• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

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

Status
Not open for further replies.
OlNate said:
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?
Click to expand...

I have no idea. Maybe for the guys in the hospital at the time, but they aren't a fighting unit, being in a hospital. The impacts would be pretty muted.

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.
Click to expand...

Sure. Let's also use the magic button of "More Discipline" to also mean we don't need to have Unit PT (guaranteed support of the E3 and below) :)

Look, in a perfect world, sure, you wouldn't have fraternization concerns, you wouldn't have affairs, adultery, harrassment, accusations, counter-accusations, favoritism, etc. Unfortunately, we don't live in that perfect world, we live in this real one.

In some places, we are willing to degrade results in the Real World in order to uphold the ideals of the Perfect World. But when we do that, we owe it to the people who are going to suffer for that decision to at least be honest with them about it. If we as a society decide that the value "American Women Can Do Any Career They Choose" is more important than combat effectiveness (and, as a result, more important than the increased losses our combat formations will incur), well, our military exists to serve our society, not the other way around. They can follow orders. But, as a society, we owe it to them to be honest about the trade-off we are making, and the costs we intend to impose, for the gain we hope to achieve.

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.
Click to expand...

:) Absolutely. Let me know if you have any follow-on questions about the data research that's been done on this question. I compiled a whole bunch back when this became a hot topic.
 
Rogue Valley said:
Eventually, it will work.
Click to expand...

It already "works", the question isn't whether or not the military can survive it. The question is whether or not it works better or worse, and whether or not we are willing to accept the delta in order to achieve the goal of full-gender-integration.
 
cpwill said:
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.

How many of your co-workers die or lose a leg if your office is short-staffed because someone had an affair?
Click to expand...

That's a bad argument and I'm surprised you've gone with something so weak. What's the evidence this problem is paid for "in blood?" People leave or are forced out all the time for all kinds of reasons, fraternization just one and frankly one that if someone's life depended on it could be simply overlooked for the sake of "blood."
 
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.
Click to expand...

If you have any evidence, I'd love to read it. Otherwise, you're just repeating talking points that were also made when the armed forces were integrated by race, which we accept but can also cause unit cohesion problems I'm sure. We do it based on an evaluation of trade-offs and clearly believe integration by race despite the potential problems is on balance a wise policy.

Point is, there is a history of gender-integrated units here and elsewhere in the world, and I'm sure studies before and after U.S. integration. I'd be interested in those studies, not so much your talking points.
 
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!

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.
Click to expand...

No, the concern is you will place more value on the life of your love interest over the success of the mission, which could also cost the lives of others in the squad. It also affects judgement. Would you sacrifice the lives of three of your guy teammates to save the life of a woman you love? I would.

I’m not saying that this happens at any statistically significant rate. I honestly don’t know. But the hypothetical downsides of fraternization in combat arms are far worse than the hypothetical downsides of fraternization in the private sector.

The concern with police and firefighters also isn’t about the sexual activity itself but about how romantic live affect choices in a life and death shooting, like an active shooter scenario or a high rise building full of occupants on fire. Doctors typically aren’t allowed to operate on loved ones because their judgement can be clouded by their affection for the person.

I was stationed in Libya at the time of the revolution. I was charged with coordinating the evacuation of all Americans from what had turned into a war zone. Unfortunately for me my family was there with me. My brain was trying to focus on evacuating as many people as possible but my heart kept telling me my priority was to save my family. It created an internal stress I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Fortunately I managed to do both. But what if I couldn’t?

I acknowledge my scenario is different. My family were trained combatants who volunteered. But emotions don’t care about that kind of thing in the heat of the moment. If a Marine has the choice to complete the mission or save the life of the woman he loves, which will he do? If the choice is between saving the woman he loves or one of his male team mates, or two teammates, who will he choose?

Again, the data may show this hasn’t been an issue and in the end all that matters is what the data shows.
 
Some girls in the Navy were regarded as "Service To The Fleet" because they banged about any officer or enlisted guy who would bother with them, and there were quite a few that I recall during my 20 years. If it happened off the ship, then it was their business as far as I was concerned.

I had a couple like that who worked for me and I didn't judge them.
 
cpwill said:
: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".
Arguing that a policy change was wise because it was made isn't exactly the best argument.
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.
Click to expand...

Then let's do that, we'll ban fraternization instead of banning all women. Good idea.

cpwill said:
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.
Click to expand...

You're excusing bad behavior that everyone else manages to deal with. Keeping men in all men environments for long periods of time turns them into animals. Simply being in a mixed environment is completely different psychologically. It is nice though to hear the opinion of someone in military intelligence about the intricacies of combat.
 
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...

