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Trailblazing "First Female Infantry Marine" to be discharged for Fraternization

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cpwill

cpwill

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Gosh. If only someone had predicted that the importation of females into the infantry units would mean that problems and issues like this would arise in those units!

If only, like, every single combat veteran of those units had told us this sort of thing was likely to occur!!!

NY Times Link
Marine Corps Times Link
 
98+% of the world's jobs are in mixed gender environments. Pretending the infantry is somehow special and could never work with females nearby is total nonsense. After 15 months in the mountains I was ready to **** anything that moved. Extended periods in an all-male environment is not psychologically healthy, and that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with sex. There have been females in regular combat throughout the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and it's not going to go back to the way it was, so you might as well get used to it.

cpwill said:
If only, like, every single combat veteran of those units had told us this sort of thing was likely to occur!!!
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It's also likely that men downrange will smuggle in alcohol or smoke weed they found growing. Better ban all men from combat because it's likely infractions will occur.
 
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"Mike Berry, a reservist Marine Corps judge advocate, said it was rare for a commander to recommend a court-martial after a pretrial hearing had already concluded that there was no probable cause for multiple charges."
 
joko104 said:
Well isn't this a first that two people in the military became romantically involved. That is so rare I bet it hasn't happened more than a million times.
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It happens in the private sector too! I know because it's how I met my wife of nearly 28 years. And because it happens it means of course that women shouldn't be allowed to work in the private sector with men, because sometimes romantic relationships happen! It's too bad for the women relegated to back office jobs in segregated workplaces, but that's life....
 
joko104 said:
Well isn't this a first that two people in the military became romantically involved. That is so rare I bet it hasn't happened more than a million times.
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I just don't understand it. Combat arms never had a problem with sexual impropriety until just recently when they let 1 in 10,000 combat arms soldiers be women!
 
cpwill said:
Gosh. If only someone had predicted that the importation of females into the infantry units would mean that problems and issues like this would arise in those units!

If only, like, every single combat veteran of those units had told us this sort of thing was likely to occur!!!

NY Times Link
Marine Corps Times Link
Click to expand...

So what's your suggestion?

I'm 100% sure that 'fraternization' is common in all branches, all specialties, of the military where women and men work together, like it's common in the private sector and anywhere else especially young men and women are together for really ANY reason. I'd bet my last dollar that in the Pentagon right now there are MULTIPLE relationships going on with men and....women! So how far would you like to take gender-segregated workplaces, if evidence of 'fraternization' or its equivalent is reason to exclude women from those workplaces and jobs?

In my own field of accounting, I know lots of couples who met at work and married, like ME and my wife! Do we need segregated offices, even better different buildings, and women can only work with other women and men only with other men? And should this apply throughout the military and the private sector? Or just combat units for some odd reason?
 
While I’m not overly concerned about it, comparing combat arms (where you and your battle buddies can find yourselves fighting for your lives) to the private sector is not an apt comparison. The closest civilian comparison would be police or firefighters.
 
They could always form “amazon” units! :mrgreen:
 
Skeptic Bob said:
While I’m not overly concerned about it, comparing combat arms (where you and your battle buddies can find yourselves fighting for your lives) to the private sector is not an apt comparison. The closest civilian comparison would be police or firefighters.
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Of course, because when you're under fire with a female nearby the only thing you'll be thinking about is SWIGGITY SWOOGITY, I'M COMING FOR THAT BOOTY!

For this case, yes, it's perfectly apt to compare to civilians as there are more stressful mixed gender civilian jobs and nobody in a combat situation is thinking about boning. Also there are female police and fire fighters, yet nobody accuses them of jerking each other off in the fire truck as the house burns down.
 
cpwill said:
Gosh. If only someone had predicted that the importation of females into the infantry units would mean that problems and issues like this would arise in those units!

If only, like, every single combat veteran of those units had told us this sort of thing was likely to occur!!!

NY Times Link
Marine Corps Times Link
Click to expand...


So, this is me entering into the fray delicately, not wishing to take a side for the moment.

