't even gotten to Idiot Training School yet. (They called it Infantry Training School but where's the fun in that?)

 

[Ole Cowboy]

Yes, but we all know the officers get off easy. When I went to enlisted boot camp, my platoon started out with 113 individuals (all male). Thirteen weeks later we graduated 62. Can't say why those numbers have stuck with me for all these decades, but that's what they were.

And that was just basic training. We hadn't even gotten to Idiot Training School yet. (They called it Infantry Training School but where's the fun in that?)

If only that were true. IIRC there were 207 in my Basic Infantry Officers course and less than 10 made to retirement. Enlisted serve by contract so making 20 and beyond is easy, but not officers, they can pull the plug on you any time.

They say no officer has ever received walking papers that had a silver star. NOT TRUE. I personally know an officer who got the boot with 17 years 9 mo of service, 2 SS, more Purple Hearts that he could count, submitted for the CMoH for pulling his Co out of a bad spot, he took 7 rounds taking him out, his Co live was saved and he went on to make 3 Stars. He was a true hero, I knew him very well and spoke with him just a few months back right before he died. I was also in the office when he called the GO on the fone and begged him to help him out for saving his life in Vietnam. He only needed less than 30 days more on Active Duty to be able to get 18 year lock in and retire at 20...The guy turned him down. He told him, "I've got a chance at 4 stars and if I do that for you, I will might not get my 4th star: It was on speaker fone, I heard every word...

 

[F350-6]

If only that were true. IIRC there were 207 in my Basic Infantry Officers course and less than 10 made to retirement.

You're talking 20 years, I'm talking 13 weeks.

I didn't make it 20 years either. Bum knee and a bad limp on cold mornings, but otherwise I'm better off for the time I did serve. Still there's a difference in basic and retirement.

 

[Odiferous]

If only that were true. IIRC there were 207 in my Basic Infantry Officers course and less than 10 made to retirement. Enlisted serve by contract so making 20 and beyond is easy, but not officers, they can pull the plug on you any time.

They say no officer has ever received walking papers that had a silver star. NOT TRUE. I personally know an officer who got the boot with 17 years 9 mo of service, 2 SS, more Purple Hearts that he could count, submitted for the CMoH for pulling his Co out of a bad spot, he took 7 rounds taking him out, his Co live was saved and he went on to make 3 Stars. He was a true hero, I knew him very well and spoke with him just a few months back right before he died. I was also in the office when he called the GO on the fone and begged him to help him out for saving his life in Vietnam. He only needed less than 30 days more on Active Duty to be able to get 18 year lock in and retire at 20...The guy turned him down. He told him, "I've got a chance at 4 stars and if I do that for you, I will might not get my 4th star: It was on speaker fone, I heard every word...

THis happens more than most people would believe...

 

[nlghthawk]

watch them lower the requirements....I have full faith this will happen.

 

[Ole Cowboy]

watch them lower the requirements....I have full faith this will happen.

It has happened: The CiC has said we will improve our diversity and minority representation in the combat ranks. The Army then release a statement saying they will work much harder to meet diversity goals and minorities in the combat ranks.

The die is stuck and the answer from the Top brass is: "WILCO"




Muslims Demand Army Change Its Dress Code To Include Turbans And Beards



The Department of Defense released regulations on Wednesday to protect the rights of service members to wear a turban, scarf, or beard, to display their religious beliefs—as long as the practices don’t interfere with “military discipline, order, or readiness.”

“We welcome the important decision to broaden the religious rights of American military personnel,” a statement from the Council on American-Islamic Relations read, “We hope it will allow all those in uniform to practice their faith while serving the nation.”

Eligible areas for religious accommodation include hair, grooming practices, religious body art, such as tattoos or body piercings. Requests for religious accommodation will be decided on a person-by-person basis, but will ultimately be denied only if the item interferes with the use of military equipment, poses a health or safety hazard, or interferes with wearing a military gear or the completion of the ‘military mission.’

The new regulations are receiving praise by leaders of national Muslim American groups, but is still receiving criticism from some Sikh American organizations, who feel that it is not adequate enough. Some individuals, for instance, may still be turned down.

“Unfortunately, this continues to make us have to choose between our faith and serving our country,” said Jasjit Singh, executive director of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, “It has been a work in progress, but we were hoping they would go further.”