Are you implying with your personal statement that male officers/enlisted men havent been having intimate relationships with female service people? That it happened because she was a woman in that same position? Women have been in the service for decades. Serving in many capacities alongside men.
 
Lursa said:
Are you implying with your personal statement that male officers/enlisted men havent been having intimate relationships with female service people?
Click to expand...

Nope. Quite the opposite.

That it happened because she was a woman in that same position? Women have been in the service for decades. Serving in many capacities alongside men.
Click to expand...

Yup. And where they do, we see issues with fraternization, adultery, cliques, unit cohesion, etc.

In many places, those drags on a unit are simply part of the cost of doing business, because the cost imposed can be mitigated.

In the combat arms, however, there have been no women. That is what is new. Now they are there, and, not-astonishingly, with them has come the same issues that come with gender integration elsewhere. Unfortunately, in the combat arms, you pay for degraded performance in units of blood.
 
cpwill said:
Nope. Quite the opposite.



Yup. And where they do, we see issues with fraternization, adultery, cliques, unit cohesion, etc.

In many places, those drags on a unit are simply part of the cost of doing business, because the cost imposed can be mitigated.

In the combat arms, however, there have been no women. That is what is new. Now they are there, and, not-astonishingly, with them has come the same issues that come with gender integration elsewhere. Unfortunately, in the combat arms, you pay for degraded performance in units of blood.
Click to expand...

I dont think that's as black and white as you make it seem. Shortcomings in any roles of the military can lead to poor decision-making and deaths.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
Then let's do that, we'll ban fraternization instead of banning all women. Good idea.
Click to expand...

:shrug: as you well know, fraternization is already banned. As you also well know, it's going to happen wherever we put males and females together, especially in deployed and highly stressful conditions.

You're excusing bad behavior that everyone else manages to deal with
Click to expand...

:shrug: this is flatly incorrect. I was an advocate while in and remain an advocate for enforcing these rules - particularly the ones about adultery, which are often soft-balled.

You are confusing "recognizing reality" with "thinking it is ideal". Nor, as is evidenced by the fact that we have to charge folks, is it simply "handled" any more than a lack of ammunition is "handled" by not shooting back, or a lack of seeing an IED is "handled" by having it go off under your vehicle.

Keeping men in all men environments for long periods of time turns them into animals. Simply being in a mixed environment is completely different psychologically.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. And under highly-stressful and deployed conditions, being in a mixed environment creates a lot of pressures that lead people to commit fraternization, adultery, and suffer breakdown of unit cohesion as a result.

It is nice though to hear the opinion of someone in military intelligence about the intricacies of combat.
Click to expand...

:) I lat-moved into Intel after four years as a grunt, did a tour in intel, and then got out of active duty. I served in all-male combat units and in mixed-gender support units; I've seen the difference. It's real.
 
Lursa said:
I dont think that's as black and white as you make it seem. Shortcomings in any roles of the military can lead to poor decision-making and deaths.
Click to expand...

You are right that there are degrees, depending on where you are and what you are doing. If, for example, you are an interrogator far from the front lines and you decide to take pictures of yourself walking naked prisoners around like they were dogs on a leash, you can get people killed.


When we are talking about the impacts of fraternization, adultery, and loss of unit cohesion that come with having a mixed-gender unit, however, the results tend to be more direct, and impact the unit involved. In office-based units, that means unit cohesion suffers, people backbite a lot, and there are investigations. Others have to do more work because some get charged/sent home/etc.

In the infantry, having a machine gunner sent home means your formation lacks a machine gunner. Losing a squad leader means you've lost a squad leader. Unit cohesion translates directly into combat effectiveness, as does lack thereof. The results, being direct, mean that you are less capable against the enemy, and they price that gets exact isn't "everyone works 15 hours a day instead of 12", like you see in the office units.
 
JasperL said:
That's a bad argument and I'm surprised you've gone with something so weak. What's the evidence this problem is paid for "in blood?" People leave or are forced out all the time for all kinds of reasons, fraternization just one and frankly one that if someone's life depended on it could be simply overlooked for the sake of "blood."
Click to expand...

:) If you would like, I'd be happy to point to the extensive research that has been done on this very question. The Marine Corps, for example, spent more than a year testing all-male v gender-integrated infantry units against each other in our desert-warfare training area. The results were remarkably one-sided.
 
JasperL said:
That's a bad argument and I'm surprised you've gone with something so weak. What's the evidence this problem is paid for "in blood?"
Click to expand...

JasperL said:
If you have any evidence, I'd love to read it. Otherwise, you're just repeating talking points... there is a history of gender-integrated units here and elsewhere in the world, and I'm sure studies before and after U.S. integration. I'd be interested in those studies, not so much your talking points.
Click to expand...

