Category: Big Army

Bobo sends a link to the Washington Times in which they report that some “senior officers” hinted to Congress that they’re contemplating separate male & female training for combat arms positions. Just looking at the issue from that perspective it almost makes sense, until you read what members of the House Armed Services subcommittee said about the plan;

The idea was presented by Rep. Niki Tsongas.

“To put in place a training regimen that is ill-suited to maximizing the success of women is not really the outcome any of us want to see,” she said.

What does “maximizing the success of women” mean? Either she is saying that men are going to hold women back, like in “GI Jane”, or that they’re going to hold women to a different standard than men in order to make sure that more women qualify for combat arms jobs.

Army Lt. Gen. Howard Bromberg, deputy chief of staff for personnel, agreed.

“We are looking at that, and we’re not looking at it just for the integration of women,” Gen. Bromberg testified. “We’re looking at it for the total soldier, because just as you have a 110-pound male who may lack some type of physiological capability or physical capability, he or she may both need to be trained differently. We’re trying to expand our understanding of how we train.”

Now, I was a 128-pound private and I’ll admit that training was probably more difficult for me than for, say, Tim Martin, who was built like a bull and went on to be one of the first Delta soldiers. But the standard remained the same for both of us because the standard doesn’t change for bullets.

Now, if the General means “trained differently” to reach the same standard of performance, well, that’s fine, but if they’re talking about defining the standard down to compensate for their size and ability, that’s just wrong. Combat has a single standard, irrespective of size and gender, and that’s how they should be trained.

[Marine Lt. Gen. Robert Milstead Jr. said] “They need to be nurtured different. They just need different steps as they go. They end up in the same place, the United States Marines.”

I didn’t know that the Marines knew how to use “nurture” in a complete sentence, and I’m sure that there are some DIs who would disagree with the General that “nurturing” is in their job descriptions. And it’s a disturbing trend in the language that indicates to me that the standards are going to plummet along with the combat effectiveness of the total force.

Paul and Ex-PH2 send us link to articles about the Army’s attempt to develop “green ammo”, you know because we’re polluting the enemies’ environments. Or something. From MSN;

A special technical team is applying the same technology used to switch to the greener 5.56 mm M855A1 enhanced performance round, or EPR, in 2010, which eliminated nearly 2,000 tons of lead from being used, according to the latest numbers released by Picatinny.

[…]

The Army projects that by using the green 5.56 mm and 7.62 mm ammunition, an additional 3,683 metric tons of lead could be eliminated from ammunition production between 2013 and 2018.

The Firearms Blog reported a few years ago that Norwegians tested the lead-free ammo and discovered that the resulting gas made their soldiers sick.

The report states that the gas exhausted from the rifles contained high levels of copper and zinc which account for all the symptoms suffered by the riflemen. A few, quite comical, short term solutions have been recommended. These include only shooting outside, slower rate of fire and spacing the shooters out more when at the range!

Because those are always choices that you can get when engaged in a real fire fight. Guns and Ammo takes a critical look at the M855A1;

[T]he reason it shoots flatter is because they’ve juiced the round up so that it will fly at 3,100 fps. This would be a great achievement except for the fact that they did it by increasing the chamber pressure from 55,000 psi to 63,000 psi. That’s a number closely approaching proof-load pressures.

[…]

This means that not only are parts going to wear out at a much higher rate (which is already is an issue with the M4), but if, God forbid, there is any bullet set-back, the number of M4s reportedly going “high order” (i.e., blowing up) should increase exponentially.

[…]

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that the new round cuts barrel life by almost 50 percent…

[…]

There has never been a single scientific study that has proven that lead from expended rounds has leached into surrounding soil or found its way into the water table. Not a single study. Not one.

So like everything else Big Army has done in recent years, protecting the force and giving them the tools they need gives way to hippie, feel-good politics. By the way, the M855A1 costs more than double what any other 5.56mm round costs. You know that’s good because of the cuts to spending that the DoD is currently experiencing. This really helps out. We can just furlough a few more thousand employees and cut a couple of thousand more trigger pullers to pay for this ammo that under-performs current choices.

The Army Times reports that thousands of operational records from the war against terror are missing – almost all of the records of the 82nd Airborne Division;

McHugh’s letter was addressed to the committee chairman, Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., and the panel’s senior Democrat, Michael Michaud of Maine, who said in an email July 12 that the records were of critical importance to veterans.