I just have a question, and I'd love to hear specifically from the military folks. Why is fraternization a problem?

This might seem like a stupid question, and maybe it is … I've got a few assumptions in my head, but wanted to hear directly from someone in the know... Thanks in advance.
 
cpwill said:
Gosh. If only someone had predicted that the importation of females into the infantry units would mean that problems and issues like this would arise in those units!

If only, like, every single combat veteran of those units had told us this sort of thing was likely to occur!!!

NY Times Link
Marine Corps Times Link
Click to expand...

I'm assuming the male that fraternized with her is also discharged?
 
Skeptic Bob said:
While I’m not overly concerned about it, comparing combat arms (where you and your battle buddies can find yourselves fighting for your lives) to the private sector is not an apt comparison. The closest civilian comparison would be police or firefighters.
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OK, but you'll need some reason for that distinction. Yes, of course the situations are different, but noting that obvious fact isn't a reason to keep combat units segregated by gender, nor can I see noting that fraternization happens serve as a reason to keep units segregated by gender. If there's a compelling reason for segregated combat units, I can't see those being legitimate ones.
 
As noted by her lawyer this is extremely selective enforcement. My child in the military "fraternized" with other members of both higher and lower rank, and ultimately did marry one who originally was the higher rank of the two and now the lower rank of the two. Both are still in the service. There was nothing secretive about it.

Remember the TV show "MASH?" Did ANYONE ever rant "how dare those high ranking doctors fraternize with lower ranking nurses? They should be court martialed and booted out with dishonorable discharges!" Of course not.

The only time there is prosecution is when there is an allegation of sexual abuse or harassment by a lower ranker who claims it was pressured upon her/him. Otherwise military personnel date each other routinely and openly when off duty.

There was only one woman in a Marine combat role and they wanted her gone. "Mission accomplished."
 
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JasperL said:
So what's your suggestion?

I'm 100% sure that 'fraternization' is common in all branches, all specialties, of the military where women and men work together
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Looks like you've figured out my suggestion. We should do what other militaries who have this have been forced to do - recognize that reducing the combat efficiency of line-combat units is a decision paid for in blood, and go back to having an all-volunteer, all-male infantry.

In my own field of accounting, I know lots of couples who met at work and married, like ME and my wife! Do we need segregated offices, even better different buildings, and women can only work with other women and men only with other men? And should this apply throughout the military and the private sector? Or just combat units for some odd reason?
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How many of your co-workers die or lose a leg if your office is short-staffed because someone had an affair?
 
JasperL said:
OK, but you'll need some reason for that distinction. Yes, of course the situations are different, but noting that obvious fact isn't a reason to keep combat units segregated by gender, nor can I see noting that fraternization happens serve as a reason to keep units segregated by gender. If there's a compelling reason for segregated combat units, I can't see those being legitimate ones.
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Fraternization is a (common, very common) issue in the military where we have gender-integrated units. As a result, those have to spend time and effort dealing with the investigations that result, they have lower unit cohesion, and they are less effective under pressure.

When this is an intelligence or a logistical unit the results are damaging, but rarely deadly. When you are on the sticky, pointy, edge of the spear, however, in a direct competition with enemy troops, every reduced efficiency, every loss of unit capability, degrades your ability to survive and enables the enemy as they kill you.
 
OlNate said:
So, this is me entering into the fray delicately, not wishing to take a side for the moment.

I just have a question, and I'd love to hear specifically from the military folks. Why is fraternization a problem?
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It destroys unit cohesion, creating infighting and cliques among units that need to have not only a single purpose, but really, a corporate personality in order to fight effectively. It creates conflict and distraction from the ability to train and the ability to work together against the enemy.

I've watched military units get ripped apart by this crap. :( Full-out broken.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
Of course, because when you're under fire with a female nearby the only thing you'll be thinking about is SWIGGITY SWOOGITY, I'M COMING FOR THAT BOOTY!
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That is absolutely what can happen, unfortunately, especially over deployements :-/. I watched this occur when a FET team came out to the FOB, and everyone instantly stopped paying full attention to their jobs in order to pay attention to the females. From Senior NCO's on down, half the company wanted to get laid. It wasn't necessarily the female's fault - they were just there to do their job - but they sure didn't mind the attention of 100+ dudes catering to their every whim and vying for their attention. :shrug: what do you expect when you take a 20 year old female and make her a sudden rockstar, surrounded by in-shape, hyper-alpha dudes competing for her?

So long as they were there, we were disrupted and distracted :-/. It wasn't good, and it' wasn't what was supposed to happen, but it's what happened. During the original debates over this policy change, there were multiple other vets in this forum who laid out similar experiences.

Nor is it limited to simply the FET teams - I watched a Division Level G2 get ripped apart by affair after affair within the unit, fraternization and favorites (and accusations of favoritism that follow), investigations, and, eventually, a prostitution ring. A division level Staff can handle that kind of chaos and still manage to work probably without killing anyone. But when you degrade the infantry :shrug: degradation impacts performance, and degraded performance can kill, as sure as complacency, as sure as IEDs.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
98+% of the world's jobs are in mixed gender environments. Pretending the infantry is somehow special and could never work with females nearby is total nonsense.
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:shrug: I'm not aware of anyone who has argued "could never". The available data, however, is almost uniformly in favor of "will work more poorly".

After 15 months in the mountains I was ready to **** anything that moved. Extended periods in an all-male environment is not psychologically healthy, and that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with sex. There have been females in regular combat throughout the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and it's not going to go back to the way it was, so you might as well get used to it.
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Arguing that a policy change was wise because it was made isn't exactly the best argument.

It's also likely that men downrange will smuggle in alcohol or smoke weed they found growing. Better ban all men from combat because it's likely infractions will occur.
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Better to ban alcohol and weed, and punish malefactors, which they already do, while also taking steps to restrict their availability. Bringing in bars and allowing soldiers/Marines to grow weed, while still telling them they aren't allowed to drink or smoke, however, is asking to increase your discipline issues.
 
cpwill said:
It destroys unit cohesion, creating infighting and cliques among units that need to have not only a single purpose, but really, a corporate personality in order to fight effectively. It creates conflict and distraction from the ability to train and the ability to work together against the enemy.

I've watched military units get ripped apart by this crap. :( Full-out broken.
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Thank you for the explanation. Would you say this differs greatly from the traditional soldier / nurse thing that my great uncles would brag about from time to time in WW2? Again, I'm not trying to drive a point here, just looking for an education.

To reinforce that, I will make clear my stance...I don't think that this should be a reason to eliminate women from service - rather, it is a call for more discipline and self restraint among ALL those involved. I don't think an entire demographic should be eliminated because of the bad behavior of one (or a minority) of it's members... Assuming this was a hetero relationship, you'd have no army left... :) I'm pretty firm on my stance, so I don't need to debate it, and won't, as I wouldn't want that to get in the way of learning something here...if you're still down to teach.

Thanks in advance for answering my questions, CP, I appreciate it.
 
Eventually, it will work.
 
cpwill said:
Fraternization is a (common, very common) issue in the military where we have gender-integrated units. As a result, those have to spend time and effort dealing with the investigations that result, they have lower unit cohesion, and they are less effective under pressure.

When this is an intelligence or a logistical unit the results are damaging, but rarely deadly. When you are on the sticky, pointy, edge of the spear, however, in a direct competition with enemy troops, every reduced efficiency, every loss of unit capability, degrades your ability to survive and enables the enemy as they kill you.
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There are arguments both ways. Some claim it reduces combat efficiency, while others claim it increases combat effectiveness. It appears highly circumstantial one way or the other.

The only real combat history of women in combat was in Russia during WW2.

Personally, I do not think units should be sex-mixed ("gender" is something else). However, I fully support women in combat roles including ground combat. However, the issue of fraternization is not the same as whether personnel of the opposite sex should be in the same combat unit.
 
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