Re: Marine Sgt Major who oversaw Gender Integration Test blasts SECNAV on private FB
I realize you were asking the OP, but having served in the Corps for 20 years I can translate Gyrine (Marine Corps lingo) into civilian.
In a nut shell:
WOMEN DON'T EFFIN BELONG IN INFANTRY UNITS BECAUSE MORE PEOPLE WILL DIE AS A RESULT OF IT!!
Hope that helps. Have a nice day.
I am going to be even more antagonistic here to the "braindead liberals" in what I am going to say.
Semper Fi brother. Not sure when you served, but I still remember the female integration tests the Corps tried in the mid 1980's. For this one they did not insert females into the Infantry, but into another Combat Arm, the Artillery. I do not know if they did it at Pendleton, but I know that at least one Battalion in 10th Marines (I think) integrated females into support roles. Admin, supply, motor pool, and other non-combat MOS positions.
In Garrison, things seemed to work fine. And from what I heard, even in field exercises things were up to spec. But like all Marine Combat units, they had to go through a bi-annual MCRES (Marine Corp Readiness Evaluation System). In short, for the non-Marines in here, that is essentially a month long series of inspections, evaluations, and exercises, finished with a 2 week combat field exercise and a 25 mile forced march.
And where they failed every single time was the forced march. If memory serves correctly, a Battalion sized unit was given 8 hours to complete it, in a Battalion formation, full combat load, with no more then 10% of those in the unit falling out of the march. Typical units spend months practicing for that part of the MCRES, and it is absolutely the most brutal part. The 2 times I did it with 2/2, we had around 3% drop out.
There were 2 classifications of a "drop" in this. It is done as companies (batteries), in a mass Battalion formation. Fall behind your company, and you were still in the march, but had better keep up after the next break (5 minutes every hour). Fall behind the Battalion, and you were out. Put into the back of a 6-ton and driven to the ending point where those on limited duty status (injured) were waiting for everybody else.
But the Artillery Battalions were running 15%+ drop rates. And when they looked at the numbers, only a small percentage of the females were able to even complete the march, let alone completeing it with their proper companies. I remember driving by Smith Street or Sneades Ferry Road and seeing units doing their practice humps. And you could always tell the Arty units, by the platoon to company sized formation of females bringing up the rear ½-1 mile behind the rest of the unit.
If I remember correctly, the females were all pulled out and the test cancelled in the prep for the Gulf War. But if females can not even perform "to spec" as support in a combat unit, we can not expect things to go better when they are actually placed into a combat MOS.
I both deeply love and respect all females I have served with. And would go into combat with most of them (there are always turds in any group) without any hesitation. But that does not mean I think females should serve in most combat MOS. And I simply can't justify the expense and training required to weed out the 2-4% that could actually perform to spec from the others.
The people that are advocating this policy have the knowledge that they, their children and probably their grandchildren will never have to serve in a combat unit and risk being wounded or killed because of the lowered combat effectiveness.
As for as "they", they are right. Most who advance this seem to have never served in the military, let alone in combat units.
But the really big mistake by them, is in assuming their children or grandchildren never will.
Ont thing about serving in the military, those who join do it for a great many reasons. And often times, serving increases for various reasons (Pearl Harbor, 9-11), or can even skip generations. And sometimes entire families who had no history of military service will all suddenly join up (Joe, Jack, and Rob Kennedy all joined up during WWII).
So anybody delusional enough to predict what their children and grandchildren will do is a fool in my mind. Myself, one of my children is perpetually in jail, another is a far-left Liberal, and the third is joining the Marine Corps himself. Predicting the path that children and grandchildren will take is stupid.