You are correct - there is a history here, and plenty of studies.

It's worth noting female veterans report the same issues, not just physical debilitation over time, but also the inevitability of sexual relationships that destroy unit cohesion.


But if you want "harder numbers", well:

The Marine Corps tested it, and discovered that all-male combat units outperformed gender integrated units. Gender integrated combat units have “lower survivability,” a “reduced lethality rate” and reduced deployability.

As a result, substituting women for men in combat-collocated support units increases danger for everyone, while introducing a host of disciplinary and deployability problems that detract from unit cohesion, readiness, and morale.

And that, of course, is assuming they get there. Non-Deployable rates for women are three to four times that of men and once they get there, women are 60% more likely to require medical treatment and twice as likely to have to be medevac'd out, despite their then non-participation in infantry roles (which would cause those rates to increase).

The US Army Study on Physical Requirements confirmed that "The Services... have expanded the military occupational specialties (MOS) open to women purely as a part of the social concern for equality and have only paid lip service to combat readiness...

It's not just bad for the men. Injury to females skyrocket when they are required to perform the same training as men, causing women to become 8 times more likely to be medically discharged. ""It is clear that there are differences in muscle physiology, bone architecture and body composition that interact to place women at a substantial disadvantage when training or working to the same output as males". Which, of course, is why women in the military are already significantly more likely to suffer from musculoskeletal injuries, reducing unit readiness. Men have denser bone structure, which allows them to take more weight and physical pounding. In combat they are more immune to concussion and being knocked out (ie: more able to shrug off a blast and keep fighting). Men also have a higher tolerance for pain and faster reflexes, making them better able to initially engage the enemy and then continue engaging the enemy.


[Usual Response Here: But What About The Israelis?]

Israeli commanders discovered that mixed gender units underperformed in combat and took higher casualties, and so they pulled them off the front lines. The "Female infantry units" in the IDF perform comparable duties to our current Lioness program, and are part of a southern border guard with Egypt. They are no longer used as heavy infantry because Israel found out the hard way that it was a bad idea. The Soviets made the same discovery.
 
Last edited:
cpwill said:
You are right that there are degrees, depending on where you are and what you are doing. If, for example, you are an interrogator far from the front lines and you decide to take pictures of yourself walking naked prisoners around like they were dogs on a leash, you can get people killed.


When we are talking about the impacts of fraternization, adultery, and loss of unit cohesion that come with having a mixed-gender unit, however, the results tend to be more direct, and impact the unit involved. In office-based units, that means unit cohesion suffers, people backbite a lot, and there are investigations. Others have to do more work because some get charged/sent home/etc.

In the infantry, having a machine gunner sent home means your formation lacks a machine gunner. Losing a squad leader means you've lost a squad leader. Unit cohesion translates directly into combat effectiveness, as does lack thereof. The results, being direct, mean that you are less capable against the enemy, and they price that gets exact isn't "everyone works 15 hours a day instead of 12", like you see in the office units.
Click to expand...

I can accept that.

Because it doesnt come down to it being 'women's fault.' It's not some deficiency in women or lack of ability. Or 'men's.'

It seems that human nature is human nature everywhere. (I'm not condoning the fraternizing, just recognizing, what IMO, is reality)
 
Lursa said:
I can accept that.

Because it doesnt come down to it being 'women's fault.' It's not some deficiency in women or lack of ability. Or 'men's.'

It seems that human nature is human nature everywhere. (I'm not condoning the fraternizing, just recognizing, what IMO, is reality)
Click to expand...

Exactly :). We don't get to fight wars with robots (well, yet). We have to fight them with people, and people are.... well, only human.
 
JasperL said:
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....
Click to expand...
In how many private sector jobs does the boss order the subordinate to possibly sacrifice his life? Remember this case is in an infantry unit - the point of the spear. The leader has to make decisions based on the situation and tactics not where his/her honeybun is.
 
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, 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?
Click to expand...
You're totally correct, there's no difference between close quarter battle, fighting door to door, and balancing the books. What the hell is the Marine Corps thinking?
 
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!

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.
Click to expand...
Not the point. Of course, no one is going to bump booties during a fire fight but a situation my occur when the senior may have to order some of his troops into a extremely hazardous/deadly situation and the military doesn't what to compound the difficulty of that decision by adding romantic considerations to the equation.
 
Skeptic Bob said:
No, the concern is you will place more value on the life of your love interest over the success of the mission, which could also cost the lives of others in the squad. It also affects judgement. Would you sacrifice the lives of three of your guy teammates to save the life of a woman you love? I would.

