American Journal January 27, 2013

Do you know that I have never heard an Infantryman (suppose we may soon be calling them Infantrypersons) complain about their branch being called The Queen of Battle. One of the first marching cadences an Army recruit in training learns is, “Pick up your rifle and follow me. Queen of Battle Infantry.” Queen of Battle may be politically incorrect these days. I do not know. Actually, it is hard to know anything these days. I stand back and observe. Those serving have a lot to deal with. They do not require my help.

America, the largely uninformed America most of whom have never and will never serve in the Armed Forces, is standing by while the organization to which belong the only humans in the world, who have willingly placed their lives on the line to protect the freedom of their countrymen, is being decimated. Decimated by social engineering. Decimated by their civilian leadership that wants to build a model of their utopia inside the services. Because they can. Complicit in this decimation is a collection of head nodding flag officers. The flag officers in disagreement with the direction of our Armed Services are being shown the door. Warrior Generals are being replaced by politically oriented Generals. The people who always pay the price for inept political and military leadership are the Soldiers on the ground.

I was an Army Drill Sergeant for 3 years starting in 1980. The Soldiers I was charged to train, if they remained in the service, have already retired. By now, they may have children serving. We had a fairly significant social engineering project during that time. It was Gender-Integrated Basic Combat Training. No matter what you hear or will hear in the coming days, I can tell you from being there – it was an abject failure then. We tried integrating basic training companies by having male and female platoons. We could not stress male trainees without risking injury to female trainees. I believe we invented the female pelvic stress fracture – caused by females over striding to keep pace with males during the daily road marches. When injuries increased, we placed female platoons in the lead to pace the road marches. We lessened the injuries for females, but we also failed to stress the males. After a few cycles of this experiment, wise leaders returned to segregated companies. All male or all female. Training improved and Drill Sergeants did not have to spend their nights rooting the boys and girls out of the stair wells and other places doing what is natural for teenagers. Discipline also improved. However, some geniuses who had never strapped on a pair of combat boots decided that integrated was best. So to make it work, we gender-normed the fitness standards. Meaning simply that men and women had to complete the same training, but to different standards. For example, a male may not get out of basic training unless he could do 40 pushups, but a female might get by with 10. If you ask any Drill Sergeant today, he or she will tell you how great it is going in integrated training companies. Because they have to. I will stand by for the first reports from gender-integrated (and future gender-normed) One Station Infantry training. And I fully expect that they will be publicly glowing as well.

With homosexuals, it was preached to us about how it was all about service and not having to live a life in secrecy. No, it was about normalizing homosexual behavior. Army Chapels are holding same sex weddings. It was never about service. Those who wanted to serve were already serving. Now, it is the same song. This is about women having the opportunity to reach the highest levels of the service, normally achieved by experienced and accomplished Combat Arms Officers.

My stand is simple. Any woman who wants to be in the Combat Arms should be allowed to try. But, she should meet the same physical standards as do males in the Combat Arms. It will not happen however. We will have a gender-normed Queen of Battle. And our combat effectiveness will suffer.

A thought for you to ponder. GI Jane was a movie as are many other fantasies where 130 pound women beat the snot out of 200 pound men. A 200 pound male Soldier in full combat load will top out at 250 pounds plus maybe as much as 275. The combat load does not get lighter just because you are female. No one is going to carry her stuff. A 200 pound Soldier has the upper body strength to drag a wounded comrade to safety. If his buddy is a female, both may die because she does not have the strength to complete a critical task.

General Dempsey thinks the only issue for the “young ladies” is their privacy, “and we can work that out.” That should be a recruiting poster.

Related

Post navigation

2 thoughts on “American Journal January 27, 2013”

JD, great post. Glad I am retired and not having to deal with the same-sex issues and now this. Although I was not combat arms (supply sergeant), I was in some combat units. After division left Fort Riley, our FA battalion was left with one female. The HHB 1SG came and told us he faced his biggest test of his career. How to properly perform a urinalysis on his one female soldier. We thought it was humorous then. Not so much now.

A little late, but well said Sergeant Major. Would like to have been a fly on the wall of the NCO club then, but perhaps the clubs were all combined by then. (was going to say integrated, but that would have been miscontrued by a PC person.)