{"id":30747,"date":"2012-07-12T16:22:50","date_gmt":"2012-07-12T20:22:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=30747"},"modified":"2012-07-12T17:01:39","modified_gmt":"2012-07-12T21:01:39","slug":"women-in-the-infantry-one-marine-speaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=30747","title":{"rendered":"Women in the infantry; one Marine speaks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Green thumb sent us a link to an MSNBC article<\/a> which refers to another in the Marine Corps Gazette<\/a> by Capt Katie Petronio, a Marine Combat Engineer who seeks to put to rest the fallacy that there is equality among men and women when it comes to being in the infantry. First she asks;<\/p>\n

Who is driving this agenda? I am not personally hearing female Marines, enlisted or officer, pounding on the doors of Congress claiming that their inability to serve in the infantry violates their right to equality. Shockingly, this isn\u2019t even a congressional agenda. This issue is being pushed by several groups, one of which is a small committee of civilians appointed by the Secretary of Defense called the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Service (DACOWITS). <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…as it pertains to the issue of women in the infantry, it\u2019s very surprising to see that none of the committee members are on active duty or have any recent combat or relevant operational experience relating to the issue they are attempting to change. I say this because, at the end of the day, it\u2019s the active duty servicemember who will ultimately deal with the results of their initiatives, not those on the outside looking in.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, well, welcome to the world of a military governed by civilians, Captain. The good-intention fairies are numerous out here. It’s just like the idiots who are saying there should be a draft – they’re the same people who won’t be drafted and wont have to deal with the draftees once they’re in uniform. But she recounts her personal experiences when she was deployed to Afghanistan;<\/p>\n

By the fifth month into the deployment, I had muscle atrophy in my thighs that was causing me to constantly trip and my legs to buckle with the slightest grade change. My agility during firefights and mobility on and off vehicles and perimeter walls was seriously hindering my response time and overall capability. It was evident that stress and muscular deterioration was affecting everyone regardless of gender; however, the rate of my deterioration was noticeably faster than that of male Marines and further compounded by gender-specific medical conditions. 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oops, you mean women are different than men? Those social engineers aren’t going to like that conclusion.<\/p>\n

Then the good captain does her best imitation of me;<\/p>\n

Not once was the word \u201clower\u201d used [in regard to training standards], but let\u2019s be honest, \u201cmodifying\u201d a standard so that less physically or mentally capable individuals (male or female) can complete a task is called \u201clowering the standard\u201d! The bottom line is that the enemy doesn\u2019t discriminate, rounds will not slow down, and combat loads don\u2019t get any lighter, regardless of gender or capability.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So she says, “What’s the point of it all?”<\/p>\n

Which leads one to really wonder, what is the benefit of this potential change? The Marine Corps is not in a shortage of willing and capable young male second lieutenants who would gladly take on the role of infantry officers. In fact we have men fighting to be assigned to the coveted position of 0302.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When I was teaching ROTC, male cadets all held their collective breath hoping for an infantry billet and most were disappointed when they didn’t get it.<\/p>\n

She recommends an alternate MOS specifically for female engagement teams officers and for the Marines to dump their plans to integrate women into the infantry;<\/p>\n

For those who dictate policy, changing the current restrictions associated with women in the infantry may not seem significant to the way the Marine Corps operates. I vehemently disagree; this potential change will rock the foundation of our Corps for the worse and will weaken what has been since 1775 the world\u2019s most lethal fighting force. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And a little bit of common sense which if it was written by a man would be censored from politically correct periodicals;<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s embrace our differences to further hone in on the Corps\u2019 success instead of dismantling who we are to achieve a political agenda. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A brilliant and brave Marine. What could I possibly add. But you should read the whole thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Green thumb sent us a link to an MSNBC article which refers to another in the … Women in the infantry; one Marine speaks<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30747\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}