I’m not saying that this happens at any statistically significant rate. I honestly don’t know. But the hypothetical downsides of fraternization in combat arms are far worse than the hypothetical downsides of fraternization in the private sector.

The concern with police and firefighters also isn’t about the sexual activity itself but about how romantic live affect choices in a life and death shooting, like an active shooter scenario or a high rise building full of occupants on fire. Doctors typically aren’t allowed to operate on loved ones because their judgement can be clouded by their affection for the person.

I was stationed in Libya at the time of the revolution. I was charged with coordinating the evacuation of all Americans from what had turned into a war zone. Unfortunately for me my family was there with me. My brain was trying to focus on evacuating as many people as possible but my heart kept telling me my priority was to save my family. It created an internal stress I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Fortunately I managed to do both. But what if I couldn’t?

I acknowledge my scenario is different. My family were trained combatants who volunteered. But emotions don’t care about that kind of thing in the heat of the moment. If a Marine has the choice to complete the mission or save the life of the woman he loves, which will he do? If the choice is between saving the woman he loves or one of his male team mates, or two teammates, who will he choose?

Again, the data may show this hasn’t been an issue and in the end all that matters is what the data shows.
Click to expand...

Obviously you also also oppose gays in the military, correct? Same logic you used would apply. And, of course, the only "love" you believe in is romantic sexual or blood relationship love. To you, there is no such thing as any other love such as friendship love. Yet just because that does not exist for you, does not mean everyone else is so incapable of loving anyone unless to their own sexual or prodigy benefit.

Obviously you also oppose the Marine principle of "no one left behind," since you assert Marines should abandon 1 to save 2. That's not how the Marines work in combat.
 
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...

Bummer. I had so hoped that she would have 'made' it far longer than that.
 
joko104 said:
Obviously you also also oppose gays in the military, correct? Same logic you used would apply. And, of course, the only "love" you believe in is romantic sexual or blood relationship love. To you, there is no such thing as any other love such as friendship love. Yet just because that does not exist for you, does not mean everyone else is so incapable of loving anyone unless to their own sexual or prodigy benefit.

Obviously you also oppose the Marine principle of "no one left behind," since you assert Marines should abandon 1 to save 2. That's not how the Marines work in combat.
Click to expand...

I don’t oppose gays or women serving in combat. If the data shows it isn’t a net detriment to mission readiness and effectiveness then I am all for it. We have decades of data showing gays in the military and in combat to show it doesn’t seem to have a net detriment.

There are a couple career fields where the costs of error are so high that I don’t care about fairness or equality or political correctness IF it reduces effectiveness. The military, police and firefighters are among those.

Again, I don’t much care about anecdotal examples like in the OP. Hell, my own anecdotal examples of serving with women during my 20 years are mostly positive. But in making policy I care about what the data says is the aggregate effect. There are people who oppose women in those units regardless of the data and those who favor women in those units regardless of the data. ALL I care about in this instance is the data.

And yes, platonic love has an effect as well, potentially good or bad. But everything is a cost/reward analysis. Even if the most effective military were theoretically one with no platonic friendships, in practice if we enforced that we wouldn’t have a large enough military to even attempt the missions.
 
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?

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.
Click to expand...

It is a problem if she was with a subordinate of hers. It shouldn't be if he was simply one or two ranks below her and she had no real influence on his career.

Marines are stupid about this crap sometimes. My husband was a lower rank Marine when I met him and I was an E6. His chain of command tried to send him up for NJP for our relationship and even called my command to try to get me sent up too. My command laughed at them. They said that it was ridiculous because we would never be in a position to influence each other's careers, given our relative jobs/positions. We weren't even stationed on the same base. We had completely different jobs and I had no chance of being sent on IA duty because of my job. He ended up not getting sent up for fraternization either since they couldn't get me.

But if she was in a position of authority over him then it should be addressed. But it normally does not involve kicking the person out, so it seems this was more of a political statement by someone in her chain of command rather than fair punishment even if she was in that position of authority.
 
Bullseye said:
In how many private sector jobs does the boss order the subordinate to possibly sacrifice his life? Remember this case is in an infantry unit - the point of the spear. The leader has to make decisions based on the situation and tactics not where his/her honeybun is.
Click to expand...

And that is why it should matter whether they were in the same unit or not. Those things can be avoided later.

Friends can be just as close or closer and make rank. Additionally, did the relationship exist prior to her making that rank? There are questions that were not answered by the Marine Corps article (and I'm not paying for the other). They shouldn't be in a relationship with each other if she has influence over him and it started after she made her rank. Other than that, I think the Marine Corps tends to be far too anal about this sort of thing more just to be stubborn or for political purposes, rather than good of the Corps.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom