Also, I came across this article...
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/us/marines-moving-women-toward-the-front-lines.html?_r=1&hpw
Marines Moving Women Toward the Front Lines
Stephen Morton for The New York Times
Two Marine recruits loading the magazines of their M16A4 rifles on the shooting range last week at the Recruit Training Depot at Parris Island, S.C.
By JAMES DAO
Published: April 24, 2012
The Marine Corps, the most male of the armed services, is taking its first steps toward integrating women into war-fighting units, starting with its infantry officer school at Quantico, Va., and ground combat battalions that had once been closed to women.
Related
Air National Guard Lobbies Successfully Against Budget Cuts (April 24, 2012)
Stephen Morton for The New York Times
Recruits on the range at Parris Island. The Marine Corps plans to assign 40 women to six types of combat battalions, but infantry won’t be among them.
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Capt. Emily Naslund of the Marine Corps after shots were fired upon a patrol in Southern Marja, Afghanistan, in 2010.
The moves — announced by Gen. James F. Amos, the Marine Corps commandant, in a message sent to all Marines on Monday night — are intended largely to study how women perform in formerly male-only units, and reflect new Pentagon rules released in February allowing women to serve closer to the front line.
The new Pentagon policy continues the ban on women serving as infantrymen, Special Operations commandos and in other direct-combat positions. But it has opened the door to thousands of new jobs for women, who represent about 15 percent of the force.
The Army, which like the Marine Corps has excluded women from many jobs because of the physical demands or proximity to combat, is also studying ways to integrate women into ground combat units.
In the coming months, General Amos said in an interview, the Marine Corps plans to assign about 40 women to 19 battalions of six different types: artillery, tank, assault amphibian, combat engineer, combat assault and low-altitude air defense. Infantry battalions, however, will remain closed to women.
General Amos said he would limit the initial group to more mature Marines: gunnery sergeants, staff sergeants and company-grade officers, meaning lieutenants or captains. Navy medical officers, chaplains and corpsmen could also be assigned to those battalions.
To Dr. Hsueh: Thank you for posting this Dr. Hsueh. I found it very interesting and informative.
ReplyDeleteTo every one: I grew up on U.S. Army bases overseas and going to U.S. military schools and surprisingly rarely heard people discuss this topic or argue about it. I've heard and seen much more of it since coming to Western and since the Obama Administration has started increasing the number of positions women can serve in, not just in the Marines within just the past year. I must also admit the fact that I as a male had to register for the draft while I was 18 and because of it became conscious of even more of a gender difference than just front line combat roles it's gotten me to thinking about this topic. While I haven't totally made up my mind yet, I feel as of present that draft registration should continue to be limited only to males as with the most dangerous combat roles. What I've found interesting when talking to both feminists and anti-feminists is that both of those groups on this campus seem to think the opposite of the way I do. I suppose more conservative, less intellectual, heartland anti-feminists wouldn't be quite the same as the stock of anti-feminists here, but I thought think that the agreement of feminists and anti-feminists on this issue, particularly on draft registration, is interesting.