“The admission that there are massive amounts of lost records is only the first step,” Michaud said. “I appreciate the Army issuing orders to address this serious problem, but I’m concerned that it took a letter from Congress to make it happen.”

“Our veterans have given up so much for our country, and they deserve a complete record of their service — for the sake of history, as well as potential disability claims down the road,” he said.

Apparently, many of the records were erased off of hard drives when units left theater and were unsure about whether they could return to the States with classified material on their computers. And of course, there was the inability of units to maintain complete records.

The missing records do not include personnel files and medical records, which are stored separately from the field records that detail day-to-day activities.

So from a Stolen Valor perspective, future liars can’t claim that they were awarded a medal and the records were lost in this fiasco, unless they try to claim that they should have been awarded a medal for an action that was lost.

Thanks to David for the link.

Chuck Hagel talked to the troops yesterday at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, FL and he told them that he’s calling for a 20% haircut at the Pentagon – to cut staff positions in the bloated bureaucracy. From the Washington Post;

Hagel’s directive could force the Pentagon and military command staffs to shed an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 jobs. That’s a tiny percentage of the Defense Department’s 2.1 million active-duty troops and civilian employees, but analysts said it would be a symbolically important trimming of the upper branches of the bureaucracy, which has proved to be resistant to past pruning attempts.

[…]

Hagel said the cutbacks would apply to the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Staff, as well as Pentagon headquarters staffs for the armed forces.

He did not give further details. It was unclear whether his order also would apply to defense contractors assigned to those offices or the military’s combatant command staffs.

Well, that’s good start, it’s in the neighborhood where the cuts need to happen. Anything that saves operational jobs makes more sense than eroding the benefits for retention purposes. We need to keep more actual Rangers more than we need the PowerPoint variety.

DoD estimates that the cuts to staffs will result in a $1.5 – $2 billion savings, but the plan is scheduled to happen before 2015.

So it seems that SMA Chandler has been holding Town Hall style meetings over Military is wanting to have women in combat arms. I cannot see how he can make some of the statements that I have read given the statements made by Big Army. But I guess that he managed to overcome that hurdle.

“There’s a misconception that female Soldiers won’t have to meet the same standards as male Soldiers or that we’re going to lower standards. That’s just not the case,” Chandler said. “This is about one standard applied equally across the force.”

But the Army has yet to get a working standard uniform let alone rifle which we have been hearing about for years. But we are going to make a Physical fitness standard across the board. But then they drop this.

“Many of our standards are outdated and very old. What we’re doing now is looking at the physical requirements for any person, male or female, to serve in an MOS, and once the revised standard is implemented, that will be the standard for anyone to serve in that MOS.”

So let me get this straight, their physical requirements will vary from MOS to MOS? I understand that if you have additional training as being Airborne, Air Assault, Ranger, and SF that the PT testing while have higher requirements. But these are not MOSs, so at a glance it looked like the PT tests would become individualized to the MOS rather then the universal PT requirements we have today, baring age and gender. So with this in mind how is this moving toward a universal PT standard?

But if you have a problem with it, your just a trouble maker and need to get with the program.

“The first and largest obstacle the Army must overcome for integration is the culture,” Chandler said. “There is still a perception in some parts of the Army that female Soldiers won’t be able to do the same things as their male counterparts, or that we won’t be as successful if we have them in combat arms organizations. I think the people saying these things are a vocal minority.”

Feeling the love, Feeling the love.

Chief Tango sends us a link from USAToday the great news that Marty Dempsey is getting renominated to his seat as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs;

President Obama said Wednesday he will renominate two top military aides: Gen. Martin Dempsey as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Adm. Sandy Winnefeld as vice chair.

“These two distinguished military leaders have earned my trust and that of the American people,” Obama said in a statement.

Yeah, so what about the trust of the American service members? Dempsey has come down against retired military veterans when he told Congress that he wouldn’t mind paying a little more for his healthcare, so the rest of us shouldn’t. Marty blamed our troops for the “green-on-blue” attacks against them because they were insensitive to the Muslim culture. He allowed the commanders to disarm his troops while they were in combat so as not to make their “allies” uncomfortable, inviting more “green-on-blue” attacks against our troops. Dempsey wrapped his arms around the myth that al Qaeda has been “decimated” despite clear evidence of their resurgence in Iraq, Africa and Syria. Dempsey has also led the way promoting lower standards for our combat arms troops so that more women could can fill those slots.

Dempsey reappointment is merely because he doesn’t push back against the politicians when they make ill-considered decisions.